~
He was a wolf …
a solitary wolf culled from the pack
expertly herding his words
through her undulate terrain.
She welcomed the seduction
amply savoring his patois.
~
Beguiled by his seeming intimacy
she failed to assimilate the slow infestation
of his oblique aural patternings
insinuating edgy consonants
and limbic vowel howls.
It was her stomach at first that resisted the enchantment
with small flutterings of continual distress.
Slowly she became aware
that his words were predictable
acid but effervescent
lying tips of tongues
corroding her silence.
They dangled from her
like wind chimes with little meaning
Their fractured light cascading
from her now weary ears
pummeling the surface.
So she gathered herself
and sent him,
and his errant words,
away
Though at times she could still hear their echoing…
The scent of him having so easily
permeated her skin.
~
To ward off this sonic residue
she bathed daily in lovage root and vervain
and made a tincture of his words,
a verbal potion dissolved in fine brandy
She took one dose timed exactly
as the cusp of the horizon split day into night
Delicately,
Three drops under her tongue,
with a twist…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had fun with this one. Looking over older work I saw a story weaving between a few different poems and so I threaded a needle and sewed them together. The drawing is an old one too. Newer than the poems, it is cut from the same cloth.
~
PoePoem and drawing: jana h white Drawing: Pastels on black paper
so much wisdom from an unlikely source: the gut. the stomach here is the early warning anti-missile system. and then the cure naturally goes to the gut. and i like very much “limbic vowel howls”!
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Thank you Michael but I think the gut is a pretty common herald of what the mind and heart may be overlooking. 🙂
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I very much like: (his words) “dangled from her like wind chimes with little meaning,” and am especially fond of the final stanza, which reads like a dark little fairy-tale filled with remedies, elixirs – and gumption.
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Oh…thank you for this Peri. It is a dark little fairy tale. “Eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing…” Although the lovage root and vervain worked well in this case…!
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Ha, I almost included “Shakespearean” in my comment, but it seemed convoluted enough as it was… : )
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I love the delicate balance of this piece – and the gentle streaming of the words into a redemptive finale… and yes, one can sense the fun you had while doing this… but one can also sense, the joy you felt in letting go, finding your space even after the ‘invasion’.
Hope you are well, and on happy terms with the world around you. 🙂
Take care…
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Thank you MJ for your thoughts and kind wishes. All is well!
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Your pastel is captivating, faces out of my dreams, brave colour that shouldn’t work but does. Your poem is also captivating and haunting and needs and deserves to be read out loud in a smoky Parisian bar accompanied by a one eyed sax player…
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A Parisian bar? Oh absolutely. I’ll wear a tight black turtleneck sweater and twitch my foot to the jazz.
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I’ve been on your reading list and I’ve had email subscriptions for a long time now but this has to be my favorite poem. I love the story that gets painted in my mind and how true I know the feeling is.
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Oh thank you…. it’s always good to hear when words paint pictures. 🙂
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I also like those wind chimes with little meaning. Brilliant Jana.
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Thanks Mark…narcissists never seem to go out of style. 🙂
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Hello, Jana. I wanted to let you know that I was drawn to the pastel painting. It held my attention. I made several passes at the poem, too. In Reader, the formatting doesn’t show up. I wish they’d fix that because now I’m seeing this on your site and it is fantastic. I enjoyed the layers of elegance, complemented by your captivating writing style.
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Thanks you…I’m glad you traveled further into the WP veins. I appreciate the “layers of elegance”. It’s something I aspire towards…a lightness in the muck.
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You:re lovely, Jana, and will pull it off no effort at all. Best wishes. xo
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and that is why
you are
my favourite poet
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Ah…go on. All day I was reflecting on your comment. So back at you… We’ve been like flip sides of a cosmic coin. Yingster and Yangster….LOL
Thanks Geo…
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You are so gifted. Have you read Angela Carter at all? I think you would like her work very much.
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Ah Chris…as it happens I was on my way to the library after reading your comment. Thank you for the heads up! She’s now on my radar. Books are requested. (Small library) I love hunkering down with a new to me author.
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Well I hope you enjoy her as much as we do. Take care.
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Nice piece, both.
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Thanks Ellar…. what attracts people to each other is intricate poetic ground.
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So…I held both…art and poem…in my mind to dance in blissful delight. Smiles…
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Ah Bonnie, so happy this moved you to dance… !
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The poetess witch casts her spell, and I too am bound by it in other ways. Sublime work Jana. H ❤
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Thank you Hariod….Everyone needs their allies!
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Hi Jana …I love your art , drawing and poetry …flowing with the divine ….love , megxxx
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Thanks Meg! I’m glad you enjoyed this post….
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This is wonderful – love the way the drawing complements the text. I can’t see the joins – just the intensity.
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Good! Thank you Richard. I was intending the drawing to simply add some spicy flavor…
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Well, I certainly enjoyed reading this and then referring to the images again. & repeating. Very interesting how you describe the experience. Beautiful actually. Beautiful verse. Love the look on her face. Like he’s doing a real crazy-making number on her. So you’re doing homeopathy with his words? A touch of the illness is the cure? A solitary wolf becomes predictable. No pulling one over on you.
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& the energy in the sky is emanating from her not him. She’s energetic. He’s static.
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Bingo!…I wish you could hear me laughing, Steven. A homeopathic concept but the cure is working with a more spirited substance than a sugar pill….but you have decidedly grasped the intention here.
Your comments on the drawing crack me up…they’re perfect.
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I noticed that ‘sonic residue’ was one of your ‘tags.’ That’s pretty cool.
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…warding off that voice remembered with VERBAL tinctures! I did have fun with this one.
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I like her self care at the end. Toxic wolf begone! The structure of your poem highlighted the shifts in her emotions really well. Seamless weaving 😊
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Thanks…herbology has many practical uses.
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