Tuesday, September 27, 2011

What Hungers Waits in Silence, Bidding (Poem)

What Hungers Waits in Silence, Bidding

Gather dreams
and set them fast —

as lovers do
at dreaming's end —

in resin thick,
no yellowed film

to cloud that past so
sweet. We too

did pry
from darkness once

what reasons not
in day's too cautious light.

What hungers
waits in silence, bidding

shadow from its lair.
What fears trails

remnants of a night
in search of lover's cache

encased. What murmurs
through the season done

is locust chiding touch
by light of moon,

her face as pinked
and delicate as blossom,

the cherry held
before her mouth

to tease a word
in one or other tongue.

To face unshown
before a stone heart's

taunt, no palm
against a palm must trace

a ridge of brokenness,
nor steal from place too

tender yet the scent of silk
pulled up like dawn.

Fingers count by rosary beads
each heart's treasure taken

till given thought no more.

© 2011 Maureen E. Doallas
___________________________

This poem comprises my tweets, some rearranged, from last week's TweetSpeakPoetry Jam on Twitter, plus a few new lines or words to make transitions. Check here to read the poems resulting from the poetry party, which featured prompts from Anne M. Doe Overstreet's Delicate Machinery Suspended (T.S. Poetry Press, June 2011).

My audio recording of this poem:

 Audio Recording of What Hungers Waits in Silence, Bidding by mdoallas

13 comments:

Glynn said...

It's amazing what can come from the poetry parties. Wonderful poem.

nitewrit said...

Considering the circumstances of how this poem came to be composed it is amazing the feelings it evokes, the wistfulness and the sense of a woman recalling memories placed away somewhere. memories preserved in her mind or dreams, like some flower pressed in a book or an insect preserved in risen. It seems to me a person who had some secret affairs at times, things perhaps best left in the past, yet still sometimes counted in lonely moments, remembered for a time, then put away agin.

Larry

bluemountainmama said...

lovely

Louise Gallagher said...

Wow.

Just that.

Wow!

Anonymous said...

wonderful beautiful words...

tender yet the scent of silk
pulled up like dawn.

and made even better with you speaking them.

Kathleen said...

Totally cool how you got this poem. Plus I love what the title does on its own and then the surprise of it in the body of the poem, what it does differently there!

Lorrie said...

Louise beat me to it....wow!

Brian Miller said...

ah this is lovely my fav lines though are the last few about counting treasures as rosary beads....

Ruth said...

Wonderful. I especially love this:

tender yet the scent of silk
pulled up like dawn.

Fingers count by rosary beads
each heart's treasure taken

till given thought no more.


I see a silk sleeve, slid up from a wrist . . .

(And then my word verification is: undesse, and forgive me but I thought it said undress.

Anonymous said...

wonderful flow...

Beachanny said...

This proves that your every thought takes a poetic turn. I loved how these words spoke to one another:
"in resin thick,
no yellowed film

to cloud that past so
sweet. We too

did pry
from darkness once

what reasons not
in day's too cautious light."

Superb work. Thank you.

Matthew Quinn said...

excellent work in lean, terse lines. i like!

Jenne' R. Andrews said...

Sorry it's taken me so long to reciprocate-- this is so filagree-like, a beautiful intertwining of the felt and seen, seen, touched and felt. I especially love:

We too

did pry
from darkness once

what reasons not
in day's too cautious light.

In writing my Rilke variations I confront his casting out of resonant ideas and how to bring those forth, feeling that he has certainly given permission to make metaphysical utterances, for want of a better way to put it-- but to me it's so necessary to cradle any given poem's observation in the figure, if that makes sense-- image, metaphor, etc. xxxj