Because it is bitter,
I think I need to ask
about taste buds,
what makes them ripple
on the accepting tongue,
resist sour so naturally,
go for peppermint's cooling
sensation when heat's
what the body's craving.
If I could trace through
my heart the geography
of highs and lows, mine it
with nerve receptors, code
it with a warning gene
to pass on in my DNA,
would love still tripwire
the explosion of sweet
in the spoils of a mouth dry,
make the eye so much better
at sorting sugar from salt?
© 2011, 2012 Maureen E. Doallas
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The title and first line are an inversion of two lines from Stephen Crane's poem "In the Desert".
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15 comments:
This is heart-breakingly beautiful.
That is a very, very difficult question you ask.
What Louise said.
Somehow I think it's the sour and the bitter along with the sweet when mixed properly that can cause love to explode.
I love your heart.
Can't say it any better than Louise.
I enjoyed this poem very much.
The Crane poem--stark and uncompromising, unforgettable once read--is a springboard for a more tenuous and tentacled look at things, shades of extremes, fates, desires. The perversity of the heart's very nature well expressed in your contrasting images of specific tastes. Just a fine poem, Maureen.
Sometimes I have to leave and come back later ... this was one of those times.
very nice delve into the contrasts maureen...i tend to go hot or sour myself...but this stretches far beyond mere taste...smiles.
One of the things I like about your poems is your consistent - and yet subtle - use of science to amplify your poetic perspective. Here, you evoke the range of taste buds from sweet to sour to bitter, and use it to reinforce the theme. Well done.
open your heart and say ahhhhh.
lookin' good.
It is a whole, isn't it. Some wonderful language here: peppermint, my heart the geography, tripwire, mouth dry. Simple and very lovely.
This is an excellent poem, with really fascinating questions.
Yesterday, in my class, I asked students what creates such different tastes in us for art and ideas. One guy said "taste buds," so we talked about how our idea/creative taste buds get formed.
It goes back to this idea of perception/attraction.....
A beautiful poem not so obliquely speaking to regret and hunger; dare we keep on tasting when we mistake salt for sugar? I know this dilemma--
Because it is bitter,
I think I need to ask
about taste buds,
what makes them ripple
on the accepting tongue,..
wonderful. xxxj
Yes Joy and Sam said things I would have said. I knew the crane poem, of course. Because of the complex history of the sexes, this poem takes on in such a compressed way the volume of bitterness, sweetness, need and rejection that is bequeathed to every next generation. Excellent, excellent write as always, Maureen.
would love still tripwire
the explosion of sweet
in the spoils of a mouth dry,
make the eye so much better
at sorting sugar from salt?
What an ingenious poem! Loved it.
Very clever...Thank you!
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