Accidental erotica?

[Liar]

I just wanted to share today's anecdote of "me not knowing what the hell I'm doing".

I finally managed to spin words around an idea for a poem that I've been storin in the back of my head for some days. So I wrote it down and emailed it to a lady friend of mine, something of a flesh-and-bone muse if you will, soliciting feedback. The reply I got back puzzled the hell out of me:

Seriously, are you trying to get in the sack with me or something?

Apparently, she thought it was the most erotic piece of poetry she'd read from me, and she's read most my stuff. But when I wrote it, my thoughts were far away from sex. And that is rare.

To turn this into a thread and not just a self sufficient statement from me, let me ask: Do you ever have this problem? That the "soul" of what your readers read ends up something entirely different from what you thought you wrote?

#L


--------------------

Oh, here it is btw. On a New Poems list close to you once I've tweaked it right. Erotic or non? You be the judge.


The Last Phase

I stand before you naked,
neck bared before the bite,
tongue cut by the double edge
that is this arena, your attention’s
burning light.

There are no more verses
left to sprinkle with excuses,
no more diplomat decorum
to get right.

And still I hear the shudder
behind lips that shape a prayer.

Be polite. Please
pretend you care.

As if I weren’t long since there,
cut down from hubris flight
and tethered to solid mass
at last.

Why do you tremble,
ready to run feet sore
from this sight? What else
can I strip from presence,
how many layers of skin
can I shed?

Why can’t you just see?
This is me.

I’m a white flag,
burning red.

 

[Angeline]

I just wanted to share today's anecdote of "me not knowing what the hell I'm doing".

I finally managed to spin words around an idea for a poem that I've been storin in the back of my head for some days. So I wrote it down and emailed it to a lady friend of mine, something of a flesh-and-bone muse if you will, soliciting feedback. The reply I got back puzzled the hell out of me:

Seriously, are you trying to get in the sack with me or something?

Apparently, she thought it was the most erotic piece of poetry she'd read from me, and she's read most my stuff. But when I wrote it, my thoughts were far away from sex. And that is rare.

To turn this into a thread and not just a self sufficient statement from me, let me ask: Do you ever have this problem? That the "soul" of what your readers read ends up something entirely different from what you thought you wrote?

#L


--------------------

Oh, here it is btw. On a New Poems list close to you once I've tweaked it right. Erotic or non? You be the judge.


The Last Phase

I stand before you naked,
neck bared before the bite,
tongue cut by the double edge
that is this arena, your attention’s
burning light.

There are no more verses
left to sprinkle with excuses,
no more diplomat decorum
to get right.

And still I hear the shudder
behind lips that shape a prayer.

Be polite. Please
pretend you care.

As if I weren’t long since there,
cut down from hubris flight
and tethered to solid mass
at last.

Why do you tremble,
ready to run feet sore
from this sight? What else
can I strip from presence,
how many layers of skin
can I shed?

Why can’t you just see?
This is me.

I’m a white flag,
burning red.

My dear friend.

I can see where she thought that. It sounds like it's about desire, which I suppose it is, and it's so easy to interpret desire for intimacy as sexual. There are many people I want an intimate relationship with, but there's only one I also want in my bed. I think we all inadvertantly send out messages that are misread sometimes.

Frankly many of my poems that I think are not erotic (not intended that way when written) are interpreted that way. I know because of things people say to me about them (a very general statement to cover pms I sometimes get lol). A friend of mine once said "you're sensual; it just comes out in the way you write." When I got done blushing, I felt great about it. It's a big compliment.

Your pal should be honored to have that written for her. I'm sure she is.

 

[CharleyH]

I just wanted to share today's anecdote of "me not knowing what the hell I'm doing".

I finally managed to spin words around an idea for a poem that I've been storin in the back of my head for some days. So I wrote it down and emailed it to a lady friend of mine, something of a flesh-and-bone muse if you will, soliciting feedback. The reply I got back puzzled the hell out of me:

Seriously, are you trying to get in the sack with me or something?

Apparently, she thought it was the most erotic piece of poetry she'd read from me, and she's read most my stuff. But when I wrote it, my thoughts were far away from sex. And that is rare.

To turn this into a thread and not just a self sufficient statement from me, let me ask: Do you ever have this problem? That the "soul" of what your readers read ends up something entirely different from what you thought you wrote?

#L


--------------------

Oh, here it is btw. On a New Poems list close to you once I've tweaked it right. Erotic or non? You be the judge.


The Last Phase

I stand before you naked,
neck bared before the bite,
tongue cut by the double edge
that is this arena, your attention’s
burning light.

There are no more verses
left to sprinkle with excuses,
no more diplomat decorum
to get right.

And still I hear the shudder
behind lips that shape a prayer.

Be polite. Please
pretend you care.

As if I weren’t long since there,
cut down from hubris flight
and tethered to solid mass
at last.

Why do you tremble,
ready to run feet sore
from this sight? What else
can I strip from presence,
how many layers of skin
can I shed?

Why can’t you just see?
This is me.

I’m a white flag,
burning red.

Maybe she was hoping for it? I personally can't see a request for feedback being taken as "Let's get too it.!"


Your poem though is easy on my tongue, imbued with just enough of everything I love in a poem ... skipping beats of rhyme in lines ... a telling of a tale, short of narrative, but imbued with enough semiotics to make the story whole, and yet ... the story itself is incomplete - because there is wanting and desire in the end, not yet attained. The last 2 lines: I am a white flag - burning red?

A powerful summary I think ... innocent thought versus passion. Clean of spirit, and yet desire and passion left unsaid. Your spirit bare and now at conclusion open and almost violently so - without violence ... but like a slice into your soul or heart. I have to think on this.

Ok I take back my first thought, but still, maybe she does hope? Since the hope and desire of the poem seems to spill towards someone you don't have - white roses and red (though you don't say rose, but colours) - their meanings are quite different.

Just a spill of thought, Liar.