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Poetry is Feeling Words by Lana Bella QuailBellMagazine.com Portrait of the artist I hear some say writing is the final act of divesting the mind of its temporal madness. For me at least, it's been a beguilingly mad, emotionally draining, if not altogether, unraveling journey of the self from which there has never been a clear beginning, neither will there ever be a definitive end, only the tangible core middles where enduring spells of unpleasant vagueness and mountains upon mountains of poignantly pointless musings roam. In short, I write to dispense into the world all that I am, well, all that I allow myself to be seen with and thought of and summarized through the whimsical lenses of the world at large. It remains hauntingly a balancing, tugging and repelling tour de force. As the words of Ernest Hemingway ring ever so true: There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. Linguistics Hunger Hunger gnaws, he opens his eyes to feast on the silver belly of her tongue. Rising grooves and dipping folds, she spins syllables of black-lace silk and organza tulle, smeared thick in linguistic marmalade: slanted Ls curve over spiraled Os then plunge in the vessel brimming of apostrophes. With a makeshift oar he rows, upon her moist pink buds speckled of umlauts' lilt. When the moon turns gold and he begs for a kiss: she wings her laughs by the air lays cold "Thirst is despair, Darling!" her whisper severs through his parched suspense. The Trumpet Man The fading sun slopes on cobbled street, as frosty gale prowls beneath the awning lights. There bends a man in bristly beard and shaggy coat, driving off the cold with his trumpet scales. Passing idlers poise, snatching the timed half-notes to thaw the jarring shadows within a small alcove pale until their shelter strays, cast away by the skying moon. And weep the haunting drags of the echoed wind out from thousand memories that never leave, when will the wrecks of life birth the wistful tunes? Still by the lamp post glowed, as evening comes, the trumpet man in robe of night and dulcet moans dark garbs the ground, yet unclothes his threads of pride and bleeds him through with blade of jagged tip. A Spanish Lullaby Your champagne-colored hair was veiled from the red brewing sun under a ribbons-plaited bonnet white; you looked sidelong about the garden green crooning then a Spanish lullaby, fair curls spilled on bent shoulders loose as rich turns of laughter dimpled your cheeks aglow while swiftly stirred the pleated skirt a gushing breeze raised up the tulle-laced panels with cream-stitched petals high, into such brightness of air your rhythms rose beyond the jutting boughs where scarlet flowers dwelt its smoky chords scoured the listening groves for some songbird who'd chime along with your throaty peals, you skipped bare feet upon the tall grass cambered low and seven and six and five and four and three and two the soaring notes from lips bare of varnished rouge trickled down like iced-sugar leafs strewed on blossoms' skin. Fingers on the Piano Keys You still miss me from the time I drew upon your lips with my whiskey- laced fingers; the fingers that I danced across smooth dual-toned piano keys, to the tattooed flesh with engraved beast on the strapping bicep. Your breaths came through heavy and sweet stirring gone the cigar smoke, so close I could taste your frothy scent. You leaned toward, both arms resting on the console grand, where throbbing veins ached rhythms of the briny sea. There, at the scarred shadow of your funny bone: clear echo of painted ships and pine-knot smokes, a well-dressed suit of slate-flawed skin; dusky light swept gold blunt-cut fingertips, slow whirl of the ceiling fan skimmed across your brown hair cool. Into the whiskey-varnished air and against the wisps of smoldering mist, my fingers flirted with the familiar refuge of octaves' crunched desire and toyed sleigh bells, upon the ivory white and charcoal black keys of the piano. Time Within an ever ebbing sense of time, you stood in a forgotten place, but never a forgotten thought. The time before now and the time before that, you had lived in poor pockets of void: slept under torn tapestry of sky, dined on meager bowls of dirt scooped out the dregs of life with a plastic spoon; tumbling, weaving, panting, drowning at no time to have been absolutely sure that life from which wrinkles are born, shall lend you mercy in this vain enterprise. You have spared no mind to the ilk of pride, you have grown as a pauper, no smaller than a mite held fixed in doubt, clad thin by the pinches of salt and lost lullabies. Always strayed far from the world's pearly gate, never a guest at its cozy dinners or fancy balls. But, the person you were and the person you are: the half-lost and half-whole the half-woke and half-dreaming, doubled over with hunger when it spawned and gnawed into your belly like an infected cancer. So you slackened your legs, spilled your virtues and gave leave to throttle life and drink from its gilded spout. Your eyes shut tight, your mouth unfurled whose lips swigged clean all the bitter poison and honeyed wine. A Single Sigh Within a single breath, lay a single sigh burrowed snug in the sham of sable fur; a thought, a caress, a turn of your head-- it grew content like a drunkard bee savoring a laden nectar. Then you felt it the rustling stroke of rhythms that led you deep to where the pillowed sleep and scented down throbbed upon the silken bed. Lana Bella has her diverse work of poetry and fiction published and forthcoming with Atlas Poetica, First Literary Review East, Cecil's Writers' Magazine, Deltona Howl, Thought Notebook, Earl of Plaid Lit, Kiki Howell for a War Anthology: We Go On, Undertow Tanka Review, Wordpool Press, Global Poetry, Family Travel Haiku, The Voices Project, Anak Sastra, Eunoia Review and now, Quail Bell Magazine. She resides on some distant isle with her novelist husband and two frolicsome imps. #Unreal #Poetry #FeaturedArtist #Imagery #Diction #Sound Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Comments
That's so well written and aptly worded, had to read again and again to get to the essence of it. Waiting for some more.
1/23/2015 08:48:54 pm
Lana
1/24/2015 05:10:45 am
Thank you. I do have a few more pieces impending with Quail Bell. Comments are closed.
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