Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Sullen Smoke

Lain in sinking rest
beneath rain on a wrinkled roof
I was told,
the teeth in Hell are clean.

A novice wife, whose home was lost
to blinking moth
and other winged things,
of failing vein.

In her scarf I wrapped relish and flesh
wiping her seared spot, of passion and mirth
His tongue incapable of licking clean,
left inside her spleen.


Written for Three Word Wednesday

10 comments:

  1. Unsettling..brooding..and an uncomfortable lingering heat..and smoke..although maybe there is something left..protected..Jae

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  2. mesmerizing - so surreal.

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  3. Awww...very deep, and sad but, I hope she has hope. Sad when we allow someone else to try to kill our spirit. It seems 'she' didn't let it go that far though, good for her!

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  4. That's very unsettling. Well-written!

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  5. Ooh, the sound in this is fantastic. Love the title. This is beautiful: "Lain in sinking rest beneath rain on a wrinkled roof." And I love the whole first stanza. Chilling. There's so much between the lines in the second stanza. Very powerful indeed; it leads the reader into the world of imagination, chasing fireflies, butterflies, and mystic adventures.

    Since you are a lover of magic, I know this is partially where you're headed with the spleen bit, even though this definition says "obsolete":

    "this organ is conceived of as the seat of spirit and courage or of such emotions as mirth, ill humor, melancholy"

    So any number of things are possible here. But I would guess that the wife's passion caught her home on fire and burned up the two people inside, while in the act of "burning." And I feel like the speaker might be her child, cleaning up the mother's mess.

    I'm intrigued by the teeth in Hell being clean. Perhaps the inhabitants were prone to having their mouths washed out with soap or having to do extra brushing. I wonder if the father left behind came up with this expression.

    This is just a guess, of course. It's so vague that a number of stories could be envisioned.

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