refreshment

[Manna]

refreshment

we washed bug poop and dust
from the harvest
and crammed the leaves and stalks
into the old juice jug.
you poured the water
slowly from the dented kettle
so the glass wouldn’t break
and it turned the color
of a sweaty tornado sky.

we made love and dozed
in the private disorder
of skin and linen.
when we arose you chucked
ice into the glasses
and I poured the tonic
and together on the chaise
as evening bared its belly
we read the funnies
sipping so wet and so cool –

oh baby let’s do it again.

----------------------------------
9/13 - I still didn't like the opening. had to get my courage up to open with the bug poop line, I guess. And some overly poetic additions here.



seven summers ago
when the garden was new

we washed bug poop and dust
from the harvest and crammed

the leaves and stalks
into the old juice jug

you poured the water slowly
from the dented kettle
so the glass wouldn’t break

it turned the color
of a sweaty tornado sky

we made love and dozed
mint tea cooling in the fridge

next to you on the chaise
as evening bared its skin
we read the funnies

sweet lime and mint
with bitter tonic and ice

so cool so wet so
oh baby let’s do it again

==================================
(I edited the opening, which I didn't like.)

[Red Poppy]

Manna,
these lines have me confused:

"next to you on the chaise
we read the funnies"

Earlier, "you" is your partner (it appears). But now there's a "we" and a "you" which, may I propose tongue only half in cheek, suggests a threesome.
Confusing but intriguing.

[jimbo]

NICE ONE Manana.....................


I had a kettle
Like that
and i put
it in
the garden,
full of
Wild
Flowers.

regards jimbo

[lizzytysh]

Very evocative as usual, Manna .

The lines RP is questioning are clear as day and a shared newspaper, stretched across two laps, to me.

Your first three lines confused me, though, in that we have what we call "stink bugs" here... if you only pick them up, their odour is released and is lasting; so I was wondering what kind of bug had splatted into your forehead and released that particular, rather pleasant, scent. When your next verse started talking about bug poop, it 'confirmed' my presumption that a bug had hit you. When you later made a mint concoction to drink, however, the first verse no longer made sense to me... unless only as an introduction, of sorts, for what was to follow.

so cool so wet so
oh baby let’s do it again

This just makes me want to move to the farm .


~ Lizzy

[Manna]

I've been wondering about whether to keep that opening. I was sitting here at my desk when the perfume of someone's lunch came wafting in. It smelled sweet and limey, and my brain went back to that day. Sometimes I write things as a springboard that I don't need to keep in the final poem. And smells just always seem to be noticed in my forehead once they're in my nose.

[lizzytysh]

Ahhh... okay, gotcha. Thanks for explaining that. It contextualizes it for me; with smells being so evocative to begin with, the same thing often happens to me. Not that you couldn't keep it there... but somehow having it transition from the trigger to the memory itself would help. Or, like you've said, just letting it go altogether .

I had never noticed that, but when I think about it, those deep-memory scents do rise above the nose... like a literal link to the brain.


~ Lizzy

[Red Poppy]

So this is a fifty-scent poem?
And you adroitly avoided my querying your pitch about the gleesome threesome
Ok, I withdraw my lighthearted remarks,
Yours,
Will Shakethespear

[jimbo]

:Shall i compare thee to a summers day?
thou art more lovely and temptable
than a bunch orf grapes................

[Red Poppy]

Manna
I looked at your abbatoir and this came to mind:

"Happy is said to be the family which can eat onions together. They are, for the time being, separate, from the world, and have a harmony of aspiration. "
Charles Dudley Warner

[Manna]

Ha ha ha, I grew up in a family where Norman Rockwell met Pull my Finger.
I missed the fifty-cent poem ref, though. Little help?

ps. The only thing better than a thrisum is a morsum. Let all my guests come in.
(yeek! did I just type that? Oh, dear.)

[Red Poppy]

Fifty scents - you said the poem was inspired by perfume - does that make scents to you?

[Manna]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......
self-administering dope slap now.

[lizzytysh]

I like that way of referencing that, Manna.

Anyway, we also have a term here ~ don't know if RP has it in his country ~ "fifty-cent word," so I took "fifty-scent" as a dual-pun question.


~ Lizzy

[jimbo]

is mise anseo .
conas a ta tu
an bhuil tu go maith?

Ta me go hanna mhaith
go hanna mhaith
go hanna mhaith
aer fhad.

oiche mhaith agus
cullagh saubh
is mise seamus
seamusin beag...................

[Red Poppy]

Maith an fear jimbo - ar agaidh leat!