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Contests : Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2009 : Highly Commended
DRY PARCHED KISSES
She sits marooned, an ancient figurehead,
Sallow and broad, weathered and lost,
While the sands of life and memory pile up
Around her ancient flanks. She smiles at memories
Of days when she could leap and run and fly
Pan-like through the air, and never come down,
Never feel cold, wake quick and spring to life
Laugh at tomorrow. But now she hurts,
Oh how she hurts, wakes wet-cheeked in the dark,
At the waste of life stretched behind and before.
The girl who feared nothing, danced and sang,
Is lost and gone, waiting for her love, her only love
Who absent-minded purses lips and touches cheek,
A dry and fleeting peck as he strides out, intent on his own.
His wet kisses could make her hum, with open lips
And playful tongue, could make them soar united,
But now are gone, dried into dust and blown away.
The tutored nerve endings are still there, unused,
Yearning for a touch , a stroke of love in the night,
And she wakes alone, sleeps alone in a foreign land.
Her paintings stack up, created in hope, unwanted,
Unsold, as time and again art lovers smile and reach
For the next painting on gallery walls. And the sonorous piano,
The great black piano, sings out seldom now, as she knows
She will stumble over demanding runs, hit wrong notes
And nothing, nothing will be enough. Her arms and fingers
Weighed down with unspoken, unwritten words, do not lift,
Do not reach the keyboard now, and her piles of words
Useless, trivial words will moulder into dust. And so she lights
The candles, good for three hours, they say, shining
Gaily around the gently lapping bath and on the walls;
The dimly glowing clever capsules are all swallowed,
Working their magic around her frayed and tattered soul,
This tired sagging body, ravaged by age and living,
Steps softly into the circle of light; she lowers her husk
Into the warm, inviting depths, closes her eyes, and a stream
Of her thoughts, her music unplayed, pictures unpainted
Of her children growing unseen, flow from her mouth, her ears,
Her dreaming eyes half-closed. Old scars and tears lift soft
In undulating opal and silver, float on candelight, on smoke,
Spiral and vanish, and she smiles faintly now,
As those relentless opiates grip and drag her down,
Undo and loosen and disperse and dissolve, melt,
And she is gone, gone to the savannah of her childhood,
Under a wild clear sky of endless blue, skinny and brown
And light as air among the running beasts and trees.
This poem won a Highly Commended award in the 2009 Tom
Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books. Author Elizabeth Davies received a $100 award. Winning Writers assists this contest. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Elizabeth Davies
You asked for a portrait of the poet and biog. Here is Liz Davies on the
beautiful island of Boracay in The Philippines. She is a seasoned traveller,
having lived in many countries and loved all of them. She loves sunsets, and
is constantly searching for the perfect green flash on the horizon. She writes
haikus in a small notebook while travelling, and has written poetry since
schooldays. She finds that one can condense feelings and impressions into
verses much more easily than prose.
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