Night sky glitters with flaming stars
While Eros drinks his purple wine,
Golden tongued poets murmur in memory
On the parting Muses for whom they pine.
Bittersweet desire lies on the altar,
Tokens of moist lotus trail in the dawn,
To sing and dance in the sea as they bathe
And caress the desire for She whom they yearn.
Wild girls heard singing in ecstatic tongue
Daughters of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love,
Who drink the bee’s nectar from the heavenly urn,
Then lie on the earth with the red-fingered dove.
Heart broken poets burn incense at twilight
Walk down from the mountains in procession and song,
Find sweet ambrosia to quench dry, parched lips,
Then dance in Her grove a-cloaked all night long.
Soulsister
5 comments
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February 24, 2007 at 8:18 pm
soulsister
This poem is based on 2 writing exercises from different sources. The first was a selection of words used by Sappho in the fragments of her found poetry, which were removed from their context and printed out as single words. This exercise may be found in chapter 4 of Mary Ann Moore’s book ‘Writing Home’. The other part of the exercise comes from a writing prompt based on Roethke’s Rules and presented by Susan Letham in her poetry course ‘Pocket Poetry’which requires picking out 6 nouns, 6 verbs and 6 adjectives and combining them into a single poem with 2 stanzas (wordpress insisted on 1 stanza only, but no matter!), 2 rhyming words in each stanza, and 8-10 syllables in each line! Try this exercise your self and see. It’s great fun, especially using such exotic and erotic words like Sappho’s!!!
February 24, 2007 at 8:40 pm
quinncreative
What a great challenge, and how well you met it! I was wondering what your words were–and how well they blend into a poem of beauty and power.
February 24, 2007 at 8:43 pm
lorigloyd
Edith, what a great writing prompt. And your result in beautiful. Heather, maybe we can save this prompt and put it somewhere like the Box of Wonder or the Monster A.B.C.? In fact, I am printing this right now and keeping it. Edith, well done!
February 24, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Heather Blakey
I agree that this is a wonderful prompt Lori. At one stage I had a blogger which acted as a vault with things like this in it. I might have to reincarnate that one at some point with a link from the Box of Wonderment.
And it is clear that Greek Mythology has had as big an impact on you as it has on me Edith. Beautiful work! So powerful and evocative.
February 25, 2007 at 12:23 am
Edith O Nuallain
Gosh can you all feel the heat from my blushes?!! Thank you!