Seeds of desire

Published on by Laura Bloomsbury

Desires are delicious desserts brought for a feast
after morning dew mushrooms have melded with an oyster soup
after the fresh fish course rushes in on a Spring tide
and the hung flesh in its first decay yields to mandible 
crisp skinned and lightly bleeding besides a few choice greens
there also amongst the grapes that erupt in ambrosial bursts
cheeses sweating a malodourous air from blues and creams
synchronous with sweet wines and their noble rot

Passions prick the appetites
that feed the hungers
that repeat and repeat
from stomach and groin
all through the senses
glut of the oasis
when the desert blooms

How desperately we pull and push in pursuit
yet how churlish to denigrate these volcanic volitions
that marvellous merry-go-round of falling in love with love
and playing the fool, as the lyricist croons
times are when the fire of desire peters out 
we are ash-covered fools – but it can cool too,  lava-like
the kind of devotional kindling that outlasts lifetimes

All the poets’ pens have punctuated paper
with their immense and eager elegies to Eros
driven to vocalise by that deep-down unreachable itch
we all feel it, almost touch the spot in ecstasy
seeded from the knowledge tree,  seeking it out for always
the imago of our creator

Joining with Anmol’s Poetics & the dVerse prompt: Desire & Sexuality in Poetry

15 thoughts on “Seeds of desire”

  1. My goodness this is good! 💜 You draw us in with a brilliant and stylish reference to one craving dessert after the main course 😊 my mouth was watering at the mention of ‘morning dew mushrooms have melded with an oyster soup’ and then comparing it to the universal truth of how often people surrender to passion and get on the ‘merry go round of falling in love with love’ and thus playing the fool (some of us even mistake lust for love.)

    I also admire your observation of how Poets seek to describe desire driven by that ‘unreachable itch’.. makes me think humans are forever in need of wanting more. A truly exquisite poem, Laura! 💜

    1. This poem went all over the place Sanaa – I guess the way following our desires leads us…glad you enjoyed the epicurean starter and thank you for your immense feedback

  2. Wow your descriptive words are fabulous and certainly get to the heart of passion…..food, desire, passion all come from the same place and meld into ecstasy.

  3. Oh Laura, you touch on so many levels of desire, for so many senses. And their is an almost primal perspective, like that of a bawdy hunter, reaching to satisfy layered urges. Loved this… 🙂

    …rob from Image & Verse
    Hedone’s Daughter

  4. I can really feel where the craving can lead you… the gluttony of eating just to be eating… the desert after a full course dinner made me think about those people who can never get enough… maybe moderation is needed sometimes.

  5. I love the opening about the food and felt sated with the feast & dessert.

    I believe until now, I am still reaching for:
    that deep-down unreachable itch

    1. A beginning which took me by surprise but one desire often leads to another
      And I think most of us reaching there Grace though some of us not aware of that, whilst others are almost there!

  6. Oh! I love that it went all over the place, exploring and probing the psyche in its need and want — that conscious impulse is palpable throughout the course of this verse — the first stanza left me reeling with its sensory bombardment and those double entendres and metaphors are something I really enjoyed.
    And the final stanza works magic in denoting the enrapturing thirst that has lead poets and artists for a very long time on this path to seek and discover those seeds of desire and plant them in their craft. A wonderful read! 🙂

    1. thank you Anmol – that’s a relief as I felt I had wandered with this one and wandered off too far from your prompt which read like a thesis and set the bar rather high! Double entendres are in place as they speak of the parallelism of desires- I prefer to make them more subtle than a nudge-nudge so glad you spotted them!

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