Ricin And Coffee Beans

Congratulations on the mess you made of things.

Ricin And Coffee Beans

Your breath tingles with a scarlet scent of ricin 

engulfing the full moon and inhaling it through your mouth 

while smoke slips pass through your torrid nostrils. 

The paintings above my mantelpiece has captivated this welkin 

covering our shadows with a beautiful azure outline.

It braids your hair with a enormous mulberry bow 

one that radiates like a lilac fringed by the sunshine. 

The paintings offers such pretentious solace.

Silently hiding the plane thats on fire over our house

and keeping oue bodies in such a sublime trance. 

Still you smoke that cigarette until its carmine tip falls to the floor

and the filters give out a bittersweet coral flame. 

Your lips are filled with traces of embers and ash 

and adorn with dungy chestnut coffee stains. 

Still your breath tingles every time you spill your virulence,

but yet you manage to make everyone  inhale your impeccable valiancy.

The funny thing is I never once smelled the poison on your lips

Author's Note

Reviews

[LogoDaedalus]

The use of a colour in almost every line gives the whole poem a rich, resonant tone, like an oil painting put into words. I love the juxtaposition of still, complex beauty against the edge of danger and destruction in the smoke and flame. Your use of recurring phrases at the beginnings of lines ("Your breath tingles," "The paintings,") holds the whole poem together through all this widely varied imagery, as does your very scant use of a slant rhyme scheme in the quatrains.

One question on word choice -- valiancy? It seems a little out of place among the other descriptors, since nothing in the poem up to that point gave us the suggestion that the subject was especially valiant.

[Barbara Walker]

That cigarette taste will overwhelm other tastes and smells every time! 2nd stanza, first line should be "the paintings above my mantlepiece HAVE captivated this welkin. Correct grammar-just sayin'
Great write.

[Laura Maidah]

The paintings offers


wrong

[Dayran]

When you choose to speak of things in plain and simple expressions it brings a greater bearing of the reader's presence into the experience. Where you used to speak of the forests of fantasy you were serving a buffet for just yourself. Well done, kiddo. Keep at it.

[Lily Mae]

Powerful write.. the poison on the lips.. excellently put..xo

[Lost in Wonderland]

Seems to me like this was about being entranced and addicted to a woman who would only cause harm later. Well written, great concept, nice work:)
God bless

[moo to the world]

solid end buddy solid

[Peaceworker22]

Hmmm... This is definitely deep. "The funny thing is I never once smelled the poison on your lips"... Definitely a line that makes me think.

[L. Edward Neale]

Deep resonant imagery. Like a thickly layered oil painting. Great opening image of the moon. It feels to me like a surreal still life picture with that burning plane frozen over the house. Like your describing an artwork you are looking at.

[Persephone]

Interesting poem - i enjoyed the imagery- great work :)