POEM - Beltane Burlesque

Spring bares her breasts
In that careless,
gradual way
In which young women
Who love pleasure, tend to;
Pulling back her
Snowy dressy top
With shy movement;
Hiking up her skirt
Of grass so green
As to suggest
A swaying, musky,
redolent motion;
Just a few inches
Above those luscious knees,
Just enough to be awkward;
Enough to make strangers blush
But still try to peak –

She plays a game
Of seek and hide
With sunlight’s strong,
Gentle fingers;
She plays a game
Of wanting and having;
Undressing brown thighs
That is a patch of earth
And is itself the
object of its own lust.


She is beautiful
When she hides in the
Cesura of the season -
This one day of Spring –
This dis-rememberance
Of a Winter
That took so much.


M C Biegner
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AUTHOR'S NOTE:
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This poem was originally published as "Spring 2005". It has been
Reassembled as "Beltane Burlesque"

First, you will note the title change. I wanted something a bit more fun, alliterative and well, not so bland. I kept thinking how this would be a great Beltane poem to be read at some pagan feast somewhere.

Then i kept on the "sexy" theme vs. the "sexual" transition. I toned down the "overallness" of the original piece which i admit was trite and pompous. I felt the poem was originally moving from something "sexy" to something "sexual" if you catch my drift and i didn't like how it ended.

You'll note that i futher likened spring to one of those types of "women who love pleasure"... you know how THEY can be... ;-)

i bring in the sense of smell though i suspect "a musky redolent motion" might be a bit hackneyed. i am looking for something else there. The idea of a motion carrying a fragrant musky smell is what i was after combining sense of smell and touch in one.

i bring in the patch of earth as "brown thighs", but really it is a metaphor for something lustful. Earth puts me in mind of the masculine aspect of desire and lust, so even though i am talking about Spring, the female, i am referencing masculine lust in the form of terra firma - so now i have opposites and the attraction is more palpable i think. Don't you?

instead of launching into the existence of god (what was i thinking?) i go further discussing the teasing nature of spring, hide and seek (though i change the phrasing to "seek and hide" to make it more unusual.) The play between having and wanting, which is the wait between seasons, that cesura, that pause, is teasing, tantalizing... keeping with the "sexy" theme. i guess - though i am no PhD. in "sexy"... the tension. we love the tension.

i make up the word "Dis-rememberance" - different than forgetting. forgetting implies sort of passive action i think, of something just being let go. Disremembering implies a willful act of forcing out of memory. This is a winter i really want to dis-remember, i don't know about you.

You will note the change in the line breaks too. i purposefully shortened the lines to 4-6 or 7 syllables per line to make it easier to read, and i think it gives a more breathless read, if you were to read it out loud, again reinforcing the "sexiness" of the piece.

Finally i bring in winter as the one who "took so much" - namely my lust for things of nature, or my lust for this beautiful undressing woman.

I left the old poem still up for comparison. I like this one much more though. It's sensual and a bit more cohesive and not as full of itself.

But that is just me.

M C Biegner