The Beggar Poet's Hexagram 44: Coming to Meet

[stevef]

I prize open the shell and anticipate how tasty it will be
with sauce and pickle followed by wine


nothing more exquisite than scented liquid swirling under my nose.


I’ll dream of faraway places
where plump fingers caressed the fruit
from the vine, a maiden
who pressed it between her thighs-


ancient odour of heat
and surrender brought to the surface
in beads mingled with saliva
on lips, syringed through her veins
to distil on the back
of my throat and rest there until swallowed-


who succumbed to the bidding
of a master
and lay in the hay,
slipping below his knees


a red moon in her mouth


sprinkled black powder
on impotent suitors growing to twice their normal size,
at the exhortation
of a drunken widow conjuring tales of heinous after effects
and scandalized by indecency
was dragged through the market place
to be burnt where pigeons roost
and catch fire, igniting the town


salacious remarks fall on dead ears,
the cosmos encloses need
in abundance of light, culture will be restored
from the rubble


luminous peers with necks like candles,
who stare smitten by words executed
with a nib flicked this way
and that captivating eternity’s desire
for an individual to comprehend the pulse
of order,
sanity
and fulsome worship treasuring the point humanity looks inward
toward the one, will flicker beyond his headstone,
making each planetary orb sing


instead,
forgo your evening meal, close the shell




stomp on it
until it shatters
and the contents spread across the floor.

 

[canislulu]

That's putting it out there!

Generous.

Thank you for sharing your creativity.

 

[stevef]

Thanks
You are very welcome
Steve

 

[canislulu]

about to stomp on the shell

 

[stevef]

I am not familiar with the Jewish tradition and looked it up. Something to do, it seems, with the difficulty in repairing what is broken. Could it also have something to do with what the poet experiences- the dangers of giving way to temptation and desire, desire having its own logic of cause and effect. What starts out as innocent daydreaming can end up in darker waters. Are the couple making clear to one another that their thoughts shouldn't stray too far from the right marital thing, and they are stomping those forbidden imaginations right out of their system?

 

[canislulu]

I like your view of the tradition, "stomping out forbidden imaginations", those things that can lead to breaking something that could be difficult to repair.

At first I had understood your reference to the oyster as an aphrodisiac. But I also liked the use of the shell image in a hexagram 44 poem as I had recently learned from Pocossin that the King Wen meaning of 44 is the final stage of plastromancy, i.e., the inscription of the shell. And I wondered if that entered in at all to your choice of the "shell" image. (But H 42 is the cracking of the shell.) Then I was surprised to wake up one morning thinking about the Jewish wedding tradition and then your poem.

To "forgo the evening meal" seems to be the advise of 44.1.

 

[stevef]

Hi there

I didn't consciously think of a shell image or its connotations when I wrote the poem and it really is enjoyable to discover that others such as yourself can bring out meanings which eluded me. When I write a poem I try not, with preconceived ideas and symbols, to pre-empt what is written when I find myself in the poetic depths. Later, though, when I consciously work on communicating the draft I do find them and try to make the meanings clearer. Once again, thanks for your comments. It brings to like the notion that a poet needs a reader.

Steve