Circle of Stray Quatorzains

Flesh and Conceits

Elizabethan poets wrote their rhymes
to catalog their women's charms
in strained conceits, or else the times
produced strange women, wigged with wire,
with jeweled lips and ivoried arms,
cold robots to set a man afire.
I prefer your flesh to take to bed
in all its humanity.  Warm skin
beats ivory; jeweled kisses wear
the lips away.  I like your head
with hair, not wires.  Crescendoing
to spill my seed in your warm place
I glory in your hips' wild swing
and the rush of blood that flushes your face.

Next Poem:  "The Dowager"
List of Poem Circles
Updated last on:  2001/05/24