Swimming Choppy Seas

It was calm when first I set out to swim,

but then Aeolus let loose his howling

winds and waves rose. Swimming against currents,

strength nearly spent, I spied you chained to stone

and waiting as though sacrificed to some

Kraken or stormgod. Weeping, naked, you

called out against the sky, or some father

coward enough to forsake you. And I,

I could not take my eyes from you, your eyes

seafoam lightning lit and wide, your jawline

taut, defiant even in fear’s fury!

Auburn hair bound and braided, wisping free

to whip your high cheek bones as rain began,

made landfall just as I. And we escaped . . .

David M Pitchford
12 May 2008

Wandering in the Wilderness . . .

It was a boyhood fantasy, coming

across a bare-breasted beauty in some

deserted place where she might rely on me

to rescue her, and her all willing

to reward my capable action with

tenderness and something undefined . . .

But now a man, I find myself here

in this deserted place, with this bare-

breasted young woman and I wonder

only where her accomplice hides

to leap out and leave me bleeding,

Samaritan in roadside ditch, naked,

penniless, ignored by the well-meaning

young men afraid of my flaccid manhood

and their own revulsion to weakness.

And yet, no villainy shows in that round

face, that melancholy countenance. She

pleads, with her raw eyes for something

unknown, perhaps unknowable. And her

breasts hang there in pert defiance,

as though her heart upheld them

in taut-nippled perseverance against

whatever mysterious malaise afflicts

her mind. And it is that beauty, her

mind now that attracts me, and my own

curiosity and compassion drive me

to intervention despite great risk.

David M Pitchford
9 May 2008

After Twenty Years Estranged

You wouldn’t believe, Penelope, things I’ve seen;

I barely believe myself. Such wonders in the wide,

wild world. But no beauty above your own, greater

now even than when I left, unwilling, to tear down

walls at Troy and slaughter hapless men whose

only sin was to raise a sword or spear against me.

But even after, I went not unmolested. The gods

themselves seemed incensed at my success,

one I fear is nothing to brag on, as I merely did

what was necessary to survive, for what more

can a man do but to live to the next moment?

Oh my love, faithful Penelope, can you forgive

my long absence? The necessity I caused for you

to prove as wily as me in spurning those suitors,

and the further need that I should reveal myself

to you in the savage act of clearing your house

in showers of blood? Is there no end to struggle?

Your youth deserted you even as I succumbed

to sirens, witches, cliffs, and the son of Neptune,

even as I spent guilt-wracked nights in Circe’s

tender though demanding embrace. And yet

never so beautiful as now and here with me

in this our bed of true marriage, for though

my flesh has betrayed you, never did my heart.

Twenty years estranged, and yet I find you now

more the blushing bride awash in beauty and pride.

David M Pitchford
8 May 2008

My Wild Love

Must have been the wine . . . can’t seem to recall

how I found you there, lying naked on

a spread out leopard skin, or at least

something patterned that way. Oh, and that

convenient golden sash. But mostly

I recall the haunting challenge of boredom

in bedroom eyes, at once sad and longing.

The pout of your lips begs kisses, as do

the stiff points of your breasts, stiff

and pointing up as though in prayer,

or simply in the glory of youth and vigor—

oh yes, vigor! Your appetites would

challenge a boy in his newfound prime

of adolescent ecstasy! And yet your soft

golden skin gave its Braille affirmation

that experience counts, as did the continual

arch of your back as you sang ecstasy

to stars and whispered your lies into

night’s infinite possibilities. So now,

I’ve no recall of your name. My Shiraz

is gone. Along with my car, wallet, and watch.

Is youth worth such a price?

For youth it was you gave me

tangled for an hour under moonlight.

David M Pitchford
7 May 2008

Song for Bathsheba

Bathing as an angel, you, my naked

beauty! From first I saw you airing dry,

I knew my heart gone, saw cupid take it

oh brutal arrow! slayer of three, make it

right to wrongly act! Oh, but tell me why,

bathing angel, you stood outside naked

for me to see . . . my heart now yours, rake it

over Hell’s coals and purge our sin. Though sly,

I knew my heart gone, by cupid taken

turned from my wives, my faith, laid it naked

to temptation your beauties multiply

as you, angel, bathed, free and stark naked

beneath a kindly sun—king’s eyes raked in

that beauty like a wealth of jewels. I

knew that heart was stolen. Did cupid take it,

or was it me who chose to give it? Fly

now, save yourself. Don’t ask me why I cry.

You bathed as an angel, be mine, naked

cupid, my heart is all yours, now take it.

David M Pitchford
6 May 2008

After Spring Showers

Her beauty is the sky of my world, her flesh

my earth, her blood the rivers and ocean,

her eyes peridots faceted and star-brilliant,

her bones and hair are every forest and brush;

I fall to worship as drops roll down those hills

toward southern climbs, where the triangle

of her altar to femininity calls me to worship

and I speak in tongues to her murmurs,

low growls of pleasure and appreciation—

prelude to my entering the shrine of small

deaths for the sweet communion Nature

first decreed in the throes of First Passion.

David M Pitchford
2 May 2008

Bathing Beauties

What is it makes bathing bodies so compelling?

Beside the natural urge toward procreation,

I mean. A certain beauty. Certainly that, though

that too often depends on the bather or bathers

in particular. Is it the vibrancy of health,

or perhaps the symmetry of the human form—

when it is symmetrical, anyway. What is it

that draws the eyes to the curves of hip,

dark ovals of the nipples, angular strength

of shoulder blades, knees, elbows, ankles . . .

Is it the astonishment of nudity,

perhaps a protective urge for a herd member

exposed and vulnerable? Or empathy

with the freedom of nakedness, longing

for the most natural state of being?

David M Pitchford
1 May 2008

Thief of Kisses

He was a fiend of hearts, was Jon Tanner;

seducer of women by wine and by song.

But one day a maiden too fair did Tanner

meet and kisses steal and away into the night

stole as though no promise lied through

puckered lips might hold him to a single

heart. But Duke Marinton’s daughter

had no will to lose what she herself had trapped

and claims as prize. So into shadows inken

she in stealth wades Tanner’s wake as though

a pirate sloop on bounty bent. And bent she is,

Marinton’s daughter. For never a hand in denial

or discipline was raised against her, never a dream

or whim or wish denied. No denial ever stuck, as

though a changeling girl whose will is Word.

And so upon Tanner she steals, and in shadows

hides until his breathing dreams decries . . .

Jon Tanner makes no boast, nor never again

a kiss shall steal, for Marinton’s daughter

holds his final kiss in a crystal jar.

David M Pitchford
30 April 2008

Killing the Inner Critic

You can’t do that!

          I hear far back in my head.

Poetry is serious stuff!

          It is my voice, when I’m dry.

You must be deliberate!

          Best ignored.

Where’s your rhyme scheme?

          Can’t speak—only scream.

No wonder nobody’ll publish you!

          Narrow and hostile, too.

Poetry doesn’t work like that!

          Protective of something sacred.

Don’t you have even a modicum of common sense?

No one wants to read this blather!

I thought you had imagination!

          Problem with an inner critic

          comes with knowing

          the same bullet that kills him

          kills you . . .

 David M Pitchford
30 April 2008

In the Cavern of the Sea Nymphs

You read about this sort of thing all the time

in myths and fairytales. But I, James Princeton

Gar, stand here to tell you, son: I seen ‘em!

Twas in the Indian Ocean, when I for the Queen

captained a ship and crew of swarthy seamen

salty as the brine and wily as any wave. We

sailed from port in the calmest summer noon,

and yet by sunset Neptune was of a temper,

Zephyr drove the waves frothy, and clouds

dark as all the world’s sins, me own included,

rolled out like apocalypse across the sky,

complete with fire and hail from heaven!

My crew were stalwart, indeed I sees to that

meself. But that hellspawned storm turned

their livers yella and their eyes popped with

that brute look you get from all seals and mad

dogs. Three men had to feel my whip to move

them to the sails and keep them to their posts.

Hard sailing it was. Nine good sailors lost by

midnight. But still we rolled with it and prayed

to what gods each believes to hear him. And

when that devil’s fury passed, which pass it did,

as do all storms, me lad, keep that ever in mind,

it calmed to a sea placid as creation’s first morn,

and that was the more disturbin’! For how can

a man hope to find land with naught to fill

the sails and hie him ho? No. It was a fell calm

stinkin’ of perdition and the end of all things.

But James Princeton Gar be I, and I’ll not let

such thoughts be voiced aboard my vessel, be

it by god or man or e’en the Queen herself! No,

I spake to them seadogs like as if they was my own

sons. Said to them, “Listen now! All seas pass!

Storms rage and wane. Tides ebb and flow.

And so too do calms come and go!

So bolt some gin and then begin to clean

this scow to the fine vessel it be. Busy

hands have no time for dark thoughts!”

At my word they took me, not because I

be eloquent, nor more frightful than the sea,

but because they were good men with sense

enough to know the truth of what was told.

Thus we put our backs to the work, let unfold

what the fates planned. We scrubbed and cleared

storm wreckage and patched what needed it.

Then, of another sudden, a fiercer storm yet

came up out of nowhere and beat us bloody

with hail and rains driven like a flail upon our

skin—so severe it was it shredded the clothes from

our shoulders! What can a man do? Live!

That is what we did. We lived. We did all

we could to breathe from one wave t’ another!

And now a sudden calm washes us. And now

a sudden rendin’ of timbers. And now a cliff

from the mists unnoticed. And now men drown,

men swim, men rescue others. One moment

here, the next gone. And I, James Princeton Gar,

captain of that crew, went with my ship, down

to the shallows off a coast no map details.

Thinking myself drown, it came a shock

to wake in the cave of the Sea Nymphs.

Disbelief is all I thought left of myself

as I gazed in wonder at the fairest maids

eyes ever saw. It occurred to me that I

was the first in a century to find the fabled

maids of mer—but the tails on these damsels,

they had naught in common with fish, me lad,

I tell you true! I tell you true, they was beauties

the angels down from heaven would dive

to behold! And from that waking, my lad,

I cannot relate further, for a salty tale ‘tis.

David M Pitchford
30 April 2008