Valentine Card
Posted: 20 February 2006
Word Count: 118
Summary: OK, so it's a little late, but I hope you enjoy it
|
Font Size
|
|
I love the way you unwrap me
like a child on his birthday,
fingers trembling with the ribbons,
bright colours impatiently ripped away.
The way your lips crush the rose pink
tissue paper of my own and take their stain.
I love the way you take the confetti of my thoughts,
throw them in the air and let them fall
in kaleidoscopic patterns of desire.
I love how our manila skin matches, just so,
how it folds and unfolds, reveals and hides.
I love the corrugated warmth of our deep bed,
but most of all, my Valentine, my sweet,
I love the paper cut-out dolls we become,
afterwards: the man and the woman,
simply touching hands, touching feet.
|
Comments by other Members
| |
 joanie at 17:39 on 20 February 2006
 Report this post
|
Hi Lydia. Lovely - the sustained paper references are excellent. The last line is beautiful. The repetition of 'I love' is effective, given the nature of this!
What a perfect idea for a valentine! It would be good to write in a card. Did you???
joanie
| |
 radavies1uk at 17:43 on 20 February 2006
Report this post
|
Hi Lydia
Nice, I like the trembling fingers reference, get's the anticipation across well.
Cheers
Bob
| |
 James Graham at 19:16 on 20 February 2006
Report this post
|
Nothing sentimental about this - a real, sensual Valentine message. As Joanie says, the paper imagery is very well sustained. The simile of a child excitedly and impatiently tearing open a birthday present has that quality that all good imagery has - of surprising us but at the same time making us feel the comparison is perfectly apt. The images in the middle seem a little more extravagant - thoughts like confetti turning into 'kaleidoscopic patterns', skin like folding and unfolding manila paper - but that's all right: you've only to refer to that old master of love poetry, John Donne. How about 'The Flea', for example -
Mark but this flea, and marke in this,
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do. |
|
Don't kill it, he says, it's our marriage temple and marriage bed. It's got some of my blood and some of yours, so if you kill it, you kill me - as you might want to do, but don't forget it would be suicide as well. And so on - extravagant, fantastical. This is a style of love poetry that always helps to counteract the mushy and the slushy.
The image of paper cut-out dolls doesn't let us down at the end - it has the same slightly far-fetched but convincing quality that the other paper images have.
James.
|
|
| |
 Elsie at 21:58 on 21 February 2006
Report this post
|
Hi Lydia, lovely - I especially liked the last feet and hands section. I don't know why when reading I felt the rose pink ...tissue paper could be broken differently - but I have no rationale for that - so just ignore me! Look forward to more of your writing.
| |
Tina at 16:54 on 22 February 2006
Report this post
|
HI Lydia - I too will join the chorus
Lovely writing for me - lots of anticipatory, sensuality in the paper imagery - and strangely enough before I had read James comments it evoked Donne for me too. I liked the folding mantilla skill and currugated bed - lovely
Thanks
Tina
| |
engldolph at 11:49 on 26 February 2006
Report this post
|
Hi Lydia,
Very much enjoyed. A fresh and urgent feel to this that countracts any valentines's mushiness..
an effective sustained metpahor or presents unwrapped and paper dolls but out..gives it real playfulness/
My favourite lines:
The way your lips crush the rose pink
tissue paper of my own and take their stain.
I love the way you take the confetti of my thoughts,
throw them in the air and let them fall
I love how our manila skin matches, just so,
how it folds and unfolds, reveals and hides.
I love the corrugated warmth of our deep bed,
sharply put, and a good flow when read aloud...
the only thing I mish say "try" to see..but maybe not your voice you are capturing... is that I think it works as couplets.. some extra lines (..) don't seem to add...
I love the way you unwrap me
like a child on his birthday,
(fingers trembling with the ribbons,
bright colours impatiently ripped away. -- I would infer these from the fist two lines)
The way your lips crush the rose pink
tissue paper of my own and take their stain.
I love the way you take the confetti of my thoughts,
throw them in the air and let them fall
(in kaleidoscopic patterns of desire. --again I htinkn the above two lines may be enough)
I love how our manila skin matches, just so,
how it folds and unfolds, reveals and hides.
I love the corrugated warmth of our deep bed,
but most of all, my Valentine, my sweet,
I love the paper cut-out dolls we become,
simply touching hands, touching feet.
Very much enjoyed
Mike
| |
 Brian Aird at 17:44 on 28 February 2006
Report this post
|
This I like very much.
especially;
"The way your lips crush the rose pink
tissue paper of my own and take their stain."
Thinking about the kaleidoscope - that produces ever changing patterns right? So no need to say patterns as well; just 'kaleidoscope of desires' might do.
enjoyed...
Brian
| |
| |
Comments by other Members
