Sunday Picnic

[jjhunter]

Sunday, every Sunday, let's have a community picnic. It's probably been a long week, and it's lovely to have a few minutes to sit back and relax and enjoy some good conversation in a less formal space. Feel free to bring something for the Picnic Basket - a poem you liked this week, a thought you had or something you experienced, or even something completely unrelated to poetry whatsoever that you just feel like sharing. Just take a moment to say hello, and maybe have a bite to eat; no one is going anywhere fast, and the shade promises some relief from the everyday heat. Let’s get to know each other a bit better, here under the branches of the poet’s tree.

Comments

[ashestosnow]

On the subject of activist-romance poetry, I may as well share my most recent bit of writing. It's not as polished as I would like-- there's a lot that feels awkward about it, and I'm not sure that all of the specifics will make sense to everyone-- but I wanted to share it, if only because there is very little poetry out there that speaks of asexual romance.


this is a love song

this is a love song.
not a dancing of tongues,
friction of teeth against sunwarmed skin;
not tangling fingers in the soft sweet verdure
at the back of your neck. this is letting you in.
but not in the way most spoken of.
this is a song of a different merger.

this is your hands, gentle and skilful,
unbuckling not belts, but armor plate;
this is the sigh of aching muscles, released from torment
at the uncoupling of every latch and clutch,
and your palms unraveling the memory of the weight.
this is your eyes after nine days' traveling,
ringed and bleary, as you rise from our tent,
yet eager for sunrise as you were the first.
this is the shift in your posture, watchful, wilful,
your fingers in mine, that you may augment
this energy's flowing by the gift of your touch.
your magic in mine, empowering, ensconced,
yet all at once rushing and raging, fit to burst,
tearing down the barriers that represent
the illusion that fire and ice were ever discriminate.

do us disservice not; do not demean us.
eliminate from your thoughts that crippling crutch
that tells you: love requires particular response.
these responses, all and more, are goddess-blessed,
should you require that, should your brain soliloquize
that without deity, love cannot mean much.
do not mistake our love for second-best,
sincere gesture's for lust's shallow disguise
or the simplicity of holding hands for a prelude
to the end of the game. until you have danced with fire through us,
frozen a whisper in her outstretched palm, don't call this "tame".
upon our sanctuary do not intrude,
nor judge us right from wrong.
this is a love song.

[fyreharper]

Oh, this is lovely. Memory-ing the post so I can find it again later :)

[ashestosnow]

Oh, thank you. :) I'm glad you liked it.

[raze]

Loved this. I feel that asexual romance and relationships are SEVERELY under-represented in writing, so I'm thrilled to see a poem on it.

[ashestosnow]

Thank you. I've had much the same experience, and so I hoped to broaden the canon a little.