kissing lessons

two frontal lobes of a peach
that we share on a front porch in mississippi –
dangling our legs through the banisters
and listening to your mother knead dough
like a housecat kneading a stomach.

the tree, near the creek that has nearly
dried itself out – choked with sober stones –
has got such lovely peaches, reddening and
plumping like wren hearts. we eat them,
and they taste like april – a bite into something
stringy, fibrous, with a juice that winds down
your arm until it drips off your elbow, a stickiness
that lingers like a summer crush.

do not be ashamed – it was only practice.
your face blushes when our knees touch,
as the whiskey of milky lips stays on your breath.
we eat, and you avoid the subject,
and you try to name the dumb chickens in the yard.
drumroll of tulips, ratatat of red
under the porch.

you ask me if I read the bible, as we walk
back down to the creek, headhunting shirtfulls of fruit.
I quote revelations: Behold, he cometh with clouds –
it is what my mother says every time it rains
and it satisfies you.

dry husks of lilies weep, sore rape of bees,
the peaches intone – big, round timpani notes.
I am very conscious of your smell, and the
whiteness of your calves as you roll up your jeans
to walk in the shallow lisp of creekwater.

the peach skin breaks
under my thumb.

(a/n: an older piece)

God... you must love food. And I must be torturing myself by reading this delicious- er, wonderful poem.
Once again, fantastic imagery. It's like painting a picture in my mind. After finishing reading your other poem, "Breadbraking," I believe it was called, I'm sooo hungry now. I wish for peaches and cherries (I was craving cherries earlier), but all I'm stuck with are Reese's Pieces and Combos.

I'm not going to try and say which lines were my favorite, because all of them were.
Very nice ending, by the way. It stood out a lot and I just liked it a lot, I suppose.

Hey, this was pretty awesome. Not saying it was perfect (and really--who am I to judge? Have you read my work? ) but, I enjoyed the rich wealth of imagery you slathered all over this piece. It was wonderful, though a bit 'unsavory', if you will, at parts. I don't know... It's just that everytime you used the word 'peach' (yes, I know it's a very important word for the poem) I cringed a little. I just believe that you could have use some synonyms for peach or something--just seeing the word splattered all over the page...screen... just made me feel as if you weren't trying hard enough I guess.

Other than that, I liked it enough. It could use a litte reshaping, and if you like, you can disregard everything I just pointed out.

You're awesome, heh heh.

~Horseradish

P.S. I really want some fruit now.

Kylan, this is the best poem that you've written in a while, even if you did write it a while back. I'm not going to critique it because I fail at poetry, but I do want to say that you should write more poetry like this. It's clear. You know. The story in this poem is clear. Even though it's pretty heavy with the imagery, I can still see the story. In your other poems, I can't, and it makes me sad. Don't try to be vague, Kylan. It's an instant turn off with poetry.

Keep writing and being you, because you're the King of Awesomeness.

-Jared

*Sigh* this poem just about sums up my youth (okay, I understand I"m not old, but really, I feel like it) Anyway, there's something about your style...I can't quite put my finger on it...but it reminds me somehow of Southern Gothic work. You know? Like Flannery O'Connor...but in poem form. It's dark at times, but with a humor that keeps me reading and wondering. Maybe it's just that you mention Mississippi, peaches and wading in the creek, but I'm filled with nostalgia for those things that while not obviously sensual (Oooo! I used that word) all the same exude a feeling of repressed desire. Your tone throughout the poem is mature and clean, yet underwritten with lush notes of quirkiness.

dried itself out – choked with sober stones –
has got such lovely peaches, reddening and
plumping like wren hearts. we eat them,

Those few lines, saying stones are sober (which they are if you think about it) and comparing the color of a peach to the heart of a bird...it's almost twisted in the 'rightness' that I gather from reading them.
I don't think I'll ever be able to think about eating a peach the same way ever again. And I don't know if that's a good thing, or a bad thing. So, thanks? Yes, thanks.

Thank you all! I appreciate your thoughtful comments.

I find it interesting that so many people see this as a poem about peaches, though!

-Kylan

Hey Kylan -

Obviously, I don't see this as a poem just about peaches, what with the metaphor you take the extra mile to highlight in your title and all. But this poem amuses me for a few reasons. First, because it is the kind of poem one cannot get out of their mouths. The characters revel in such simplicity, such overwhelming sensation that it leaves the reader not wanting, but feeling full, a satisfied kind of full, like they've got just enough of that across. But the imagery - and, subsequently, the emotion - is exactly what it leaves us with, is only what it wants to leave the reader with.

So. I have been thinking about this head/heart balance. In short stories, and novels for that matter, I see a need for a good balance, a tight balance between the two. In poetry, I like to see both well paid attention to also. But something interesting I realised - I'd be a lot more lenient in a poem towards the writer tipping the balance - heavily - in either of the directions than I'd be in a longer work, simply because a poem has only got so many lines and the fact that it does achieve some kind of impact should be enough, regardless of whether it's a balanced impact or not. Of course, the imbalance here - towards emotion + imagery as opposed to intellect + imagery - means something intriguing for the way we read the poem: like the peach, we bite into the poem, suck it briefly, and swallow. There's no chewing over to do, for none is needed - emotion, after all, is meant to go straight to the core. It's the juice, so to speak, not the flesh of the poem. Ha. You could even argue that I think this poem is juice, then.

But of course, there is the metaphor. Not a particularly deep metaphor (minimal chewing required) or a well-structured one, but one nevertheless. And I see that from the beginning - I am curious as to what the metaphor is actually for. Eating peaches and kissing? And love? And first love? Or the sloppiness of first love, the awkwardness? (And I do not even want to think about the connotation in the last lines - it's the sort of ending that leaves one blushing (if they can blush, which I cannot) hard, dangerously and intimately embarrassed, mouth open - fittingly). But here, that emotion sort of overpowers any kind of intellect you even attempt to throw in - for example, lines like 'I am very conscious of your smell, and the /whiteness of your calves as you roll up your jeans' mean that we toss anything vaguely even head-oriented out the window for being fully present in the instant.

That's it, then. The instant. The here and now. I think this is a poem to be read once, and once is enough.The lack of theme, fascinatingly, (or rather, the fact that it is subsumed in the emotion) results in a direct, one-off effect. Straight to the core and back out again. No need for chewing. No longer lasting effect. No need to remember it clearly; abstractions are enough for the 'memory' of emotion. A sticky poem, yes, but a momentarily sticky one.

And I wonder how old is old. In my case, time would relatively be split up into pre-NaPo (which I know relatively little of), NaPo and post-NaPo. Having reread some of your NaPo recently, I think I can see the gradual evolution that makes UV different from NaPo. On the whole, the UV poems have shorter lines, greater coherency, less tendency to run away wildly. Hence, I'd probably class this as post-NaPo, but of course, I have no idea.

And so, an instantaneous delight. But likewise forgettable and snapshot. Really, that depends on what your purpose was, if you wanted the reader to get anything further out of it, to weigh it up in their palms, obsess over it, think about it. Currently, all I am obsessing about is the long term impact of literature - as an aside - not really the poem.


Thanks for the read, regardless.



Navita

HorseradishCares wrote:Hey, this was pretty awesome. Not saying it was perfect (and really--who am I to judge? Have you read my work? ) but, I enjoyed the rich wealth of imagery you slathered all over this piece. It was wonderful, though a bit 'unsavory', if you will, at parts. I don't know... It's just that everytime you used the word 'peach' (yes, I know it's a very important word for the poem) I cringed a little. I just believe that you could have use some synonyms for peach or something--just seeing the word splattered all over the page...screen... just made me feel as if you weren't trying hard enough I guess.
Other than that, I liked it enough. It could use a litte reshaping, and if you like, you can disregard everything I just pointed out.

You're awesome, heh heh.

~Horseradish

P.S. I really want some fruit now.

I agree with the bold parts. Other than that it was good

I'm not here to critique, I just want to say how awesome this poem is

Poetry these days is becoming quite bland, because it's all about misery or shock, or people trying to become the next revolutionary writer. It's kind of rare to stumble across a poem that still has the beauty that poetry is supposed to be made of.

I think the things I liked most would be the sensory used, the random touches that make it more personal (like references to the mother) and the vocabulary used (like 'dangling' instead of just 'hanging.')

But! Since it would be pretty useless of me to just tell you that and still get a point on my review count, I will mention that you've used the little dash things a bit too much. I didn't notice when reading line by line, but they stand out when looking at the poem as a whole.

Nice work, and thank you for posting

This Poem, amazing as is, is very wonderful, I love your use of the peaches throughout the poem, in both the literal and figurative way. It was a true look into a afternoon, which I'm guessing is your own memory, you created the scene and made it so real, i could even feel the peach juice slipping down my arm! But don't get me wrong, it good, but nothing is perfect! The poem seemed, choppy, not the word i want but it will do, your thoughts swayed through out and you seemed to have paid more attention into making the peaches the main thought, which made you seem obsessed with peaches, I don\t know if you are, but to me, it just seem too repetitive. Great work keep writing!