Same Title Challenge

[Tzara]

1.

Spilled Erotic Measure

It's the odd leavings, here and there,
the things you are self-conscious of, like
how your teeth are not quite straight

or how you're slightly pigeon-toed.
It's how your nails so often split
that one is always trimmed too short.

The urge that makes you wring your hands
when you are nervous—it's that kind of thing.
Or that you don't drink coffee, only Coke.

These silly things, and many more,
they're what surround me everyday. These are the things
your life has spilled. I treasure them, erotically.



2.

spilled / erotic / measure

I never saw
much honor in it. It was just blood,
spilled.

Not intentionally, of course,
never intentionally.
But only erotic

if war somehow gets you off.
And if it does,
well. I then have your measure.



3.

Spilled

You were always clumsy, love.
Knocked over milk or lost the mail.
Stained sheets or, often, tablecloths.
You don't mean to. How you are.​

Erotic

But I know you're never cheap, so
those torn fishnets you have on—
another accident, perhaps?
Well, it's OK. I understand.​

Measure

Come over here. I'll comfort you.
That spill of thigh is quite a treat.
It seems, though, something else is wrong.
O, God. You've lost your bra again?​

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

i'll come back later today to offer some thoughts about the great pieces already here, but i'm short of thinking time right now. well, here goes (my heart's beating so fast with nerves, lol)



spilled erotic measure


can i pleasure
others
the reader....
....with spilled erotic measure?

Oh wow! This uses language so well, alliteration and play - I like the introduction of tea then the use of "blend". A lot of thinking behind this.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Well, here's my cliché-fest. Read n weep.



Spilled Erotic Measure

Just add water,
stir gently,....

....or controlled flame
can render.

If there are cliches you use them well. I'll find myself oddly aroused when the milk boils over next time. I read 'n enjoyed.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

She’’ll dip you in her bottle of sin,.....
....sip slowly...

I agree with Sophie, some lovely lines in this compact poem that packs several punches in its brevity.

 

[CeriseNoire]

Les double entendres merveilleux! (was an R left out of "stokes?) Great stuff!


P.S. Not really but thanks for your kind words

Oh, thank you for pointing out the missing R. I'm glad you liked it.

Will be back to comment on all these poems when my head is clearer.

 

[Liar]

Tzara's #3.

Cleva. And very nice.

 

[manipulatrix]

.....

 

[sophieloves]

Tristesse? i tried to pm you but you've not got that allowed so i just want to say thankyou here this is my very first challenge. ty

 

[manipulatrix]

.....

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Golly, everyone's being so clever and fabulous. I knew all this wailing and gnashing of teeth was just for show. You people are talented, so just quit that.


Here's number 1:

Spilled Erotic Measure

Eve's apple dripped this juice of wisdom
and taking the snake's taste into her mouth
she savored the salt knowledge
of God, of Good. Now this plum brings
the new tree, rising, eternal.
Idunn's apples granted beauty
and tasted like this hot pearl potion
that now slips from my chin
making me young.

Bhisma speaks
of how we hang by a single breaking branch
between death and death
where fierce bees have built a hive:
despite unquestionable end, we reach
to taste the honey. It tastes
like what I catch from the lively tip of you
and like mankind I lick my fingers
and live for this one moment.

When gods
ally with demons to work the churn of the world
and make the elixir of life, the drops
that fall to earth amidst their inevitable war
land here, on my tongue. And in the pool
where the salmon of wisdom swims,
the roe, floating, are this same
salty cure.

Gwydion
set to stir the cauldron of Cerridwen
tasted three drops on his scalded finger
and became the god of bards. The draught
of Lethe was white hot life, to melt and forge the soul
and drinking you, I forget sorrow,
become wise, and learn to sing.

In warrior's Valhalla
Freyja pours the mead with her own hand
and spills the honey wine
of your sweet flesh
as my reward.
In Elysium, the ambrosia
bears the mind away and hits the heart
like lava from the core. It tastes
as you do now.
The wine which overflows the Grail
is no more
nor less
than this.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Here's number 2. Not overjoyed with it, but hey, they can't all be Maseratis.

Spilled Erotic Measure

Pints, he says, it must have been, and
now it cools and tickles
over my lips and chin. I draw
one stretched lace of juice
to smooth my nipple

how it bewilders him that I do this
so gleefully, drawing back at the last
surge to catch the dragon's juice
like gleeful fresh water on my face
or bright
and hot across my neck
or filling the hollow
of my collarbone. I draw

circles in pearl
Maori tattoos on my breasts
and cheeks, erasing
the lines from my forehead
with this elixir.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

My third I submit in two forms. The free verse form, and especially for the purposes of this contest, the formal version.



Spilled Erotic Measure

A hand's breadth measures you,
all complicated by its silky movement
and its meter,
makes your inches
into elongated finger widths
that slip you to the sweet
and salty edge of hunger,
so much deeper than you thought
you'd ever know to enter.

All the songs she sings for you
are leaping from her throat like birds,
her tune and every downbeat of your rhythm
making music in this common time.
And playing freely on that staff,
your counterpoint is newly harmonized
by descant ecstasy.

From drops to fountains spilled
in liquid measure
Mine be your seed, and that seed's loss,
your treasure.

****


Spilled Erotic Measure
(or, erotica in Spilled Measure)

A hand's breadth measures you, all complicat-
ed by its silky movement and its met-
er, makes your inches into elongat-
ed finger widths that slip you to the sweet

and salty edge of hunger, so much deep-
er than you thought you'd ever know to en-
ter. All the songs she sings for you are leap-
ing from her throat like birds, her tune and ev-

ery downbeat of your rhythm making mu-
sic in this common time. And playing free-
ly on that staff, your counterpoint is new-
ly harmonized by descant ecstasy.

From drops to fountains spilled in liquid measure
Mine be your seed, and that seed's loss, your treasure.


(last line stolen from Wm. Shakespeare and badly vandalized)

 

[The_Fool]

spilled erotic measure


Measured process left for times when sequence matters
and dalliance sparks from elaborate titillation.

Buttons become a bane
as threads rip.
Curses become prophesies,
vulgar words exchanged between kisses.

Torn cloth is quick foreplay
when the need is now.
(Now!)
Don’t stop to think about it.

Penetrating wit is cast aside for penetration.
Kind words are left behind,
lips and tongue serve other purposes,
final result counts for all.

Need becomes a craving,
crawling across skin
slick with sweat
and scattered goosebumps.

Modesty was left at the open door
as passion spills into the hallway,
with screams and cries
setting the mood

for this time.
And time has no place
In the here,
in the now. All we have is now.

There is no moderation.
Just fuck me.

 

[MungoParkIII]

a tanka of sorts

spilled erotic measure

--------- I feel her
--- cupped hands around me
------ waiting for
-- the spilled erotic
---- measure --- of her touch


MP3

 

[wildsweetone]

Spilled Erotic Measure

It is not in the turn of a wrist,
nor in the slow unbuttoning of a white shirt.
Instead it spills from uncounted shadows
stealing behind rusty-hinged doors.

It burns after the embers have smoked,
sears the ashen skin
as if a tattoo were inked
with a feather that lack of flight now anchors
to the floor.

It seeps between the boards,
escapes beyond the bloodied walls
and soothes the souls of the dead
until the slow move of shade
embraces the naked bow of flesh.

 

[tungtied2u]

Spilled Erotic measue

A day
filled with music, food and women
consuming sounds, sustenance and sights
yet the hunger persists, emptiness
evades fulfillment, notes not reached
craving not sated
hopes half realized

the bus ride home is admission
the walk staggered and dark
where is the welcome ?,
where was the whisper, insinuating
how vibrations churned cream
into anticipation for afterwards

Certainly, skirts twitched
hips swung to bass beats
primordial synapses switched to on
hard
not to respond, feel an absence
the essential ingredient

once present, such bounty
to be discarded, a full heart
memories
ground into flesh and bone
with such urgent intent

how callous to cast off wholeness
for an eternal shell, empty
to watch the sand of time wash away
knowing the undulating seas have claimed
what I so thoughtlessly cast aside

 

[tungtied2u]

Spilled erotic measure (2)

I am in love with lines
short and long, which curve
in and out with implication
prick my senses into anticipation

I am a man without a woman
except in imagination, I languish
knowing no touch, I wait
my sense of expectation
stirred by the spoon of exhortation

of phrases and phonetics,
simple letters skillfully manipulated
to stir life into loins believed bankrupt
from to many overdrafts

Just one more deposit,
enough to share, I beg
the opportunity to give again
instill the breath of life that comes
with spilled erotic measure

 

[drown]

a measure now,
she wept.

stifled silence.

three weeks and time,
she wept:

for herself
and the fourty three years
of
self-sealed confidence;
betrayed
by gut and taste;
long yearning...

betrayed by open mouth kisses
and strange newness...
delutional mingled-musks
and
salt-sweetnesses on the tongue;

now,

all but spectral...

she wept.

the phone would not ring;
as surely
as
the drawn bath would grow cold;

lost
in candle flicker'd tears
of

awakening.​

 

[drown]

the dekes fuck a goat,
the fijis, a pig
and
the lambda's, a whore named delores...

to measure a man,
a boy of a man,
in odd-wrought rites
that a boy
not a man
will endure.

dumbed giggles and smiles,
braced
by jack
and george...
old crow
and warm beer.

virility
so measured
by spilt seed
and
a well-watched second hand;
clapping and hoots...
a wretch
and
a new handshake.

you're a man, my brother.

erotic....

the act itself, to the boy

and strangely,
quite differently
in the
re-inklings of the man...

in ways

neither
could quite share.





(tristesse... this one's our award winner)

 

[Sara Crewe]

When we were young we believed
the world could be caught in a bottle
as long as we poked air holes in the lid.
We moved the rainbow from the sky
onto canvass and traded nightlights for fireflies.
But there was that standing back moment
when you looked at your painting
or the moving lights in the jar and realized
they had become less in your attempt to measure
and contain them. With age the lessons learned in mason jars
become clearer as our treasures are less defined
and not found in the woods but stuck inside our heads,
our hands and the sighs of our skin. We see that a prison
is still a prison even if the walls are clear or bone-deep.
We need the tipping point when they spill free
and love and sex stop being somebody else’s pleasure
and everything becomes erotic. Tonight
it was your tongue finding the marshmallow
on your lip and the way you said my name against my ear.
Tomorrow it could be anything.

 

[Liar]

Another one. Kind of inspired by Sara's excellent piece above.




Spilled Erotic Measure

It's when daylight catch us clinging
to last night and not letting go,

when just one blink fills the air
and hours in between rush by
like the teenagers we imagine
we still are, fingertips
on forearm fuzz, whispers under sheets,
as if dodging parents' radar ears,
as if kisses are moon landings
and the gentlest nudge cause
our spines to tremble.

It's when blue jeans and sweater,
a salt tangled mess of hair
and an autumn chill blushing nose
in the doorway can make me grip
the table's edge to keep hands still.

It's when your mouth talks of little things,
while your hands shape worlds
that I can't contain the measure
and curl around your presence,

swallow your scent and carry
your bemused giggle upstairs,

for daylight to catch us tomorrow,
clinging, and not letting go.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Oh you brilliant bastards. I just finally spent about an hour reading through all the submissions so far and every single one of these pieces gave me some moment where I clapped my hands, or said hell yeah, or laughed, or said you go grrrl, or squealed in delight, or felt little velvet arrows through my head (or some other bit of me...)

Like these:

from Tristesse:
the deity who bid
the naughty bits be hid
by leaves and yet
on the other hand he
set the serpent free

From Cerise Noire:
without fail,
you spill out of tempo

from Sara:
Tonight
it was your tongue finding the marshmallow
on your lip and the way you said my name against my ear.
Tomorrow it could be anything.

From Liar:
as if kisses are moon landings
and the gentlest nudge cause
our spines to tremble.

and Tath's 3rd piece made me fan mah brow. And Sophie's tea and WSO in general are both very yummy. And manipulatrix: that first piece? FUCK yeah.

There's more to be said but after reading all that I have the vapors and have to go lay on the swan-shaped fainting couch for a while. That was an excellent investment. Never know when you're going to need one of those.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

It's a good thing for me that I posted first or I'd never have exposed my three efforts but slunk away and prepared for the inevitable nana. The works grown out of this challenge are so varied in subject and skillfully written I can't single any out.

All I can say is kudos to all and thank you to The Fool (b*st*rd) for thinking it up.

One thing struck me as I read through the thread - the number of times buttons are mentioned.

 

[manipulatrix]

.....

 

[drown]

...

I love the variety, the creativity spilled (for erotic measure? ugh... stop already) out of this! Thanks everyone for sharing.

...​

​

no better
entry
thus far​

spilled erotic measure