Thursday 21 March 2013

MANFEAST


MANFEAST

My husband cooked supper for me last night

distilling the essence of the feast upon his skin.
 

By salt and smoke from frying pan and fire

he whet my appetite for subtly textured fleshy flavours

and the aromatic pleasures suggested by the headiness

of brainy wines uncorked and drunk in bed.

 
I tasted with my mouth upon his neck

a feast fulfilled and others promised.

Skin turmeric smooth and hairless

with chilli lips to burn my cheek.

Skin cinnamon brown and powder dry

dusted with a sugar tempting to my taste.

Skin like velvet, juicy, dark as prunes and raisins

to press and burst against my tongue.

A rough and crusty maleness

textured like good bread to chew

and for dessert, transparent, white, and delicate,

yet strong and slightly sour

so I must lick and swallow while the juices run

in anticipation of pleasures still to come.




My pale-skin English husband has made for me

a gourmet meal of many different men.

What a feast I now desire.

Copyright Ruth Hartley

Thursday 14 March 2013

CAULIFLOWER BRAIN


CAULIFLOWER BRAIN

My brain is like a cauliflower,

round, white and full of bumps.

It sprouts all kinds of growths

that cause you much offence.



There's aphids in its branchlets,

there's mildew it its stems.

Its yellow round its flowerets,

its smell is rank and strong.



Maybe I should sieve it

and serve it up as soup?

Bland and white and milky

to be seasoned as you need.



Maybe I should chuck it

on the compost heap

to rot with slugs and beetles

and feed your garden green.



The trouble is its my brain.

The only one I've got.

I like its plantlike strength,

it is myself – it's me!



My body's for your pleasure.

I dress myself to please.

I'm mostly at your service

but I'll never be a rose.



My brain is not a melon

and neither is it nuts.

It is my foodful thought

and what I am it grows.



So like it or lump it

I am neither food or trash.

I cannot change the season

I cannot change my head.



So here I am my lover,

A woman with a brain.

If I am not your taste dear,

you'll have to shop again.




Copyright Ruth Hartley

Tuesday 12 March 2013

BEAUTY TREATMENT


BEAUTY TREATMENT

Embalm my face said the failed suicide

smoothing on anti-wrinkle crème

and peering through stiff lids

at the red-eyed mirror.

I can't be serious about death,

but is life seriously for me?

Or is it just decay that won't give up

and life's the gravel path to old age?


Keep on weeping on the bathroom floor

at night, and smoothing

the creases out of one's neck

afterwards with moisturiser.

The end will come the same.

Sane, soon, but never soon or soothing enough.


Whisky and Valium bring sleep to crinkled brains,

but headaches and time warps in the skin

are not simply smoothed away.


Copyright Ruth Hartley 1974?


Saturday 2 March 2013

CROCODILE CHILD


CROCODILE CHILD

My child, my darling,

I saw your snout

grow sharp and hungry

when, head averted, you looked away from me.


I know you long to stop

feeding between my breasts

and hunt for other hearts.



I weep and blood runs with my tears.

You begged me to smooth your newly tender flesh

when you cast aside your skin,

but you nipped my wrists until they bled

when gentle wasn't kind enough.

My child, my darling, my crocodile.



Copyright Ruth Hartley 1990? Lusaka

PHOTO CHILDREN


PHOTO CHILDREN

I don't change.

Only the photos of my children

grow younger all the time.




My children are ageless too.

Only their recorded images

alter every year.




The photo children become thin or fat.

They wear braces or smiles,

spectacles or scowls.

Their hair is straight or curled,

long or short or dyed.




In their present flesh however,

They are constant.

My heart holds them so

as my eyes hold them, loved.




Copyright Ruth Hartley 1985? Lusaka