I grew up fetishizing
the nubile antonyms of beauty
Helmut Newton’s exploitation
penis behind camera stroking
sloe-eyed girls with tired mouths
smoking yellow papered Gauloises
nipples grazing peach crinoline
men’s eyes like dry stones, seeking squeezing
I grew up thinking
contortion and bondage was
an art form not
excuse for masochism
as unsupervised child, I’d look through
graphic design manuals
that inexplicably had vulvas and
perky breasts
to illustrate Pantone
it was after all
the seventies
what did I know? Except
women on beaches without tops
giving me francs for not spilling their dirty martini’s
Mon sucre d’orge, sois gentil, va me chercher mes cigarettes
always gentleman watching
the rise and fall of female throats
nicotine mouths, stained vermillion
long tan legs swept beneath chiffon
men taking them to hotel rooms
children
smoking the leftovers whilst adults
fucked behind closed doors
wondering
when I grow up
how can I lie beneath
a girl whose sweat glistens
like marzipan
and if she should
sip on me I think I’d scream
all my silver bracelets falling off
like metal flowers on hotel carpet
after all
life is a film
where we tie ourselves up
with want and ritual
whew that last line
Nice French touch 😉 xx
How the world, by chance and design, educates our expectations of those wants and rituals, so much not as our elders would tell us they ought to be.
Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
TheFeatheredSleep – A complicated sort of bondage
You are so fucking amazing! <3
Agreed, that was incredible Candice ❤️
Candice your poetry is beautifully raw , unique and filled with truths. I’m often left wordless, unable to do justice to your stunning and remarkable writing.
Thank you my friend. Thank you.
OMG this is good to hear the day before I turn another year older! 😉 xo (thank you so much darling)
Ah – I love your responses to my poems always they are poems in their own right or philosophy and I get a lot from them. Thank you and for your support always – more appreciated than mere words can convey.
This made me laugh!
Always 🙂 Thank you my friend thank you very much
My great pleasure. You never fail to create such vivid and beautifully wrought poetry. I’m constantly in awe of you
My appreciation of your poems is difficult to put into words, but I give it my best shot. 🙂
For you to say that just makes me beam from ear to ear you know what a compliment from you has! I hope you are going to buy the anthology we put a lot into it and i think it turned out really well I loved working with the girls I want to do something else now – badly! Love to you my Texan brother
🙂 blush
I plan to!! I’m looking forward to it. Love to you as well my Texan sister.
Utterly powerful and richly spoken.
Awestruck.
Ah Feather we are both children of the seventies….the bad bold decadent louche decade… you raise serious concern and yet this is fun and sexy…or is it just me. You know I am a huge fan of Newton’s fetishes… as well as want and ritual…needy greedy baby with a touch of extravagance and a burning desire for mystery. Bravo mon cheri.
You are very welcome 🙂
A beautiful poem about mis-spent adolescence!
Superb writing
Jeez, what a stunningly raw write! Read it many times over before I could bring myself to comment!
This is wonderful. Memories from a childhood… did we instinctively know better and just have it ‘educated’ away? And only now do we realize within the memory how wrong it all was?
Splendidly visceral! Loved the marzipan skin…always amazed. ❤