The Beach

The beach roses call me,
Soft-footed, across the twilit dunes.
Is it night or morning?
My eyes now fail to see.

I pad across the stained sands,
Violet-hued,
Livid, like a blooming bruise,
And luxuriate in the sensation
Of time running out around me.
The perfumed petals,
Smelling of salt and of midnight rain,
Crawl crab-like down the humpbacked hills,
Inevitably drawn towards the
all-devouring sea.
Swollen and firm,
The pregnant rose hips
Flash scarlet against the paler shades
Of sea and sky.

The wayward winds slide,
Feather-edged, over my pallid skin
And wild hair, intimate and full of longing. 
In salt-tongued exhalations,
They whisper secrets from across the waves
And call to me in seductive sighs,
Briny and ever-sweet.

Weaving a tangled web
Across the sprawling dunes, 
I hear it: 
The siren song,
Which wraps itself around my senses
And holds me prisoner to the waters' summons. 
Drawing me forth into its wake,
The mirrored sea reflects the sky
But not myself,
For there is no longer separation. 

The seaweed twines around my ankles,
Like the ropey hair
Of salt-choked lovers,
Beckoning downward,
Pulling,
Welcoming me into the cold embrace
Of the silent, brooding sea. 

Romancing the Grave

Butterfly kisses that leave a trail
Of moth-dust on my veined lids, blue.
Surely, like a moth to flame,
My eyes are drawn at last to you. 





 ~ Polished and sparkling as a well written piece should be completed and shown. The sentence: Of moth-dust on my veined lids, blue" is an example of beauty and craftmanship, and reminds us of perhaps Emily Dickinson meets Sylvia Plath. Thank you Molly for your Entry. Congratulations.   ~   Velvet

 ~ I agree with Lady Velvet's comment. The entire credo of The Velvet Goat is to encourage and promote the growth of skill and craftsmanship in the Poetic Arts. Virtually anyone can throw a few lines of prose down on a page, fiddle with the line breaks and layout, and call it Contemporary Free Verse... Fewer can sit down and compose a poem like Beethoven composed a Sonata, or Mozart an Opera... But Molly Pinto Madigan can...
Of all the entries to The Contest, Molly's piece, for all it's brevity,  displays the greatest skill, the careful word choice and attention to rhythm and flow that only a True Poet can bring to his or her work. It was a tough choice for us, whittling through all the entries until we came down to just two, but I, for one, had a soft spot for this piece from the first time I read it... Congratulations Molly, Your Prize was well won Milady.   


P.S. Whilst I'm wittering on here, I want to say a big thank You to all those who took the time to enter The Contest. We had a wide variety of styles, lengths and subject submitted to us, and it wasn't an easy task to put any of the poems aside, but at the end of the day there can be only one winner..... 

Poets, I salute Thee,
May Thy pens ne'er lack for ink,
May Thy Muse ne'er abandon Thee ,
May Thy passions ne'er burn dim,
and may Thee keep writing till the heavens dim...
~   Goat 

Roses are red
Velvet is black
Poetry is sweet
Literature is back