Mari Ness - More erotic musings about a fedora hat:

For leylinewalker, benpeek, and coldecho:



The compliment:

The seduction of a fedora hat:

The couplet:

A trembling, a beating fedora hat:
What is, pray tell, more erotic than that?

The triplet:

You think of bodies and lovers entwined?
Or bondage, or bracelets – a rosy behind?
No: let hats – a fedora! – fill your mind.

The quatrain:

It can work as a mask,
or a frame for the face
and allow you to bask
in a lover’s embrace.

The paradine:

A fedora need not be on your head –
find another intriguing place instead.
Do not merely rest at the foot of your bed:
Find another intriguing place instead.
A fedora need not be on your head.

The triat:

Imagine it there, between your thighs –
with nothing else, not even a hand
To help you distract a lover’s eyes.

Your lover will be at your command
(That is easy enough to surmise.)
Now, slowly finger the firm hatband.

The hexadine:

Do not make your actions too covert.
Simply allow
Your lust to show somewhere, somehow.
Your lover may tremble. Remain alert.

And if you are still wearing your shirt --
Remove it now.
Do not make your actions too covert.

The triolet:

The hat should tremble between your thighs
as your fingers trace a silent dance.
Allow the hat to fall, then rise.
The hat should tremble between your thighs.
But do not rush this vital advance:
Focus on your lover's sighs.
The hat should tremble between your thighs
as your fingers trace a silent dance.

The novet:

Slowly sit up, and watch your lover
Regard the sites where the hat has clung.
Keep the hat as a fragile cover –
At least for now. It’s a time for tongue –

Whisper it: love. Want. This.

And your lover's lips, and fragile words –
Meaningless, perhaps, beyond this night:
as restless as the flight of seabirds
or the twice-told tales of a night-bound sprite.

The decalet:

Isn't that why you chose to wear this hat?
Because you could not trust more words, more lies?
But wearing this is a lie, not a kiss
(Even as you open your thighs, you must
remember that, whatever may ensue.)

Love has been combat, a foe to subdue,
a stolen prize allowed slowly to rust,
a brief bite of bliss that you can dismiss,
a pile of dust, a shadowed disguise.
Or at least for you. Now, remove the hat.

The baroline:

But do not toss the hat aside.
Not yet. Like a maddened satyr
who, drunk, tiptoes lightly beside
a fallen fairy, and trips upon
her outstretched foot, crying out
and blinking, finds the fairy gone,
you strike at love, lacking all doubt,
shattering that heady icon.
Oh, trust not your heart, that traitor,
that torturous, deceptive guide
Keep the hat, for now and later.

The pantoum

Imprison your lover's eager gaze,
while twisting the fedora on your head.
Gracefully enter love's twisted pathways:
this fragile moment should not be sped.

While twisting the fedora on your head,
surrender to the sultry touch of suede.
This fragile moment should not be sped:
the rhythms of war should still be obeyed.

Surrender to the sultry touch of suede.
Imprison your lover's eager gaze.
The rhythms of war should still be obeyed.
Gracefully enter love's twisted pathways.

The Welsh chain:

Start this next round with a graceful stroke:
stoking your lover’s trembling skin,
pinning arms and legs down to the bed,
readying your lover for this assault.
Halt but once – to bring the hat
that tool of seduction, that concealing weapon,
pinning it onto your lover’s head,
spreading your fingers through your own hair
bare, for now, of hat and deceit.
Meet your lover's lips, and raise your body up,
cupping your legs together in a graceful chain,
draining your soul like a hushed amen,
penetrating, perhaps, your lover's heart.

Sonnet

Your thoughts on love could be reduced to this:
Love is but a shadowed path, or a war,
or a pain-wracked moment of doubtful bliss,
a fleeting halt on a cold fragile shore.
Yet why is love so difficult for you?
This terrorizing rush of awesome heat,
this hot loss of breath, this cold wish to pursue –
Now is no time for you to be discreet.
Tell me now – or if not me, tell yourself
Why love has been something that you dismiss,
while searching for answers in a bookshelf
yet taking conscious delight in a kiss.
Still unwilling to speak? Then reclaim the hat.
If nothing else, you will always have that.



Now, to get back to playing with various sonnet forms...and, oh yes, the writing work that actually pays...