Poems from Living In Fire (To Be Released 6/2006)
By Jade Blackmore
Copyright 2005,2006

This House

This house Is bare,
Stripped of
The spirit that made it shine.
Patronizing ex-bimbos
With their Manolo Blahniks and Chanel handbags
survey the blank slate.
Bantering with subsequent owners to be
On their cell phones.
They step past the marble tub Ignorant of its true history.
You and I made love there,
For the first time
Giddy but not drunk on Valentine's Eve.
Cool lavender and vanilla candles circled us.
Like charming truncheons.
The tiki light by the pool
Put us on display
For only the stars to see.
The little indiscretions of wealth.
Water washed over you
As you leaned your head back.
Your every move,
Every twitch,
Just as intriguing
As the sordid fucking
You initiated later.
Solitary life suits you.
What transpired in this house
Is one of the few exceptions.
A pink paneled gem
Hidden from plain view,
The hill's undiscovered secret.
This house is destined to stay that way.
Here by the fireplace, I made you my slave.
You watched with stoic blue eyes
Secretly relishing every snap of the clasp against your wrist,
Every slap of the paddle against your ass.
"Sex is so silly," you said.
"Then you're the biggest goof of all," I laughed.
You said nothing
Moans buried deep in your body
Are you repressing them
On purpose
To turn them into poems later?
Your face, so perfect in daylight,
Thrives in the dark.
Night embellishes its quirks and mysteries,
The lines on your forehead
Camouflaged by soft skin.
You live a contradiction in every way.
Delight in every strike of the whip
Every slip of my lips on your flesh
Your cock
So willing to be pleasured,
to respond to the evil of my choosing.
The sheets doused with sweat.
You breath heavy in the morning
(Do I wear you out?)
a drip down the tip of your nose
onto your chest.
I lick it off.
But I washed the sheets
and made the bed.
Before the housekeeper arrived.
We made a deal; no one is to know.
And when our lust ended
We vowed to never see this house again.
Freeze it in mid-trance,
The four-poster bed
is under lock and key
in some storage space in West L.A.,
A museum piece.
No other man may touch it,
and it was not made
For my body alone.
There will be no encore
To the nights you indulged in
Your favorite jelly candy (your words)
your tongue tirelessly doing the work of a thousand devils,
Doing it so well I scratched your back
Branding you with my fingernails.
The wound will heal but
The mark will stay forever.
A ghost walks In this barren house
A silly ghost
Of sex And words,
Measured and unspoken.

A Step Up

"If you're afraid
You don't have to join us
You can watch," He said.
Flicker of limbs and lips
From man to man.
The way he touches
His lover is Regal and enticing.
It pays no heed
To rumor or caste.
Makes me forget
Everything I was raised to believe
I'm not afraid anymore.

Magazine Street, New Orleans, 1994

The full moon
Hovered and cursed
By the overpass.
A warm rain urged sin
To come home.
Even then,
The specter of Decay Beckoned.
A portly man stood by the jukebox
At the Crescent City Lounge.
He stole his wife's coat
To give it to his mistress.
Susan was an alcoholic
But she loved her kids.
She flirted with the owner
Hoping For some kind of miracle.
She wanted her kids to live In a house again.
Now the man by the pool table,
He told the waterlogged blonde
She could do coke with him later.
It's the best she could do for the night.
She'd be back
For the bartender.
The rich girl was slumming.
She had a new boy toy to take home.
He made her feel she had a reason to live.
Resigned to its fate,
The city Invited blood
And aimless seduction.
It welcomed the unwanted, the unloved
And gave them Stories to tell.
The cheerless glassworks,
Locked and abandoned.
Goth gypsies wandered the streets unaware
Of trauma or God's wrath.
Outlaws Awakened from the dream
Just in time.
They will not share the city's fate.

When You Hold A Cloth To The Light

When you hold a cloth to the light
You see the finely honed threads,
the fading colors,
the dusty trail of a poet,
a genius,
a saint and a seducer,
Beyond lust and beyond reproach.
Wouldn't it be original if your words
Translated crisp and clear
You're not like the others
But you deceive like they do
You're better at it.
Seamless,
Dangerously sharp
And aloof.
A worthy adversary
Though no one is qualified to challenge.
The usual methods won't work here.
So I tune into your mind,
The words on paper,
The game beneath the gloss.
In the end
That is all we have.
Beauty dims and disappears.
Flesh is the conduit,
Not the source.
Knowledge remains.
Attraction begins and ends
Between the ears.

Burn

He Burns
Me on the inside,
Makes
Nerves and bones and skin Collide with
Desire,
Rattle and blaze without warning.
He makes
Me burn
Because he exists
And I know that he does.
When he touches my body
Can I survive the caress?
Lesser powers I have destroyed
Blatantly
Or coyly,
As is a woman’s prerogative.
But he is not
Like them.
He is intolerant,
Gruff
And detached,
As often as he is amiably boastful.
When I see him.
I see
Something different.
With the talent
To back it up.
Talks the Talk.
He is excused
From the petty
Pleasantries
In which others
Indulge.
He singes
My heart,
Rescuing me
From the underworld.
(Persephone unbound.)
For a decade
I languished
In the past.
Then I saw him and
I burned.
I cannot imagine
What he wants
Or needs.
He burns me
With a look.
Walks the walk.
His body
Makes me a goddess again.