Best Coquetry Poems
A governess, a guardian of the young, so known and dear as to be called “Mother” and a noblewoman, just barely 12 by age, named Portia, sit talking as the sun sets the stage for a cool, cloudless night.
“Mother, who invented candlelight and the slow, delicate brush of lips?”
“Some rakish boy, pawning his experience for present pleasure, no doubt.”
“Say true, Mother. If you were a man, would you find this common body worthy of love?”
“You show no blemish child, and display a certain bony voluptuousness - I should think.”
The governess begins to comb and braid Portia’s hair for sleep.
“I saw Portincio this morning, in the courtyard.”
“The boy from Padua?”
“He’s a man Mother, and his cast portents a passion so sweet - it shakes my very frame.”
Mother chuckles, “Even hopeless birds sing in cages.”
“I am not hopeless!” Portia writhes angrily, like a snake about to strike but mother calms her.
“Shoo, shoo, now,” Mother purrs, brushing all the more gently, “I meant nothing of it.” After a moment, she continues, “Love is more than coquetry, little one, and it soon passes - like a parade, or a rash. For now, be happy, you are like the chaste stars - unreachable.”
BANISH ME TO THE BOOKSHOP
Chain me, so I can roam. Lock me away in this bower.
Banish me to the bookshop - i’ll enjoy this affair for hours!
First editions recline behind smudge-proof glass.
Lock-and-key lick of lips, but I can’t afford the brass
ring, the covet of unopened leather, so I’d dance
through each unshielded shelf, illuminated romance,
the touch like a lover’s touch, before the cover’s
turned down. Miniature to oversized, to discover -
here titles do matter - beautiful, powerful, charming.
Turning over the self-help discourse, disarming
of self-loathing, fear, and bitter soul. Then straight
to a perfumery of fairy tales, feel the weight
of each piece of fruit in the balance of my teeny palms.
Even in the claustrophobic stuffiness of this shop, I feel calm.
Like tickling braille, my fingers glide over each word,
riveted by the familiar scent, I close my eyes, bestirred
by mysteries, history, fantasy, and the coquetry,
the delicious pageantry, vivid hues and imagery of poetry.
Chain me, so I can roam. Lock me away in this bower.
Banish me to the bookshop - i’ll enjoy this affair for hours!
3/10/2021
Bookshop
Sponsor: Kai Michael Neumann
Claudelle, we must go away and start a new life.
This fruitless sharecropping has just cost me my wife.
Believe me, in every way, I loved your mother.
Frustrated and annoyed, she left me for another.
I know you were heartbroken about what happened to Linn.
You will love someone else after we begin again.
A bunch of other men want to hold you in their arms.
They fall peril to all of your feminine charms.
Your mother wanted you to marry a man fat and old.
To her, he seemed to be worth his weight in gold.
You knew deep inside he was not right for you.
Never did you have feelings for him that were true.
What sadness and grief love sometimes brings.
Your flirting and coquetry have made a mess of things.
Too many men are now competing for you.
We will leave these surroundings and start anew.
Based on the novel "Claudelle Inglish" by the late Erskine Caldwell and the 1961 film with the same title.
Sordid tales your eyebrows tell
Insinuations start to sing
Things we all know very well--
Say, did you miss my wedding ring?
You’d do you worst right here and now
A stealthy drink from your chalice
Want me to forget the wedding vows,
A mechanical bull with phallus?
Pursing your lips, parading your hips
All the while, I’m stifling quiet laughter
As if your fries and shake could eclipse
My seven course happily ever after!
Coworkers of giant ego
And undersized self-restraint
Have fallen prey to your libido
Flushed it all to taste your taint
But see, here’s the baseline reality
About my availability you’re mistaken
Unless my wife’s nonexistent bisexuality
You can magically awaken
Sure, maybe you can be a roast turkey slice
Between our marital sandwich bread
Or our fresh sushi covered in rice--
I shouldn’t joke; now you’re being misled…
But seriously, there’s nothing to discuss
What you’re implying just ain’t happening
Further coquetry is simply superfluous
Back to the regularly scheduled programming
And in closing, here’s what I’d do
If you’re looking for lifestyle enhancement
Instead of looking for married men to woo
Perhaps try some legit career advancement.
5/1/16
© Thomas W. Quigley
Kawaali or Kawali ( A form of Singing very popular in India and Pakistan )
SAMPLE OF A KAWAALI - ONE CAN HEAR ON U TUBE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNYwneo08xQ&p=12E509C60B2AAEC7&playnext=1&index=70
I Can Hear your Voice In My Heart Part 1/2 ( More details on my first Blog )
By a Male Singer or a Group of Singers
The singer is trying to please his lover by these beautiful words-
Kawaali or the singing starts from here:
01
'I can hear the voices of your appearance,
On the musical strings of my heart,
Only a touch would play its music,
Such is the fascination of your art'.
01
Reply By a Female Singer or a Group of Singers
The female singer is trying to reply her strange lover –
'You say that I have created music, on the strings of your heart,
But you throw your precious heart on every one, what to say of me,
And you repeat the same story, with every new face you come across,
Telling her with all the drama that only she has stolen your heart'.
02
Another plea By a Male Singer or a Group of Singers
'My heart has gone beyond the control of me,
Such is the graceful enchants of your youth,
Your movements create dazzling lightening,
You say this is just the beauty of your grace'.
02
Reply By a Female Singer or a Group of Singers
'How, when you are not in control of your heart, you say, it is only for me,
Feeling the lightening even in my movements, you sing a song in praise of me,
Your heart repeats the same story, feeling the grace and beauty in every face new,
These are only your sweet excuses, to mould a heart and to weave a story'.
03
Another plea By a Male Singer or a Group of Singers
'What you call the simplicity of your beauty,
The world is dying on it, to sacrifice anything.
It may be a beautiful Adaa* or grace for you,
But, its a thing of existence and life and death for me'.
03
By a Female Singer or a Group of Singers
'Sometimes you talk to die on my simplicity,
Sometimes you talk about the splendors of my beauty,
Proclaiming to die on my splendors and simplicity,
You wish to encroach, even in my dreams, O stranger'.
Ravindra
Kanpur India 9th October 2010 to be concluded in part II
*Adaa- a Urdu word means charm, grace, coquetry
* Husna*or Husn is a Urdu word means - beauty, elegance
If Your Love Belonged To Me
Are there no words that I can say,
No supplication I might pray?
My tortured heart would be set free.....
If your love belonged to me
I'd write poems that would make you swoon,
Sonnets I've rehearsed with the moon,
Your soul would cry in ecstasy.....
If your love belonged to me
When the sun leaves its golden throne,
I'd give you nights you've never known,
Like a tempest riding the sea.....
If your love belonged to me
When the moon's silver rays unfold,
Won't you give me your heart to hold?
I would cradle it tenderly.....
If your love belonged to me
Calm the fears of what I most dread
With words of love you've left unsaid,
You could end this uncertainty.....
If your love belonged to me
I'd travel to the end of time,
The steepest hills for you I'd climb,
If when I reached eternity.....
Your love belonged to me
Lora Colon
January 30, 2015
No Doubt (I think)
If angels should forget to pray,
If mute souls too should have their say,
If all the saints were lost at sea,
My true love’s heart would still be free.
Though vows were taken on the moon,
Though poetry might make me swoon,
Cicadas lose cacophony,
Each lover’s heart must still be free.
If sun should leave his crystal shell,
To flirt with angel Gabriel,
Or long for mermaid in the sea,
In Love I swear he would be free.
The planets glowing sweet at night,
Would not be seen without sun’s light,
Would not exist for you and me,
But in God’s plan they too are free.
And all those fears which make you cold,
When you’re without someone to hold,
Just players with no artistry,
They strut and fret, when hearts are free.
Let’s live where Love just seems to rhyme,
Adjust our schedules to God’s time,
Though some may mock our coquetry,
In love and life we are the free.
Brian Johnston
January 30, 2015
Poet's Notes:
Lora Colon's poem from her site on PoemHunter.com reprinted here with her permission. This Echo Poem is one of many that she and I have co-authored. We invite you all to check them all out now that they are finally published together as I had originally envisioned.
Is wedlock the true route to all conjugal bliss,
Nuptial excitement that starts with a kiss?
Or is it the halter after the altar,
That threatens to fetter and make life not better?
The fondling and cuddling and nights of long snuggling,
Changed overnight to ones, of alcohol guzzling.
A churlishness now in the partner is found,
From a beloved spouse to an obnoxious bloodhound.
She a fabulous cook,now sports a grumpy old look;
He's turned from intimacy to reading a book.
Love and coquetry has come to an ebb,
Finding affections in a new kind of web.
Monogamy turns to Polygamy slowly,
And perhaps doing things even more lowly?
From celibacy to intimacy and words we can't shout,
Now their connubial contact lies down and out.
They denounce and renounce and have their say,
To begin a life in a new kind of way.
Leaving it all to their legal belief,
Divorce now brings in,some kind of relief.
But where it will lead is anybodys guess,
For the ball is now rolling and lifes in a mess.
=== Princefreakasso
(Artist and Poet)
Part Two
From that moment onwards
Not when the fingerless muscles unclasped
the indented bones
But from that moment of knowing
from that very moment of sustenance
That day of human unbelief died unsung
And the depth of human grief buried long
bestirred a momentous song
It willed within me it were man
Some kindly soul no less
But in surfeit laid aside
The biscuits of distaste
It willed within me it were some organisation
Hurrying to the bed of despair
With the spare crumbs of conversion
The Holy Infant to succour
I willed then it were a friend
From want of excuse to teach
His fooling heart to bleat
Robbed his conscience of a treat
I willed and willed and never
In my thankless memory
Sat the image of my enemy
The fulcrum of my singular division
And when that day I delved into my depths
To find the words of irreproachable thanks
I saw you turn and stamp the light
Of my begging steps of penance
I turned, rebuffed
Should I have turned and gone
Away from the stony snarl of thanklessness
Away from all that I saw in that
One inseparable act
Away from my insurrection
From the illimitable doubt of humility
Far away from all the coquetry of cunning
No man was divided more
Between himself and self
Between life and cherished death
Astride on the unwelcome threshold of emptiness
Had I come out of dying
And yet the chained stick of fate
Was certain to unravel for me
No less, no more, the vicious sting of hate
And revived with urgency's gratitude
Twice over, reconditely, I was blessed
(Continued in Part Three)
I feel a nauseating revulsion to see scraps of prose
Bundled together in a neatened pile in the name of poetry,
And prizes being awarded for such otiose verbiage
And praises being heaped for such boring coquetry.
Poetry, my dear uninitiated impostors,
Is the language of the mute solemn gods.
You ought to choose your nifty title well
And thus commence your verse against the odds.
Avoid Soyinka’s worn-out style of incompetent blank verse,
Instead, give it the rhyme scheme of the unbeatable Yeats;
The superior verse that one Tom Mboya has never read,
The taste that a Kenyan editor will haul over the rooftop sheets.
Line after line beg the company of some higher Muse
So that you may pen the will of the gods and not your own;
Alliterate here and there though you must not make it your aim,
Then lunge into deeper thought with a deity-like melancholy tone.
And never seek fame for your sacred poetic tasks.
Leave the young to sing your lyrics centuries upon your death,
And remember a great weaver of rhymes long deceased
And pray and wish you immortal blissful health.
Lady Melanie with silver locks
Loved her bonbons, bagels, and graved lox.
Curmudgeon geezers viewed her a fox,
But she loved them less than chicken pox.
Melanie kept free as best she could.
She allowed no time for coquetry
Or Penelope-style stitchery.
But three bores persistence understood.
Trini, a jet jockey CEO
Lived his life allegro con brio.
As his lovely red Lamborghini,
His love raced too fast for Melanie.
Claude, a failed nebulous maunderer,
Gossip, post-modern philosopher
Believed everything in life was free,
Which made sweet Mellie his property.
Her third paramour drove flat-bed trucks.
When Bo misspoke, he would say “Aw shucks!”
And then, hands on, wordlessly switch gears.
She cast him off leaving him in tears.
Single she may wait until too late,
For a blissful bridal altar state.
Should her three bores e'er face a hot date
At least she shall stand at heaven’s gate.
She
exudes
coquetry
with such flirty
eyes
I drive an appetite that never tires;
A gaping heart engulfing all it seeks.
I own a will that constantly misfires;
A mind subverted by its own critiques.
I navigate the valleys and the peaks
Of life's complex terrain with clumsy cheer.
Not prone to many extroverted streaks
I am the man that likes to disappear.
The common coquetry that love requires
Imbues no flush of passion on my cheeks.
I need a discharge from the jolted wires
Of hunger, or a sparkle from mystique's.
Cosmetic valentines are dull antiques
Compared to appetence which has no peer.
I know the damage disappointment wreaks;
I am the man that likes to disappear.
In solitude the social self expires,
And something in that swathe of silence tweaks
My maddened matrix with judicious pliers
To harmonize the inner strife that shrieks.
As loneliness begins its pangs and creaks
Against the bars that keeps its cravings near,
Denial is the only guard that speaks.
I am the man that likes to disappear.
Sporadically a rare disclosure sneaks
Around this skilled, theatrical veneer.
The man I am appears in tiny peeks;
I am the man that likes to disappear.
She pauses, slender figure poised on
slenderer heels,
five inches of coquetry
ready to duet with
fifty feet of parquetry,
play a wicked staccato on
dinner-jacketed libidos.
Then she pushes open the double door
to find a newly carpeted floor.
The frosty is the heart
Is all the blood,
As if there is any!
The chilling flame of an evil,
Erupts and soaks.
The love is lost,
The lunge of an eroded part
Passes and squawks
A new angel, sent the God
Erotic and hot is she,
The coquetry of a light at height
So the immortal rust is now,
Full of lust, roars and yells,
The childish of a lover!
Grabs and tries, but nothing finds,
So he is a kind!
The reddish talons of a vulture
Now, chase and trace like a child
Glean and sing
The lovers’ honor of trust!
Flies and sighs,
Soars and falls
Like the birds of love,
But nothing he grasps,
Through the virtue of light
Then,
The wild and crazy he becomes
Sweats and swells,
Swings and sweeps,
As he really is,
The swan!
And the most common of its type
Is the three times he bowls
Howls and shouts:
“Is really the only merciful a Torturer?”
The ballerina with her coquetry
and prince with yawning tights his legs stump me.
Her twirl a-spin with graceful poise so long.
The twaddle of his movements poor ping-pong.
Unhandsome chin and rabbit ears so dull
But Alice charms before the queen of bull.
Her ruffles white, she curtsies with a kiss
the redness of a playing card’s abyss.
A timed waste for the prince - he scorns his watch.
His buffoonish pants made of trips and starch.
The queen, she’s not amused — “Off with their heads!”
“I shall have rabbit stew and corset seeds”
The ballerina begs with lashes long
The queen so flatly states her wish “S’long!”
Just then a storm reshuffles deck - a win.
The queen’s been tossed - the duo rides their Schwinn.
To find a finer ballet stage just in
The precise time for girls and rabbit-spin.
10/22/2018
Try Something New Poetry Contest
Sponsor - Nina Parmenter
With dodgy rhymes