Two-for-two Tuesday Tango with a Tempest

PAD challenge say 8: Two-for-two Tues.Write a violence poem. Write a peace poem

When you touch me you do not come in peace

Trembling I sense your demands; raging fire

Of need, expectation, passion; you release

The will of your want to my nervous desire

You do not care for my well-designed phrase

You are a hunter for virgin surprise

Scorning the whisper of weathered clichés

Spitting at fraudulent, fainthearted guise

‘Come to me. Leave me. Oh no, stay I pray,

I cannot bear to live without the storm

Of you ever splayed in relentless blue-gray

Tearing the cloth from my well-guarded form’

Tug-of-war tango, you teach me to dance

Willing the courage of word to my lips

Stripping the raiment of pride and pretense

From me with deft, impatient fingertips

Eager and fearful, I follow your lead

Blushing, yet begging we battle the air

Raw, potent tempest-tide rushes, recedes

Until we lie on noon's banks, naked, bare

Panting; the duel of courage and dread

Spent as a summer-storm; then only then

Tender and gentle you cradle my head

Placing in my bleeding fingers…a pen

© Janet Martin