Lust

Orion and The Moon

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A Villanelle

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Come catch me then, Orion, if you can

We’ve played this game before.  I play to win

I am the moon and you are just a man

…

The same old same old game since time began

We’ve started, so we’ll finish.  Let’s begin

Come catch me then, Orion, if you can

…

Some lesser constellations also ran

I left them all stood standing in a spin

I am the moon and you are just a man

…

A man of stars, a huntsman, fiercer than

The lot of them, with finer light within

Come catch me then, Orion, if you can

…

Come chase me cross the spaces in the span

Before the night grows old and darkness thin

I am the moon and you are just a man

…

All stars must fall according to the plan

Before the morning I will have you sin

Come catch me then, Orion, if you can

I am the moon and you are just a man

*

© Gail Foster 30th January 2018

 

Burning Angels; Winter Solstice, 2017

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for the Druids of Avebury, and my muse

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So many kings of old have come to me

At midnight, in the winter, at the still

In crowns of holly, clothed with mystery

Come riding proudly down from yonder hill

With torches flaming, salamander eyes

Ablaze with ancient summers full of lust

And I have had them all within my thighs

And I have turned them all to ice and dust

Except for he who keeps my fires alight

When darkness falls too deep to understand

Who lies with me all winter, till the night

Recedes, and spring returns to seed the land

With him I make, beneath the mistletoe

The burning shapes of angels in the snow

*

© Gail Foster 16th December 2017

Desist; a ghazal

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*

Shatter glass, spit out your bay, desist

Lustful dogs who bark and bay, desist

…

Cold as silver shadows list on stone

Sun’s last ray and heat of day desist

…

Oracles insist, and dead men know

Luck and fickle lovers may desist

…

Words upon the wind; I told you this

Take your magic, walk away, desist

…

Time to reap the harvest you have sown

Silence, let your mournful lay desist

…

Scry no more, lest death thy mirror kiss

Havoc, all the angels say, desist

…

Madness, this, to love by will alone

Yield the ghost, Felicia; pray desist!

*

© Gail Foster 2016

 

The Trickiest Mistress

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Desire is the trickiest mistress

A strange unpredictable beast

Tickled by fancy and circumstance

Afflicted by famine and feast

A delicate matter to master

An unruly monster to tame

Lightening flash turning wood in to ash

Fickle wind flirting with flame

The shock of a shot in the darkness

Rending the fabric of reason

Twist of the moon in the bloodstream to

The flow of the earth and the season

A flicker of feathers, a furnace

A shaft through a crack in the gloom

A kingfisher flash, and a cymbal clash

Stunning a moth to its doom

The lustre of dew on the morning

The rushing of rain from the heights

Soft light of the haze of a lazy day

The scream of a curse in the night

Dark tryst, with the forces of fury

Sharp wound to the breast of the brave

Tears streaming forth from the altar

In penitence down to the grave

A hypnotist, haunting the astral

A soul sold for pennies to Death

Dark lies from the lips of a lover

Spake on a sorcerer’s breath

A trickster who picks the wrong moment

A joker who laughs at his joke

The strike of a flint over kindle and lint

Drawing flame from a nuance of smoke

A trigger, a shiver, a whip crack

As swift as a swallow in flight

A shimmering dust of desire and lust

On a mirror upturned to the light

How it craves for its own consummation

And seeks its own purpose to feed

A bottomless well that can never be full

A cup all half empty of mead

‘Tis a mare that the Gods cannot master

As the wildness of wind in a tree

A force as elusive to harness

As the unbridled waves of the sea

…

Desire is the triskiest mistress

The riskiest creature to catch

For there in her eyes and the cleft of her thighs

May morality meet with its match

*

© Gail Foster 2016