Elizabethan Kisses

Since summer’s wind has heated up our skin, 
there’s not a corner of our bed that’s cool,
no furtive meeting of soft lips or limbs. 
Help me with caresses; play by the rules.

Come winter, bring us closer with your touch,
let russet leaves begin the year’s decline!  
Us mortals cannot stand the heat so much,
kisses and lust melt in summer sunshine

and on a starry winter’s night, desires 
part no lovers, only fill them with fire.

Kim M. Russell, 26th August 2022

‘Francesca da Rimini’ by William Dyce

This Thursday, on ‘Kiss and Make Up Day’, Laura is our host. She says that kissing is a well-primed topic for poetry, and she has given us examples of poems by Michael Drayton, Neil Carpathio and Siegfried Sassoon, from which she has also taken prompt lines.

Laura asks us to choose one of her chosen lines and write a stanza (or stanzas) taking each word as the start of each successive line: we are taking the horizontal line and making it vertical, like an acrostic.

There are rules: we must keep the same sequence, although we may reverse it; our poems should preferably be at least two stanzas long; rhyme is optional but we should try to stick to the meter of our chosen lines; and, as an extra challenge, our chosen lines will determine stanzas of 6, 7, 8 or 10 lines, which give is the option of choosing a poetry form to match.

I chose the line: Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part

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25 thoughts on “Elizabethan Kisses”

  7. Reminds me of my days before air conditioning. The heat didn’t stop passion but we sure sweated a lot.
    I enjoyed my read. Thank you.
    ..

    Like

    Reply

  8. This is so engaging, and so damned true. Hot sweaty sheets be damned! Gimme action under a toasty comforter any chill night — all night! 😏 …loved this Kim! 👍🏼🙂✌🏼❤️

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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