Symbolic Scribbles Series #026
In Series #025 Jeremy Marks presents an unnamed figure of desire rising from water while in this series new writer "pie" shifts the perspective to the formless water that both contains & outlasts
The Lady —
Before I leave, I watch
The Lady, in her sultry
laps, part the waters.
She doesn’t make breast
strokes for me. The Lady
loves her body, which she
can resurrect from the tendrils
of past seasons, or the rot
of dangling drupes: They bend
great branches and The Lady
stands nude on the tongue
of a clam.
Is it wrong that when I see her
I forget I am a husband,
father, working to unblock
freshets of life; how I no longer
stand at midsummer with its
heedless -callous- verdure
The adventures of my youth
prepared me to court her,
my roots drawn over the face
of the cliff
I took floodwater into
my mouth and each night
doused my body to cool
the ardor, prepare for
the ice of age
But not desire’s death.
©2025 Jeremy Marks
Produced by Saccharum (Sylvia 🌞 Kalina & Jozef Cain)
[The Reply]
Water We —
Like your gaze, I adapt
foresee every movement,
shape myself to her will as well.
Holding the current she learned to love,
within the depth of collecting stories,
so do my waves hold your secret of thirst
and through it her loss of consistency,
desolving like a sugar lump, thrown into me.
Without molar mass,
you left to be venus' mortal
an invitation to you
to find whats left of yours
to be water.
Let her rinse and pour us out through the stream,
time to condensate, evaporate, to simmer
not to foam or dilute her.
teach with all the bodies held captive,
all the worlds beneath the naked.
the strokes she made within my formless being,
painted to affect the surface levels,
will then be yours as well.
©2025
Produced by Saccharum (Sylvia 🌞 Kalina & Jozef Cain)
The beauty of this publication has really been unfolding, changing and shaping as we see where the symbolic translations of one takes the mind of another.
To join the letter chain send a message to:
S y l v i A 🌞 K a l i n A < or > Jozef Cain
Guidelines: Poems should be at least 50 words and use rich symbolism and metaphor.
Remember the joy of receiving a handwritten note or letter? 'Symbolic Scribbles Series' rekindles that magic, creating a space for poetic symbolic 'scribbles' where meaning hides in metaphors and symbols, waiting to be discovered. Each poem builds upon the last, like a literary game of telephone, where interpretations can twist and turn in unexpected ways.
New series will be released every Thursday, so subscribe to stay connected! We look forward to building a publication that transcends distance and bridges it with fun and inspiring poetic scribbles.
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thank you so much to BOTH of you -- this is definitely such an incredible shift in narrative. these beautiful poems are a conversation --a paradox-- about a man wrestling with deep-seated longing that no amount of time or age can extinguish -- THEN is masterfully redirected and shifted in perspective by turning a moment of human desire towards a conversation about a timelessness and a natural elemental force--the Lady representing nothing more than a "thirst," both of which are held and carried by the water. Passion cannot stand a chance next to the enduring, and all-encompassing power of...the water.
I love the direction this has gone, and both poems are rooted in rich imagery. Well done!