Kissing season
 

REVISION

The gorse is out.
It’s kissing season.
The smell of coconut
butters the breeze,

sending it reeling
to our nostrils
on our evening walks.

The usual lanes
grow sultry
and mysterious,
all Gauguin-like,

and when we come down
to the ford again,
the familiar bridge,

the coconut corridor
is left behind,
but kissing season
goes on and on.

ORIGINAL

The gorse is out.
It’s kissing season.
The smell of coconut
butters the breeze,

sending it reeling
to our nostrils
on our evening walks,

so that we seem
to be wandering
through tropical climes.

The usual lanes
grow sultry
and mysterious,
all Gauguin-like,

and when we come down
to the ford again,
the familiar bridge,
the usual roads.

the coconut corridor
is left behind,
but kissing season
goes on and on.

I like it, but might it be better without S2? (I'd omit the comma that ends S1 if you do decide to omit S2).

David, I love the smell of gorse. The only stanza I think seems expendable is S3, because "tropical climes" feels so general. Could you pick a specific place instead, or make it come alive with detail? The power of scent over our emotions is so often underestimated. I like the way you go right from a smell into kissing. Perhaps "The gorse is in bloom [or blooming]" would be more immediately understandable than "The gorse is out." Did you intend a full stop at the end of S5?

Susan

Roger, Susan, thanks for your comments.

Roger, sorry, I had to lose either S2 (your suggestion) or S3 (Susan's), and I've gone with Susan's - purely because I like S2 better. I'm glad you like it anyway.

Susan, you've persuaded me about S3, as you can see from the revision. I think "The gorse is out" is how I would say it. I like, and am thinking about, your idea of bringing a specific place into it.

Cheers both

David

The snowdrops are out near us, soon to be followed by crocuses and daffodils. What with the electric bills and all, I'm still in my winter longjohns and won't be casting any clouts till May is out.

Gorse has a surprisingly scrumptious smell of coconuts. If I'm walking with friends who aren't country types I always get them to stick their noses in a clump and enjoy their astonishment.

I don't know what the kissing season is. Is it connected to Gorse?

I like the revision.

Joe

Absolutely.

https://www.plant-lore.com/plantofth...gs-in-fashion/

We all have our own regional variations of that.

Thanks Joe.

David

I love the folkloric touch David it gives me a window to elsewhere.

Jan

.
I like the revision. It nicely tightens without the original S3. I was unfamiliar with the gorse flower and only vaguely familiar with the phrase "kissing season". It's a delicate poem.

I feel slightly out of step as I read the last two stanzas of the revision. The image "coconut corridor" seems to come out of nowhere now that S3 is gone (though the image itself is strong. It just feels now like it comes from a different poem.) Perhaps if you replaced it with "the usual roads" so that it looked like this...

and when we come down
to the ford again,
the familiar bridge,

the usual roads
are left behind.
But kissing season
goes on and on.


I'm really just toying around a bit. It's already a good poem : )

.

Welcome to elsewhere, Jan. (I know you occupy your own version of that.) And thanks.

Glad you like the revision, Jim. Strange that the coconut corridor now seems to have lost context. I wonder how I've done that? I will mull it over.

Cheers both

David