How might I serve you? (new title)

[brynmawr1]

Love's Awful Consumption

Darling, I am afraid I have a hunger,
a savage desire unsatisfied. Your taste,
as you are, has never been as complex
as your scent.  A recipe, passed down
from my mother and hers, offers a cure
for your dim flavors.  So, let me cook you
 
a meal.  It begins in shimmering oil a tumble
of onions, medium dice, sautéed soft,
translucent, just to the point of tears,
careful to not over season.
A half teaspoon of thyme, no more,
lest you become tiresome. Now potatoes
cubed, carrots sliced on the bias, offering
pungent notes of loamy earth to play
with the flesh it craves. You will feel better
 
when freed from tedious tendon
and sinew, your tenderness bite-sized.  
My contribution, two cups red,
blood offered enhances the umami
of the gravy and bone dust to thicken
 
and for mouth feel.  Into the oven, a long steep
in the heat of a womb, a slow dance of sin,
an alchemic transformation until you can
be pierced without resistance.  Season
to taste with forgiveness.  Finally,
 
becoming my natural food, consumed
with crusty bread to sop up the rest
of you, now completely full in me.

Hey Bryn,

I'm not real comfortable cutting into your poem, but I did some probaby excessive whittling.  I'm standing by my reading of this as more erotic than macabre.  I suppose eating and sex have a lot in common.  Anyway, just a suggestion of what, for me, could be cut, without losing the essence of the poem.  Although what I see as its subject seems far afield from what others see.

TqB

TqB,

Don't be shy about ripping it up.  I like most of your cuts, ones I will likely make myself.  To me the poem will end up being both erotic and cannibalistic, the extreme of all consuming love.
Thanks for coming back and giving me more insight.
Later,
Bryn

---

This one's been rattling around in my head for some time and I finally got it down on paper.  It started as just a poem about a favorite stew recipe, then took a dark turn.  It's still a little raw(sorry) but I thought it's at a good stage to get input.

Love's Awful Consumption

Darling, I am afraid I have a hunger,
a savage desire unsatisfied. Your taste,
as you are, has never been as complex
as your scent.  A recipe, passed down
from my mother and hers, offers a cure
for your dim flavors.  So, let me cook you
 
a meal.  It begins in shimmering oil a tumble
of onions, medium dice, sautéed soft,
translucent, just to the point of tears,
careful to not over season.
A half teaspoon of thyme, no more,
lest you become tiresome. Now potatoes
cubed, carrots sliced on the bias, offering
pungent notes of loamy earth to play
with the flesh it craves. You will feel better
 
when freed from tedious tendon
and sinew, your tenderness bite-sized.  
My contribution, two cups red,
blood offered enhances the umami
of the gravy and bone dust to thicken
 
and for mouth feel.  Into the oven, a long steep
in the heat of a womb, a slow dance of sin,
an alchemic transformation until you can
be pierced without resistance.  Season
to taste with forgiveness.  Finally,
 
becoming my natural food, consumed
with crusty bread to sop up the rest
of you, now completely full in me.

It's always fun to write poems about cannibalism.
In green, the lines that stood out for me. The rest of the poem:

S1 plus the title gives away the cannibalism theme. There's no revelation at the end of the poem as a result - missed opportunity?
S2 didn't strike the right chords with me. Onions are pungent, but potatoes and carrots? The 'loamy earth' is a cliche. A half teaspoon of thyme alone to disguise the strong aroma of human flesh strikes me as being a little unrealistic.

The poem felt to me to be too long. The novelty of the theme, its macabre nature, gets lost in the tedium of lines following.

Hi Busker,
Thanks for your insight.  I will have to think about how to keep the subject less obvious.  The potato/carrot lines came from a recent experience of actually cutting them up and I was struck by the earthiness of the smell-hence the lines.  I hadn't thought of hiding the smell of the human flesh, I was trying more for a play on time and thyme which doesn't seem to be working for anyone which is good to know.
Thanks again,
Bryn