Incremental Poetry ~ 47 Lines

Game

Today I’ll smith
a little myth

about a man and maid
who by each other stayed
and games of passion played.

Now this went on for quite a while—
the man, enchanted by her smile,
determined virgin to defile,
while she set out to do no guile.

The more they played, the more bewitched he grew,
and he began in earnest to pursue
a single taste of her sweet drops of dew.
She took him down a different avenue,
and deftly hid her treasures from his view.

But by and by, the game they’d started turned to toil;
the pretty maid discovered that she could not foil
his plans, for he determined virgin sheet to soil.
The blood that rivered through his veins was at a boil.
He bound his little lady, rubbed her down with oil,
and like a hardened soldier, hastened to the spoil.

At first the little maiden lay there quite disconsolate
while he began to measure every member delicate.
His hands caressed her body with a touch deliberate,
and though against her will, the moves of this degenerate
were full of warmth—indeed, they almost felt affectionate.
And when she ceased to fight, she felt her blood run passionate,
her pleasure indicated by her groans articulate.

He further turned her on with whispered flattery;
forgetting every former hint of modesty,
his hands and tongue explored all her anatomy,
and then together they arrived at ecstasy.
To him, it was the pinnacle of victory—
to her, an act of horrifying robbery.

Still bound, she helpless lay, completely nude,
impossible to hide, his sight elude.
He rested for a while—an interlude,
but only till he gained new altitude
to punish her for her ingratitude.

When she had first agreed to meet,
she thought the game would be a treat;
but now she lies on blood-stained sheet,
perspiring from his body heat.

“My one prerequisite:
When you to me submit,
then I will gladly quit.”

Now gone the fun—
the deed is done.

 

Copyright © 2019 Abigail Gronway – All Rights Reserved

Welcome to my series, Incremental Poetry, where each week (or as often as I am able) the featured poem will be one line longer than the one I shared the week before. As the poems get longer, it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to keep up the weekly pace, especially when I have to search high and low for a form that employs the set number of lines. But I am nothing if not tenacious. (My husband calls it stubborn.) And so I will keep pressing on toward my goal of a 100-line poem, even if there are weeks of silence between my compositions. As always, thank you kindly for stopping by.

Scansion:
Reversing Ripple
Created by Larry Eberhart
Line length in feet must match the stanza line count (i.e. 2 lines = 2 feet per line, etc.).
I wrote mine in iambic meter, but I believe any meter would work.
Form may be written in one of three modes:
(1) Augmented Ripple—S1 = 2 lines and each additional stanza adds 1 line.
(2) Diminished Ripple—S1 = maximum number of lines (poet’s discretion), and each additional stanza subtracts one line, ending with a couplet in dimeter.
(3) Reversing Ripple—Can begin as either of the above, and then upon reaching its normal conclusion point, reverse the process until the poem concludes with a stanza the same length as the one with which it began. The turning stanza is not repeated.
Rhyme scheme: either monorhymed within each stanza or unrhymed