Jenjin

This muffin bites back:
tender chunks of tart rhubarb stalks spangled with oven-browned sugar crystals,
nestled in a crown of golden cake generously marbled with jet-streams of warm custard.

Cacao, red patchouli, night-blooming jasmine, Roman chamomile, and white tea.

Thou shalt touch and make redder his roses

With juice not of fruit nor of bud;

When the sense in the spirit reposes,

Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood.

Thine, thine the one grace we implore is,

Who would live and not languish or feign,

O sleepless and deadly Dolores,

Our Lady of Pain.

Crimson roses, poppies white and red.

Lilies, lilies not for me,

Flowers of the pure and saintly ―

I have seen in holy places

Where the incense rises faintly,

And the priest the chalice raises,

Lilies in the altar vases,

       Not for me.

Leave untouched each garden tree,

Kings and queens of flower-land.

When the summer evening closes,

Lovers may-be hand in hand

There will seek for crimson roses,

There will bind their wreaths and posies

       Merrily.

From the corn-fields where we met

Pluck me poppies white and red;

Bind them round my weary brain,

Strew them on my narrow bed,

Numbing all the ache and pain. ―

I shall sleep nor wake again,
 

But forget.

– Digby Mackworth Dolben 

The shuddering beat of a poet’s heart ―filigree-fair, diaphanous:
bourbon vanilla fougere, violet leaf, iris root, Italian bergamot, porcelain accord, and a trickle of red musk.

Well, if my heart must break,

    Dear love, for your sake,

It will break in music, I know;

    Poets’ hearts break so.

But strange that I was not told,

    That the brain can hold

In a tiny ivory cell

    God’s Heaven and Hell.

– Oscar Wilde
 

A whipped green dream, pale and pillowy with multicolored mini marshmallows,
densely studded with bits of pineapple, mandarin, and shredded coconut.

It’s not quite as fun when you lose the key.
Pink cotton candy, candied rose, and vanilla sugar.

Sumatran patchouli, blood musk, white lavender, opium tar, and black orchid.

Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel

Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;

The heavy white limbs, and the cruel

Red mouth like a venomous flower;

When these are gone by with their glories,

What shall rest of thee then, what remain,

O mystic and sombre Dolores,

Our Lady of Pain?

Black opium, wild plum, cypress tar, Bulgarian rose, olibanum, black orchid, and tobacco.

They were purple of raiment and golden,

Filled full of thee, fiery with wine,

Thy lovers, in haunts unbeholden,

In marvellous chambers of thine.

They are fled, and their footprints escape us,

Who appraise thee, adore, and abstain,

O daughter of Death and Priapus,

Our Lady of Pain.

Whipped cream squished between luscious layers of pale green sponge, topped with hunks of syrup-glazed honeydew.

Sweet, sorrowful, doomed longing:

somnambulic lavender, wild plum, Siamese benzoin, and sugared opium tar.

Vous me baisez comme une soeur:

Ces baisers sont pleins de douceur;

Mais souffrez que je les condamne.

Je ne suis qu’un mortel, ô[ô] nouvelle Diane,

Pourquoi me traitez-vous ainsi qu’un Apollon?

Je serai trop heureux du sort d’Endimion.

You kiss me like a sister,

Kisses filled with sweetness;

Yet you must allow me to condemn them,

For I’m only mortal, my Diane;

Why treat me like Apollo great?

I’d be so happy with Endymion’s fate.

– Pauline de Simiane

Blackberry hops, blackened raspberry gum, purple chypre, and myrrh.

Thou wert fair in the fearless old fashion,

And thy limbs are as melodies yet,

And move to the music of passion

With lithe and lascivious regret.

What ailed us, O gods, to desert you

For creeds that refuse and restrain?

Come down and redeem us from virtue,

Our Lady of Pain.

Red musk, wildflower honey, elemi, tangerine, and mint.

O lips full of lust and of laughter,

Curled snakes that are fed from my breast,

Bite hard, lest remembrance come after

And press with new lips where you pressed.

Labdanum, black plum, black currant, violet, and champaca flower.

And they laughed, changing hands in the measure,

And they mixed and made peace after strife;

Pain melted in tears, and was pleasure;

Death tingled with blood, and was life.

Like lovers they melted and tingled,

In the dusk of thine innermost fane;

In the darkness they murmured and mingled,

Our Lady of Pain.

Gleaming black vetiver, bay laurel, opoponax, hiba wood, Spanish moss, clove, and leather accord.

Thou shalt blind his bright eyes though he wrestle,

Thou shalt chain his light limbs though he strive;

In his lips all thy serpents shall nestle,

In his hands all thy cruelties thrive.

In the daytime thy voice shall go through him,

In his dreams he shall feel thee and ache;

Thou shalt kindle by night and subdue him

Asleep and awake.

Golden amber, frankincense, white ginger, and oudh.

When, with flame all around him aspirant,

Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands,

The implacable beautiful tyrant,

Rose-crowned, having death in his hands;

And a sound as the sound of loud water

Smote far through the flight of the fires,

And mixed with the lightning of slaughter

A thunder of lyres. 

Glittering amber, frankincense, neroli, vanilla silk, and champaca.

O garment not golden but gilded,

O garden where all men may dwell,

O tower not of ivory, but builded

By hands that reach heaven from hell;

O mystical rose of the mire,

O house not of gold but of gain,

O house of unquenchable fire,

Our Lady of Pain!

No jokes here: who wouldn’t love a heart-shaped hot tub?
A bubbling vat of red musk, sweet red wine, benzoin, red oudh, and lush magnolia.

Raw, wet beets, pulsating blood musk, and raw wild ginger.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

― Walt Whitman

White honey, warm musk, and ambrette seed.

All shrines that were Vestal are flameless,

But the flame has not fallen from this;

Though obscure be the god, and though nameless

The eyes and the hair that we kiss;

Low fires that love sits by and forges

Fresh heads for his arrows and thine;

Hair loosened and soiled in mid orgies

With kisses and wine.

Unnaturally appealing, radiant with an unwholesome luster!
Peppermint-laced preserved cherries soaking in thick lime syrup, dashed with a sliver of yuzu.

Spiked for your pleasure: protrusions of pomegranate and pink peppercorn.

Pale frankincense, styrax, East African black patchouli, cinnamon leaf, rosewood, and palisander.

Who has known all the evil before us,

Or the tyrannous secrets of time?

Though we match not the dead men that bore us

At a song, at a kiss, at a crime–

Though the heathen outface and outlive us,

And our lives and our longings are twain–

Ah, forgive us our virtues, forgive us,

Our Lady of Pain.

Black plum, wild lily, and tobacco.

Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;

But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,

Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,

And then they would haunt thee in heaven:

Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,

And the loves that complete and control

All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows

That wear out the soul.

Black patchouli, honey, and thick vanilla amber.

For my heart too springs up at the pressure,

Mine eyelids too moisten and burn;

Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure,

Ere pain come in turn.

A genteel affair that presses against the constraints of common decency:
tumescent black silk, pink sugared patent leather, rich tobacco leaf, sunrise papaya,
and mango cream with crystalline trickles of clean pup sweat.

I am his Highness’ dog at Kew,

Pray tell me sir, whose dog are you?

― Alexander Pope