Editing Mandy

For tonight's post, I shall try to redeem a poem by a friend, Mandy, who sent the poem with a message: I'm placing my fresh steaming pile of manure into your hands for the cultivating. I trust your skill and discretion as a writer and artist. Also, I should note that this is the first in a series of crap I will be shoveling in your direction. Thanks in advance.

I am perfectly willing to edit the work of others in lieu of my own, so without further ado...!

Original
"One Flesh"

Run your fingers through my hair
Slide your hands from here to there
Taste my pleasure, sinful lust
Inhibitions turn to dust

The hours slip by stealthily
Passion ensues healthily
Fuel the fire, feed my flesh
Two are one taut entwined mesh

Tease me, taunt me, make me moan
Sensation surging to the bone
Cloud the windows with our love
Soft breaths ascend to the skies above

One flesh; discover what love is
He is mine, and I am his.

---

The first thing I notice about this poem is the forced rhyme. The term "forced rhyme" deserves explaining, since rhymes are not "forced" only when they spend a mouthful of words trying to put two sounds together. Rhymes are also forced when they exist for their own sake. This will make more sense in the edited version, but consider this: does this poem have a definite narrator, audience, actions, images, and inducible message? I'd say so, and that the rhyming is getting in the way of all those things. All of the ingredients for a better poem are already here, the recipe just needs changing.

• Bonus points to Mandy for not attempting some cute phrase for boners or penetration. Such images are always awkward and are best alluded to, if addressed at all. I don't mean that as some prude who's against dicks in poetry, I just think describing literal intercourse draws attention to itself in a bad way, unless the theme is "rising passions, warm afterglow," in which case I'll just nibble some cake until your poem's over, thanks. Running is about feet hitting the ground, but I wouldn't advise being that literal, either.
  
• The A-A-B-B C-C-D-D rhyme scheme is too basic to serve the passions being written about here. If there are to be any rhymes at all (beyond the always-fun internals), they should show finesse. Placement. Lines should happen to rhyme, not exist to rhyme. Example: the first stanza's lines are interchangeable. They rhyme without connecting.
  
• The poem ends with reciprocal partnership, yet the male has done everything to the female. Unless the one-sided actions are on purpose, this romance needs more give and take. Whether that means a change in perspective is up to Mandy, but I'll keep her senses on for this process.
• "Stealthily" and "healthily?" New words, please, or at least form change.
• "Ascend to the skies above" -- If the breaths are ascending, then they're going above. This is a redundancy, like sunrises in the morning. Sunrises are always in the morning!
  

Edited

Slide your hands from here to there,
Hold my pleasure, sinful lust
With your hands running through my hair
Inhibitions turn to dust.

The hours burn with great stealth,
Fuel for our passion's fire,
Flesh combined to share a health
When they would, apart, expire.

The windows cloud with our love
Muffling teased and taunted moans,
Soft breaths hover just above
Sensations surging through our bones.

One flesh knows what love is;
He is mine, and I am his.

---

It's still a very physical, sensual poem, but I think the checkerboard rhyme scheme, greater use of "our," linked phrases, and a finishing couplet that doesn't announce the title all make the images more cooperative with one another. Poetry should be an orgy of kindnesses toward the reader, you see. Without cooperation and team effort between the elements of style, a poem's just wanking itself.