85 Lust and desire poems

What am I to think now, the white scut of her bottom disappearing down the half-flight carpet stair to the bathroom? What am I to do with this masted image? I put all my doubt to the mouth of her long body, let her draw the night out of me like a thorn. She touched it, and it moved: that's all.

She sat on his lap for hours pressed his face to her large pink breasts    her hands moved through his hair like fond snakes she gave him curls, cleft hooves beneath the flesh marvellous flesh, and smooth shoulders

My girlfriend is a miracle. She’s so young but she’s so beautiful. So is her new bikini trim, A waxed-to-neatness center strip of quim. Now there’s a word you haven’t heard for a while. It makes me smile. It makes me think of James Joyce. You hear his Oirish voice. It’s spring on Broadway, and in the center strip mall The trees are all Excited to be beginning. My girlfriend’s amazing waxing keeps grinning. It’s enough to distract From the other drastic act Of display today—Osama bin Laden is dead! One shot to the chest and one to the head, SEAL Team 6 far away from my bed Above Broadway—in Abbottabad, Pakistan, instead. Bullets beyond compare Flew over there, Flew through the air To above and below the beard of hair, A type of ordnance that exploded Inside the guy and instantly downloaded The brains out the nose. Our Vietnam Is now radical Islam. I tip my hat and heart to the lovely tiny lampshade Above her parade.

A black satin purse in her right hand, condoms, spermicide, her key to the birdcage elevator. All night, thunder and rain in a flash of lightning, his hands visible, leaves of philodendron, a half-moon table. They talk in near dark, eating from a basket. She places her hand in his lap, opens her legs as if God came from her, fragrance pluming like smoke. All night, his tongue like a fish philodendron green smoothing half-light. Now the bridge is illuminated, twin arches rising, chalky, incandescent, light abandoning the dome of sky, river breathing azure, its surface frazzled, the moon leaving her scuff marks. Near the open window, dark of leaves. Outside at dawn, the sun hidden, a crow lowering itself on black wings crosses before windows as gold as Rome. The telephone, her mouth open. I can see all the way into you, he says. Leaves of philodendron pour from the table.

your face turning from mine to keep from cumming 8 strawberries in a wet blue bowl baba holding his pants up at the checkpoint a newlywed securing her updo with grenade pins a wall cleared of nails for the ghosts to walk through

for Judith Radstone Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress bids me wear them, warm them, until evening when I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her, resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope. She's beautiful. I dream about her in my attic bed; picture her dancing with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent beneath her French perfume, her milky stones. I dust her shoulders with a rabbit's foot, watch the soft blush seep through her skin like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass my red lips part as though I want to speak. Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see her every movement in my head.... Undressing, taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching for the case, slipping naked into bed, the way she always does.... And I lie here awake, knowing the pearls are cooling even now in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night I feel their absence and I burn.

My neighbor is velvety and kicks serious game. So sweet garlic refuses to hang tight in his mouth. He pulls women to his wide chest each time as if he's won the Lotto. He rocks them gently and gentler. My neighbor is a master spooner. He knows not of desire, but only the rules of engagement. He says,I miss having Skype on all night so I can listen to your breathing. He floats in his museum, of gams, drifting from frame to frame.

For Mary Peace Then I led her to the river certain she was still a virgin though she had a husband. The fourth Friday in July, as good as on a promise. The street lights were vanishing and the crickets flaring up. Last bend out of town I brushed her sleepy breasts. They blossomed of a sudden like the tips of hyacinths and the starch of her petticoat bustled in my ear like silk slit by a dozen blades. The pines, minus their halo of silver, grew huger and the horizon of dogs howled a long way from the river. Past the blackberry bushes, the rushes and whitethorn, beneath her thatch of hair, I made a dip in the sand. I took off my neckerchief. She unstrapped her dress. Me my gun and holster, she her layers of slips... Not tuberose, not shell, has skin as half as smooth nor does mirror glass have half the shimmer. Her hips flitted from me like a pair of startled tench: the one full of fire, the other full of cold. That night I might as well have ridden the pick of the roads on a mother-of-pearl mare without bridle or stirrups. Gentleman that I am, I won’t say back the scraps she whispered to me. It dawned out there to leave my lip bitten. Filthy with soil and kisses, I led her from the river and the spears of lilies battled in the air. I behaved only the way a blackguard like me behaves. I offered her a big creel of hay-colored satins. I had no wish to fall for her. She has a husband after all, though she was still a virgin when I led her to the river.

The peach is a belly dancer's fruit. It has a navel eye for seeing the world through the skin, rounded buttocks good to place against the hand the way earth reminds flesh of its being. Through the eye of the needle, death is a country where people wonder and worry what it's like to live. The sullen wish to live and live soon to be done with death and the happy want to stay dead forever wondering will it hurt to live and is there death after death?

The Tiger-Woman came to me When dusk was close and men were dull. She beckoned from the jungle-path; I followed, dreaming, fanciful. The Tiger-Woman’s face is pale, But oh, her speaking eyes are dark. No beast can move so lithe as she Beside the matted river’s mark. The jungle is a fearsome place For men who hunt, and men who slay, But I was not afraid to go Where Tiger-Woman led the way. The Tiger-Woman’s lips are thin; Her teeth are like the Tiger’s teeth. Yet her soft hands are woman’s hands, And oh, the blood beats warm beneath. She led me to a little glade,— The creepers with the moon inwove,— And two great striped beasts leaped up And fawned upon her breast in love. The Tiger-Woman’s voice was sweet; I hearkened and was not afraid. She stroked the Tigers’ fearful jaws; Upon their heads my hands I laid. And all the jungle things drew near, And all the leaves a music made Like spirits chanting in a choir Along the bamboo colonnade. Too sweet for human harps to sound, It touched my blood, it fired my heart The Tiger-Woman sang, and I Sang too, and understood her art. She kissed the Tiger’s snarling mouth. She kissed—I marveled that she could— But now her lips were warm on mine; I cared not they were dabbed with blood. What if the traveller shuns my hut, What if the world forgets to be, What if I have the Tiger’s heart,— The Tiger-Woman loveth me!