85 Lust and desire poems

Since man with that inconstancy was born, To love the absent, and the present scorn Why do we deck, why do we dress For such short-lived happiness? Why do we put attraction on, Since either way ’tis we must be undone? They fly if honour take our part, Our virtue drives ’em o’er the field. We love ’em by too much desert, And oh! they fly us if we yield. Ye gods! is there no charm in all the fair To fix this wild, this faithless wanderer? Man! our great business and our aim, For whom we spread our fruitless snares, No sooner kindles the designing flame, But to the next bright object bears The trophies of his conquest and our shame: Inconstancy’s the good supreme The rest is airy notion, empty dream! Then heedless nymph, be rul’d by me If e’re your swain the bliss desire; Think like Alexis he may be Whose wisht possession damps his fire; The roving youth in every shade Has left some sighing and abandon’d maid, For ’tis a fatal lesson he has learn’d, After fruition ne’er to be concern’d.

Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny The sunshine of the Sun’s enlivening eye? Without thy light what light remains in me? Thou art my life; my way, my light’s in thee; I live, I move, and by thy beams I see. Thou art my life-if thou but turn away My life’s a thousand deaths. Thou art my way- Without thee, Love, I travel not but stray. My light thou art-without thy glorious sight My eyes are darken’d with eternal night. My Love, thou art my way, my life, my light. Thou art my way; I wander if thou fly. Thou art my light; if hid, how blind am I! Thou art my life; if thou withdraw’st, I die. My eyes are dark and blind, I cannot see: To whom or whither should my darkness flee, But to that light?-and who’s that light but thee? If I have lost my path, dear lover, say, Shall I still wander in a doubtful way? Love, shall a lamb of Israel’s sheepfold stray? My path is lost, my wandering steps do stray; I cannot go, nor can I safely stay; Whom should I seek but thee, my path, my way? And yet thou turn’st thy face away and fly’st me! And yet I sue for grace and thou deny’st me! Speak, art thou angry, Love, or only try’st me? Thou art the pilgrim’s path, the blind man’s eye, The dead man’s life. On thee my hopes rely: If I but them remove, I surely die. Dissolve thy sunbeams, close thy wings and stay! See, see how I am blind, and dead, and stray! -O thou art my life, my light, my way! Then work thy will! If passion bid me flee, My reason shall obey, my wings shall be Stretch’d out no farther than from me to thee!

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy, Until I labour, I in labour lie. The foe oft-times having the foe in sight, Is tir’d with standing though he never fight. Off with that girdle, like heaven’s Zone glistering, But a far fairer world encompassing. Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear, That th’eyes of busy fools may be stopped there. Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime, Tells me from you, that now it is bed time. Off with that happy busk, which I envy, That still can be, and still can stand so nigh. Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals, As when from flowery meads th’hill’s shadow steals. Off with that wiry Coronet and shew The hairy Diadem which on you doth grow: Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread In this love’s hallow’d temple, this soft bed. In such white robes, heaven’s Angels used to be Received by men; Thou Angel bringst with thee A heaven like Mahomet’s Paradise; and though Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know, By this these Angels from an evil sprite, Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright. Licence my roving hands, and let them go, Before, behind, between, above, below. O my America! my new-found-land, My kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann’d, My Mine of precious stones, My Empirie, How blest am I in this discovering thee! To enter in these bonds, is to be free; Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be. Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee, As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be, To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use Are like Atlanta’s balls, cast in men’s views, That when a fool’s eye lighteth on a Gem, His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them. Like pictures, or like books’ gay coverings made For lay-men, are all women thus array’d; Themselves are mystic books, which only we (Whom their imputed grace will dignify) Must see reveal’d. Then since that I may know; As liberally, as to a Midwife, shew Thy self: cast all, yea, this white linen hence, There is no penance due to innocence. To teach thee, I am naked first; why then What needst thou have more covering than a man.

Far from the tender Tribe of Boys remove, For they’ve a thousand ways to kindle Love. This, pleases as he strides the manag’d Horse, And holds the taughten’d Rein with early Force; This, as he swims, delights thy Fancy best, Raising the smiling Wave with snowy Breast: This, with a comely Look and manly Airs; And that with Virgin Modesty ensnares. But if at first you find him not inclin’d To Love, have Patience, Time will change his Mind. * And you, what’er your Fav’rite does, approve, For Condescension leads the Way to love. Go with him where he goes, tho’ long the Way, And the fierce Dog-star fires the sultry Day; Or the gay Rainbow girds the bluish Sky, And threatens rattling Show’rs of Rain are nigh. If sailing on the Water by his Will, Then steer the Wherry with a dext’rous Skill: Nor think it hard Fatigues and Pains to bear, But still be ready with a willing Cheer. If he’ll inclose the Vales for savage Spoils, Then on thy Shoulders bear the Nets and Toils; If Fencing be the Fav’rite Sport he’ll use, Take up the Files, and artlessly oppose; Seem as intent, yet oft expose your Breast, Neglect your Guard, and let him get the best; Then he’ll be mild, then you a Kiss may seize, He’ll struggle, but at length comply with ease; Reluctant, tho’ at first you’ll find him grow Ev’n fond, when round your Neck his Arms he’ll throw.

Naked for twenty-four of our last thirty-six Hours together, and I mean museum-quality, sex- Shop, God-riddling naked, sapping gold Light from the windows of her hundred-year-old Baltimore dorm, we were hungry for selling Points, like a couple in a showroom. Compelling Arguments were made to close the deal And children were discussed. I kissed her from heel To head in a shower without water; Then with. Nude, she read me a letter as a waiter Would his specials, and I couldn't keep My eyes off: smooth shoulders, belly, pelvis, Deep olive skin all a balm against sleep. It was from her sexy grandmother in Dieppe And Séverine translated, both of us Somehow drawn to this third party in a tidal Sort of way, her lunar candor, her antipodal Ease with words and the world. We were difficult, Séverine and I, a beautiful strain, a cult Of two. Even eating, we made lots of noise. Even resting in bed, watching the trees, Our lighter breathing, our limb-shifting, sheet- Rustling, even our dreaming had fight. Her heart was exceptionally loud—not with love, But with knowing. Knowing what to be afraid of.

I am a slave to the nudity of women. I do not know with what resolve I could stand against it, a naked woman Asking of me anything. An unclothed woman is sometimes other things. I see her in a dish of green pears. Anselmo, do you know what I mean if I say Without clothes Her breasts are the two lions In front of the New York Public Library, Do you know that postcard of mine? In those lions there is something For which I have in exchange Only sounds. Only my fingers. I see her everywhere. She is the lions And the pears, those letters of the alphabet As children we called dirty, the W, The Y, the small o. She is absolutely the wet clothing on the line. Or, you know, to be more intimate, May I? The nub, the nose of the pear, Do you know what I mean? Those parts of the woman I will call two Spanish dancer hats, Or rounder sometimes, doughboy helmets from the War. Sometimes they are flat in the late afternoon Asleep. Like drawings, Like a single rock thrown into the lake, These parts of a woman an imperfect circling Gyre of lines moving out, beyond the water. They reach me at the shore, Anselmo. Without fail, they are stronger, And they have always been faster than I am. It’s like watching the lassoing man, The man with the perfectly circling rope, Pedro Armendariz in the Mexican movies, Or Will Rogers. Wherever one is from, Whoever this man is. And he is always there. Everybody knows one. He always makes his big lasso, twirling his rope Around himself and a woman from the audience Only I am the woman, do you understand, Anselmo? Caught in the circling rope. I am the woman And me thinking of a woman Without clothes Is that man and that rope And we are riding on separate horses.

There's nothing more erotic than one      red Chilean plum slumbered in the brown palm of the curved hand of the right man.

What is it men in women do require? The lineaments of Gratified Desire. What is it women do in men require? The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

Once again, someone falls in their first falling–fall of two bodies, of two eyes, of four green eyes or eight green eyes if we count those born in the mirror (at midnight, in the purest fear, in the loss), you haven’t been able to recognize the voice of your dull silence, to see the earthly messages scrawled in the middle of one mad state, when the body is a glass and from ourselves and from the other we drink some kind of impossible water. Desire needlessly spills on me a cursed liqueur. For my thirsty thirst, what can the promise of eyes do? I speak of something not in this world. I speak of someone whose purpose is elsewhere. And I was naked in memory of the white night. Drunk and I made love all night, just like a sick dog. Sometimes we suffer too much reality in the space of a single night. We get undressed, we’re horrified. We’re aware the mirror sounds like a watch, the mirror from which your cry will pour out, your laceration. Night opens itself only once. It’s enough. You see. You’ve seen. Fear of being two in the mirror, and suddenly we’re four. We cry, we moan, my fear, my joy more horrible than my fear, my visceral words, my words are keys that lock me into a mirror, with you, but ever alone. And I am well aware what night is made of. We’ve fallen so completely into jaws that didn’t expect this sacrifice, this condemnation of my eyes which have seen. I speak of a discovery: felt the I in sex, sex in the I. I speak of burying everyday fear to secure the fear of an instant. The purest loss. But who’ll say: you don’t cry anymore at night? Because madness is also a lie. Like night. Like death.

Farm boys wild to couple With anything      with soft-wooded trees With mounds of earth      mounds Of pinestraw      will keep themselves off Animals by legends of their own: In the hay-tunnel dark And dung of barns, they will Say    I have heard tell That in a museum in Atlanta Way back in a corner somewhere There’s this thing that’s only half Sheep      like a woolly baby Pickled in alcohol      because Those things can’t live.      his eyes Are open      but you can’t stand to look I heard from somebody who ... But this is now almost all Gone. The boys have taken Their own true wives in the city, The sheep are safe in the west hill Pasture      but we who were born there Still are not sure. Are we, Because we remember, remembered In the terrible dust of museums? Merely with his eyes, the sheep-child may Be saying      saying I am here, in my father’s house. I who am half of your world, came deeply To my mother in the long grass Of the west pasture, where she stood like moonlight Listening for foxes. It was something like love From another world that seized her From behind, and she gave, not lifting her head Out of dew, without ever looking, her best Self to that great need. Turned loose, she dipped her face Farther into the chill of the earth, and in a sound Of sobbing      of something stumbling Away, began, as she must do, To carry me. I woke, dying, In the summer sun of the hillside, with my eyes Far more than human. I saw for a blazing moment The great grassy world from both sides, Man and beast in the round of their need, And the hill wind stirred in my wool, My hoof and my hand clasped each other, I ate my one meal Of milk, and died Staring. From dark grass I came straight To my father’s house, whose dust Whirls up in the halls for no reason When no one comes      piling deep in a hellish mild corner, And, through my immortal waters, I meet the sun’s grains eye To eye, and they fail at my closet of glass. Dead, I am most surely living In the minds of farm boys: I am he who drives Them like wolves from the hound bitch and calf And from the chaste ewe in the wind. They go into woods      into bean fields      they go Deep into their known right hands. Dreaming of me, They groan      they wait      they suffer Themselves, they marry, they raise their kind.