85 Lust and desire poems

He says he doesn’t feel like working today. It’s just as well. Here in the shade Behind the house, protected from street noises, One can go over all kinds of old feeling, Throw some away, keep others. The wordplay Between us gets very intense when there are Fewer feelings around to confuse things. Another go-round? No, but the last things You always find to say are charming, and rescue me Before the night does. We are afloat On our dreams as on a barge made of ice, Shot through with questions and fissures of starlight That keep us awake, thinking about the dreams As they are happening. Some occurrence. You said it. I said it but I can hide it. But I choose not to. Thank you. You are a very pleasant person. Thank you. You are too.

It’s more than silhouettes tonight, every window in the city lit, shades lifted, curtains open. As one suspected, the dark buildings full of lovers, undressing beneath light bulbs, before mirrors. Men & women, men & men, women & women, embracing. Even the loners visible, flickered by single candles, touching places they’ve usually chosen to keep secret. So much nakedness! And the streets empty except for the newsboys moving through shadows, leafless trees snatching underclothes out of wind, the El clattering above the roofs like a strip of blue movie.

Just when I had long outgrown those late-night seizures in my hand, those involuntary impulses return to make my fingers twitch like the tips of twigs after the bird leaps off the branch— what a crafty little devil, bouncing back all feathered and ticklish, jittery with pleasure when it finally finds its nest. The sheets become as damp as the sweaty shirts that cling to the backs of men at the dance, and how I pity the girls who undress their lovers before sex. When I started loving other bodies instead, allowing other temporary guests to mold their shapes inside my flesh— a torso of my arm, a shoulder of my mouth, a waist or a buttock of my leg—I had no need to concentrate my rapture to a single sticky place since every movement in my skin was slowing down inside the vat of honey I was swimming in. Oh bath with tongue, oh alchemy of heat and bed. The memory of so much sex enough to keep me sated in the quieter evenings of my third and final age. So imagine my surprise when those possessions from my adolescence woke me up again, but in the guise of scribbling from my pen. Not fancy or confession but something in the middle, like the mole that snuggles in the space between my breasts, that glorious discovery that makes the men cry out, the women shudder with anticipation or intent. It's more like poetry, because it whistles through the paper like the weekend afternoons I summoned passersby from behind the window's curtain. What wonder to seduce with sound, granting serendipitous fantasy—here a table with rotating thighs, there a closet panting with exhaustion, there the eye of the voyeuristic clock bold and looking to be satisfied with one pair of feet pointing at two opposite corners of the room, three fingers always vanishing inside the cluster of four hands that motion slowly left, slowly right— the capricious current of the underwater flower, five limbs comparing lengths and flexibility, their competition sabotaged by the arrival of a sixth contender, seven escalating levels in the throat— whimper, grunt, moan, sigh, whine, hum, groan, cry—oh, and if we're lucky, thinks the grinning clock, we will spiral up the scale (and down again) a good eight times, nine would be too much to ask, though not impossible since there was once a record-breaking tenth, remember? Eleven minutes for a quickie; at least twelve positions for a marathon

Lusty Youth should us ensue, His merry heart shall sure all rue. For whatsoever they do him tell, It is not for him, we know it well. For they would have him his Liberty refrain And all merry company for to disdain, But I will not so whatsoever they say, But follow his mind in all that we may. How should Youth himself best use But all disdainers for to refuse? Youth has, as chief assurance, Honest Mirth with Virtue's pastance. For in them consisteth great honour, Though that disdainers would therein put error, For they do sue to get them grace All only riches to purchase. With Good Order, Counsel, and Equity, Good Lord, grant us our mansion to be! For without their good guidance Youth should fall in great mischance. For Youth is frail and prompt to do, As well vices as virtues to ensue. Wherefore by these he must be guided And Virtue's pastance must be therein used. Now unto God this prayer we make, That this rude play may well be take, And that we may our faults amend, An bliss obtain at our last end.

Stand up carcass and walk Nothing new under the yellow sun The last of  the last of  the louis d’or The light that separates under the skins of  time The lock in the heart that shatters A thread of  silk A thread of  lead A thread of  blood After these waves of  silence These tokens of  love in black horsehair The sky smoother than your eye The neck twisted with pride My life in the corridor From which I see the undulating harvests of death All those greedy hands kneading loaves of smoke Heavier than the pillars of  the universe Heads empty Hearts bare Hands scented Tentacles of  the monkeys who aim at the clouds Among the wrinkles of  these grimaces A straight line tightens A nerve twists The sea sated Love The bitter smile of  death

O foolish wisdom sought in books! O aimless fret of household tasks! O chains that bind the hand and mind— A fuller life my spirit asks! For there the grand hills, summer-crowned, Slope greenly downward to the seas; One hour of rest upon their breast Were worth a year of days like these. Their cool, soft green to ease the pain Of eyes that ache o’er printed words; This weary noise – the city’s voice, Lulled in the sound of bees and birds. For Eden’s life within me stirs, And scorns the shackles that I wear; The man-life grand – pure soul, strong hand, The limb of steel, the heart of air! And I could kiss, with longing wild, Earth’s dear brown bosom, loved so much, A grass-blade fanned across my hand, Would thrill me like a lover’s touch. The trees would talk with me; the flowers Their hidden meanings each make known— The olden lore revived once more, When man’s and nature’s heart were one! And as the pardoned pair might come Back to the garden God first framed, And hear Him call at even-fall, And answer, ‘Here am I,’ unshamed— So I, from out these toils, wherein The Eden-faith grows stained and dim, Would walk, a child, through nature’s wild, And hear His voice and answer Him.

Love brought by night a vision to my bed, One that still wore the vesture of a child But eighteen years of age – who sweetly smiled Till of the lovely form false hopes were bred And keen embraces wild. Ah! for the lost desire that haunts me yet, Till mine eyes fail in sleep that finds no more That fleeting ghost! Oh, lovelorn heart, give o’er – Cease thy vain dreams of beauty’s warmth – forget The face thou longest for!

Lying asleep between the strokes of night I saw my love lean over my sad bed, Pale as the duskiest lily’s leaf or head, Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite, Too wan for blushing and too warm for white, But perfect-coloured without white or red. And her lips opened amorously, and said – I wist not what, saving one word – Delight. And all her face was honey to my mouth, And all her body pasture to mine eyes; The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire, The quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south, The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs And glittering eyelids of my soul’s desire.

Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms, I filled with love, and she all over charms; Both equally inspired with eager fire, Melting through kindness, flaming in desire. With arms, legs, lips close clinging to embrace, She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face. Her nimble tongue, love’s lesser lightning, played Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed Swift orders that I should prepare to throw The all-dissolving thunderbolt below. My fluttering soul, sprung with the pointed kiss, Hangs hovering o’er her balmy brinks of bliss. But whilst her busy hand would guide that part Which should convey my soul up to her heart, In liquid raptures I dissolve all o’er, Melt into sperm, and spend at every pore. A touch from any part of her had done ’t: Her hand, her foot, her very look's a cunt. Smiling, she chides in a kind murmuring noise, And from her body wipes the clammy joys, When, with a thousand kisses wandering o’er My panting bosom, “Is there then no more?” She cries. “All this to love and rapture’s due; Must we not pay a debt to pleasure too?” But I, the most forlorn, lost man alive, To show my wished obedience vainly strive: I sigh, alas! and kiss, but cannot swive. Eager desires confound my first intent, Succeeding shame does more success prevent, And rage at last confirms me impotent. Ev’n her fair hand, which might bid heat return To frozen age, and make cold hermits burn, Applied to my dear cinder, warms no more Than fire to ashes could past flames restore. Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry, A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie. This dart of love, whose piercing point, oft tried, With virgin blood ten thousand maids has dyed, Which nature still directed with such art That it through every cunt reached every heart— Stiffly resolved, ’twould carelessly invade Woman or man, nor ought its fury stayed: Where’er it pierced, a cunt it found or made— Now languid lies in this unhappy hour, Shrunk up and sapless like a withered flower. Thou treacherous, base deserter of my flame, False to my passion, fatal to my fame, Through what mistaken magic dost thou prove So true to lewdness, so untrue to love? What oyster-cinder-beggar-common whore Didst thou e’er fail in all thy life before? When vice, disease, and scandal lead the way, With what officious haste doest thou obey! Like a rude, roaring hector in the streets Who scuffles, cuffs, and justles all he meets, But if his king or country claim his aid, The rakehell villain shrinks and hides his head; Ev’n so thy brutal valor is displayed, Breaks every stew, does each small whore invade, But when great Love the onset does command, Base recreant to thy prince, thou dar’st not stand. Worst part of me, and henceforth hated most, Through all the town a common fucking post, On whom each whore relieves her tingling cunt As hogs on gates do rub themselves and grunt, Mayst thou to ravenous chancres be a prey, Or in consuming weepings waste away; May strangury and stone thy days attend; May’st thou never piss, who didst refuse to spend When all my joys did on false thee depend. And may ten thousand abler pricks agree To do the wronged Corinna right for thee.

How much delight before we collapse How much earth in the lungs How much wine When we want more When the weeds sprawl It is not what you think Think how fast some landscapes change the lover, the gardener's grand idea, the failing Maple the boat about to capsize the correction the hand's reflection the impossible replication of weight versus time how it will never mean what you want