Poetry as a Clarification of Sex

The Salon, through Poor-ious, first brought to you, Life.

Then it brought you Death.

Now . . . it brings you . . . Sex! Woohoo!

Jump Cabling

When our cars touched
When you lifted the hood of mine
To see the intimate workings underneath,
When we were bound together
By a pulse of pure energy,
When my car like the princess
In the tale woke with a start,
I thought why not ride the rest of the way together

--Linda Pastan

THE MOTHER OF GOD

The threefold terror of love; a fallen flare
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating above the room;
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The Heavens in my womb.

Had I not found content among the shows
Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?

What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,
This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart's blood stop
Or strikes a sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?

William Butler Yeats
1932

Having an affair is like a boat.
You raise the sail and toss in the waves.
The woman tells him,
"I know how to handle these wind-and-water storms;
keep a firm grip on the rudder and don't fall asleep."

Anonymous author; translators again are Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping. And I STILL can't track down the collection this came from (I remember someone was asking about the last poem I posted, also trans. by these two). I think it might have been The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry, but I really am not sure.

Sex and poetry.

Mmmm.

well, I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what video clips we gonna get here!

:)

5 > speaking of waves & boats . . .

Meeting at Night

The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match, 10
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Robert Browning

Waves, boats, and that necessary wheelbarrow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a__ObNqUVoo&feature=related

From an Obstinate Cymric:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zud5RI36w3U&feature=related

two by Nizar Kabbani

My lover asks me:
What is the difference between me and the sky?"
The difference, my love,
Is that when you laugh,
I forget about the sky.

------------

I am the prophet of love,
Carrying surprises to women.
Had I not washed your breasts with wine,
They would have never blossomed.
My modest miracle
Made your nipples bloom.

The Sad Boy Says

In a forlorn forest
Hidden under leaves only the water is awake like the dead
This is the forest of the young
Where boys who died without knowing love are alive
I am among them, eyes downcast, and sad
For their beloved son, parents built a cairn, weeping
Elder sister planted there a rose tree
But it withered
Here, colors of life do not blossom
Here, only lilies are, pale as our foreheads
The lilies keep swaying their long necks in silence
And over them, all night, flow mists deep as resonances
Where we sit, clasping our knees, dejected, all night
Surrounding us, in the forest, owl's voices
Frog's voices, far and near
Owls, frogs, katydids, and earthworms
Here, all of them are souls of the dead
Here, each is alone
So when they talk to each other, they talk
In the voices of frogs, in the voices of owls
Come
Elder brother, my love
On the side of light
I want your smell of the sun
Come, let me hold your suntanned legs
And lick your body
(You abandon your car, and laugh, all teeth)
Come like Orpheus
From light into the dark
I will let you sleep
In my nightmares

Mutsuo Takahashi (translated by Hiroaki Sato)

Venturing just a bit outside poetry (but w/language that is nonetheless, poetic) to the musings of Choderlos De Laclos, as spoken through The nefarious Marquise de Merteuil to the as voluptuously villainous Vicomte de Valmont, as they relate to "prudes":

. . . you must give up all hope of pleasure. Can there ever be any with prudes? I mean those who are truly so. At the very heart of rapture they remain aloof, offering you only half-delights. That absolute self-abandon, that ecstasy of the senses, when pleasure is purified in its own excess, all that is best in love is quite unknown to them. . .

--Les Liaisons Dangereuses

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

Margaret Atwood

In a lighter mood:

O blush not so! O blush not so!
Or I shall think you knowing;
And if you smile, the blushing while,
Then maidenheads are going.

There’s a blush for won’t, and a blush for shan’t,
And a blush for having done it;
There’s a blush for thought, and a blush for nought,
And a blush for just begun it.

O sigh not so! O sigh not so!
For it sounds of Eve’s sweet pippin;
By those loosen’d hips, you have tasted the pips,
And fought in an amorous nipping.

Will you play once more, at nice cut-core,
For it only will last our youth out;
And we have the prime of the kissing time,
We have not one sweet tooth out.

There’s a sigh for yes, and a sigh for no,
And a sigh for I can’t bear it!
O what can be done? Shall we stay or run?
O cut the sweet apple and share it!

John Keats

#1, 14 - amazing how hot metaphorical sex can be

For those with an affinity for the chemical:

Just a little atom of chlorine
Valence minus one
Swimming thru the sea, digging the scene
Just having fun
She's not worried about the shape or size
Of her outside shell
It's fun to ionize
Just a little atom of Cl
With an unfilled shell

But somewhere in that sea lurks
Handsome Sodium
With enough electrons on his outside shell
Plus that extra one
Somewhere in this deep blue sea
There's a negative
For my extra energy yes
Somewhere in this foam
My positive will find a home

Then unsuspecting Chlorine
Felt a magnetic pull
She looked down and her outside
Shell was full
Sodium cried "what a gas be my bride and
I'll change your name from Chlorine to Chloride"

Now the sea evaporates to make the clouds
For the rain and snow
Leaving her chemical compounds in the absence
Of H2O
But the crystals that wash upon the shore
Are happy ones
So if you never thought before
Think of the love that you eat
When you salt your meat
Think of the love that you eat
When you salt your meat

- From those happy French Canadians,
Kate and Anna McGarrigle

When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale tit,
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave
All the green leaved little weddings' wives
In the coal black bush and let them grieve.

When I was a gusty man and a half
And the black beast of the beetles' pews
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of bitches),
Not a boy and a bit in the wick-
Dipping moon and drunk as a new dropped calf,
I whistled all night in the twisted flues,
Midwives grew in the midnight ditches,
And the sizzling sheets of the town cried, Quick!-
Whenever I dove in a breast high shoal,
Wherever I ramped in the clover quilts,
Whatsoever I did in the coal-
Black night, I left my quivering prints.

When I was a man you could call a man
And the black cross of the holy house,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of welcome),
Brandy and ripe in my bright, bass prime,
No springtailed tom in the red hot town
With every simmering woman his mouse
But a hillocky bull in the swelter
Of summer come in his great good time
To the sultry, biding herds, I said,
Oh, time enough when the blood runs cold,
And I lie down but to sleep in bed,
For my sulking, skulking, coal black soul!

When I was half the man I was
And serve me right as the preachers warn,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of downfall),
No flailing calf or cat in a flame
Or hickory bull in milky grass
But a black sheep with a crumpled horn,
At last the soul from its foul mousehole
Slunk pouting out when the limp time came;
And I gave my soul a blind, slashed eye,
Gristle and rind, and a roarers' life,
And I shoved it into the coal black sky
To find a woman's soul for a wife.

Now I am a man no more no more
And a black reward for a roaring life,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of strangers),
Tidy and cursed in my dove cooed room
I lie down thin and hear the good bells jaw--
For, oh, my soul found a sunday wife
In the coal black sky and she bore angels!
Harpies around me out of her womb!
Chastity prays for me, piety sings,
Innocence sweetens my last black breath,
Modesty hides my thighs in her wings,
And all the deadly virtues plague my death!

Dylan Thomas

Cywydd y cedor (The Sour Grove)

Every foolish drunken poet,
boorish vanity without ceasing,
(never may I warrant it,
I of great noble stock,)
has always declaimed fruitless praise
in song of the girls of the lands
all day long, certain gift,
most incompletely, by God the Father:
praising the hair, gown of fine love,
and every such living girl,
and lower down praising merrily
the brows above the eyes;
praising also, lovely shape,
the smoothness of the soft breasts,
and the beauty's arms, bright drape,
she deserved honour, and the girl's hands.
Then with his finest wizardry
before night he did sing,
he pays homage to God's greatness,
fruitless eulogy with his tongue:
leaving the middle without praise
and the place where children are conceived,
and the warm quim, clear excellence,
tender and fat, bright fervent broken circle,
where I loved, in perfect health,
the quim below the smock.
You are a body of boundless strength,
a faultless court of fat's plumage.
I declare, the quim is fair,
circle of broad-edged lips,
it is a valley longer than a spoon or a hand,
a ditch to hold a penis two hands long;
cunt there by the swelling arse,
song's table with its double in red.
And the bright saints, men of the church,
when they get the chance, perfect gift,
don't fail, highest blessing,
by Beuno, to give it a good feel.
For this reason, thorough rebuke,
all you proud poets,
let songs to the quim circulate
without fail to gain reward.
Sultan of an ode, it is silk,
little seam, curtain on a fine bright cunt,
flaps in a place of greeting,
the sour grove, it is full of love,
very proud forest, faultless gift,
tender frieze, fur of a fine pair of testicles,
a girl's thick grove, circle of precious greeting,
lovely bush, God save it.

wham
bam
thank you
Mam

( does that count ?)

as long as it rhymes . . .

HAHAHAHAHAHA Mac you are a genius!

Life is simple

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come out right.

>23 WilfGehlen: Wilf,

My favorite hymn - one that can apply across religions or to the non-religious (like me).

wilf has summarized it all for us

BE composed—be at ease with me—I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature;
Not till the sun excludes you, do I exclude you;
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you, and the leaves to rustle for you, do my
words
refuse
to glisten and rustle for you.

My girl, I appoint with you an appointment—and I charge you that you make preparation
to
be
worthy to meet me,
And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.

Till then, I salute you with a significant look, that you do not forget me.

XXVIII

Now dreary dawns the eastern light,
And fall of eve is drear,
And cold the poor man lies at night,
And so goes out the year.

Little is the luck I've had,
And oh, 'tis comfort small
To think that many another lad
Has had no luck at all.

LAST POEMS
A.E. Housman

MARRIAGE I THINK

Marriage I think
For women
Is the best of opiates.
It kills the thoughts
That think about the thoughts,
It is the best of opiates.
So said Maria.
But too long in solitude she'd dwelt,
And too long her thoughts had felt
Their strength. So when the man drew near,
Out popped her thoughts on a chain,
For now she's alone again and all in pain;
She sighs for the man that went and the thoughts that stay
To trouble her dreams by night and her dreams by day.

Stevie Smith

THE SUN RISING.
by John Donne

BUSY old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices ;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think ?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

She's all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is ;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus ;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

We'll not have done yet:

THE DAMP

When I am dead, and doctors know not why,
And my friends' curiosity
Will have me cut up to survey each part,
When they shall find your picture in my heart,
You think a sudden damp of love
Will through all their senses move,
And work on them as me, and so prefer
Your murder, to the name of massacre.

Poor victories; but if you dare be brave,
And pleasure in your conquest have,
First kill th' enormous giant, your Disdain,
And let th' enchantress Honour, next be slain,
And like a Goth and Vandal rise,
Deface records, and histories
Of your own arts and triumphs over men,
And without such advantage kill me then.

For I could muster up as well as you
My giants, and my witches too,
Which are vast Constancy, and Secretness,
But these I neither look for, nor profess;
Kill me as woman, let me die
As a mere man; do you but try
Your passive valour, and you shall find then,
Naked you have odds enough of any man.

John Donne
SONGS AND SONNETS

There's a poem where he says "license my roving hands and let them go" but I have not found it. John Donne is the best if you ask me for sexual poetry. :)

You can find it in Elegy 19 TO HIS MISTRESS GOING TO BED

She Had Expected Something Else

Love aroused her like a heifer
in the presence of a bull.
She had expected something else.
She thought the invisible might
show itself as night, or the taste
of air off the sea. She felt it
wading through wildflowers
on a hillside, in the whinnying
of horses and the smell
of their sweat on her jeans.
It was love as the engine
that kept her awake,
something striding across waves
in the dark. Something sending her
from Batu to Prambanan.

Linda Gregg (Things and Flesh)

This proves that even a "Poindexter" can score a big hit and be a one hit wonder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH5Arbm47IQ

I'd be lying if I said I did not love this song.

Commander Cody and his lost planet airmen knew something about making the beast with 2 Bachs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9QpDvhshOQ&feature=related

oh what the hell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWXbVsMkz1U&feature=related

someone?

Interesting new group here in LT, sort of related to this thread.

im new here

sure ? haven't we met before ?

I used to come here often. What's your sign?