The Poetry of Sex Read Online Free PDF Page B

another I’m disgusted by these queers
    who hang around toilets trying to catch my eye.
    In another I am your husband – I yearn to leave
    our daughter alone for just a handful of minutes –
    she’d be fine out here – knowing there is more love
    for me in there, with him.
    In the last version I am your daughter,
    sculpting the intricate castle from damp sand
    pitted through with fag ends and gum –
    oblivious to the men, the poem being written.

Remember, Body …
C. P. Cavafy
    Body, remember not only how deeply you were loved,
    not only the many beds where you lay,
    but also those desires that flashed
    openly in their eyes
    or trembled in the voice – and were thwarted
    by some chance impediment.
    Now that all of them are locked away in the past,
    it almost seems as if you surrendered
    to even those pre-empted desires – how they flashed, remember,
    in the eyes of those who looked at you, how they trembled
    in the voice for you, remember, body.
    Trans. Avi Sharon

Love & Sex & Boys in Showers
John Whitworth
    Wishing, wondering, thinking, talking,
    Is it Medicine? Is it Smarties?
    Difficult, like tightrope walking?
    Easy, like a broken heart is?
    Where the sea along the shore moans,
    Hear the humming of the hormones,
    Messages of meeting, parting,
    Is it worth the grief of starting?
    Can the sweets outweigh the sours?
    Love & Sex & Boys in Showers.
    Suppose I let him go too far, but
    Just how far is that precisely?
    Suppose we do it in the car, but
    After will he treat me nicely?
    Everything I want’s illicit,
    Adult, sexually explicit.
    When he stuns me with his kisses,
    Sweet as Sugar, bold as Bliss is,
    Will I savour them for hours?
    Love & Sex & Boys in Showers.
    Steamy dreams of saltlick shoulders,
    Peach-fuzz thighs and silky bottom.
    Hearts have reasons. They’re as old as
    Time. I swear I think I’ve got ’em.
    Shy and shyer, fond and fonder,
    There, where ocean meets blue yonder,
    Skinnydips on desert island,
    Wisechild wideness of his smile and
    Lotus blossoms, passion flowers,
    Love & Sex & Boys in Showers.
    Princesses are racked and gloomy,
    Fated, dated, triste and tragic.
    Lose a few and draw a few – my
    Life’s like football. Football’s magic.
    Choose the time, the place, the weapons.
    Karma’s just the shit that happens,
    Everything we have is ours,
    We’ve got paranormal powers,
    Princesses are shut in towers,
    Love & Sex & Boys in Showers.

Service
Gregory Woods
    For all that he’s a sullen brute,
    His pout is cute. In silhouette
    The bursting of a rotten fruit,
    It putters, muttering his fret,
    Expressive though completely mute.
    His lips could flay a clarinet,
    His tongue electrocute a flute.
    Worth challenging to a duet,
    With fists like his he could transmute
    A fight into a minuet,
    A blunderbuss into a lute.
    Within some squalid oubliette
    He strips down to his birthday suit –
    Tattoo and hand-rolled cigarette
    The remnants of his ill-repute –
    His nakedness no less a threat
    Than uniformed in hot pursuit
    Of somebody to shoot or pet,
    More rigid than in full salute.
    How could one get this dun cadet
    To proffer if not prostitute
    Himself; develop the coquette
    Within the manly absolute?
    I’d tempt him to forget regret,
    That fetter to the dissolute;
    To whet his appetite, I’d let
    Him flatten me with his hirsute
    Anatomy, the better yet
    His persecution to refute;
    I’d lick his feet (sweet etiquette!),
    Recruit his sweat, and substitute
    His carcan with a carcanet.

O Little One
Marilyn Hacker
    O little one, this longing is the pits.
    I’m horny as a timber wolf in heat.
    Three times a night, I tangle up the sheet.
    I seem to flirt with everything with tits:
    Karyn at lunch, who knows I think she’s cute;
    my ex, the DA on the Sex Crimes Squad;
    Iva’s gnarled, canny New England god-
    mother, who was my Saturday night date.
    I’m trying to take things one at a time:
    Situps at bedtime, less coffee, less meat,
    more showers, till a remedy appears.
    Since there’s