Once Love<\/i> surfaces, two faces form one
\nFoundation, surfing upon each other,
\nAnd two-backed Sex<\/i> sutures two-fold Beauty<\/i>,
\nWhile struggling tongues, twinning, chat and back-chat.<\/p>\n
Perfumed phantasm of fluttering voice,
\nIn our jiggling, giggling, wriggling darkness,
\nWarren of red wine and groans, we mingle
\nLike musical notes, jazzy and soulful.<\/p>\n
Face it! We’re as captive as harmonies\u2014
\nOr integrated drunkenness of dark rum
\nAnd white rum…. Chuckles skim the surface
\nOf our moaning friction (not facetious).<\/p>\n
After parching speech, we take wet desserts,
\nFacing our most succulent intercourse.
\n <\/p>\n
Our bedroom is a-flower: Each whiff of wine
\nIs perfume. Under fiery light, cool light\u2014
\nThe moon\u2019s\u2014you\u2019re so voluptuously thin:
\nAin\u2019t Happiness<\/i> a decision of flesh?<\/p>\n
Each new heartbeat wants Love<\/i>; and each old breath
\nYearns as it faints: We lust for Love<\/i> always.
\nI looked at you; you looked at me: We saw
\nAn exculpatory mea culpa<\/i>.<\/p>\n
My ivory Lady Chatterley, I\u2019ve wed
\nAn envious Venus, who hates me now:
\nHow can our feeling right make me feel right?<\/p>\n
I know true pain feelings. There\u2019s just one cure:
\nTo get rid of pain, one gets rid of Love<\/i>.
\nImpossible<\/i>! Our room goes white with sun.
\n <\/p>\nEnjoyment<\/h2>\n
Significant flesh, O sweet love, that\u2019s you\u2014
\nInstantaneous Venus, scorching voice
\nCrackling my pillow, then kindling the dusk,
\nYour thinness being exaggerated light.<\/p>\n
In Copenhagen, desperate for you,
\nI gobbled down booze and slobbered out prayers,
\nStrolled by crunchy, disobedient tides,
\nWanting your certain Luxury<\/i> soon, soon!<\/p>\n
To enter a sinful Heaven\u2014that\u2019s right\u2014
\nNo more waste of tears or squander of breath\u2014
\nBut to wed unceremoniously:
\nTo have you shanghaied, shellacked, and swooning!<\/p>\n
Once we\u2019re astonishing, indecorous beasts,
\nAll else is conspicuously superfluous.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sun-heralded, then backed by light, you crossed
\nThe threshold and cast your shadow over wine:
\nA glass I held. Too dazzled, too startled,
\nI think I said, \u201cHi.\u201d My Longing<\/i> was shrill.<\/p>\n
I ignored you and drafted a novel.
\nBut you laughed so much for une femme<\/i> so old\u2014
\nSixtyish, and your tits bit at your blouse.
\nI yearned for wintry you to want my fire.<\/p>\n
Youth<\/i> is hunger; Age<\/i> is satiety;
\nBut I guessed you would be insatiable,
\nGiving ample love under flaming light.<\/p>\n
Wine gladdens Age<\/i>; but you don\u2019t require it\u2014
\nAs I learned, one year after leaving Rhodes,
\nAs you yielded, finally, to my cries.
\n <\/p>\nPace Milton<\/h2>\n
I yearn for our smoking marriage-bed\u2014
\nSmoky lily, your fever-pitch whiteness\u2014
\nTo eat meat and honey, gulp cold, dark wine,
\nWhile you play Eve, and I, King Priapus\u2014<\/p>\n
Broken-in companions, cauterized as one\u2014
\nHot bone jutting into soft, wet tissue,
\nFor we’re as nude and frank as waves,
\nRank with heat and damp, and so sultry,
\nWe evaporate Theology<\/i>,
\nPreferring Byron’s aegis and Shelley’s writ….<\/p>\n
A stylish, Danish finale’s my wish\u2014
\nTo add wine to complement smoked salmon\u2014
\nUntil stars vanish and dew rouses grass\u2014
\nAnd Passion<\/i> parades us eyeless as Milton.
\n <\/p>\nAgain<\/h2>\n
Again we come to Rome, again to kiss,
\nAgain to know Love, and this time to spy
\nShelley and Byron and Keats in their graves,
\nDissolved into violets and marble.<\/p>\n
It’s with macabre Prudence<\/i>, that we love:
\nFrom cloudy beginnings and through havoc\u2014
\nHeart-ache\u2014and long-suffering pulse until
\nThat muted \u201cEureka\u201d the starts our deaths.<\/p>\n
But Rome is more eternal than our flesh
\nAnd will welcome new loves once we’re forgot,
\nUnless these words live deathless as the sun.<\/p>\n
So this poem is resonant with other
\nLove poems, conspiring against Time<\/i>‘s tireless
\nCorrosion\u2014if Composure<\/i>‘s impassioned.
\n <\/p>\nMidnight Sun<\/h2>\n
Pale, indigo midnight, the northern light
\nIs wasted transluncence: Slumber awaits\u2014
\nOr home-made Joy<\/i> of lovemaking. We chat,
\nTake wine: The pale darkness won\u2019t let us sleep.<\/p>\n
Thunder booms: A blow of wet is brewing.
\nTumbling flashes warn: Rain will cascade wells.
\nWe can stay dry by staying hours in bed.
\nLet lightning skin night\u2019s hide to bright bone.<\/p>\n
Malta, Naples, Bellagio, Cadiz\u2014
\nNone of these were as wet as this night\u2019s place\u2014
\nAfter blink of drawn shades and sheets unfurled,<\/p>\n
In our boreal cottage, after beer
\nAnd fish soup, and our noontime siesta,
\nOnly sunshine and light and heat\u2014unioned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Facets Once Love surfaces, two faces form one Foundation, surfing upon each other, And two-backed Sex sutures two-fold Beauty, While struggling tongues, twinning, chat and back-chat. Perfumed phantasm of fluttering voice, In our jiggling, giggling, wriggling darkness, Warren of red wine and groans, we mingle Like musical notes, jazzy and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2370,"parent":229,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1406","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2229,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1406\/revisions\/2229"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}