I dream of awakening in a bright new green day
in the third world, in tropical summer, visiting with friends;
I dream I go exploring through the market,
the swarm and riot and crowding of all the senses,
exploring with my brother/lover,
and both of us wear native dress,
only a wrap-around sarong and sandals,
loose and comfortable in the heat and light
as we walk through the bustling village and nearby jungle,
and I dream that even though our lighter skin and taller frames
mark us as londos and cheles and aliens from the north,
the people ignore us or treat us as friends
because we try to fit into their way of life,
and because we wear their kind of clothes,
and because they all know and like my brother/lover,
who has been here longer and is more deeply tanned than I;
and I dream of the touch of the equatorial sunlight
falling on my bare shoulders and back,
so strong it’s an actual weight,
and I dream of a common language,
new tongues that spread fire on my mouth,
hot like the taste of fermented red pepper paste
spread thick on rice and greens and a little meat;
I dream of being in love in a land I love,
of being loved in ways I’ve never let myself be loved,
relaxed and easy, the heat unfreezing my body, my soul;
and everything is permitted here, and we lounge
in a kind of tropical indolence, taking our own moon
and palm trees wherever we go;
and I dream of music,
structured like a force of nature,
something you bathe in more than merely listen to,
washing over us in all-night concerts in the village hall;
I dream of walking in the light, in clear mountain air,
ocean spread blue below us, miles away and still
close enough to imagine diving into;
and suddenly we’re naked and flying high into the sun,
and we arch our beautifully-muscled sun-warmed backs
like dolphins at the apogee of leaping,
then plunge like seabirds
into the blueness of the sea,
diving from the highest cliffs in the light,
leaving our sweat-strewn sarongs behind to bathe
in the salt of the waters, the world’s sweat,
and I dream the ocean water tastes just like you
Showing posts with label erotica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label erotica. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Erotic Journal
WARNING: This essay is an explicit personal memoir about my teenage awakening to sexuality as a person and a writer. I've never written any of this down before, to share with others. I've told some of these stories to some of my Radical Faerie and other gay friends. But if it's not your cup of tea, or if such memoirs offend your sensibilities, don't read this!
•
I started my first erotic journal when I was fifteen. It contained mostly homoerotic poems that I was writing at the time. Some poems took more than one sitting to write, because while I was writing them, I would often become aroused, and pause in my writing to masturbate. I had already been seriously masturbating to orgasm for over a year by then.
I rediscovered this erotic journal amongst my other journals when I was organizing papers after moving house the last time. I also found some typewritten sex stories I wrote as a teen. I have scanned or photographed these papers, to preserve them digitally for myself, before putting them away again, with my other journals.
There was one long erotic poem, "naked boys," that I began writing when I was 15, that first appears in this journal, that I took out over time and added to, edited, rewrote, and changed, that took approximately 12 years to complete. It's a very long poem. The three or four longest poems I have ever written have been homoerotic poems. "naked boys" was a poem I would take out, write a section of, masturbate, orgasm, then put away for awhile. Honestly, it was impossible to write this poem without ending up masturbating; proof that words alone, and a good imagination, are enough to turn you on! I guess I've always been able to turn myself on by writing erotica. Sometimes I put the poem away for six months to a year, then got it out again to add to and edit; I might work on it, always erotically charged during the writing, for a few weeks, then set it aside again for awhile. This is the only poem that has ever taken me that long to rewrite, revise, or finish. I've written many other homoerotic poems over the years, especially since coming out, but none of them like this one.
"naked boys" was the poem in which I discovered, as a writer, about writing at white heat, about writing passionately, about making the writing itself as ecstatic and highly-charged with passion and energy as possible. Most of the revisions I made over the years were to heighten and refine the poem's energetic, passionate charge. This single poem taught me a great deal about ecstasy, about ecstasy in art and literature. It was only later, when I discovered ecstatic sacred poetry—from Sufi poets such as Rumi, from contemporary poets such as Harold Norse, Allen Ginsberg, and Antler, or from ancient Sanskrit love and devotional (bhakti) poetry—that I realized that "naked boys" was a poem about sacred sex. It wasn't really a pornographic poem, although it is very explicit at times, and very homoerotic, although I did masturbate during and after the writing. The poem can still inspire orgasms upon re-reading. It was a poem in which—without knowing yet that I was doing it, in my teenage questing, without having a conscious plan or words to describe my intentions—I was trying to celebrate sacred sexuality, the exquisite union of body-mind and soul. I had rediscovered for myself some of the core teachings about sexual energy from Tantric yogic practices, which I only later had names for. I published 'naked boys" as a very limited-edition chapbook poem some years later, a few copies of which I still have; I gave away a few copies to Radical Faerie friends who I knew would appreciate the poem, but I haven't ever before discussed this poem publicly. It is for me a personal sacred text, full of memories, full of my own sexual yearnings as a young man—not just teenage yearnings, since I was almost in my 30s before finishing the poem at last—and still a record of dreams, fantasies, actual sexual memories, and more.
A couple of years previously, probably the Christmas I was age 13, my parents had given my sister and myself identical Smith-Corona SCM portable typewriters. (My mother also received one, so I think this was a joint parental present in origin.) This was my first typewriter—like buying my first computer, this was an important milestone in my creative life. (I still have this typewriter; it became the foundation of my small collection of vintage and antique typewriters.) The SCM typewriter was in a large plastic and metal shell case. I got in the habit of typing sitting crosslegged on my bed in my bedroom. When you took the typewriter out of the case, set the case on the bed, closed it, and put the typewriter on top, it was a perfect height for me. On my typewriter I sometimes wrote erotic poems, and experimented with writing homoerotic stories, basically teenage porn about the neighbor boys, fantasies, etc. On hot, humid summer afternoons, with no one around, the door to my room closed, I sat on the bed crosslegged, naked, while typing. Naturally I became aroused; the only question was whether I sat down with an erection already, or developed an erection while typing. Needless to say, most of these writings took more than one session to complete, as I would masturbate, have an orgasm, clean up, and be finished with the writing for awhile. In some ways, I was just typing out my masturbation fantasies—but being an artist and writer already, I typed out my fantasies as poems, trying to make something other than simple porn.
During my coming-out period, both to myself and to the world, from my mid-20s to my mid-30s—I was in some ways a late bloomer, shy at core—I wrote in my regular journal as well, a journal which I have kept since I was in my 20s in college, some other entries detailing my thoughts about my own sexuality, about sex in general, about eros, the life-force, about mysticism, ecstasy, making love and making art. These are all tied together in my soul and mind. I still don't make distinctions between them: masturbation, sacred sex, mystical experiences, making love and telepathically achieving Tantric ecstatic union with my lover, etc. All of these are normative experiences for me, even in my teens. What I wrote in my journals was attempts to put these things into words. It was in my regular journal that I first admitted to myself that I was gay, that I liked boys more than girls, and always had.
When I was 14, I spent many weeks during the summer playing naked sexual games with the boy who lived across the street from me. Mike was between 2 and 3 years younger than me, smaller than me but already very grown up in some ways. When we first stripped our pants off to explore each others' naked bodies, it was his idea. He was the more aggressive player; I was still very shy at that age, a geeky awkward teen with glasses who wasn't athletic or popular, although I had already discovered my love of the outdoors. My love of the outdoors, in fact, was the root of our first encounter; we saw each other out in the fields behind our subdivision at the edge of town, on a hot sweaty afternoon, both of us already wearing nothing but the short gym-shorts boys wore in the 70s. We talked for awhile, walking through the fields. When we both became aroused, it was Mike who first took his pants down, then wanted to take mine down, too. We spent many afternoons naked together after that, always erect, no matter whether we were just walking in the woods or fields behind the neighborhood, which was on the northeast edge of town, or more engaging in sex play. (I had also played similar naked games with a neighbor when I was 11, and so was he; but that boy moved away.) The first time I ever had an ejaculation, Mike was lying on top of me, my penis between his thighs, one night out lying in the fields, while I rubbed his chest and groin as he lay on me, and together we looked up at the stars. (One of the long homoerotic poems I began, later in life, was about this summer of sex play with Mike; another long erotic poem, in this case still unfinished, as I haven't looked at the poem in years.)
Anyone who has read Kinsey or the reports of other sex researchers knows that what we did together that summer was very common, even typical, for teenage boys; if anything, our sex play was more innocent, even sweet, than many other stories in the research literature.
So a year later when I was 15, when I began writing these erotic poems in my erotic journal, and typing naked at my typewriter, I had already been masturbating to messy orgasms for a year or more. In fact, no doubt driven by teenage hormones, I think one reason I began to write homoerotic poems was to relieve the overwhelming sexual tension. The hormones needed to be expressed. So I began writing poems, doing my teenage best to turn sex into art. Looking back through the journal now, not all of these poems strike me as awful, or typically bad teenage poems. Even though I am bisexual enough that I was dating girls well into my 30s, including having two successful loving sexual relationships with women, one of whom is still among my best friends, all of these erotic poems in this journal were about boys. My erotic journal was entirely homoerotic. I didn't even try to make the poems androgynous, the way Walt Whitman attempted in some of his poems to at least pretend to be interested sexually in women. (Scholars have noted that these are among Whitman's least convincing poems.) I hadn't seriously read Whitman yet; that reading came later in life; but I was trying, as I said above, to evoke in poems that almost mystical sexual energy I was experiencing, not only in my body but in my heart and mind as well. Certainly, at that age, it was more lust than love, although I did love Mike, I believe. I certainly thought about him a lot, even after our summer of games had ended. I wonder if he too came out as openly gay later in life; looking back now, I think one reason we found each other that summer was an inarticulate understanding of what we shared in common.
I kept my erotic journal secret, from anybody and everybody, for a very long time. Not out of shame, not out of internalized homophobia—writing in this journal after all was one way I came out to myself, and it helped me with coming out to others, too—but rather, I felt the poems, like "naked boys," in this journal were too charged, too erotic, too powerful. I wasn't sure who I could ever safely share them with. The fear I still have about sharing any parts of this journal with anyone is fear of rejection: the poems were so personal to me, to my life and experience, that I could not be objective about them, as poems, for many, many years. I have since learned to get past several poetic-critical theoretical clichés about craft quality, objectivity vs. subjectivity, etc.: now I just appreciate these poems for what they were.
Keep in mind that I was a boy in my teens writing about having sex with other boys in their teens, my age or slightly younger. I was attracted to some men of my acquaintance, and some girls I knew, but writing in the journal was about boys my own age. This alone is highly-charged subject matter, in our culture of homophobia and sexual repression, our schizophrenic culture in which we sexualize underage children in pre-teen beauty pageants while simultaneously denying that such children are capable of expressing their sexuality, and punishing them if they do. None of that adult weirdness surrounding sexuality ever made sense to me when I was a boy—I was, after all, enjoying consensual, guilt-free pleasure with boys my own age—but I did already know how highly-charged the topic could be, and how hysterical adults could become about it. (Although I must give my mother a lot of credit: One time when I got caught playing naked games with a neighborhood boy, and was sent home in disgrace, when I was talking to Mom about why I had been sent home and finally blushingly admitted that we had been playing together naked, Mom's only comment was that maybe I should keep such games to my own bedroom in future. My parents were very progressive in some ways!) So I kept my erotic journal hidden and private. Keep in mind, once again, that I was a teenager writing about his sexual experiences and fantasies, as a teenager, with other teenage boys. It was a way to both privately express my thoughts to myself in art, and a way of recording some experiences, and also—perhaps dominantly, and most importantly—a way of relieving my own sexual tension via fantasy, self-pleasure, and eroticism. These days, with available new media technologies, teenage boys are taking nude photos of themselves with their cellphones and sending them to each other—how times have changed!
•
I started my first erotic journal when I was fifteen. It contained mostly homoerotic poems that I was writing at the time. Some poems took more than one sitting to write, because while I was writing them, I would often become aroused, and pause in my writing to masturbate. I had already been seriously masturbating to orgasm for over a year by then.
I rediscovered this erotic journal amongst my other journals when I was organizing papers after moving house the last time. I also found some typewritten sex stories I wrote as a teen. I have scanned or photographed these papers, to preserve them digitally for myself, before putting them away again, with my other journals.
There was one long erotic poem, "naked boys," that I began writing when I was 15, that first appears in this journal, that I took out over time and added to, edited, rewrote, and changed, that took approximately 12 years to complete. It's a very long poem. The three or four longest poems I have ever written have been homoerotic poems. "naked boys" was a poem I would take out, write a section of, masturbate, orgasm, then put away for awhile. Honestly, it was impossible to write this poem without ending up masturbating; proof that words alone, and a good imagination, are enough to turn you on! I guess I've always been able to turn myself on by writing erotica. Sometimes I put the poem away for six months to a year, then got it out again to add to and edit; I might work on it, always erotically charged during the writing, for a few weeks, then set it aside again for awhile. This is the only poem that has ever taken me that long to rewrite, revise, or finish. I've written many other homoerotic poems over the years, especially since coming out, but none of them like this one.
"naked boys" was the poem in which I discovered, as a writer, about writing at white heat, about writing passionately, about making the writing itself as ecstatic and highly-charged with passion and energy as possible. Most of the revisions I made over the years were to heighten and refine the poem's energetic, passionate charge. This single poem taught me a great deal about ecstasy, about ecstasy in art and literature. It was only later, when I discovered ecstatic sacred poetry—from Sufi poets such as Rumi, from contemporary poets such as Harold Norse, Allen Ginsberg, and Antler, or from ancient Sanskrit love and devotional (bhakti) poetry—that I realized that "naked boys" was a poem about sacred sex. It wasn't really a pornographic poem, although it is very explicit at times, and very homoerotic, although I did masturbate during and after the writing. The poem can still inspire orgasms upon re-reading. It was a poem in which—without knowing yet that I was doing it, in my teenage questing, without having a conscious plan or words to describe my intentions—I was trying to celebrate sacred sexuality, the exquisite union of body-mind and soul. I had rediscovered for myself some of the core teachings about sexual energy from Tantric yogic practices, which I only later had names for. I published 'naked boys" as a very limited-edition chapbook poem some years later, a few copies of which I still have; I gave away a few copies to Radical Faerie friends who I knew would appreciate the poem, but I haven't ever before discussed this poem publicly. It is for me a personal sacred text, full of memories, full of my own sexual yearnings as a young man—not just teenage yearnings, since I was almost in my 30s before finishing the poem at last—and still a record of dreams, fantasies, actual sexual memories, and more.
A couple of years previously, probably the Christmas I was age 13, my parents had given my sister and myself identical Smith-Corona SCM portable typewriters. (My mother also received one, so I think this was a joint parental present in origin.) This was my first typewriter—like buying my first computer, this was an important milestone in my creative life. (I still have this typewriter; it became the foundation of my small collection of vintage and antique typewriters.) The SCM typewriter was in a large plastic and metal shell case. I got in the habit of typing sitting crosslegged on my bed in my bedroom. When you took the typewriter out of the case, set the case on the bed, closed it, and put the typewriter on top, it was a perfect height for me. On my typewriter I sometimes wrote erotic poems, and experimented with writing homoerotic stories, basically teenage porn about the neighbor boys, fantasies, etc. On hot, humid summer afternoons, with no one around, the door to my room closed, I sat on the bed crosslegged, naked, while typing. Naturally I became aroused; the only question was whether I sat down with an erection already, or developed an erection while typing. Needless to say, most of these writings took more than one session to complete, as I would masturbate, have an orgasm, clean up, and be finished with the writing for awhile. In some ways, I was just typing out my masturbation fantasies—but being an artist and writer already, I typed out my fantasies as poems, trying to make something other than simple porn.
During my coming-out period, both to myself and to the world, from my mid-20s to my mid-30s—I was in some ways a late bloomer, shy at core—I wrote in my regular journal as well, a journal which I have kept since I was in my 20s in college, some other entries detailing my thoughts about my own sexuality, about sex in general, about eros, the life-force, about mysticism, ecstasy, making love and making art. These are all tied together in my soul and mind. I still don't make distinctions between them: masturbation, sacred sex, mystical experiences, making love and telepathically achieving Tantric ecstatic union with my lover, etc. All of these are normative experiences for me, even in my teens. What I wrote in my journals was attempts to put these things into words. It was in my regular journal that I first admitted to myself that I was gay, that I liked boys more than girls, and always had.
When I was 14, I spent many weeks during the summer playing naked sexual games with the boy who lived across the street from me. Mike was between 2 and 3 years younger than me, smaller than me but already very grown up in some ways. When we first stripped our pants off to explore each others' naked bodies, it was his idea. He was the more aggressive player; I was still very shy at that age, a geeky awkward teen with glasses who wasn't athletic or popular, although I had already discovered my love of the outdoors. My love of the outdoors, in fact, was the root of our first encounter; we saw each other out in the fields behind our subdivision at the edge of town, on a hot sweaty afternoon, both of us already wearing nothing but the short gym-shorts boys wore in the 70s. We talked for awhile, walking through the fields. When we both became aroused, it was Mike who first took his pants down, then wanted to take mine down, too. We spent many afternoons naked together after that, always erect, no matter whether we were just walking in the woods or fields behind the neighborhood, which was on the northeast edge of town, or more engaging in sex play. (I had also played similar naked games with a neighbor when I was 11, and so was he; but that boy moved away.) The first time I ever had an ejaculation, Mike was lying on top of me, my penis between his thighs, one night out lying in the fields, while I rubbed his chest and groin as he lay on me, and together we looked up at the stars. (One of the long homoerotic poems I began, later in life, was about this summer of sex play with Mike; another long erotic poem, in this case still unfinished, as I haven't looked at the poem in years.)
Anyone who has read Kinsey or the reports of other sex researchers knows that what we did together that summer was very common, even typical, for teenage boys; if anything, our sex play was more innocent, even sweet, than many other stories in the research literature.
So a year later when I was 15, when I began writing these erotic poems in my erotic journal, and typing naked at my typewriter, I had already been masturbating to messy orgasms for a year or more. In fact, no doubt driven by teenage hormones, I think one reason I began to write homoerotic poems was to relieve the overwhelming sexual tension. The hormones needed to be expressed. So I began writing poems, doing my teenage best to turn sex into art. Looking back through the journal now, not all of these poems strike me as awful, or typically bad teenage poems. Even though I am bisexual enough that I was dating girls well into my 30s, including having two successful loving sexual relationships with women, one of whom is still among my best friends, all of these erotic poems in this journal were about boys. My erotic journal was entirely homoerotic. I didn't even try to make the poems androgynous, the way Walt Whitman attempted in some of his poems to at least pretend to be interested sexually in women. (Scholars have noted that these are among Whitman's least convincing poems.) I hadn't seriously read Whitman yet; that reading came later in life; but I was trying, as I said above, to evoke in poems that almost mystical sexual energy I was experiencing, not only in my body but in my heart and mind as well. Certainly, at that age, it was more lust than love, although I did love Mike, I believe. I certainly thought about him a lot, even after our summer of games had ended. I wonder if he too came out as openly gay later in life; looking back now, I think one reason we found each other that summer was an inarticulate understanding of what we shared in common.
I kept my erotic journal secret, from anybody and everybody, for a very long time. Not out of shame, not out of internalized homophobia—writing in this journal after all was one way I came out to myself, and it helped me with coming out to others, too—but rather, I felt the poems, like "naked boys," in this journal were too charged, too erotic, too powerful. I wasn't sure who I could ever safely share them with. The fear I still have about sharing any parts of this journal with anyone is fear of rejection: the poems were so personal to me, to my life and experience, that I could not be objective about them, as poems, for many, many years. I have since learned to get past several poetic-critical theoretical clichés about craft quality, objectivity vs. subjectivity, etc.: now I just appreciate these poems for what they were.
Keep in mind that I was a boy in my teens writing about having sex with other boys in their teens, my age or slightly younger. I was attracted to some men of my acquaintance, and some girls I knew, but writing in the journal was about boys my own age. This alone is highly-charged subject matter, in our culture of homophobia and sexual repression, our schizophrenic culture in which we sexualize underage children in pre-teen beauty pageants while simultaneously denying that such children are capable of expressing their sexuality, and punishing them if they do. None of that adult weirdness surrounding sexuality ever made sense to me when I was a boy—I was, after all, enjoying consensual, guilt-free pleasure with boys my own age—but I did already know how highly-charged the topic could be, and how hysterical adults could become about it. (Although I must give my mother a lot of credit: One time when I got caught playing naked games with a neighborhood boy, and was sent home in disgrace, when I was talking to Mom about why I had been sent home and finally blushingly admitted that we had been playing together naked, Mom's only comment was that maybe I should keep such games to my own bedroom in future. My parents were very progressive in some ways!) So I kept my erotic journal hidden and private. Keep in mind, once again, that I was a teenager writing about his sexual experiences and fantasies, as a teenager, with other teenage boys. It was a way to both privately express my thoughts to myself in art, and a way of recording some experiences, and also—perhaps dominantly, and most importantly—a way of relieving my own sexual tension via fantasy, self-pleasure, and eroticism. These days, with available new media technologies, teenage boys are taking nude photos of themselves with their cellphones and sending them to each other—how times have changed!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Writing Eros 2
whichever way the wooden lathe
turns from roller to printer
the emergent wave of light
returning text to line
image of love in words and paean
torso and sigh and simple passion
in word and sigh the end of love
beginning of forever
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
bedclothes
rapture? no: just the handily erotic,
the lover near at hand, the night flesh.
tonight, only: never repeated. two collide
and part, lips avoiding kisses like commitment.
and after you’re gone, I take the bedclothes and,
instead of laundering, wrap myself in them,
in the remnants of your scent and warmth,
swaddle myself like an infant, and rock in the corner chair,
and remember. till the last trace of you lingers, remember.
the lover near at hand, the night flesh.
tonight, only: never repeated. two collide
and part, lips avoiding kisses like commitment.
and after you’re gone, I take the bedclothes and,
instead of laundering, wrap myself in them,
in the remnants of your scent and warmth,
swaddle myself like an infant, and rock in the corner chair,
and remember. till the last trace of you lingers, remember.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Whitman Sutra (Tantrayana)
I sing the body physical
shaping my cells out of the orgasm of creation
pulling DNA-rapt bones around me like a Navajo blanket
wrapping myself in the illusion of matter, eternally foaming
living light wrapped in the thunder weave and quantum sea
I sing the body mental
never separate from the physical
but abstracted and far too full of myself
able to build whole worlds but
contradicting myself with hidden truths divisive
double-willed, double-walled
I sing the body emotional
pulling me into lust and action
towards you, my infinite row of loves
those I have loved, those I love, those I will love
loving the women in the men and the men in the women
equal balancing, newly incarnate,
hope-fear under the rose
I sing the body spiritual
the angel-beast ceaselessly climbing into the light
pulling me onto then off of paths of desire
divining the twin pulls of head, hand, and heart
leading me with glimpses to find the good red road
I sing the body erotic
fingers button-pushing energetic nerves of activation
self-touched and touching, tickles of sweat down ribs
joineries of lips, hands, thighs, breasts, and fevered loins
the whole skin come alive at once and tingling
flushed from eartips to tarsals, brown aureoles red aflame
I sing the electric body
grown hard and handsome in the cyberlight—
if the body is to be transcended, let it be
in the way of ecstatic spirit, not of ascetic cybergnosis,
the avant-garde agnostic denial and scourging of the meat
no, no, yes I will yes, I sing the body sexual
the pulls of semen and milk
every flavor of sweat and secretion, febrile and erotic
fevered and glowing in the inner eye
I sing the sensual sexual refrain proclaimed by the Old Body Poet
the first electric god, who if he’d had a guitar
could have out-ecstasied Jimi and all the rest
I proclaim the body sensual
all girls and boys of every age filled
with adolescent hormone surge
all pornographic incandescent illicit pleasures
those lovely mergings of fluids
minglings of desire and intent so dangerous
to the stability of the State
all engagements and weddings of every gender
all wedding rings and love rings and sex-rings
all starving naked poets drooling toothless and drunken
over pretty boys and girls unclothed in summer’s heat
all old ones grown wise as crones, and still in love
I proclaim the poetry of the body
poetry of bodies aflame with desire
poetry of self-loving masturbation
poetry of coupling and uncoupling and tripling polyamory
until the numbers rise past count
poetry of touching yourself and touching each other
in loving touch, gentle and tough and desirous
all the poets of lust and innocence and masturbation
I sing the fulfilling promise of the timeless ecstasy of orgasm
merging of sperm and saliva and vaginal pomegranate juice
I sing the forever moment
encapsulated in chemical explosions in nerves and brains and groins
involuntary spasm twitch of structural muscle and bone
surge of vibrant juices
tingles in belly and behind the knees
I sing the ultimate man, the ultimate woman,
the compleat tumescent naked boy, the uncensored uncensured girl
the men and women and children who freely exchange their very beings
trading couplings and loving experiments
like bees encircling their goddess-queen,
the eyes of rising sunflowers
I sing all of myself and all of you
joining in one quivering sexual thrill
worldwide simultaneous orgasm that never falls off the crest
exploding forever in lifelove
(and Shiva dances in the flames:
the world, the world’s on fire)
resetting itself to one with every tick of tiniest quantum clock
always on, even as everything flickers a billion times
in and out of existence as I sing
I sing the man-woman of many parts and all time
being and oneness rising from nothing
decaying into glowing compost of spacetime
bio-luminescent and strangely attractive
I sing the divine body
perfect form of the lover
who waits at top of stairs with glowing eyes
and dissolves into diamond seawater sparkles at our touch
I sing every moment of absolute sexual fulfillment
from hugest singing whale to oldest sun-loving lichen
every million years or so adding a new verse to the eternal song
a new chorus of voices rising into light
coming round and round to the chanted refrain
uncountable voices crying every moment in ecstatic climax release
I sing the music that never dies, that cannot die
love of men and the love of women
love of every moment for every location
mutual masturbation of exploding spacetime
the big bang, continuously created universal orgasm
I sing the coming and becoming
I sing the one that is every one
I sing the word that is every word
I sing the one song that is every song
I sing the creator seeing itself through the eye of the created
I sing every love-drunken poet who ever lived
to proclaim the frantic lovemaking
of one universe endlessly permeating itself
penetrating and receiving in timeless mutual bliss
I sing every lover, every boy and girl, every girl and boy,
and every boy and boy, every girl and girl
and every boy girl boy, every girl boy girl
everyone and everything
I sing that I am you, that I am myself
I sing that I am everything and everything is me
I am singing to you, you are chanting back to me
words of union and respect
cadences of desire and sustaining love
one final chord of resolution in each other’s arms
we sing the dissolving oneness of the divided
yin melting into yang, yang melting into yin
oneness that underlies all twoness
union with the Beloved
we sing the mutual interpenetration of bodies
and of hearts and minds
we sing each other into being
coming together, two made into one
I sing you and you sing me
we sing each other into being
we sing the body physical
we sing the body mental
we sing the body emotional
we sing the body spiritual
we sing the body erotic
we sing the body electric
we sing the body electric
the Old Gay Poet, birds nestled with love in his beard,
was right, was right, was always right
we sing the body electric
•
This poem was originally written in 1995, as one of the Sutras. It was the first of three poems that I've written, so far, to and for Walt Whitman, icon and poet and grandfather. Published here and now in slightly revised form, summer 2009. (©2009 AP Durkee)
Also in this series:
Ode to Walt Whitman (2008)
Walt Whitman's Summer Wander Across North America (2009)
The Ode to Walt Whitman is also part of a series of Odes I am writing for and about queer poets have mattered to my thinking and writing.
Brief Lives Sutra (Tantrayana)
i.
Nothing casual about it.
You arrived so unexpectedly, it had
to have been planned.
So I had you for a day,
part of a day and a night,
though it seemed much more.
In sleep a beast whose breathing
was rough and tender,
probably from smoking;
I was content, enveloped in
the warming touch of your skin.
Shall I be jealous of a dog? But she’s
your best friend, the only one you really trust,
who never leaves your side.
Deep brown spaniel eyes, dark and ageless,
watch me with dismissal: I’m not you.
Your marriage of eyes and walking
has preserved you best: so be it.
She has you forever. If I only have you
for a day, that’s enough.
ii.
Comfortably naked after showering, after
a morning of sweaty woods work,
plagued by flies and biting sun.
I didn’t want to get dressed.
Room enough in the shower for two.
He wanted to watch everyone bathe,
but had to coaxed out of his clothes.
Walking nude down to the lake,
half-hard, I hid myself with my sarong
in front, nothing behind.
Boots and shaman necklaces enough to wear.
The blue sky, the endless water,
spring-clear and icy. Loons called all morning, lost.
Not only the body naked.
Lying on my back on the raft, sunlight, and cool breeze.
He said, “May I?” and I said,
“Feel free.” And before I knew what,
his lips encircled my cock, worshipful.
Instant electric pulse through the entire body,
back arched on the wood of the raft,
warm and soft-sliding little noises.
Imagine my surprise.
I touched his hips and cock and chest
and the obstetric line hatcheting his groin
below full balls.
His cock bigger than mine,
but he kept telling me how much
he loved mine.
Kissing nipples till I came.
Came everywhere, endlessly,
in the heat and sun,
on the floating raft by the marsh grass
and rocks. “Wow, that was a big load,
you must have been saving it for a long time.”
Imagine his surprise.
To be pursued, surprised, caught
and released. I am God’s fish,
the favorite catch of the day.
Talking in the tingle of afterwards,
kissing. The smoothest skin in any state,
the roundest shoulder, the firmest breast.
Fulfillment of a prescient wish:
to make love naked by the water
in the sun in the woods naked
and alone and alive the whole world vibrating.
Now the sky bells, blue ringing.
Worth a little sunburn.
In the cool cabin light he says:
“I can’t wait till tonight,”
and kisses me.
Who is the fish? Who is the fisherman?
The Beloved caught up in the catching,
hooked by hooking.
I have waited so very long.
Nothing casual about it.
You arrived so unexpectedly, it had
to have been planned.
iii.
the effeminist, androgynous torso
soft still very male
in the as yet unheard echo
bonfire crackling under stars as they turn
deer cries, owls, songs of tamarack
needles crying out as they cast free and plummet
narrow-hipped Nataraj
dancing in and out of nearness
leaping the bonfire nude
an instant before dry balsam explodes
missed searing his scrotum
by microseconds
but I catch him on film
not a repose between dances
rather a stillpoint amidst turnings
a fast enough shutter
to freeze an illusion of stillness
caught outside time’s black flow
iv.
the loons call throughout the night
surrounding your senses with flight and benediction
in the coldest hours I want to snuggle
close to your back, breathe your sweat,
burrow deep inside your heart,
remind myself of existence
sleep comes fitfully: how many years
sleeping alone, naked, comfortless?
even in the darkness I see your whitened skin
the dark hair that so contrasts
even in the dark, you lighten the tent
beeswax candles flicked the aureoles of your breast
as head back, kneeling above me, you came
I worship at the shrine of your semen
climbing a thin white rope towards god
v.
in the dark mustiness of the cabin noon,
pants down around my ankles,
you sucking my cock,
the slam of the screen door
as someone comes in.
odd that it doesn’t bother me
to be caught like this.
but it’s just my brother,
he smiles and waves,
grabs the ash bucket and goes.
back to business.
sleeping in the cold night tent,
bodies pressed together for warmth.
it had been hot in here earlier,
lit by one candles and two bodies.
he sleeps deep and long,
not noticing or not minding
when I touch his torso
in the middle night,
wondering if all this is real.
(which is the dream? butterfly or sex?)
he snores in stages, four growly honks
a ruminating grizzly
then quiet for awhile.
and before it fades to black,
a few brief scrawled letters
then back to the long listening:
one shoulder naked
in northern lights
sun aurora sentinel moon
shoulder breast and body
glowing by firelight moonlight candlelight
skywheel spinning behind your head
halo of stars
before it fades
before
Nothing casual about it.
You arrived so unexpectedly, it had
to have been planned.
So I had you for a day,
part of a day and a night,
though it seemed much more.
In sleep a beast whose breathing
was rough and tender,
probably from smoking;
I was content, enveloped in
the warming touch of your skin.
Shall I be jealous of a dog? But she’s
your best friend, the only one you really trust,
who never leaves your side.
Deep brown spaniel eyes, dark and ageless,
watch me with dismissal: I’m not you.
Your marriage of eyes and walking
has preserved you best: so be it.
She has you forever. If I only have you
for a day, that’s enough.
ii.
Comfortably naked after showering, after
a morning of sweaty woods work,
plagued by flies and biting sun.
I didn’t want to get dressed.
Room enough in the shower for two.
He wanted to watch everyone bathe,
but had to coaxed out of his clothes.
Walking nude down to the lake,
half-hard, I hid myself with my sarong
in front, nothing behind.
Boots and shaman necklaces enough to wear.
The blue sky, the endless water,
spring-clear and icy. Loons called all morning, lost.
Not only the body naked.
Lying on my back on the raft, sunlight, and cool breeze.
He said, “May I?” and I said,
“Feel free.” And before I knew what,
his lips encircled my cock, worshipful.
Instant electric pulse through the entire body,
back arched on the wood of the raft,
warm and soft-sliding little noises.
Imagine my surprise.
I touched his hips and cock and chest
and the obstetric line hatcheting his groin
below full balls.
His cock bigger than mine,
but he kept telling me how much
he loved mine.
Kissing nipples till I came.
Came everywhere, endlessly,
in the heat and sun,
on the floating raft by the marsh grass
and rocks. “Wow, that was a big load,
you must have been saving it for a long time.”
Imagine his surprise.
To be pursued, surprised, caught
and released. I am God’s fish,
the favorite catch of the day.
Talking in the tingle of afterwards,
kissing. The smoothest skin in any state,
the roundest shoulder, the firmest breast.
Fulfillment of a prescient wish:
to make love naked by the water
in the sun in the woods naked
and alone and alive the whole world vibrating.
Now the sky bells, blue ringing.
Worth a little sunburn.
In the cool cabin light he says:
“I can’t wait till tonight,”
and kisses me.
Who is the fish? Who is the fisherman?
The Beloved caught up in the catching,
hooked by hooking.
I have waited so very long.
Nothing casual about it.
You arrived so unexpectedly, it had
to have been planned.
iii.
the effeminist, androgynous torso
soft still very male
in the as yet unheard echo
bonfire crackling under stars as they turn
deer cries, owls, songs of tamarack
needles crying out as they cast free and plummet
narrow-hipped Nataraj
dancing in and out of nearness
leaping the bonfire nude
an instant before dry balsam explodes
missed searing his scrotum
by microseconds
but I catch him on film
not a repose between dances
rather a stillpoint amidst turnings
a fast enough shutter
to freeze an illusion of stillness
caught outside time’s black flow
iv.
the loons call throughout the night
surrounding your senses with flight and benediction
in the coldest hours I want to snuggle
close to your back, breathe your sweat,
burrow deep inside your heart,
remind myself of existence
sleep comes fitfully: how many years
sleeping alone, naked, comfortless?
even in the darkness I see your whitened skin
the dark hair that so contrasts
even in the dark, you lighten the tent
beeswax candles flicked the aureoles of your breast
as head back, kneeling above me, you came
I worship at the shrine of your semen
climbing a thin white rope towards god
v.
in the dark mustiness of the cabin noon,
pants down around my ankles,
you sucking my cock,
the slam of the screen door
as someone comes in.
odd that it doesn’t bother me
to be caught like this.
but it’s just my brother,
he smiles and waves,
grabs the ash bucket and goes.
back to business.
sleeping in the cold night tent,
bodies pressed together for warmth.
it had been hot in here earlier,
lit by one candles and two bodies.
he sleeps deep and long,
not noticing or not minding
when I touch his torso
in the middle night,
wondering if all this is real.
(which is the dream? butterfly or sex?)
he snores in stages, four growly honks
a ruminating grizzly
then quiet for awhile.
and before it fades to black,
a few brief scrawled letters
then back to the long listening:
one shoulder naked
in northern lights
sun aurora sentinel moon
shoulder breast and body
glowing by firelight moonlight candlelight
skywheel spinning behind your head
halo of stars
before it fades
before
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Letting Go, Always, Again
but lovers
aren’t like butterflies:
you can’t pin them
to a wall, and leave them there
and hope they’ll pose
forever;
no, they will insist
on cutting the puppet-strings
and getting on their own feet
to strut about
with incipient purpose
and vague opinions.
but if you let them fly,
wherever they touch earth
they brighten it,
making gardens,
and their light will refract
the hours like mosaic glass.
let them go.
don’t try to
trim their pinions.
the best ones
will cook you breakfast.
Monday, June 15, 2009
for Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy
at the thrift store today
a new old typewriter
ancient Underwood portable
saw it a few days ago
still there still unsold
bought it brought it home
cleaned it up ribbon
still works some of the keys
stick the X key sticks
watched a documentary
about Christopher Isherwood
and Don Bachardy lovers
thirty years age difference
didn't matter didn't ever matter
why would it why should it
if it's love it doesn't matter
older younger mentor student
father son mistaken by some to be
what mattered was the words and images
the old writer and the young artist
the artist stopped drawing anyone else
for the last six months of the writer's dying
then spent all day drawing his corpse
the sunny day after he died
Christopher eyes closed jaw slack
skin folded in wasted away not much hair
everything gone pale and faded
pose in repose drawn again and again
while the artist kept looking
and seeing seeing clearly even if eyes clouded
the last look of the body of the writer
in pose and repose looking exactly
the same my father did in the hour after he too died
two years ago today
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