Archive for 'Poetry'
Scene of Events
Posted on 14. Feb, 2009 by Steven P. Link.
Steven P. Link
No wind exists today
In the dimly lit room
With curtains smelling of smoke
And the room smelling of our sex
You’re sleeping but
You’re watching me
You’re raw and passionate
You’re clinging to a belief
That it can work between us
Even in dreams
It does
Sitting by the window
Wishing for a way
To reconnect you to the reality
Of the disconnect
My favorite dress
Bought with my last twenty dollars
Three years ago in that Chicago thrift
Worn intentionally
Lays on the floor
Looking up at me
Reminding me
We fucked in the changing room
And were told to leave-
Symbolically destructive
I dress and step out onto the street
Seeking out something to drink
And the air of the city
Hits me like a cool breath
Passing by people on the street
Who know by looking at me
That’s its only sex
Any love
Left no forwarding address
I buy a newspaper
Knowing full well I won’t read it
And coffee for ourselves
Even though I don’t want to wake you
You have a scar
Just above your left breast
Where you were struck
I know because I kissed the wound
And tried to make it go away
But it’s an unfortunate truth
And exists in the way
The disconnect exists-
Perpetual
He will be back soon
Its nearing three in the afternoon
And the wind hasn’t yet made
An appearance
And I say I have to go
And I feel sick with ourselves
We fuck one last time
Symbolically destructive
I feel stuck in a metaphor
And a slight cough
As you collapse
I am weak for you
Like a drug without limits
It must be the curves of your flesh
Or the complexities of your mind
I kneel before your alter
I drink from you chalice
I consume the eucharist
And consummate the bond
Taking it all in
And leaving no stone unturned
But our sex is the weapon
That ultimately destroys us
And I leave
The scene of the accident
Putting the wreck behind me
For a while
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Anticipation
Posted on 14. Feb, 2009 by Staff Reporter.
Steven P. Link and Kat
Sex with you is
the Moonlight Sonata
on endless loop
a twenty dollar bill
discovered in a coat pocket
a thief in the night
who takes the things
you really didn’t want anyway
a first kiss
and the requisite nausea of joy that follows
an exquisite feast among friends
a real, genuine laugh
the high of some overused pharmaceutical
but
this is not really describing sex
this more describes the anticipation of sex
the building up of something great
trudging slowly and beautifully
towards the cataclysmic release
the climax that inevitably occurs
when two people feel
as we do for each other.
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“The Distant Moon” by Rafael Campo
Posted on 10. Feb, 2009 by Stephen Kastner.
I Admitted to the hospital again. The second bout of pneumocystis back In January almost killed him; then, He'd sworn to us he'd die at home. He baked Us cookies, which the student wouldn't eat, Before he left--the kitchen on 5A Is small, but serviceable and neat. He told me stories: Richard Gere was gay And sleeping with a friend if his, and AIDS Was an elaborate conspiracy Effected by the government. He stayed Four months. He lost his sight to CMV. II One day, I drew his blood, and while I did He laughed, and said I was his girlfriend now, His blood-brother. "Vampire-slut," he cried, "You'll make me live forever!" Wrinkled brows Were all I managed in reply. I know I'm drowning in his blood, his purple blood. I filled my seven tubes; the warmth was slow To leave them, pressed inside my palm. I'm sad Because he doesn't see my face. Because I can't identify with him. I hate The fact that he's my age, and that across My skin he's there, my blood-brother, my mate. III He said I was too nice, and after all If Jodie Foster was a lesbian, Then doctors could be queer. Residual Guilts tingled down my spine. "OK, I'm done," I said as I withdrew the needle from His back, and pressed. The CSF was clear; I never answered him. That spot was framed In sterile, paper drapes. He was so near Death, telling him seemed pointless. Then, he died. Unrecognizable to anyone But me, he left my needles deep inside His joking heart. An autopsy was done. IV I'd read to him at night. His horoscope, The New York Times, The Advocate; Some lines by Richard Howard gave us hope. A quiet hospital is infinite, The polished, ice-white floors, the darkened halls That lead to almost anywhere, to death Or ghostly, lighted Coke machines. I call To him one night, at home, asleep. His breath, I dreamed, had filled my lungs--his lips, my lips Had touched. I felt as though I'd touched a shrine. Not disrespectfully, but in some lapse Of concentration. In a mirror shines The distant moon.
photo: Sara Barrett
Rafael Campo was born in Dover, New Jersey, in 1964. He is the author of several books of poetry, including the forthcoming collection, What the Body Told, which received a Lambda Literary Award… more
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“The Mutes” by Denise Levertov
Posted on 10. Feb, 2009 by Stephen Kastner.
Those groans men use
passing a woman on the street
or on the steps of the subway
to tell her she is a female
and their flesh knows it,
are they a sort of tune,
an ugly enough song, sung
by a bird with a slit tongue
but meant for music?
Or are they the muffled roaring
of deafmutes trapped in a building that is
slowly filling with smoke?
Perhaps both.
Such men most often
look as if groan were all they could do,
yet a woman, in spite of herself,
knows it’s a tribute:
if she were lacking all grace
they’d pass her in silence:
so it’s not only to say she’s
a warm hole. It’s a word
in grief-language, nothing to do with
primitive, not an ur-language;
language stricken, sickened, cast down
in decrepitude. She wants to
throw the tribute away, dis-
gusted, and can’t,
it goes on buzzing in her ear,
it changes the pace of her walk,
the torn posters in echoing corridors
spell it out, it
quakes and gnashes as the train comes in.
Her pulse sullenly
had picked up speed,
but the cars slow down and
jar to a stop while her understanding
keeps on translating:
‘Life after life after life goes by
without poetry,
without seemliness,
without love.’
photo: © David Geier Photography
Denise Levertov was born in Ilford, Essex, England, on October 24, 1923. She went on to publish more than twenty volumes of poetry, four books of prose, and translated three volumes of poetry… more
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“After Making Love We Hear Footsteps” by Galway Kinnell
Posted on 10. Feb, 2009 by Staff Reporter.
For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run—as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears—in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small he has to screw them on—
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.
In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body—
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.
Photo by Sara Barrett
Galway Kinnell
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1927, Galway Kinnell is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Selected Poems, for which he received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award…
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“Open Me” by Amara Charles
Posted on 08. Nov, 2008 by Stephen Kastner.
Pull me into your den
Where the fall of my abandoned fear
Triggers an avalanche of frozen feeling.
Rip down my shield of pretty lies and jeweled defenses.
Expose my cautious heart to the wild flames of your thunder.
Drench me in your vault of warm honey
Until I drown
And have to find new lungs to breath in here.
Drag me in no matter what I say,
No matter how quickly I escape
Or how cleverly I dress myself into safety.
Capture all my petty movements away from You
Only my childish doubts are threatened by this brilliance.
And I am so amused watching them wither like old vines
No longer alive with life’s syrup.
Though it is dangerous to keep opening this way
And this perilous breeze of radiance relentlessly changes
direction.
I am hopelessly addicted to intimately following its course.
It sounds like falling leaves from here.
My reasons to stay are even more insubstantial.
The unshrouded shine in your eyes
The impossible wetness of your lips
Old ways and habits
Seem like dear familiar,
Though distant friends.
Turning away now for even a moment
Bruises my skin and leaves beautiful scars
From strange surgeries that heal my wounds in the night.
Let me wake by you in the morning.
Open me again.
Keep opening me forever.
Amara Charles
Amara Charles is the founder of Nourishing Arts, a healing center providing training courses in the spiritual sexual arts. Aching to Open, is filled with works like the above that celebrate the sexy power of woman in which Amara adds her feminine voice to the tradition of Lalla and Mirabai. Amara has been teaching spiritual sexuality workshops throughout the US, Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand since 1987. Her programs include Taoist White Tigress, Shamanic Quodoushka Sexuality and the Yin Yang of Sexual Restoration.
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“Spiritual Sexuality” by Frank Polk Bennett
Posted on 13. Oct, 2008 by Stephen Kastner.
Spirituality and sex are
Very seldom linked,
Yet could they be, should they be,
What do you think?
Could such a passionate power
Come from an ungodly source?
This life creating process is both
An enlivening and unifying force.
Harmony is essential for this
Magical process to unfold
Passion is another element
Of this journey of the soul.
The lustful attraction fills our being
With a passionate kind of heat,
We feel compelled to join our throbbing
Bodies until we are fulfilled and complete.
Through this ecstatic connection of our souls,
We get a glimpse of a heaven we can hold,
We experience a communion of the soul,
A spiritual awakening ready to unfold.
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