Posting a little early for Poetry Thursday, which prompted us to post about sex. Pretty ho-hum, I believe, to write about sex only as sex, but very hot to write about sex as play, improvisation, despair, nostalgia, whimsy, remorse, and then it begins to be something interesting.
Looking at my own poetry, I written about sex in relief of a mining disaster, Idaho winterscapes, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Peruvian dinners in Miami, Christmas carols, Miranda Richardson morphing into a Matthew Barney cheetah, failing comets, Jonathon Cornell boxes, salmon fishing runs, quantum mechanics, Sonja Henie, and yes, Boise State football. Oh, and dresses, as my faithful readers most likely know.
The trick for me is to be sure that the good sex poem, like most good sex, should be doing about twelve things at once. Oh, I could go on about the values of the profane, of the ecstatic, of the sexual politics of any sex act, of Whitman's view of poetry as a seminal utterance, of Kristeva's view of poetry as the ovumic murmuring, but that's all talk.
Today, I'll share one my Gerri likes.
Her Disrobing
She has said, “In dance, there is always gravity,
for movement is a continual exchange of weight.
If you’re doing it right, it is as if nothing touches ground.
To rise, you must lower yourself toward earth.
You must think down. You must humble your body.”
I do not recall her movements as desperate, but
I think of her raw doomed pull inside the music,
down to a place where pulse and breath have stopped.
She liked it that way, dance as a sculpting of space,
of stealing shape out of nothing: her arm curved
overhead in the dark, her eyes and chin tilted
down, even her hair across her face still. Tonight,
her dance might have become something for the men
along her life, or for me, this new man who might be
another punishment for the men she knew before.
Before me, her disrobing is a simple, quiet slip,
upon which a crinkle of cotton is the only
falling, the only capture in the air, and her nakedness
stuns me. I cannot breathe against this turn and drop
of her knee, as she sweeps her body beneath the covers,
powerful, a sexual angel. In her, I swear the music
must be of something ugly, the body accustomed
to a pain, and sometimes, too, when she hovers
above my body, so still that I am alone, the sound must
be of laughter, of one wing extending and lowing.
Looking at my own poetry, I written about sex in relief of a mining disaster, Idaho winterscapes, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Peruvian dinners in Miami, Christmas carols, Miranda Richardson morphing into a Matthew Barney cheetah, failing comets, Jonathon Cornell boxes, salmon fishing runs, quantum mechanics, Sonja Henie, and yes, Boise State football. Oh, and dresses, as my faithful readers most likely know. The trick for me is to be sure that the good sex poem, like most good sex, should be doing about twelve things at once. Oh, I could go on about the values of the profane, of the ecstatic, of the sexual politics of any sex act, of Whitman's view of poetry as a seminal utterance, of Kristeva's view of poetry as the ovumic murmuring, but that's all talk.
Today, I'll share one my Gerri likes.
Her Disrobing
She has said, “In dance, there is always gravity,
for movement is a continual exchange of weight.
If you’re doing it right, it is as if nothing touches ground.
To rise, you must lower yourself toward earth.
You must think down. You must humble your body.”
I do not recall her movements as desperate, but
I think of her raw doomed pull inside the music,
down to a place where pulse and breath have stopped.
She liked it that way, dance as a sculpting of space,
of stealing shape out of nothing: her arm curved
overhead in the dark, her eyes and chin tilted
down, even her hair across her face still. Tonight,
her dance might have become something for the men
along her life, or for me, this new man who might be
another punishment for the men she knew before.
Before me, her disrobing is a simple, quiet slip,
upon which a crinkle of cotton is the only
falling, the only capture in the air, and her nakedness
stuns me. I cannot breathe against this turn and drop
of her knee, as she sweeps her body beneath the covers,
powerful, a sexual angel. In her, I swear the music
must be of something ugly, the body accustomed
to a pain, and sometimes, too, when she hovers
above my body, so still that I am alone, the sound must
be of laughter, of one wing extending and lowing.
Comments
"...another punishment for the men she knew before..."
truly exquisite ugly
merci,
~Lady
weight and the tightness of the lines; its formal structure. The first verse is a masterly lead-in and the ending is quite intriguing; quite beautiful.
"To rise, you must lower yourself/ toward earth."
"She liked it that way, dance /as a sculpting of space,/
of stealing shape out of nothing"
to a pain, and sometimes, too, when she hovers above my body, so still that I am alone, the sound must
be of laughter, of one wing extending and lowing."
Exquisite!
I love the polysemy of 'slip' in this line. Has me chanting it over and over again.
And wow to all the other comments.
But no comments on that little hottie Sonja???
"I cannot breathe against this turn and drop
of her knee, as she sweeps her body beneath the covers,
powerful, a sexual angel."
Oh to be wanted like that! Jim, I have such word envy for you. Every utterance is necessary. Every line breathes. Graceful as a dance. Just remarkable. And your ending ... Once again, I am dumbstruck.
that i like...
but this especially
because it rings true...
"this new man who might be
another punishment for the men she knew before"
This line is breathtaking. I cannot wait to learn from ou Jim. Teach me
"...one wing extending and lowing." Beautiful.