to undress, and when I swallow your cock
(my mouth so hot it makes you dizzy) you
thrust your numb fingers into my coat
to find my breasts. So you’re a poet,
I whisper, sensing your balls tighten
under my gloves. Please, you reply.
Mute, I push your head down,
you are thirsty, I know you can taste
this morning’s bath, but traces too
of another man’s semen, blood,
the dampness of seaweed.
The tide is pushing itself towards us;
a man walking his dog unzips
his anorak. I straddle you, we sit
rocking in the breeze, dialect thick on your
lips, saliva stringing between us. Please,
please. I smile and your eyes roll back
with the receding grasp of breakers.
You’re no longer making any sense
to me; something like Old Norse
retches in your throat as the hot rush
releases you. Afterwards you mutter faintly,
half-metre, near rhyme, kissing my neck as your
poems seep away into the shingle.
Punctuation
Claire Dyer
We’re making love and there’s a comma on your shoulder.
It’s shining in the dark –
part pause, part the start of separation.
Question marks are in your eyes.
I have no answer other than to press my lips
to your neck and feel you smile.
This moment’s stolen, we’re living in quotation marks.
Next you touch me with apostrophes –
silky on my skin, they brush my breasts with belonging.
I arch my back, our release is an exclamation.
Afterwards, the sheet’s littered with semicolons,
colons, there are hyphens between our toes
and we speak ellipsis, promise each other
a lexicon without a word for grief, or any full stop –
On being in Bed with Your Brand-new Lover
Amy Key
I’ve abandoned vanity, since I became a body
of threads, never quite made, since you rippled
the apparent skin of me.
I’m all texture. Silk rosette, billowing coral,
tentative as a just baked cake. Sensations
slide over my knitted blood.
My mouth is a glass paperweight
to keep our tastes in, like maraschino
cherries and water from a zinc cup.
The Platonic Blow (A Day for a Lay)
W. H. Auden
It was a spring day, a day, a day for a lay when the air
Smelled like a locker-room, a day to blow or get blown.
Returning from lunch I turned my corner and there
On a near-by stoop I saw him standing alone.
I glanced as I advanced. The clean white T-shirt outlined
A forceful torso, the light-blue denims divulged
Much. I observed the snug curves where they hugged the behind,
I watched the crotch where the cloth intriguingly bulged.
Our eyes met, I felt sick. My knees turned weak.
I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to say.
In a blur I heard words myself like a stranger speak.
‘Will you come to my room?’ Then a husky voice, ‘O.K.’
I produced some beer and we talked. Like a little boy
He told me his story. Present address next door.
Half Polish half Irish The youngest. From Illinois.
Profession mechanic. Name Bud. Age twenty-four.
He put down his glass and stretched his bare arms along
The back of my sofa. The afternoon sunlight struck
The blond hairs on the wrist near my head. His chin was strong,
His mouth sucky. I could hardly believe my luck.
And here he was sitting beside me, legs apart.
I could bear it no longer. I touched the inside of his thigh.
His reply was to move closer. I trembled. My heart
Thumped and jumped as my fingers went to his fly.
I opened a gap in the flap. I went in there.
I sought for a slit in the gripper shorts that had charge
Of the basket I asked for. I came to warm flesh then to hair,
I went on. I found what I hoped. I groped. It was large.
He responded to my fondling in a charming, disarming way:
Without a word he unbuckled his belt while I felt
And lolled back, stretching his legs. His pants fell away.
Carefully drawing it out, I beheld what I held.
The circumcised head was a work of mastercraft,
With perfectly beveled rim of unusual weight
And the friendliest red. Even relaxed, the shaft
Was of noble dimensions with the wrinkles that indicate
Singular powers of extension. For a second or two,
It lay there inert then suddenly stirred in my hand,
Then paused as if frightened or doubtful of what to do,
And then with a violent jerk began to expand.
By soundless bounds it extended and distended, by quick
Great leaps it rose, it flushed, it rushed to its full size.
Nearly nine inches long and three inches thick,
A royal column ineffably solemn and wise.
I tested its length and strength with a manual squeeze,
I bunched my fingers and twirled them about the knob,
I stroked it from top to bottom. I got on my knees.
I lowered my head. I opened my mouth for the job.
But he pushed me gently away. He bent down. He unlaced
His shoes. He removed his socks. Stood up. Shed
His pants altogether. Muscles in arms and waist
Rippled as he whipped his T-shirt over his head.
I scanned his tan, enjoyed the contrast of brown
Trunk against white shorts taut around small
Hips. With a dig and a wriggle he peeled them down.
I tore off my clothes. He faced me smiling. I saw all.
The gorgeous organ stood stiffly and straightly out
With a slight flare upwards. At each beat of his heart it threw
An odd little nod my way. From the slot of the spout
Exuded a drop of transparent viscous goo.
The lair of hair was fair, the grove of a young man,
A tangle of curls and whorls, luxuriant but couth.
Except for a spur of golden hairs that fan
To the neat navel, the rest of the belly was smooth.
Well hung, slung from the fork of the muscular legs,
The firm vase of his sperm, like a bulging pear,
Cradling its handsome glands, two herculean eggs,
Swung as he came towards me, shameless, bare.
We aligned mouths. We entwined. All act was clutch,
All fact contact, the attack and the interlock
Of tongues, the charms of arms. I shook at the touch
Of his fresh flesh, I rocked at the shock of his cock.
Straddling my legs a little I inserted his divine
Person between and closed on it tight as I could.
The upright warmth of his belly lay all along mine.
Nude, glued together for a minute, we stood.
I stroked the lobes of his ears, the back of his head
And the broad shoulders. I took bold hold of the compact
Globes of his bottom. We tottered. He fell on the bed.
Lips parted, eyes closed, he lay there, ripe for the act.
Mad to be had, to be felt and smelled. My lips
Explored the adorable masculine tits. My eyes
Assessed the chest. I caressed the athletic hips
And the slim limbs. I approved the grooves of the thighs.
I hugged, I snuggled into an armpit.
I sniffed the subtle whiff of its tuft. I lapped up the taste
Of its hot hollow. My fingers began to drift
On a trek of inspection, a leisurely tour of the waist.
Downward in narrowing circles they playfully strayed.
Encroached on his privates like poachers, approached the prick.
But teasingly swerved, retreated from meeting. It betrayed
Its pleading need by a pretty imploring kick.
‘Shall I rim you?’ I whispered. He shifted his limbs in assent,
Turned on his side and opened his legs, let me pass
To the dark parts behind. I kissed as I went
The great thick cord that ran back from his balls to his arse.
Prying the buttocks aside, I nosed my way in
Down the shaggy slopes. I came to the puckered goal.
It was quick to my licking. He pressed his crotch to my chin.
His thighs squirmed as my tongue wormed in his hole.
His sensations yearned for consummation. He untucked
His legs and lay panting, hot as a teen-age boy.
Naked, enlarged, charged, aching to get sucked,
Clawing the sheet, all his pores open to joy.
I inspected his erection. I surveyed his parts with a stare
From scrotum level. Sighting along the underside
Of his cock, I looked through the forest of pubic hair
To the range of the chest beyond rising lofty and wide.
I admired the texture, the delicate wrinkles and the neat
Sutures of the capacious bag. I adored the grace
Of the male genitalia. I raised the delicious meat
Up to my mouth, brought the face of its hard-on to my face.
Slipping my lips round the Byzantine dome of the head,
With the tip of my tongue I caressed the sensitive groove.
He thrilled to the trill. ‘That’s lovely!’ he hoarsely said.
‘Go on! Go on!’ Very slowly I started to move.
Gently, intently, I slid to the massive base
Of his tower of power, paused there a moment down
In the warm moist thicket, then began to retrace
Inch by inch the smooth way to the throbbing crown.
Indwelling excitements swelled at delights to come
As I descended and ascended those thick distended walls.
I grasped his root between left forefinger and thumb
And with my right hand tickled his heavy voluminous balls.
I plunged with a rhythmical lunge steady and slow,
And at every stroke made a corkscrew roll with my tongue.
His soul reeled in the feeling. He whimpered, ‘Oh!’
As I tongued and squeezed and rolled and tickled and swung.
Then I pressed on the spot where the groin is joined to the cock,
Slipped a finger into his arse and massaged him from inside.
The secret sluices of his juices began to unlock.
He melted into what he felt. ‘O Jesus!’ he cried.
Waves of immeasurable pleasures mounted his member in quick
Spasms. I lay still in the notch of his crotch inhaling his sweat
His ring convulsed round my finger. Into me, rich and thick,
His hot spunk spouted in gouts, spurted in jet after jet.
Rhetorical Questions
Hugo Williams
How do you think I feel
when you make me talk to you
and won’t let me stop
till the words turn into a moan?
Do you think I mind
when you put your hand over my mouth
and tell me not to move
so you can ‘hear’ it happening?
And how do you think I like it
when you tell me what to do
and your mouth opens
and you look straight through me?
Do you think I mind
when the blank expression comes
and you set off alone
down the hall of collapsing columns?
Haikus to Fuck to
Leo Cookman
She loses her clothes
In seconds. Out stick her tits
Then she climbs on top
My cock between lips
Day and Night, joyful sucking,
‘Please cum in my mouth’
Hot, sweaty and hard
My dick in her hand, she wanks
Me to perfection
I spread her legs wide
And my head put between them
To lick her pussy
‘Your cock’s amazing’
‘I want your dick inside me’
My cock in her cunt
‘Now, cum on my tits’
‘You’re just so hot when you cum’
‘I’m stroking myself’
It’s lovely to lick
Around the dark nipples on
Her round and soft breasts
She sticks her legs out
As I fuck her so hard, she
Asks it deeper still
Ecstasy in moans
As I hammer forth, inside,
Out driving our cum
My cock soaking wet
Gloved by her slit, now dripping,
We fuck. In and out.
We shout then as I
Ejaculate inside her.
Warm, creamy and white.
I slide my spent dick
Out of her sodden, wet minge.
My lover I kiss.
Caked in each other’s
Kisses and sweat, on her I
The Sun Rising
John Donne
Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me,
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, ‘All here in one bed lay.’
She’s all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.
Flicker
Robert Frant
Your tongue gives such pleasure
When you, at your leisure,
Form words that I treasure –
Such filth, without measure.
Then later, the flicker,
First slowly then quicker,
Addictive as liquor,
Still making me thicker
And harder inside you;
Your mouth, open wide to
Take all I provide through
Your lips as I ride you.
4
‘ALL OUR STATES UNITED’
Tying the Knots
Ann
a-May Laugher
On Audrey’s wedding night
she took a pin to bed;
stabbed her finger in the breathless dark
and dabbed the linen of the ‘breaking cloth’.
She made small sounds that passed for pain,
not sure it was enough, she stabbed again,
smeared a thumb-ful of redemptive blood
across the white of her stocking top.
Audrey was sixty when we met, lovely and vast,
like a dimpled sow in a yellow tabard;
always a scuff-chafe-scuff of thighs
as she mopped corridors and stairs.
Each day, once the Matins bell had stopped,
I’d wash left-greasy supper pots,
she’d squat and settle with toast and tea,
plotting lavish nuptials for her Marie.
She liked her family traditions,
the Kimber cloth for ‘breaking in’.
Five generations of bridal virgins
‘taken’ on it by eager men.
‘Well I saaaay five’ she said and smiled.
‘It wouldn’t matter now, but then …’
Bicycle Pump
Irving Layton
The idle gods for laughs gave man his rump;
In sport, so made his kind that when he sighs
In ecstasy between a woman’s thighs
He goes up and down, a bicycle pump;
And his beloved once his seed is sown
Swells like a faulty tube on one side blown.