Gay Love Poetry

by Neil Powell (ed)

  Throughout that year, Chris had sat two desks ahead of me.

  First in our class to wear flared trousers,

  he knew irregular Greek verbs and the Russian for

  ‘I understand the lesson for today.’

  I didn’t and don’t.

  I know that at the end of Glasnost' is a sound

  my language can’t write down.

  The ‘soft sign’, they call it. It’s a little

  'tch’ of tenderness, a gentle chafing of the teeth and tongue.

  No, that’s not it.

  ‘But you can say it, can’t you? And who was Chris?’ Alastair

  pours us beers. ‘And Lenin — for Christ's sake, Lenin!’

  Decades on, two pairs of flares hang

  embarrassed in my wardrobe. I open the window

  on an August night in London, and the raining random noise

  spits in and on:

  traffic; the pulse of music from the Seventh Day Adventist Hall;

  a dog two streets away,

  barking with furious thirst or boredom,

  chafing at the chain of speech he does not have.

  In the paper Boris Zhikov, aged 16,

  clutches his signed lp above a headline:

  Children of Perestroika Meet the Pet Shop Boys.

  I close and lock the window.

  I watch my video of Horovitz

  playing at last again in Moscow after sixty years.

  Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Schumann’s Kinderszenen.

  During the ‘Traumerei’ encore, a tear slides down an old man’s cheek.

  ‘The trouble with your poems is,’ says Alastair,

  ‘you don't say enough about your feelings.’

  I rehearse the phrases that have stayed:

  Kak menya zavoot? and Shto delat'?

  What do they call me? What is to be done?

  A sound of tenderness, is it?

  The teeth against the tongue.

  ‘But you can say it, cant you?’ Alastair repeats.

  He finishes his beer and grins again.

  ‘And by the way that isn’t how you spell my name.’

  The dictionary I found this summer translates

  Glasnost' as, not ‘openness’, but ‘publicity’.

  At its end is something I can’t yet write down.

  GREGORY WOODS

  Reconciliation

  If there were dancers, they were not dancing. If there was a tree,

  It had not emerged from the rock. Potential was enough.

  Fish, if there were fish, confined themselves discreetly to the dark

  Angles in the shadow of the overhang, if the moon was out

  For casting shadows. (Say, for the sake of the moment, it was.)

  In the presence of the dust, we celebrated our return

  To sanity. It was the dust we tasted on each others skin —

  You could say we made mud of it. Adapting our accustomed

  Falsehoods to the requirement of the time, we reduced each others

  Serious intensity to laughter, an excuse for tears.

  If there was a clock, hidden under blankets in a basket

  Or thieved by brigands in the night, it would not for want of winding

  Stop. We were reconciled to that. I slept in your armpit, dreaming,

  If there were dreams, of you: you in the mountains, you on horseback,

  You at the cash-and-carry. There was a sentence which recurred

  In every episode. I knew it was the same but couldn’t

  Have repeated any single word of it on waking up.

  Who said it, you or I or the kid at the check-out, was open

  To interpretation. I think I spoke it when you woke me

  But your kisses tightened on me like a buckled rubber gag.

  The dancers, waiting for the music which their grace relies on,

  Did stretching exercises in the mirror, not one of them

  Indifferent to his neighbours sweat. An earthquake or at least

  A pompous thunderstorm could have served our need for an event:

  Pylons struck by lightning, gigantic hail stones, children screaming scared.

  But above a crag surmounted by a dry stone wall, the sky

  Did nothing suitably dramatic to confirm our mood.

  The clouds were indistinct, the light uncertain. If there were trees,

  They prospered undisturbed. If I shuddered when you clung to me,

  It was because your hands were cold; if not, forget I mentioned them.

  The coastguard s bell, the car alarm, cats on the fire escape, all

  Made their token efforts and failed. The dancers retreated to

  The locker room, affecting an impassioned manliness as rough

  As the covers which slid to the floor, leaving us bare but not cold.

  To the presence of the dust we celebrated our return.

  FORBES

  Robert

  Its so stretchy today

  Wet grey Sunday,

  Lets go back to bed with coffee and toast

  Palm Sunday bells ringing,

  And roll around in that crumby bed,

  Sex, radio, doze,

  And did I hear someone mention that word love?

  No? well never mind

  Its just so stretchy today with you.

  STEVE CRANFIELD

  The Testament

  for Bryan

  Ming not your lufe with fals deceptioun.

  Beir in your mynd this short conclusioun

  Of fair Cresseid — as I have said befoir;

  Sen scho is deid,

  I speik of hir no moir.

  Henryson, The Testament of Cresseid

  ‘You must write me a poem some day ...

  Provided its something you really mean

  I can be patient,’ I heard you say

  Once, blowing smoke-rings from the bed

  As I unbalanced, one leg into my jeans.

  Only when I’d opened, fully dressed,

  Your ‘special gift’ — a biro and blank pad —

  Did I wake up to a serious request.

  What’s it to me, though, anonymised Lines to Y?

  Or the authorised task of staining paper sheets

  As an alternative to sex?

  Wasn’t it the bane of writers in the past,

  Having to be in sync with the dictates

  Of pea-brained nobles, God or The Mistress?

  Well-heeled academics feel ‘coerced’

  By equivalent calls from the Murdoch press.

  Maybe I read too much into your present,

  Detecting hints of ‘All this was commission

  But were you equal to it?’ I wasn’t.

  Commissions, poems, end. Lust, likewise, vanishes.

  Not that I gave much weight to your opposition

  The day I declined to end things over-the-top:

  An unfussed character, shorn of flourishes.

  I know the value of the one full stop.

  And yet, I find myself writing the thing

  You asked for but would feel puzzled to receive

  (You shan’t), the whole time wondering

  What it is prompts me to arrange words unsaid,

  Unsayable, to you in person, deceives

  Me into thinking I can beyond where

  Henryson left his polished-off Cresseid:

  ‘Sen scho is deid, I speik of hir no moir.’

  His stern anti-metaphysical tact

  (Rare in a medieval) pulls me up short

  With its callous, matter-of-fact

  Reminder that deception has its limits.

  Obeying your one proviso never taught

  Me to doubt that meant poems haunt the lonely

  Or that, for all would-be securities, its

  The idiot who writes to commissions only.

  PETER DANIELS

  Assessment

  David Jones lacks motivation.

  He has failed to achiev
e his targets

  for three months. His timekeeping is poor.

  His attitude leaves much to be desired.

  Davids appearance is hard to fault

  and I must say he does attract

  attention, but somehow it’s always

  in the wrong way. It’s fine to look good

  but sales must always be our number one priority.

  David is brilliant but erratic. The clients

  find him unsettling. His smile

  can undermine office morale for days

  and days. Last week I pulled him up

  for an untidy desk, and his face

  lit the room most embarrassingly.

  His carefree songs at the computer

  can move certain colleagues to tears, which

  is bad for productivity.

  This kind of thing gets personal,

  and management’s no picnic at the best of times.

  It can’t go on.

  For the good of our company I shall have to

  let him go. I can’t hold on to an employee like David.

  DAVID KINLOCH

  Bed

  for Eric

  The moment the light goes out,

  He sleeps: a gift from the dark.

  There is the small chime

  Of the moon on the wall,

  The deep freeze digesting

  In the kitchen. He floats

  From head to toe on the buzz

  Of his snore, dreaming the calm

  Glide of a Jaspar ski-lift,

  The summer elk that trotted

  Out of forest beneath our

  Dangling feet. His arm

  Crooks the violin of my head.

  I elbow him away intent on

  Sleep but suddenly unpegged

  By a gust of dreams we roll

  Together in the hot hole

  Of his mums old bed,

  Dribbling on the pillows.

  Waking, he has me in an

  Arm-lock, our legs a single

  Rope of flesh, my ear-lobe

  Tickled by his breath. I reach

  Behind me and shove my hand

  Between his thighs. He stretches,

  Opening briefly like a centre-

  Fold, a light smile of welcome

  On his lips. But more than this

  Is the scrape of the two-o’clock

  Beetle, the nip of a dust-mite,

  My scratch: my love disturbed

  By me, awake but patient

  In the dark.

  STEVE ANTHONY

  A Good Fit

  A score of hopefuls, then we fitted:

  same height, same build, a pairing so neat

  I’d wear your jeans to hug me tight

  and we’d stroll touch-close along the street

  counting the smiles. We made love all the time —

  morning and night, the long light

  afternoons, in bed, or the rougher climb

  of the stairs, the sink, everywhere was right.

  The best time, on the living room rug,

  I followed your skin like the coast on a map,

  you spread your legs and I backed in, snug,

  your arms closing round me, moored in your lap.

  Then we locked together to pull and collide,

  two men matched in sweat and feeling,

  till we lay back, done in, side by side,

  laughing up to the stucco ceiling.

  For days we didn’t bother with clothes.

  Evenings, cuddled out the colder weather;

  unless we’d filled them with wine and friends

  to show how good we were together ...

  But in dancing crowds we came apart,

  slipped off into the world again;

  I was left out on the midnight street

  like a fashionable shoe in the rain.

  JOEL LANE

  Sandman

  You know what the day feels like

  after a sleepless night. A coach station

  in late spring, rainy with voices,

  dissent beaten down by unconcern;

  or travelling back from the coast

  with sand grains lodged in the folds

  of your clothes. The light is cramped.

  You never clear the oxygen debt.

  Meanwhile, the latent dreams will

  have their say in daylight:

  a furious proliferation of images,

  layer on layer of thin action, compressed;

  pages the censor and the pornographer

  sat up together to make. Some people

  behave as though they never slept;

  their memories are only skin deep.

  Dreams is too comfortable a word

  for the thoughts of mine you hold

  in restless hands, a cats cradle

  that you can t tighten or unpick.

  Does it make you feel strong

  to play the sandman with me

  like this, to hurt and comfort?

  It sounds bitter now, to say:

  when I slept with you, the best thing,

  and sometimes the only thing, was the sleep.

  PETER WYLES

  Bird Flight

  Frost on the bare ribs of ploughed earth,

  the low V of ducks over mist and water,

  the turn of a high bird against the sky,

  first one way, a call, and then the other.

  Last night on my hands and in my mouth,

  two fists of wool, the smell of smoke,

  and in a pocket his unearned lighter.

  What I look for is wherever I am,

  what has to be said cannot be said,

  staring to the core of this frozen flower.

  First one way, a call, and then the other.

  ADAM JOHNSON

  Unscheduled Stop

  I sit in the Charles Hallé

  At windy Manningtree,

  While gulls enact their ballet

  Above the estuary.

  ‘We seem to have some problem ...’

  A faltering voice explains.

  I spy, along the platform,

  A sign: ‘Beware of trains’

  And picture you, impatient,

  In the car park at the back

  Of a gaudy toy-town station,

  Or craning down the track,

  As the afternoon rehearses

  An evensong of birds —

  Our time in the hands of others,

  And too brief for words.

  LAWRENCE SCHIMEL

  Palimpsest

  Can you feel, as your fingers dance across

  my back, the marks of all the men

  who’ve touched me before you -

  their fingers clawing stripes across my flesh

  as we made love, or kneading deep,

  as you do, massaging away tension, stress?

  I feel that even their lightest caresses

  have scarred me permanently, branding me

  as surely as the kiss of leather straps and whips.

  Is it some sleight-of-hand trick you do

  that makes my body feel fresh and pure?

  What is this legerdemain that, although your hands

  have travelled this stretch of flesh so many

  times before, this path stretching from shoulder

  down along the spine to the ass, that makes it seem

  new each time, that this is unexplored territory?

  Surely your fingers must feel the imprints

  of all those earlier passions, as they now awaken

  such strong feelings in me again. I open my

  mouth to tell you, as I lie before you, naked and

  pliable, but your fingers press deep

  into muscle — and I lose all will.

  V BORDERLINES

  ____________________________

  Several of this group are ungendered love poems which have been gratefully adopted by gay men, beginning with a favourite
of my own (Fulke Greville’s ‘Absence, the noble truce ...’) and including a couple suggested by other contributors to this book. Perhaps the most controversial of these is the extract from Peter Grimes, which hardly looks like a love poem; but it seems beyond doubt that Crabbe’s twentieth-century admirers E.M. Forster and, thanks to him, Benjamin Britten, were drawn by the poem’s homosexual sub-text and that the relationship between Grimes and his apprentices is one of thwarted love.

  I’ve also included two eighteenth-century extracts — by Pope and Churchill — which are about gay love: the period is otherwise under-represented, and it may be salutary to have some indication of how others see (or rather saw) us.

  FULKE GREVILLE

  from Caelica

  Absence, the noble truce Of Cupid’s war:

  Where though desires want use,

  They honoured are.

  Thou art the just protection

  Of prodigal affection,

  Have thou the praise;

  When bankrupt Cupid braveth,

  Thy mines his credit saveth,

  With sweet delays.

  Of wounds which presence makes

  With beauty’s shot,

  Absence the anguish slakes,

  But healeth not:

  Absence records the stories,

  Wherein desire glories,

  Although she burn;

  She cherisheth the spirits

  Where constancy inherits

  And passions mourn.

  Absence, like dainty clouds,