Vodka
I captured a girl! (2.12)
And then there was Jess, a lesbian so they told me:
black leather, tattoos, an Olympiad of nose- and ear-rings.
We had flown to Murmansk, where it was twenty below
and an icebreaker had carved a narrow channel.
Her job was to mind me, mine to read poems from elsewhere,
like an Arctic convoy bringing relief. After the reading,
the reception, the dinner of grilled sturgeon, a crowd of us
drank vodka in my room, then three, then Jess and me.
We perched on the bed, watching ships follow the thread of moving water,
their lights like the shiny beads on her jumper. ‘I’m hot in this,’
she said, pulling it over her head, then turned (‘Down the hatch’)
to chink glasses, our rims clacking clumsily, like teeth, as we drank
to the moon, the future, the icebreaker ploughing a watery furrow.
Wardrobe
There’s magic in poetry, its power/Can pull down the moon (2.1)
The place was a side street near the station,
our room scarcely bigger than the wardrobe,
but a bed with eider pillows had been made
and we lay together in the darkness
rubbing each other’s bodies like lamps
till the wardrobe door swung open
and next thing we were in and through the back,
alone on a beach by the Aegean,
thyme blowing from the cliffs
and waves gently lapping our feet,
till the wardrobe door swung shut again
to the noise of trains uncoupling
and the swish of traffic on wet tarmac,
before we left next morning in the rain.
X-rated
… this fickle obsession (3.11)
There was always the Internet to gorge on.
Daytime meant work, and I worked like a Trojan,
but at six I’d pour a drink and turn the screen on.
Watch a bitch take a load! Hear the screams of a slut getting her
ass destroyed! See a milf with big tits meet the cock doctor!
It was like watching executions in the amphitheatre
at Pompeii. Sex is supposed to mean desire, but how could I feel it
when the girl on the screen, however exquisite,
had a cock down her throat that was (a) another man’s, and (b) a damn sight
bigger than mine? Gagged, chained and corseted,
slapped about the face while doubly penetrated,
the women were lambs to the slaughter, paid
to feign euphoria even when some brute was pissing
on them. Whatever turns you on, yeah, but who could find this exciting?
I thought Caligula had plumbed the depths till I watched fisting.
Still, I too had a favourite website, www.classicalbeauties.com,
featuring goddesses like Juno and Venus
with their breasts naked and a fig leaf hiding the pubis.
They were all mine to imagine. And not a single penis.
Yo-yo
For the hunter, pursuit is all (2.9)
It was always the same.
After sex they’d ask to see me again
whereas for me the thrill had gone.
All I wanted was to be alone
savouring our time together,
which – as I tried to explain
(though they never seemed to hear) –
was impossible with them there.
Then the reverie would fade
and I’d need to share my solitude.
You’re gorgeous, I’d go,
though in bed they could be anyone
and I’d be out of there, pronto.
leaving nothing of myself
and never mind the search for
some elusive other half.
Zero
Though flint itself will perish, poetry lives (1.15)
These women I’ve written about – were they just bodies to me?
Had I no interest in their thoughts and feelings? Didn’t I love them?
Of course, while I was with them. But then I went back to my life,
my room, my writing (my writing about them!) and I loved that more.
If I’d been free to be with them, they’d not have loved me as much.
If I’d loved them more, I’d not have been free to write.
It wasn’t a deal we shook hands on, but for a time it suited us
and afterwards there were no hard feelings: they found a new man,
and I had my writing, not erotic now but elegiac.
Yes, I loved those women. But remembering, I love them more.
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First published by Chatto & Windus in 2018
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