The Poetry of Sex

by Hannah, Sophie

  Sophie Hannah

  Must I give up another night

  To hear you whinge and whine

  About how terribly grim you feel

  And what a dreadful swine

  You are? You say you’ll never leave

  Your wife and children. Fine;

  When have I ever asked you to?

  I’d settle for a kiss.

  Couldn’t you, for an hour or so,

  Just leave them out of this?

  A rare ten minutes off from guilty

  Diatribes – what bliss.

  Yes, I’m aware you’re sensitive:

  A tortured, wounded soul.

  I’m after passion, thrills, and fun.

  You say fun takes its toll,

  So what are we doing here? I fear

  We’ve lost our common goal.

  You’re rubbish at adultery.

  I think you ought to quit.

  Trouble is, at fidelity,

  You’re also slightly shit.

  Choose one and do it properly

  You stupid, stupid git.

  End of the Affair

  Dan Burt

  It ends soundlessly: my hand slips yours

  To adjust demeanour for a neighbour,

  No bang, bombed body sprawled, no prayer,

  Just a gentle unlacing of fingers

  Wrests warp from woof in the tapestry we

  Fashioned from Fragonards and poetry

  To decorate our idyll. We stand

  Naked by the roadside with vagrant hands,

  Sunlit in senescent imperfection,

  My stoop and vanished waist, runt canyons

  Time and disappointment wore in your face,

  In silence that surrounds a fall from grace

  And separate soon after, sans goodbye,

  Relieved what never lived had died.

  6

  ‘WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?’

  Badly Chosen Lover

  Rosemary Tonks

  Criminal, you took a great piece of my life,

  And you took it under false pretences,

  That piece of time

  – In the clear muscles of my brain

  I have the lens and jug of it!

  Books, thoughts, meals, days, and houses,

  Half Europe, spent like a coarse banknote,

  You took it – leaving mud and cabbage stumps.

  And, Criminal, I damn you for it (very softly).

  My spirit broke her fast on you. And, Turk,

  You fed her with the breath of your neck

  – In my brain’s clear retina

  I have the stolen love-behaviour.

  Your heart, greedy and tepid, brothel-meat,

  Gulped it like a flunkey with erotica.

  And very softly, Criminal, I damn you for it.

  Fetish

  Samantha Willis

  I can see this relationship tanking,

  so it’s time to be honest, I think.

  In the space between dreaming and wanking,

  I’ve developed a striking new kink.

  Though I used to be coy and coquettish,

  as all men like their women to be,

  my new-leaf aspirational fetish

  is demanding, ‘What’s in it for me?’

  I can see this might be disconcerting

  for a man who likes hookers and porn,

  in whose mind every female is squirting

  to the sound of his name, dusk till dawn,

  so let’s get you some sex education

  with incentives: my Love USP

  is undying devout adoration

  but first tell me: what’s in it for me?

  You would like me to make you my hero,

  to discuss, at great length, Aston Villa;

  in exchange you are offering zero;

  one-way traffic. So dull. So vanilla.

  I’ll forgive your flawed pacing (too snaily);

  I’ll provide all you need, and for free,

  and I’m happy to email you daily

  if you tell me what’s in it for me.

  Is it something I’m presently lacking?

  A locked room with an out-of-reach key?

  If you want my support and my backing

  then I think anyone would agree

  you must tell me what’s in it for me.

  Please, before I’m a hundred and three,

  can you tell me what’s in it for me?

  From Strugnell’s Sonnets

  Wendy Cope

  The expense of spirits is a crying shame,

  So is the cost of wine. What bard today

  Can live like old Khayyam? It’s not the same –

  A loaf and Thou and Tesco’s Beaujolais.

  I had this bird called Sharon. Fond of gin –

  Could knock back six or seven. At the price

  I paid a high wage for each hour of sin

  And that was why I only had her twice.

  Then there was Tracy, who drank rum and Coke.

  So beautiful I didn’t mind at first

  But love grows colder. Now some other bloke

  Is subsidizing Tracy and her thirst.

  I need a woman, honest and sincere,

  Who’ll come across on half a pint of beer.

  Message

  Wendy Cope

  Pick up the phone before it is too late

  And dial my number. There’s no time to spare –

  Love is already turning into hate

  And very soon I’ll start to look elsewhere.

  Good, old-fashioned men like you are rare –

  You want to get to know me at a rate

  That’s guaranteed to drive me to despair.

  Pick up the phone before it is too late.

  Well, wouldn’t it be nice to consummate

  Our friendship while we’ve still got teeth and hair?

  Just bear in mind that you are forty-eight

  And dial my number. There’s no time to spare.

  Another kamikaze love affair?

  No chance. This time I’ll have to learn to wait

  But one more day is more than I can bear –

  Love is already turning into hate.

  Of course, my friends say I exaggerate

  And dramatize a lot. That may be fair

  But it is no fun being in this state

  And very soon I’ll start to look elsewhere.

  I know you like me but I wouldn’t dare

  Ring you again. Instead I’ll concentrate

  On sending thought-waves through the London air

  And, if they reach you, please don’t hesitate –

  Pick up the phone.

  Benny Hill

  Paul McGrane

  This bloke is sitting on a bus

  We cut to where a sign says PUSH

  beneath a bell the bell is pushed

  We cut again Outside a caff

  the door says PULL he pulls the door

  Inside the caff the waitress comes

  of course she’s young and beautiful

  We have a close up on his face

  He rolls his eyes and licks his lips

  and reaches out toward her chest

  her badge says PAT he pats the badge

  Your face looked like that actresses’

  when you caught me with your sister

  at the party in her bedroom

  we were dancing to old records

  we’d speeded up to 45

  so they would sound like Benny Hill

  I’ve changed the ending of this scene

  to make it seem more humorous

  You’re chasing me through parks and fields

  dressed in heels and red suspenders

  mock-angry fist raised in the air

  And me? I’m Benny Hill! At last!

  With no responsibilities

  except for making people laugh

  and grabbing their extremities

  Anal Obsessive

>   Jane Holland

  He was a blip on the radar – I had

  several that year – but since

  he was up front about it –

  ‘Don’t trust me, I’m a bastard’ –

  I let him screw me, and then

  screw me. The woman

  he left me for was older,

  uncompromising, sober.

  She would never have rolled over

  for that sharp pain

  in the derriere, or thought

  extensively of England,

  face pressed into his mattress

  with its bachelor stains

  and cute ringlets of pubic hair.

  I remember his stubble,

  the wind-tunnel tilt of his penis,

  how I stripped off for him

  the way it’s done in Amsterdam –

  to be greased up, pokered

  and prodded – and can’t

  imagine now why I bothered.

  Katya is Bored

  Fiona Pitt-Kethley

  Katya is bored – as bored as I would be

  if I perused a sack of Blyton books.

  Katya has worked the Tanga Club for years,

  in Grosse Freiheit off the Reeperbahn.

  Her Chilean partner looks a little bored,

  though he’s not half as bored as Katya is.

  Above, below, behind, legs up, legs down …

  The fucks clock up …The audience loses count.

  Katya is bored. She’s far too bored to act.

  The corners of her mouth turn firmly down.

  Her eyes stare firmly at the scene ahead,

  locked on to nothing, somewhere in our midst.

  She’s shagged and doggy-fucked around the club,

  on drinkers’ tables, floors, the bars, a swing.

  Can endless repetition bore to death?

  If boredom was a terminal disease,

  She’s long gone dead. Bored fucking, fucking bored.

  The monumental ennui she exudes

  each time her partner’s plunger plumbs her sink

  impresses me. She makes no compromise.

  She has a rule. She never smiles at work.

  Chris of Dublin

  Fiona Pitt-Kethley

  A brothel with a creche for the girls’ kids,

  long gone now and it is a darker scene,

  no help for those who choose to walk the streets.

  I met Chris, young and bruised, with missing teeth,

  and drunk, and heard her history of abuse,

  abuse that no-one ever had believed.

  My courage faltered. Back in my hotel

  a wave of fear swept through me to my soul.

  I pushed a cabinet against my door.

  Thus shutting out the darkness of outside,

  lives without hope, torture, torment, abuse.

  I slept and woke to write her story up.

  I wish her well, wherever she is now.

  Somehow I doubt that Chris is still alive.

  Jaffa Cakes

  Fiona Pitt-Kethley

  Three neon strips, one violet and two red,

  mark out the bars that really are not bars.

  Girls from Zaire, who’re tall and elegant,

  and Belgian blondes sit in red fun fur chairs

  or pose with stomachs in, tits out on stools.

  The windows where girls sit are full of props.

  Some girls are reading. Others do their nails.

  Yet others gorge themselves on takeaways.

  When clients come they disappear from view.

  I studied the windows when I couldn’t catch their eye,

  looked at what’s left behind: their lingerie,

  brushes for make-up, mirrors and high heels.

  One window’s different from the rest of them,

  a Buddha statue and some Jaffa cakes.

  I told this story to a Polish friend.

  He said he’d definitely visit there.

  Couldn’t resist a brothel with Jaffa cakes.

  Buggery

  Don Paterson

  At round about four months or so –

  the time is getting shorter –

  I look down as the face below

  goes sliding underwater

  and though I know it’s over with

  and she is miles from me

  I stay a while to mine the earth

  For what was lost at sea

  as if the faces of the drowned

  might turn up in the harrow;

  hold me while I hold you down

  and plough the lonely furrow

  Carmen 16

  Gaius Valerius Catullus

  I’ll fuck your ass and rape your face

  Cock-gobbling, power-bottom poets

  Who say my fancy, fluffy measures

  Make me a flaccid, fluffing fag.

  A pious poet should be pure

  But his poems don’t have to be.

  Poetry should taste like sex.

  Its meaty words can lick and flit

  Their tongues to scratch the itch that lifts

  Not just young boys but wrinkled men

  Whose cocks are as curdled as their lines.

  Because you’ve read my kissing poems

  You think you can make my mouth your cunt?

  I’ll fuck your ass and rape your face!

  Trans. G. M. Palmer

  To His Coy Mistress

  Andrew Marvell

  Had we but world enough, and time,

  This coyness, Lady, were no crime.

  We would sit down and think which way

  To walk and pass our long love’s day.

  Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

  Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide

  Of Humber would complain. I would

  Love you ten years before the Flood,

  And you should, if you please, refuse

  Till the conversion of the Jews.

  My vegetable love should grow

  Vaster than empires, and more slow;

  An hundred years should go to praise

  Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;

  Two hundred to adore each breast;

  But thirty thousand to the rest;

  An age at least to every part,

  And the last age should show your heart;

  For, Lady, you deserve this state,

  Nor would I love at lower rate.

  But at my back I always hear

  Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

  And yonder all before us lie

  Deserts of vast eternity.

  Thy beauty shall no more be found,

  Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

  My echoing song: then worms shall try

  That long preserved virginity,

  And your quaint honour turn to dust,

  And into ashes all my lust:

  The grave’s a fine and private place,

  But none, I think, do there embrace.

  Now therefore, while the youthful hue

  Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

  And while thy willing soul transpires

  At every pore with instant fires,

  Now let us sport us while we may,

  And now, like amorous birds of prey,

  Rather at once our time devour

  Than languish in his slow-chapt power.

  Let us roll all our strength and all

  Our sweetness up into one ball,

  And tear our pleasures with rough strife

  Through the iron gates of life:

  Thus, though we cannot make our sun

  Stand still, yet we will make him run.

  The Flea

  John Donne

  Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

  How little that which thou deniest me is;

  It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,

  And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;

  Thou know’st that this cannot
be said

  A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,

  Yet this enjoys before it woo,

  And pampered swells with one blood made of two,

  And this, alas, is more than we would do.

  Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

  Where we almost, nay more than married are.

  This flea is you and I, and this

  Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;

  Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,

  And cloistered in these living walls of jet.

  Though use make you apt to kill me,

  Let not to that, self-murder added be,

  And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

  Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

  Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?

  Wherein could this flea guilty be,

  Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?

  Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou

  Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;

  ’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:

  Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,

  Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

  Hombres Necios

  Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

  Hombres necios que acusáis

  a la mujer sin razón,

  sin ver que sois la ocasión

  de lo mismo que culpáis:

  si con ansia sin igual

  solicitáis su desdén,

  ¿por qué quereis que obren bien

  si las incitáis al mal?

  Combatís su resistencia

  y luego, con gravedad,

  decís que fue liviandad

  lo que hizo la diligencia.

  Parecer quiere el denuedo

  de vuestro parecer loco,

  al niño que pone el coco

  y luego le tiene miedo.

  Queréis, con presunción necia,