Songs for the Devil and Death

by Hal Duncan

to flavour, salt and sweet, these sonnets sung,

  from words as honeyed milk may come new charms,

  to lure new kouroi to your marble and my mortal arms.

  Into enchanting woods, as in a trance, I’ll bring

  a young buck to an ithyphallic herm, where I will sing

  how Hermes loved Antheus, Krokus, yes, and Therses,

  how he lay with Amphion, and Perseus, and Khryses,

  sing of Gilgamesh in mourning for Enkidu’s death,

  surrounding cedars carve to sacred groves with every breath.

  I’ll sing how even Set and Horus had their fun,

  Set eyeing Horus up across the room: nice buns!

  And if he laughs, I’ll smile and, with a silence, hold his eyes,

  lean in to let him taste you in my kiss, a sweet and salt surprise.

  III

  I’ll conjure Dionysus, mincing in with girly-boys,

  divine hermaphrodites led by Akhilleos in a dress,

  as soft and feminine as Pentheus, the king and toy,

  who met the drunkard’s offer with a whispered yes.

  A march of pride, a Mardi Gras of gods whose taste

  for the ephebic youth made kouroi archetypes of grace,

  naked of sin and shame, I’ll sing, a frieze so gay,

  of ancient heroes, frat-boys, beers and boners gone astray.

  The wine-god’s arm slipped round sailor Akoetes, captain of his joy,

  his sly eye sizing up Laonis and Ampelus, quite impressed

  by this young cowboy riding on a wild bull, never coy

  but bold – as you and I should be, I’ll say, undressed.

  I’ll slide my hands under his tee-shirt, silking fingers up from hips.

  He’ll raise his arms, stretching his limber form for me to strip.

  IV

  Apple Apollo, under your gaze we’ll lie,

  flesh to be touched warm by another’s hand

  or by your golden heat from the blue sky,

  our clothes as offerings, thrown to grass and sand.

  We will be more than lovers, more than brothers;

  something deeper, something wilder and more close

  glints in the armour of Akhilleos

  strapped to Patroklus, or in the clothes

  of Jonathon as David holds them, lifts a sleeve,

  a scent of sweat, up to his nose.

  We will be more than lovers; more than brothers,

  more than Kastor and his Pollux who, it’s said, were both,

  each with a hand curled round the other’s cock, unsheathing glans

  with downward draw, more twinned than in fraternity or mere romance.

  V

  Among narcissi, hyacinths and cypress trees

  Pan teaches shepherd Daphnis how a pipe may please.

  Here, let me show you... Lips purse, blow a tender breeze,

  a touch of breath upon his flute, a gentle tease.

  His eyes lashed down in bliss, Daphnis is blind

  as singer Thamyris, the first to kiss

  that flower of a boy, first of his kind,

  cut down, as you and I, by sweet Apollo’s disc.

  There is no need of sight to learn these tunes

  of bodies tangled naked in long grass,

  the contours of a song, soft as the dunes,

  blown on a cock and fingered on an ass.

  My fingers, like Poseidon’s gaze on Pelops, trace the curve of truth –

  a shoulder. On your foreskin now the slip of tongue, the nip of tooth.

  VI

  On Amyklas, the Spartan stem of Hyakinth, Apollo set his eye,

  then on a butterfly, Tanaecian Iapis, who fluttered by.

  He moved on then, from Tymnius to Paros – my oh my!

  as flighty as your flicking tongue, making a lover sigh.

  Then Kyparissus with his javelin, who killed a deer

  by accident and, as a tree, now weeps his dry

  cascade, his waterfall of leaves as tears,

  falling, as your hair falls to brush my thigh.

  Then there was Potneius, horny Karneius, Phrobas – why,

  and Brankhus, Troilus and Zakynthus – ai ai ai!

  Their names would fill my mouth to cry

  in ecstasy, as I would fill your mouth, as I, as I

  tangle my fingers in your hair, back arched and buttocks tight,

  pressing into your swirl of lips and twirl of tongue, in rapt delight.

  VII

  The demi-god called Herakles shared lovers with the wine and

  sun gods. Like Apollo and the Kid he fucked Adonis and sweet Hymen,

  but had Nestor and Abderus, Korythus and Haemon to himself,

  Dryops, Eurystheus and Telamon – God knows how many else.

  Along with Khonus and Nireus,

  which proud Argonauts did Herakles give peace?

  With Elakatus and Polyphemus,

  was Jason naked on his golden fleece?

  Did Euphemos, Admetus, Iphitos and Hylas

  snuggle in close on the lion’s skin?

  Did Stykhius get sticky, Philoktetes icky,

  or Iolaus, or sweet young Phrynx?

  Did each of them, with Herakles, as I with thee,

  lie, mouthing cock and cock in mouth, as you with me.

  VIII

  The ancients thought, it seems, Hades the only god

  not set on some young lad’s seduction;

  even high up in the sky, Zeus had his eagle-eye

  on Ganymede, planning abduction.

  And yet, it was in Hell’s unsealed domain

  that Orpheus swore his oath – Never again! –

  vowing to lose his head from then

  only for love of Doric boys, Aeolian men.

  His smooth tongue gained him entry to that hole

  and ever after opened doors to the unknown

  for him to slip in with his song, release a soul,

  as I slip from your perineum in, to liberate a moan.

  No eagle Zeus with Ganymede, I will not force, but as an Orpheus tease

  with tickling lick, so quick and slick, my tongue a charm to set you free.

  IX

  They say the Greek way was between the thighs,

  no penetration, no such violation. I say these are lies.

  I say Apollo, Herakles, Akhilleos too,

  were god and man enough to give their ass to screw.

  I say Akhilleos rested both his heels, the strong, the weak,

  upon his lover’s shoulders, open as a god while, sleek,

  oiled as an athlete for the games or the gymnasium,

  the prick of Patroklus, engorged, pressed for its entry to Elysium.

  I say the warrior, the hero, lay upon his back,

  resisting the full filling of his arse till he relaxed

  in sudden ease, at last ungrasped, surrendered to a slide

  of inches into him, gasping submission to the glide.

  So, now, I feel your grip release to take it all, be taken

  wholly, to the pleasure and the pain forsaken.

  X

  Once Dionysus carved a branch of fig-tree as a phallus,

  planted it firm upon the tomb of his Prosymnus,

  fucked himself with it, fulfilled an oath

  he could not answer with his lover’s ghost.

  But we both live and have the flesh to fuck,

  the flanks to quiver like the muscles of a buck.

  We are the newborn kouroi of an age of men.

  O, but the age of gods is coming soon, will come again,

  so soon now, yes. Hold to my hips;

  hold on, hold on to these words from my lips.

  I see Apollo, Herakles and Dionysus in your eyes.

  Hold on and, gods and men, we’ll be each other’s prize.

  So, let these words thrust deep, and deep, and deeper still

  this rhythm rising, rising faster, beating, pounding, faster now, until...


  XI

  Scatter your seed as stars across the sky.

  Spill in a spurt the constellations of desire.

  Spatter your semen as a deity on high

  once strew the cosmos with white liquid fire.

  Sing with me – Io! Io! – as a man possessed,

  this consummation of kouroi in coitus, bound

  as gods in flesh and bone and skin, and blessed,

  mortal divinity unlost but ever found.

  Spatter your seed in trails across my chest,

  marble my flesh with honeyed milk

  and we will sing together of Apollo and the rest,

  a song of stone and salt, of skin and silk.

  Come with me, come! Strum to the climax of the beating drum,

  and we will spend all that we have, all that we are, undone and done.

  XII

  Shall I confess the base agenda to these bawdy rhymes,

  glamouring lust in glories summoned forth from ancient times?

  Why not? My mischief with the mysteries of flesh and bliss

  is clearly woven from silk words to snare more than a kiss.

  Perhaps it’s all just poets’ dreams from Horace and Catullus

  down to Whitman, Allan Ginsberg, William Burroughs,

  just the appetence of an Omar Khayyam, the leer of an Abu Nuwas,

  less Alexander and Hephaestion, more Rimbaud lusting after Verlaine’s ass.

  Perhaps we Michelangelos and Da Vincis

  paint the gods more queer, with just a little extra kinky;

  but this art, this secret language, has a magic we can use,

  the sensual power of our Apollo to enchant, the kouros as our muse.

  In Apple’s name, I offer, then, these sonnets for all kouroi, old and new,

  sacred profanities, a spell, a song, for any I to charm their chosen you.

  Sonnet 28

  My heart is deep, much deeper than I knew.

  If I gaze on it when you’re not around,

  I face a void as empty and as blue

  as vaulted heaven, hollowed of all sound.

  And yet it fills, it overflows, with soul,

  with spattered constellations, points of light –

  my far-flung hopes. And, roaring from the hole,

  it fills my blood, my lungs, this vacuum night.

  I never knew the distance of my love

  until I held it close in my embrace,

  until, above the swell of joy, a dove,

  I looked down on that undiscovered place.

  My heart is deep, much deeper than I knew,

  vast as the hollow times and spaces between me and you.

  Sonnet 29

  I mock my love that I should Romance write,

  and tribute you with cliché forced as this.

  What could I give in troth that’s not so trite,

  theatrics I myself would fain dismiss?

  Those first few days I gave you a few calls.

  One more might give you reason for concern:

  Some stalker with infatuations false;

  too early yet to hint of how I yearn.

  But if I give you space, yeah, play it cool?

  Shit! That’s a shoulder you might take as cold!

  But if I give you gifts, am I a fool

  to give my trust so reckless, blind and bold?

  So I give… just a kiss, this morning, as we wake,

  but in this kiss I give you this: my heart, to break.

  Amorica

  I

  Muses, Apollo, standing at my back,

  I pray, I turn for inspirations new,

  to face a piece of Puck, a half of Jack,

  to take as muse the love I have in you.

  I stand before you, stripped to self and words,

  a mouthful of conventional conceits,

  an arrowed heart, a pair of pure white birds,

  a handful of derivative deceits.

  I spit this shit out, start again with fresh

  slain images of soul to conjure fire

  in rock, in rooted tree, in scars of flesh,

  the rivered voices of archaic choir.

  A promise of forever with no grand designs:

  Death will not die, but love live in these lines.

  II

  I write these poems then to what avail?

  To win your heart, to lose my own, to fail?

  To write my love, to give it voice, to try,

  praying my verse a better mouth than I?

  You lie in bed asleep and I, awake,

  brood on the things I neither give nor take,

  brood that my timid care is not enough,

  only a touch too soft to smooth the rough.

  You sit unhappy in your seat, alone,

  and I a statued king on armchair throne,

  but I’ll be damned before my silence wins;

  the stone it bleeds. It has your heart within.

  I have no heart but yours inside of me,

  this verse carved in it by my hand, for thee.

  III

  Love is sublime and trivial as well,

  breakfast in heaven, bickering in hell.

  I am too sullen, surly, I confess,

  a grouch, a grump at all this mess,

  set in my space, a place for this and that,

  a stone o’ergrown by years within “my” flat,

  mortgage and memories to make it home

  till any disregard bites at the bone.

  Each towel abandoned on the floor, each pair

  of socks discarded, speaks of lack of care,

  and I, in role of trudging drudge, annoyed

  by cleaning up in wake of wanton boy.

  O, but the moss of mess, the love you’ve strewn,

  chaos of wildlife in my graveyard ruin.

  IV

  Sometimes I’m muted as I brood or muse

  then, over household tedia or bad reviews,

  or matters of less import – money, work,

  the chafing ropes and chains of earthly irk.

  Or else I drift, in some creative dream, away

  and have to double-take each thing you say,

  lost not to you but to the mundane world,

  distant, detached, in some delusion furled.

  Know at these times there is no lack of care,

  only the tunneled vision of a vacant stare

  focused on the negation of my will,

  seeking to silence thought, to make it still,

  to quell commotion, quiet inner din,

  to find the island of a moment deep within.

  V

  I am a quiet man, a distant land.

  No love set foot upon my soil till you.

  If I seem barren, know that from your hand

  a seed fell, rooted deep, and deeper grew.

  Still, vulcan rock is reticent to crack

  the mantle of cold self, this shell of me.

  Fuck knows, beneath the concrete of my back

  is fire that might destroy or set me free.

  I vent my steam through words on page;

  I never learned to flame and fume in speech,

  except to charm with jest and jokes of rage.

  Now through the breach, a sapling love does reach.

  It’s not impervious, this boulder heart;

  I fear its breaking but desire this tree the start.

  VI

  You feel alone with me. I am not there,

  but lost upon the ocean of mind’s eye,

  as you stand talking, talking to the air,

  till I, distracted, sound a faint reply.

  My work is reverie – a poor excuse,

  but I must have one eye on absent things

  my focus must be far, attention loose,

  or I am blind and with no song to sing.

  And with no song to sing I am not me

  I have no worth, no value, nothing mine,

  nothing to offer but the grounded c
ompany

  of clockwork man, talking to pass the time.

  You feel alone, calling a soul long-lost.

  I crossed a river once, still pay the cost.

  VII

  You can imagine, I am sure, the loss of love,

  not in the drift and smash, the raging crash

  of waves of wrecks on rock, the storm above,

  but in a cave of heart sealed in collapse.

  You can imagine death come striding in,

  your mother, sister, brother scythed away

  and every thing you knew sliced by the swing

  to empty chaff and – nothing you can say.

  And nothing anyone can say. There, there?

  We scorn such consolations, fucking lies.

  All solace is a sham in bleak despair,

  no pity not a petting to despise.

  And so behold the man of loss, the rock,

  the footprints left in stone where Death has walked.

  VIII

  I hate my life, you say, I want to die,

  sometimes in jest and other times in gloom.

  Believe me, love, I hear that bitter cry;

  sometimes I’d drag you to my brother’s tomb,

  ask if you love death more than me,

  how I can risk my heart, another loss,

  be open as you need for me to be,

  when all I have is all you hate as dross?

  More though, much more, I’d hold you in my arms,

  except... except... I smash my fist into this wall,

  this barrier of thought where all my charms

  seem empty platitudes that mean fuck all.

  I want to say a million things and none seem right.

  Where misery is king, this poet’s tricks seem shite.

  IX

  Am I an island, you a storm,

  a rock too ragged and a tempest torn?

  I’d be a haven, safe and warm,

  and gladly stand against all scorn,

  if you will only understand this rhyme.

  To blast the rock of me, rebuild my soul,

  requires the weather of your love and time;

  my years alone have taken a hard toll.

  Self-taught to be a haven to myself,

  I made a prison of my person, my own cage,

  with every prick as irksome as a scelf,

  pacing inside my mind in growling rage.

  Sworn not to break, be broken by despair,

  the stone cold lie still tells me, never care.

  X

  To care, to open fully, is to face the death

  of what you love, ripped from you in a breath,

  and I must face, in love of you, the worst,

  face, in your darkest days, the threat of hearse.

  I have no doubt, no question of my love,

  but losing heart the once was quite enough