The Water of Forgetting

Oh god,
let me cross over into the silent land,
let me find Lethe, the river of forgetting.
I don’t want to remember any more,
the sight of your skin damp with summer’s sheen,
your mouth with the taste of honeysuckle,
your breast moving with the gasping air of want.
Unless, when I step into the river,
you will be there, rippling across my mind,
returned to me.
I don’t care
if it is only for a moment,
for a single breath.
If not, then take away all remembrance.
Let me be an empty vessel,
for water to pour into, and make pure.
Dear god,
I need for the shimmering place in the air
that was your body,
to be gone from the beating flow in my veins,
because you left me here
to struggle in the waters alone.
Let me find Lethe, the river of forgetting,
so the scent of sex, lingering about your lips,
will stop pulling me down into the place
where I can only call and call,
knowing that I would shatter with joy
to hear the faintest echo of your voice.
Let the waters flow into and through me,
make me clear, bring me peace.
God, oh god,
let me cross the river,
emptied of every tortured hour.
Let me walk up on the far shore,
and see you sitting there,
your feet in the stream, tears in your eyes,
because you know me.
Even though you too had been swept in the flood,
so that nothing remained
except the deepest center,
that knew me, that knew me, that knew me.

Le Petit Mort

When she first heard it called the little death,
it was a moment of glory and connection;
a thousand lifetimes stretched before her,
born in the phoenix-flames of every fuck.
Spiral down,
down, down,
Past walls of warmth into perfect darkness.
She longed, above all, for that instant
when thought embraced emptiness and was silent
so that she could be reborn
in a quiet nova, of pure albino light.
On her knees, her hair kindled
into red tendrils of flame,
knifed by her lover’s cock to the edge
of death’s small mirror,
her spirit is cut free, to float beside her,
watching her body begin the descent.
Shimmering sweat only stokes the heat,
and she knows her consummation is near.
How easy it is to picture herself,
strings cut as the blade of flesh
impales her over and over,
shrieking in ecstasy as incandescence pours
from every opened place,
until the last white burst stretches her lifeless
for the eternity of a single skipped heartbeat.
Her bed, altar of sacrifice and resurrection,
all on a death angel’s wings of pleasure.
Her lover collapses against her, gasping.
So do we end and begin together.
She cools, and opens her eyes,
turns, to kiss him.
Grateful, and once again, alive.

The Second Man

He thinks of himself as golden flesh,
there for the buying.
His pimp is a stylish woman, who has never been glimpsed
without a designer suit, tailored to perfection,
and a single diamond stud in her ear.
One stud,
that’s just too perfect, as she gives us the address
of today’s buyer, who has put hard cash down
to own not one, but two,
their cocks at least, for an afternoon.
He was a person once, before it became clear
that his body was more desirable than his mind,
and he stopped looking for work,
because fucking was the one and only thing
he could really do.
Today’s woman has bought two men,
which doesn’t bother him.
It will make it easier, because his friend
can screw her blind, so his own thoughts can wander.
They’ve done this before; he will massage her neck,
roll her over, and knead his fingers
across the muscles of her shoulders,
while his friend puts his cock in her.
He can think then, of long highway drives,
his first girl in the seat beside him,
her lips moist because her tongue would touch them
over and over, getting them ready for him.
She was nervous, because she loved him.
She said she dreamed about their first kiss.
To be wanted so much, was the best.
Really, it was the best.
The woman is moaning,
the other pulls her closer to him, so she falls away
from his massaging hands.
She pushes her foot against his friend’s chest,
so she can grope for his own waiting cock,
stretch toward it, and put it in her mouth,
to suck, groaning, while the other takes her, tirelessly.
He is golden flesh, to be bought, to be tasted.
Once, a girl with hair blowing in the open highway wind,
dreamed of him.

Gaze of Silk

Beneath the blindfold,
he knows her eyes are closed.
She has given herself over to other seeing;
as he watches her, there are signals
of its infinite subtlety.
Her head tilts, listening,
so he gently cups his hands to her hair,
draws her to his chest,
so she can lay her head against it,
finding the thrill of breath in his lungs,
and the racing of his heart.
Her own breath, drawn in through her nose,
fills her with passion’s scent.
She sighs with the sweetness of it.
Finally, each focused sense joins,
and her hands, alive now
with so much awareness
that it seems sparks should issue
from their tips,
pull away his last scrap of clothing
to take his cock into the heat of her palm.
Each caress of her fingertips
is imparted with sight, that runs burning from her,
into his blood.
His own fingers softly press
the black silk against her eyelids,
and all love and hunger
sing their vision to her, through his touch.

Demon

Men, men, how crude they are,
in their thoughts of the perfect moment of possession.
They think the rough grasp of their hands,
straining muscles, and simple commanding words,
are what I want.
No, I need my demon,
whose muscles are feline, like mine,
whose lips are red, whose hair is long,
my tormenter, who knows how to wring
a song of screaming passion from my every nerve,
with no more than the pressure
of her long nails, against my skin.
My demon, who will gag me
so that words are no longer needed,
who will tie me so that strength is forgotten.
I will be an instrument for her to play,
using her cultivated certainty
to plumb every writhing corner
of my yearning body and blood.
She will stand behind me,
my arms unmoving,
no sound from me possible,
and whisper to me of the place she will take me.
Where I no longer need
to do anything but feel,
because her whisper is the music of loving pain,
and pain runs across me with lightning tremors.
Fire and ice,
that call to the deepest cuts of my open body,
Carrying the rapture that will come from her voice,
only from her voice.
Demon, come to me,
whisper to me, now.