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Note
on Centaurs
Based
on Piero di Cosimo’s painting of Centaurs attacking the Lapiths at
their feast and stealing their women.
The poem is a small exploration into the predatory nature of the
male and the power of his virulence to cause sexual arousal in himself
and in his victim. I guess
I have to defend and explain away lines like
and
later, on the lake’s far side, their sobs
held
us to their breasts with after-kisses
that
left us more four-footed than before.
For
do they not suggest that the Lapith females are grateful for being
ravished, a thought close to the belief, commonly assumed wide-spread in
males, that women enjoy rape? I
might point out that I’m describing a myth and connecting it to a
common sexual fantasy. There’s
a link between what I’m talking about here and the very ugly business
of war rapes, certainly. If
there were not, the ‘naughtiness’ of sex would not be so intriguing.
Note that there are two voices.
All but the last three lines are spoken by a Centaur who took
part in the rape of the Lapith women.
The last three lines are spoken by a voice that one assumes is
closer to the poet’s own, alluding to the beauty of the biting and
grappling which human coition shares with sex in other species.
Shows how close we are to cats and how far from the fishes.
Alan
Marshfield
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