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THE
BIRTH OF VENUS
I,
lame god, hide, muttering in my teeth,
stuck
in this cliff-hole of an executive suite
where
fingers peck typewriters; tide-streams beneath
of
taxis and malcontents lick, seethe and bleat.
Waiting
for her to be born, my Venus, bride.
What
rescue from the plate-glass, grim forge of London?
A
vapouring where boil my sight lines, where fried
car
tops gleam frolicsomely, car-fumes wanton.
Till
she, my lovely, my lot, clears the light-pools
(hair
and head). My manic eyes
are cones
that
twinge and flip me out of my spectacles
and
I’m down there, Volcanus furens, on the stones.
Her
eyes are as empty and smiling as the future,
her
hair fresh yellow round her mignonne head.
Neck
gracile and pouting mouth. Nature
delivers
to me from the ocean bed
the
target of the whole world’s erotic itch:
beauty
of flesh, flesh soft, perfect harmony,
yet
spoiling with the quirks of change and the rich
varieties
of love. Mine, but I see
to
every lording Jack how she is cheap;
from
martial big shot, planning his push-stud war,
to
that gravity who bares her in his sleep—
the
mortal father of Rome—she plays the whore...
The
waves, the very waves, are tantalised,
the
glinting evil of steel. She’s Mecca and ease
to
the search of all the bifurcated lives
that
ache to be lost, pleasured in striptease.
With
tripping breasts and with a waist so small
it
makes the nostrils flare, abundant thigh
and
long legs of the fleeting animal:
how
could she not be butt to every eye,
making
men jocular about their lust?
She
is a honey slander cannot mar.
(Ink’s
got into my nails, they seem to rust,
and
men are laughing in the public bar.)
Only
I fully know her. Cuckold. Lame.
Work-bent
each day until my muscles crack.
Powerless,
hideous, pious. Only I can tame
that
sea-born body struggling to get back.
Alan
Marshfield
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