I must confess that as I grow into my second adolescence, there is a certain attraction to writing 'smut'; by which I mean writing the kind of sexual content beloved of boys who have yet to discover that not an awful lot rhymes with 'fuck' except maybe 'duck', 'buck', 'muck', 'puck' or 'cluck' (not to mention 'luck', ruck, suck and tuck*) and it is difficult to weave those words into a poem charged with nascent sexuality and burgeoning sexual awakening; not to mention the fact that is notoriously difficult to write 'smut' without defeating the object, which is to 'appeal to the prurient interest'. (The standard definition in the UK and the US to define pornography in the 50/60s.)
There is a decided difference between smut and pornography but what the actual difference is, is hard to put into words;you just know smut when you see it or read it. 'Confessions of a window cleaner' was smut; 'Seven days in Clichy' was pornography, although when your lover is as adventurous as Anais Nin was then it must be difficult not to write pornography all of the time; whatever challenges you might think that you are making against the social mores of the time!
Pornography is often defined as 'bad art' of a pseudo-sexual nature and what defined pornography in the fifties is wildly different to the current century. My own particular jury is still out after forty years in the back room on whether Henry Miller was 'bad' or 'good' writing; I hesitate to call it literature only because it is as interminable a read as de Sade is. Writing about obsession is a whole lot different to writing obsessively about something or, in de Sade's case, a positive raft of somethings! The only sexual thing which de Sade didn't write about was consensual sex between adults!
Although I wrote in my teens, mostly humour (I wanted to be the next S J Perelman or Alan Coren), I never once seemed to get around to writing the sort of thing that I would commonly read under the bedclothes by torchlight; Henry Miller, Fanny Hill, L'histoire d'O, Justine, Venus im Pelz. I never was a fan of 'Les 120 journées de Sodome 'or' l'école du libertinage'; way too much coprophilia for my 'taste', a criticism that can be levelled at de Sade in general. There is only so much coprophilia, flagellation, anal sex and 'golden showers' that even a testosterone fuelled adolescent can stomach reading sometimes and Catullus or Petronius have the advantage that you can read them in full view of your parents providing that they do not understand Latin.)
So, in my second adolescence, I thought it might be quite fun to try to write a poem about sex. I deliberately chose neither to use the word 'fuck' nor the word 'suck'; too twentieth century! I chose to use the language of metaphor or simile to add to the pretension of the piece. Of course, it is just as laughable as nearly every other attempt at a poem about sex, it should not be too difficult to divine what particular 'act' is being referred to, but it might amuse.
OFFICIAL WARNING: The following poem will make you about as horny as a night in with 4 cans of alcohol-free lager and a DVD of 'No sex please, we're British'.
SECOND OFFICIAL WARNING: The poem does not rhyme although it does have a metre of sorts; count the syllables!
* Anybody who composes a poem with all of these rhymes, and only including the word 'fuck' once, will be added to the prize draw. The winner will receive a prize of 'The Reader's Digest Condensed Guide to the lyrics of Iron Maiden' complete with a full-colour poster (suitable for framing) of Bruce Dickinson slaughtering Coleridge in his underpants; Dickinson's underpants not Coleridge's.
COILED
Coiled, serpents entwined, we writhe
On satin sands that ripple and wave.
My hands carve runes ‘cross your back
In bloody rivulets of passion.
Moist breath, warm against my thigh,
The hot salt on the back of my tongue.
I swallow and move to taste
This acrid fluid ‘long parted lips.
Fiery tongue, aflame, parts the folds,
My soul erect, yearns for the touch,
A touch so soft, so gentle
As though delicacy itself tripped
Towards my own naked soul
Hands grip tight around your neck,
The tendons raised high ‘cross the knuckles.
Fingers capture the artery
Holds it hostage to fervent desire.
Vulpine shrieks, oblivious
To the onion-skin essence of walls,
Rise up from amidst the dunes
Before descending to the lowest
Murmurs of sated salmon.
'The Dreamers' is only mentioned in the title because it is one of the most electrically charged films I have seen. Directed by Bertolucci and starring Eva Green, it is the only film I have seen with a backdrop of the 68 student riots in Paris. (It took 'Lust and Caution' to knock it from its top spot. And don't mention Ai No Corrida which has all of the passion and eroticism of wet fish!)
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