Writings / Poetry

Salim Gold

On Recollection

To enjoy is rapture, till parties part,
And a “kind of Heaven” splits into dreams,
Reveries, whose eclipse is Memory,
So that the sun—their past Joy—seems shadows,
And oblique clouds act messengers that tell
What happened and then cast all into doubt,
Transgressing on the facts they’ve just expressed.
All Pleasure is poignant for this reason:
It raptures the body, then dissipates,
So Heaven is too brief, its loss abrupt—
A rupture, and yet it remains a haunt—
An Eden only lovers recapture.

Truth

Truth is as satisfying as coitus.
Apple blossoms slant down upon the snow.
“Do you love me, really?”
The bed beckons! The bed beckons!
Coitus is most satisfying when true….
Apple blossoms do not lie—
Even when they lay upon snow.

Dawn at Dusk

The dusk light seems silvery lemonade,
Our courtship mildly medieval, as I
Request a kiss, and you, so chaste, perfect
A condition of unusual gleaming
As fine light unhurriedly flowers, and night
Provides both emphasis and synthesis—
A bevy of stars, such level shining.
But I say nothing satisfactory
In noticing the look of light that eve
In a room overlooking a schoolyard.
What was vital was not stars hanging out
Like gulls, but an uneclipsed happiness,
As if existence had burst into song.

Religiously

In our church—our joint flesh, our gospel lips
Break bread but never promises. As pure
As burgundy, words are blood we live by.
Entangled, our tongues do not untangle
Our vows—a mirage of marriage, or we’d
Be cold lovers, with sweet, cynical mouths,
Judging each pink-lipped kiss an amusing
Battery, rather than a baptism.
To touch and couch, cuddle and coo, is prayer;
For, if holy, untouched bodies may yet
Prove unloved and their saintliness purely show—
Like a eunuch’s castrato chastity.
I prefer our chapel’s fiery revels,
Pentecostal passion, faith at high pitch.

Evolution

That first-rate poet was first thin and handsome.
Gallant, with gusto, he'd visit women
Proudly, speaking through wine, like any sly
Actor pretending to be an actor.
Neither waggish sermonizing nor
Randy bantering scribed his rhetoric.
When lovers wept, he remained, cruelly, fine,
Stoic in happiness, heartless with joy.
But Love bites down like the axe of a king—
Or like that double-handed knife that wounds
The wedding cake. Love rents a heart once whole
Because unused. No longer do I play,
Flirt, and trifle. Desire hurries on tears.

Here

I pass a country road—tree-bowered, well-hid….
Lust-quickened, I yearn to—must—fuck you there.
The road communicates just such a turn—
A mouth, an opening, a near-tunnel,
A terminus that, for now, prompts a dream:
Travel that shuttles prone, yet’s still moving....
Nature is innocent: the road's a road.
Why must I curve it to my strident want
And bend it to junctures and meetings bent
On crash fusions of flesh and dashing flesh?
Love drives me on, hurtles me to this haunt,
So those two wheel ruts cutting into bush
Plough one new avenue to our joint home....

New Departure

Though gold’s a mere phantom beside your bright
Flesh, still, where light falls, falls also shadow.
Why must we suffer this perversity?
Why can’t we savour unblemished sunshine?
We moan blues bride and groom intimately
Know: Love that levels low—like mud wrestlers—
Yet’s still love—Christmas flesh Easter-x’d,
Miracles of union—and cleavages.
We clamber on all fours, chasing even
Two-bit, perishable Love, and, failing,
Discover pure Sorrow purely bereaves,
That double-entendre tenderness comes
Steeped in Doubt and Despair. Alone, parted,
We’re left brittle before the blows of tears.

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