He's fine. Not known to me as a poetry lover and I have no idea of
his moral position. Generally, I have found that medics are, when they
understand it, professionally delighted someone comes in without STI
to discuss it. It's almost as if they have fallen for the popvox
version that u go there *when u are infected & stare a bit dumbfounded
when you say youve never been infected & wld like to stay that way.
Generally theyre so keen to get people to use condoms that they rather
conspire with the self-willed belief that a condom solves all risks.
On the poetry side there is of course the autobiographical fallacy:
that a first person verb is a statement of fact by the author as
themselves. It might be that a poem such as this might be difficult to
write without some experience; but surely that applies to any subject.
In fact the origins of this poem derive from a couple of lines in a
novel I read a year or two ago, I'm not entirely convinced that I
remember the identity of the novelist; so I'll leave that. It was a
book I picked up in travelling lodgings. In the novel, there was a
brief mention of the shifts of weight / changes of balance when lovers
do cunnilingus vertically; and I thought vaguely it was written from
experience and read on. The reference was brief and far less explicit
than my poem; but it stayed with me and impressed me with the way he
had taken the trouble to be true to experience but not overegged it.
I have a lot of material that might be classified as “like this
poem”, though one tries for variety, as I have explored the
difficulty of the subject without falling into the confessional or
pornographic. Having had the misfortune to witness others having sex,
I attest it is a ridiculous event unless one is participating. It is
extremely difficult to write about if one concentrates on the acts
rather than the narrative experiences leading to and away from them
and the emotions. I thought it was time to test it.
Enough enough all best
L
----- Original Message -----
From: "Poetryetc: poetry and poetics"
To:
Cc:
Sent:Thu, 6 Jun 2013 10:07:13 +1000
Subject:Re: holding
I'm happy with dream state fluttering, Doug, Lawrence. I had missed
'not all there'. Re-reading, I hear harpstrings. Hope your GP is up
for entertainment, Lawrence.
Bill
On 06/06/2013, at 2:27 AM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>
>
> spot on, Doug
>
> the enigmatic "yes" is a settling for something maybe -- we're into
> idiom here which can be dodgy across the ocean
>
> it doesnt here necessarily imply lawyers though imagine that's
where
> it came from
>
> earlier on I was trying to access facilities and said of some
> proposal "I'll settle for that"
>
> I'm caught here, wanting to avoid explication wch i see as an evil
> undermining poetry and also not wanting to be cussed (2 syllables)
-
> anyway
>
> butterflies flutter
>
> butterflies settle
>
> things that are undermined settle
>
> stomachs flutter
>
> people hold
>
> structures hold
>
> you know all this
>
> i just mean I was conscious of these things as I wrote
>
> L
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Poetryetc: poetry and poetics"
> To:
> Cc:
> Sent:Wed, 5 Jun 2013 09:58:15 -0600
> Subject:Re: holding
>
> I took the flutter to be part of a kind of dream state situation,
> Lawrence, but that might be off...
>
> although there's the 'settling for' there, too...
>
> how it gets there...
>
> Doug
> On 2013-06-05, at 9:11 AM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> I have never managed it, fluttering on high heels.
>>
>> I hesitated about posting the poem because I worried that the
>> cunnilingus (cunniligual?) element in the little narrative might
>> foreground itself.
>>
>> I have never much liked michael douglas. nor his father. Nor his
>> wife. I did hear his jabbering; but some reports later suggest the
>> risk is very slight - though horrific if you catch the xyz he
> caught -
>> and can be covered by an addition to the standard STI screening
> that,
>> in this country is free though i am sure our thieves' govt is
> working
>> on that. I shall add it to the list of things to raise with my
> General
>> Prac when we meet soon; I like to entertain him!
>>
>> L
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Poetryetc: poetry and poetics"
>> To:
>> Cc:
>> Sent:Wed, 5 Jun 2013 22:38:32 +1000
>> Subject:Re: holding
>>
>> Can you flutter on high heels, Lawrence? Dangerous territory you
>> describe anyway, fair carcinogenic, if we believe the likes of
> Michael
>> Douglas. What a prat he is, really.
>>
>> Bill
>>
>> On 05/06/2013, at 9:48 PM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>>
>>> Holding
>>>
>>>
>>> It is a first thing state: confusions flirt
>>>
>>> with us in their sleepy waking desire --
>>>
>>> Yes, one says one time, but what was that to? --
>>>
>>> roused by the other's presence in new light;
>>>
>>>
>>> neither may tell what we have settled for:
>>>
>>> you flutter to me, naked, on high heels;
>>>
>>> and I, attracted, not all there, approach;
>>>
>>> we meet and find embrace, kissing fiercely.
>>>
>>>
>>> You kneel to lick my rising cock; or else
>>>
>>> I kneel myself, kissing you on the cunt,
>>>
>>> my face burrowing into it, the scent strong,
>>>
>>> unwashed; I block all else, pushing against
>>>
>>>
>>> warm flesh, and into it; and feel you press
>>>
>>> back, yet balancing yourself, so I may kiss
>>>
>>> and lick some way right inside you. I shake.
>>>
>>> I feel you shudder as you lean forward
>>>
>>>
>>> so that we must stabilise both our bodies
>>>
>>> You grip my skull; I am immersed with you.
>>>
>>> We sway thus, low branches in a fast stream,
>>>
>>> trees uprooted by their own weight, holding.
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
> Recording Dates
> (Rubicon Press)
>
> You know, verse
> is a lovely thing.
>
> It issues,
> like the vapors,
>
> from the rock
>
> Charles Olson
>
>
>
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