Monday, December 22, 2008

Poetry: Where We Belong

Some more rhyme-y stuff. This is mildly racy (well not really, just slightly racier than other stuff I've posted - possibly) so avert your eyes if you're of a sensitive disposition. Okay, not that racy.


Also, I'm giving an advance "no comment" on the factuality of the story contained herein.

Where We Belong

 

The art room: pastels, brushes stiff with glue

papier-mâché, the Japanese silk screen

and prints – Matisse and Turner, Monet, Dou.

I don’t belong here with last year’s display

my hands too small, too fine for inks and chalk

these narrow wrists too delicate for clay;

and yet I find my features here, in paint

subjected to wide centuries of longing

in every pretty mute Renaissance saint

and every passive, sultry silhouette

oh all Lolitas with their teasing hunger

whose artists are tormented even yet.

Art and pornography, the oldest ruse

and we are not exempt from this ballet

the ancient arabesque of artist-muse.

Let’s not keep secrets: you are twenty-four

and I am seventeen, unschooled, unpractised

trembling Madonna, unromantic whore

depending on your mood. I am not wrong

to say I know what thrill you want from me

to say we’re both aware where we belong.