Closing Door Erotica August 18, 2012
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern , trackback
Beach would like to start by apologising for this post. Like so many things that appear here it just won’t get out of his head. Erotics… Beachcombing is on the search for the most erotic passage, but… So this is the thing. It is easy to cut and paste from My Secret Life or Fanny Hill and find something titillating (or downright pornographic). But Beach is pulling the bedroom-door-closing rule of erotics (‘there is nothing so erotic as a bedroom door closing’). The passage (prose or poetry) cannot involve any explicit description of love or love-making. So suddenly things get a lot more difficult…
An example from Wyatt:
In thin array, after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small,
And therewithal sweetly did me kiss,
And softly said, ‘ Dear heart, how like you this ?’
The thin array is borderline and the gown falling pushes the bedroom-door-closing rule to its limit, but still there is something extraordinary in these words. It is so tender.
Then there is Marvell where the key lines seem to be the scrapping eagles.
The Grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hew
Sits on thy skin like morning glew,
And while thy willing Soul transpires
At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our Time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow’r.
Let us roll all our Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife,
Thorough the Iron gates of Life.
Or Donne:
License my roving hands, and let them go,
Behind, before, above, between, below.
O my America! My new-found-land,
My kingdom, safeliest when this one man man’d,
My mine of precious stones: my emperie,
How blest am I in this discovering thee!
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.
There is also the flee, but let’s spring past that.
Beach is suffering withdrawal symptoms from Mrs B who is off at the sea with the kids. Any other closing door erotica will be gratefully received. drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com. Thanks too to readers for their patience during the great internet blackout of 2012: living in a hill village in the ‘Latin’ band invites these kind of problems. There have been several false dawns in the last days but it seems to be over…
***
31/August/2012: Ricardo wrote, One of the poets I love most, E.E. Cummings, or if you allow me to be so bold. Invisible sends in these exquisite Japanese poems of the Heian period written by women: My longing for you—/ Too strong to keep within bounds./At least no one can blame me when I go to you at night/Along the road of dreams.* Like a ripple that chases the the slightest caress of the breeze—/ Is that how you want me to follow you?* Lying alone,/ My black hair tangled,/ Uncombed./ I long for the one/ Who touched it first.* Why haven’t I thought of it before?/ This body,/ Remembering yours,/ Is the keepsake you left.* Even if I now saw you only once,/ I would long for you/ Through worlds,/ Worlds*. Thanks Ricardo and Invisible!!
