© Sauce*Box, Fall 1996.
All rights revert to author.
Forty-Second Street, 3AM
by Ernest Slyman
Of the night's neon bright sexual pleasures,
we sat in judgment--
The acts all great or small within us,
And whether a thing is well or poorly done,
The subtle acts of joyous melancholy and bliss were wrung,
And who has not been touched by them?
Who has not kissed the great void of fleshy worlds,
Or been touched by the spirits rich within us,
Godlike orgasms shrilly calling in our bones,
Or drank from the holy water that runs from us,
Or touched the pink marble halls of our spiraling passions,
Crying out the silent words, the sacred pronouncements
Upon which are writ our souls,
Greatly blessed of a thousand secrets"
Each hurling past white-faced the minutes of our birth,
Sudden bursts, the upheaval and madness, quietly subsiding
Into the dark, more precious for breathlessness.
We are healing ourselves by touching others,
Healing ourselves by touching ourselves,
And in the act of sexual pleasure, we scald the cold waves within
And the cold around us, such chill as would freeze the world,
We burn our houses of our passions,
We set fire to ourselves to feel the warmth of love.
More slowly now the days rise and harsh or gently
speak
Against and for the body's freedom.
There is no nakedness like love.
Such great wickedness the innocence of shame,
And shamelessly we have licked the flames that burn us,
The blows that strike us down
Have added immeasurably to our passions.
And even the clock and its sinful hours
Have come round to our side.
* * * * *
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