Divertimento - The Muse is a Dominatrix

                                          

                                     

The Muse is a Dominatrix

Divertimento – The Muse is a Dominatrix was published in 2016 by Walter Ruhlmann in France under his imprint mgv2>publishing which he’d been running for over two decades, now sadly defunct. Walter and I worked on a number of projects together. As an openly gay poet, Walter was always open to publishing poems and writing that was willing to explore, and quite explicitly too, topics of a sexual nature. Again, following in the great French tradition of the poets of the 19^th century, Walter had ideas very similar to myself. Beat poets and writers like William Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg were also models to look at.

One of my major beefs with the poetry scene in Ireland was that wherever you looked, very few people were writing about sex in any way that was pleasurable at least, and entertaining! This is something that the French poets of the 19^th really understood. I wanted to write about sex, but in a way that was personal. Gay literature and gay and lesbian writers had always been hugely inspirational. What I loved about them is that they were willing to take risks, describing the world that truly excited them. Why weren’t any heterosexual poets doing the same, I wondered? Its like, only the kinky folk were having any fun!    

I am a child of the eighties, sado-masochism didn’t really find a place in open society until recently. So, photographers like Helmut Newton were showing the way. As far as I could see, he was merely taking up the cue from Charles Baudelaire. I wanted my writing to reflect my own strange desires. Les Fleurs du Mal… indeed!

Francis Bacon, another gay artist, was another huge influence. His paining of a man sitting naked on a toilet seat, or of another masturbating…. Everyday scenes which were denied a place in poetry, or so it appeared. As a young man, this is what I wanted to see in print. Poems about shitting and whatnot. Human excrement, as opposed to cow dung!

The Inheritor of Nijinsky’s Pink Petalled Tights

For Clement Crisp

From that most beautifully adorned graceful stride

Sprung the Summer of Love and Gay Pride.

That exquisite camp which is in the blueprint of the genes,

For none can deny the fact that every man dreams

That from every artillery piece would come a woman’s thong

Fired explicitly at him, instead of a bomb, to put on!

Men will always be men and let’s face it, a little dull.

So, put on some mascara and head up to Hull.

Woman’s the thing, the Woman’s the thing, the Woman’s the thing,

And what a complement to her who wouldn’t be him!

Here’s to girl boys and boy girls in turquoise

Who like dressing up and making a bit of a noise.

For, when you’re old and grey and lying in a pine box,

Man, no one’s going to give a damn if you’re wearing pink socks.

Eros – or the Discovery of Nylons

The degree and kind of a man’s sexuality
reaches up into the topmost summit of his spirit.

Nietzsche – Beyond Good and Evil

G-string,

mind ligament,

balancing precariously up on the high wire

that is human sexuality;

there gathered within your purse

the intrepid movements of the blood surge-

impossible verticality!

This further compass

sets its sights on such deliberate movements,

such impeccable negotiations of skin,

your breathe –

each second counting

like a revelation.

So, intent is the mutual consideration shown

that it sets your mind alight;

the precariousness of the descent,

the quietly measured strokes

transcending all control

till you are both

flailing in a mutual sea.

What is the stiletto

but a further metaphor,

this time on legs,

of vertiginous attraction

and retraction,

a mere platform

upon which the feet balance

along the subliminal heights.

O sacred pantyhose,

synthetic materialisation of male heart’s fire.

From out of the wondrous sheen or membranous envelope

potential is being realised...

every square millimetre of the fabric

embracing her anatomy,

nanotechnology,

with mini mini lips embraced-

She then?

A walking colossus...

While through the trees

a whole battery of 88’s can be heard,

their phallic poundings

announcing her coming,

while inside Paris,

grunting cunts,

its Liberation Day.

London

In memory of Helmut Newton

In and above the underground, patrolling

The Circle, battle hardened Amazons

In their mid- thirties march through the labyrinth

Of streets and corridors in pairs.

With the tails of their raincoats

Flapping like Devil Ray wings, revealing

Twin carnations of rosy, muscular thighs,

They gravitate towards Eros, in Piccadilly Square.

While across the Millennium Bridge

An army of old European surrealists,

Led by Paul Delvaux, go to meet them.

The orgy commence outside Whitehall,

Finally climaxing under the shadow of Big Ben

Where the statues of Boadicea and Nelson are released into the Thames.

Portrait of Francis Bacon Standing in Soho

There he is, the animal/man,

Standing with all the nervous energy

Of a dog under the shadows of the carrion birds

On a street corner in Soho.

There he is, the painter as witness.

Remember him?

It is he who poured forth all of the liquid madness

Back into the arena;

Couples coupling with all the violence of Pompei.

Or, solitary figures painted with that sudden shock

Of awareness at the fundamental danger of their position.

And.. going about doing everyday things as they do-

Such as shitting, shaving, puking or simply masturbating.

But always going back to the body,

For somewhere here there is a spirit,

Inside the thing,

Under the skin.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/donkey-shots-2-poetry-comes-to-skerries-1.2652260

( Divertimento is sadly out of print now) 

Here is a short film of me reading some of the poems from the collection.

                                                                                           https://www.facebook.com/100035784744122/videos/235224164347073/