some notes on desire and its lack
1.
vorrei mostrarti il mio gatto
desire is supposed to be a visitor who comes to your house unannounced
but there's no doubt he's there knocking
rapping with a ramshead cane
and peering through the letterbox
top-hatted
grinning
you just have to decide whether or not to let him in
on this occasion
at this ungodly hour
sometimes he's very persuasive
and you get overpowered
but what if it's not like that
if desire is more like the shadow
of a nervous uncle
drooping his long fingers over the shoulders of the one you're with
and skittering away again
he wants to be invoked
he wants to be courted
with sherry drops
what kind of beast is this?
here are the keys to the cage where
i keep desire chained
he's a ragged mongrel thing
with orange and black fur in patches
he's a very small kitten
mewling to be fed
can't look after himself at all
maybe i should have just left him there in the street
2.
reminder - production of desire by means of desire
i want you with your eyes closed
with steel on your throat
with diamonds and red leather
with your eyes watering
and your mouth parting crying
the characteristic syllable
of your language
for pleasure, pain
(ai)
with four fishes
in your cunt
in your gut
i want you wearing boots
and gold straps
and white sandals
and your ankle curled
and your ankle flexed
and your sore knee
swollen
i want you with the bruise on your eye
the bruise on your jaw
the bruise on your thigh
i want you on top of me in the hammock
and across the hammock like a swing
and in the hammock next to me a sleepy child
like one of eight children
playing rollover in the hammock
a child in bahia
years ago
i want you with jaguars and owls
i want you in rio and são paulo
i want you in the atlantic forest
i want you in portugal
i want you in new york
and in rome
i want you like my sister
on an airplane
i want to make films with you
i want us to make an exhibition
photograph mongrels together
in planaltina
create a pantheon
of small animals
in hotel leão
i want us flaunting our feelings for each other
in poems and short stories
i want us to plot crimes together
and confer with your mala friends
i want you to shelter me
from the immigration authorities
though i have to say
i still want to fuck all the women
the blondes and the mulattas
in shorts and cotton dresses
i see passing along my street
when i’m sitting smoking on the veranda
or lying in the hammock
naked, gently rocking
after you’ve gone
what can we do about that?
you’ve awoken wanting in me
and i don’t want it to stop
where in this new landscape
where we’ve dismissed all the hypocrites
from our bed from our heads
where we’ve refused to take anything
that’s not freely given
and said only wanting is true
where do we find limits
for our desires?
3.
re: uptake inhibition
why don't i ask
to kiss your mouth
which is colourless
the city is blue
we can't decipher the
white of the towers
beyond central station
silver of the bay
if it is silver
or something darker
i don't know maybe
i can't feel to touch
not very well
my lips are pin ends
without sense
even my fingers
don't feel much
or maybe
coming down the hill
at dawn
what beauty
no one cries there's
no harm
no harm done
it doesn't matter
that i don't reach
don't want
don't want much
after the ball of the hill of pleasures
after the ball of the powder kings
4.
resolution
my dream was we were lying on a mattress on the floor
you sat over me and first of all i was just kissing
the metal adornments that hung below your nipples
with pursed lips like a fish pecking glitter
up at the skin of the water
then we were kissing
i was ashamed that i don't have good lips and teeth
(what ana said she looks for in a man)
i wished i could make my mouth wide and soft
to hold your mouth
i have good hands and a great dick and
a too wicked mind
but my mouth is not my strongest point
it's true
but before i could prove it to you
we had to get up because there was milk
spilling all over the floor
from the broken fridge
real milk and water
we had to clean up
i think when i remember rio i will think of
always a dirty floor
of grit and fruit and chicken blood and rainwater and
cockroaches and
milk
and stick and stone a little bit alone etcetera
so i woke up and started thinking
the dream
which appeared as vivid and limited as real life
was telling me how to want you
which is what i want after all
i resolved
waking up alone
having kissed you goodbye in the dawn
5.
flames
firecrackers echo three times
that's the third time
you can make a drum out of the sky
the sky is skin like everything
when i hear gunshots i want to run there
i'm a coward but i'm attracted by fire
and i'm drawn to the end
in flames
that sound means someone may be dying
in that space after sound they are dying
next day you can read about it in the newspaper
if you believe
imagination has its limit
desire is bounded
6.
ele não come nada
he don’t eat, nada nada nada
we drank a fuck lot of cachaça
but i can’t say that’s the reason
ele não come nada
he's a complicated person, he says
more than a little perverted
but that’s not really an explanation
why can’t you explain more?
but you have to speak slow
you keep offering
honey cake
chocolate cake
biscuit of the morning
from your hands he won’t take anything sweet
but that’s not why he don’t eat
he will eat mamão
he will adore papaya
but she closes her fingers
over the fruit
she says
you don’t have to treat me gently
so he bites on her thighs
and the back of her knees
eats the muscles of her legs
she bites on the collar bone
purple and yellow, like maracuja
but he don’t eat, nada nada nada
and not for lack of hunger
and not for lack of trying neither
and not for too much cachaça
7.
aspiration
one day my body
will be as hard as my cock
my desire will be very strong
you'll take back everything
because you were wrong
(photos by salvatore - http://diarreadelviaggiatore.blogspot.com/)
