In honor of the upcoming International Kissing Day for those of us in long distance relationships I offer...
The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator
The end of the affair is always death.
She's my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
finds you gone. I horrify
those who stand by. I am fed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Finger to finger, now she's mine.
She's not too far. She's my encounter.
I beat her like a bell. I recline
in the bower where you used to mount her.
You borrowed me on the flowered spread.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Take for instance this night, my live,
that every single couple puts together
with a joint overturning, beneath, above,
the abundant two on sponge and feather,
kneeling and pushing, head to head.
At night alone, I marry the bed.
I break out of my body this way,
an annoying miracle. Could I
put the dream market on display?
I am spread out. I crucify.
My little plum is what you said.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Then my black-eyed rival came.
The lady of water, rising on the beach,
a piano at her fingertips, shame
on her lips and a flute's speech.
And I was the knock-kneed broom instead.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
She took you the way a woman takes
a bargain dress off the rack
and I broke the way a stone breaks.
I give back your books and fishing tack.
Today's paper says that you are wed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
The boys and girls are one tonight.
They unbutton blouses. They unzip flies.
They take off shoes. They turn off the light.
The glimmering creatures of full of lies.
They are eating each other. They are overfed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Anne Sexton, Love Songs, 1967.
Kissing Day Poem Two originally posted July 04, 2004
One Kiss
A man was given one kiss, one
mouth, one tongue, one early dawn, one boat
on the sea, lust of an indeterminate
amount under stars. He was happy
and well fitted for life until he met a man
with two cocks. Then a sense of futility
and of the great unfairness of life befell him.
He lay about all day like a teenaged girl dreaming,
practicing all the ways to be unconsciously beautiful.
Gradually his competitive spirit began to fade
and in its place a gigantic kiss rowed toward him.
It seemed to recognize him, to have intended itself
only for him. It's just a kiss, he thought,
I'll use it up. The kiss has the same thing
on it's mind -- 'I'll use tihs man.'
But when two kisses kiss, it's like tigers
answering questions about infinity with their teeth.
Even if you are eaten, it's okay -- you just become impossible
a new way -- sleepless, stranger than fish, stranger
than some goofy many with two cocks. That's
what I meant about the hazards
of infinity. When you at last begin to seize those things
which don't exist,
how much longer will the night need to be?
by Tess Gallagher, My Black Horse: New & Selected Poems, 2000.
This was the third Kissing Day poem that was originally posted July 5, 2004.
This one from one of my favorite poets who died earlier this year...
Coffee Shop
I recognize them in the booth,
Weak, greedy, lovely in their greed,
Shakily locking mouth to mouth,
Where mutually they start to feed.
The first kiss prelude to a tale
Where neither entertains suspicion
How they might change, how they might fail.
Nothing can shake this recognition:
The moment that they break into
The closed-up house of love; they slip
From room to room and, as they do,
Adventure through a companionship
Thick with their projects. What is best,
They know they'll not be bored again,
Proud to return the interest
They get and think they can sustain.
They drag the stocky shutters apart
And let light in upon the floor,
The dance-ground of the active heart,
Where they could play for ever more,
The lovers tangled in mid-phrase,
As if obstructed tongues might say:
"We are the same in different ways,
We are different in the same way."
by Thom Gunn, Boss Cupid: Poems, 2000.
Finally, the poems in celebration of Kissing Day posted on July 6, 2004.
Today I will be saving the kisses to be delivered soon, but I will be celebrating with poems and song that express the wonderful joys of kissing (which standing alone is fun) and love (which makes kisses all the more enjoyable).
The best description of the power of a kiss comes from the always charming Anne Sexton...
The Kiss
My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby, you fool!
Before today my body was useless.
Now it's tearing at its square corners.
It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot
and see -- Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!
Once it was a boat, quite wooden
and with no business, no salt water under it
and in need of some paint. It was no more
than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.
She's been elected.
My nerves are turned on. I hear them like
musical instruments. Where there was silence
the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.
Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped
into fire.
Anne Sexton, Love Poems, 1967
Then there is always the rock musings of the White Stripes to show us that even a kiss with someone who might not be there the next day can still be worth it...
Fell In Love With a Girl
Fell in love with a girl
I fell in love once and almost completely
she's in love with the world
but sometimes these feelings
can be so misleading
she turns and says are you alright?
I said I must be fine cause my heart's still beating
come and kiss me by the riverside,
Bobby says it's fine he don't consider it cheating
Red hair with a curl
mellow roll for the flavor
and the eyes were peeping
can't keep away from the girl
these two sides of my brain
need to have a meeting
can't think of anything to do
my left brain knows that
all love is fleeting
she's just looking for something new
and I said it once before
but it bears repeating
Can't think of anything to do yea
my left brain knows that
all love is fleeting
she's just looking for something new
and I said it once before
but it bears repeating
Fell in love with a girl
I fell in love once and almost completely
she's in love with the world
but sometimes these feelings
can be so misleading
she turns and says are you alright?
I said I must be fine cause my heart's still beating
come and kiss me by the riverside,
Bobby says it's fine he don't consider it cheating
Can't think of anything to do
my left brain knows that
all love is fleeting
she's just looking for something new
and I said it once before
but it bears repeating.
Finally, I'm sure that some of the people celebrating kissing day will be in love, so I want to share one of the more beautiful songs about love.
The Origin of Love from Hedwig and the Angry Inch
When the earth was still flat,
And the clouds made of fire,
And mountains stretched up to the sky,
Sometimes higher,
Folks roamed the earth
Like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms.
They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering
Out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them
As they talked; while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love.
It was before the origin of love.
The origin of love
And there were three sexes then,
One that looked like two men
Glued up back to back,
Called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth
Were the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls
Rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon
Were like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They were part sun, part earth
Part daughter, part son.
The origin of love
Now the gods grew quite scared
Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill them all
With my hammer,
Like I killed the giants."
And Zeus said, "No,
You better let me
Use my lightening, like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards."
Then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh,
Said, "I'll split them right down the middle.
Gonna cut them right up in half."
And then storm clouds gathered above
Into great balls of fire
And then fire shot down
From the sky in bolts
Like shining blades
Of a knife.
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the children of the sun
And the moon
And the earth.
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled it round to our belly
To remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane,
To scatter us away,
In a flood of wind and rain,
And a sea of tidal waves,
To wash us all away,
And if we don't behave
They'll cut us down again
And we'll be hopping round on one foot
And looking through one eye.
Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.
Song written by Stephen Trask
Whatever the purpose of your Kissing on this Kissing Day I hope that for many of us it can unite us with the person who is our love.
