C R Barnes
Fantasies
Welcome everything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.
Andre Gide
We joke: please I ask wear your dark hair dressed
high in an almond oiled knot
lark about in a turquoise silk thong as do sumo
I’ll provide music for your wrestler’s
moves in naked slo-mo
strung with morris bells
I’ll wave hankies while our mocking tongues
poke fun at clichés:
school uniforms whips on bums
desire for desire’s sake tropes of adult shop windows
peephole/skin-tight leather/split crotch/see-thru/racy red/chains/ropes.
When it comes to us: last Thursday afternoon
I stroked your beard whispered You’re adorable... please tell me...
your wildest fantasy?
you held my hand led me to the male mind’s theatre
curtain raised a fantastic show about to open
Suddenly scared
I wondered if I hadn’t asked for a fantasy on a whim
like drive-thru fast food
our future might look brighter more wholesome
clouded and riddled as it’s always been by other hearts and our own flaws
but then you answered
Being in bed with one woman telling me I’m adorable.
What’s yours?
Page(s) 51
magazine list
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- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
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- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The