William Oxley
from London Visions
London Lust and London Love
She slipped away clothes, he his
all in a flutter of kiss
as they first gently oozed
in a small hot flat
then soon the dithyramb of quick
breath, taste and lick
on startled flesh;
and this wrestling in time’s
slime, the poking in of what can
only be mystery: the spaning
of eternity, the coming
out of nothing. Lust thrives
in London’s sperm-counted rooms
that are replicas of wombs
but if it is tender or becomes so
then love grows and shows
itself like pride of place.
This is the city’s double face
that mirrors the cruel and heartless
trade-off of bodies
or the wonder of sexual love
that can easily move
both the dead brain of day
and heart out of rut.
William Oxley is currently Year-of-the-Artist Poet-in-Residence for Torbay in Devon. In 1999 Rockingham Press published his autobiography No Accounting for Paradise, and in 2001 will publish his New & Selected Poems.
Page(s) 84
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