Elusive Beauty
– a case of coitus interruptus
Nude Aphrodite
In old Greek statues
Though fully fleshed
Flaunts no vagina
A curious omission
As if to prove
Beauty is unfuckable.
In the instant of orgasm
(Which should be consummation)
She slips away
Shy as reluctant wood nymph
Into unexplored forest
A region we cannot penetrate
Leaving us insatiate
With a raw longing for more
Than humankind can know.
And for consolation only
The familiar appalling mess
Of our too-copious effusions.
William Spencer has mostly written science-fiction in the past. His four most recent short stories have appeared in the sf magazine InterZone, which also carried an interview with him looking back over his earliest stories in 'New Writings in SF' in the 1960's. He now enjoys tackling the more concentrated medium of poetry.
Page(s) 69
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- 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