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Peter Redgrove

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Nymphomania

‘too much interest in the nymphs, the labia’
Sadie Plant

All the little cricketers with their sweet
                           winged shirtcollar labia resting
                                                      wide open disclosing
Their keen fair throats;
                           the Mothers
                                                      have dressed them
In their genitalia, the vertical smile,
                           the double lips
                                                      open on the chest;
A flock of shirt-doves settling
                           their winged sweet vaginas
                                                      wide on their throats;
And when the school chaplain
                           turns his collar round,
                                                      angel-wings flourish down
His back: he too is in the photo
                           among the celestial ranks
                                                      like Dante’s Rose that
Rustles with their whites,
                           their angel-gear that makes
                                                      a special unprecedented sound
Of cherubs and souls
                           in soft flannels
                                                      mingling our wings.

 


Peter Redgrove lives in Cornwall with his wife Penelope Shuttle. His Selected Poems (PBS Special Commendation) appeared from Cape in September 1999. His new volume, From the Virgil Caverns, is due from Cape in July 2002. In 1996 he was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

 

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