Topography -- Sharon Olds

Guest poem sent in by David Grabill

(Poem #1961) Topography After you flew across the country we got in bed, laid our bodies delicately together, like maps laid face to face, East to West, my San Francisco against your New York, your Fire Island against my Sonoma, my New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas burning against your Kansas your Kansas burning against my Kansas, your Eastern Standard Time pressing into my Pacific Time, my Mountain Time beating against your Central Time, your sun rising swiftly from the right my sun rising swiftly from the left your moon rising slowly from the left my moon rising slowly from the right until all four bodies of the sky burn above us, sealing us together, all our cities twin cities, all our states united, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. -- Sharon Olds

             (published in "The Gold )

Here's another poem on a flying theme that a friend gave me before I took a
long flight a few years back.  Sharon Olds is a master of transforming
mundane airplane flights like this and common garden slugs [Poem #1003],
into sensual feasts. This one's an outrageous mix of metaphors that kept me
smiling for a thousand miles or more on that flight, and continues to
enchant every time I reread it.

David Grabill

[Links]

Biography:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Olds

The Connoisseuse of Slugs -- Sharon Olds

Guest poem submitted by Juan:

(Poem #1003) The Connoisseuse of Slugs When I was a connoisseuse of slugs I would part the ivy leaves, and look for the naked jelly of those gold bodies, translucent strangers glistening along the stones, slowly, their gelatinous bodies at my mercy. Made mostly of water, they would shrivel to nothing if they were sprinkled with salt, but I was not interested in that. What I liked was to draw aside the ivy, breathe the odor of the wall, and stand there in silence until the slug forgot I was there and sent its antennae up out of its head, the glimmering umber horns rising like telescopes, until finally the sensitive knobs would pop out the ends, delicate and intimate. Years later, when I first saw a naked man, I gasped with pleasure to see that quiet mystery reenacted, the slow elegant being coming out of hiding and gleaming in the dark air, eager and so trusting you could weep. -- Sharon Olds

This is one of my favorite "love" poems. I like the mystery and sense of
discovery, "delicate and intimate", with not a note of eroticism or
lubriciousness. The emphasis lies in the sense of surprise and wonder at the
end, on the delicious naivete of the narrative voice. And what a trope! It
reminds me of the eloquent conceits of the Metaphysical poets, especially
John Donne. (cf. "The Flea", which is another love poem that might itself be
appropriate this week!).

Juan.

[Minstrels Links]

Love poems:
Poem #997, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love -- Christopher Marlowe
Poem #998, A Blade of Grass -- Brian Patten
Poem #999, Casabianca -- Elizabeth Bishop
Poem #1001, The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd -- Sir Walter Raleigh
Poem #1002, The Bait -- John Donne
Poem #1003, The Connoisseuse of Slugs -- Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds:
Poem #812, Sex Without Love
Poem #1003, The Connoisseuse of Slugs

[Administrivia]

Some of you may have received two copies of yesterday's poem, "The Bait" by
John Donne, by mistake. Our apologies.

Sex Without Love -- Sharon Olds

Guest poem submitted by Ravi Mundoli:

(Poem #812) Sex Without Love How do they do it, the ones who make love without love? Beautiful as dancers, Gliding over each other like ice-skaters over the ice, fingers hooked inside each other's bodies, faces red as steak, wine, wet as the children at birth, whose mothers are going to give them away. How do they come to the come to the come to the God come to the still waters, and not love the one who came there with them, light rising slowly as steam off their joined skin? These are the true religious, the purists, the pros, the ones who will not accept a false Messiah, love the priest instead of the God. They do not mistake the lover for their own pleasure, they are like great runners: they know they are alone with the road surface, the cold, the wind, the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio vascular health--just factors, like the partner in the bed, and not the truth, which is the single body alone in the universe against its own best time. -- Sharon Olds

[Comments]

A poem that is not easily forgettable? I think Olds tries to answer a
question that we have all asked at some point or the other in some form or
the other. One of the nice things about the poem is that there is this nice
balance between the view on the one hand that making love is the wonderful,
sharing/caring type thing it is:

  ... How do they come to the
 come to the come to the God come to the
 still waters, and not love
 the one who came there with them, light
 rising slowly as steam off their joined
 skin? ...

On the other hand, there is this superb analogy with long distance running.
And as a wannabe long distance runner and admirer of long distance running
(in a vaguely "Chariots of Fire"-y sense!), that is a particularly powerful
image, of the marathoner-hedonist. In the end though, there doesn't seem to
be an answer the "coming to the still waters" bit is as weighty as the long
distance runner bit. More questions!

[Links]

There is a page on the poet at [broken link] http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/olds.html
Googling will lead you to several other links.

Ravi.

[thomas adds]

See also the third of Peter Porter's "Japanese Jokes":

     Love without sex is
 still the most efficient form
     of hell known to man.

(The remaining ten haiku in this sequence can be read at poem #198)