Kama Sutra - Husband and Wife

With Valentine's Day this Monday, here is the fourth of the Kama Sutra poems from my collection "Touch in the Bed of Light". It's dedicated to every man who has found his soul's wife, and every woman who truly knows her soul's husband.

Kama Sutra – Husband and Wife

 

I lift her into my arms,

feeling the pleasure that comes in strength

to cradle her body in my grasp.

She winds her hands behind my neck,

and whispers in my ear.

We smile together, and I set her down

to rest on the bed,

the illumination of happiness and want

in her face.

He is so strong, it always excites me.

What could be more alluring,

than powerful hands that have mastered

gentleness; than a husband who longs

to see me in pleasure.

The smile bursts from me,

a sunrise breaking from clouds.

When he lays me down, I gasp

with impatience,

because I want him beside me.

I lift her feet until she is framed

by her graceful legs on either side;

then let them come across my back,

as I bend to kiss her neck.

The pulse of life there is a voice

of its own; life and warmth

are in its beat.

I cup her breasts,

and we are in Uthkanta, throat-high.

His lips on my throat

make all the pain in my body melt away.

Currents flow through my limbs,

and I know what it is to be water,

moving through a weary land

and awakening it to life.

The strength in her legs gives way,

but as they slide away from my back

even that movement seems like grace

to me; and yet she cries out softly

as if from loss, and so I catch her feet;

draw them up until they reach her hair.

So we have Vyomapada, sky-foot.

I take her arching foot to my lips.

Oh god, do not ever let us be parted.

When I sleep, I dream of seeing him

next to me in the morning light,

and when I wake, the reality of it

is almost to much joy to bear.

Come inside me, my love, my heart,

my soul.

The warmth of the night is ours to share.

When we have breathed our pleasure

to one another, I lay my head on her breast,

and she strokes my hair

until I begin to drift

into the purest peace; into the shared heart

of our embrace.

I kiss her, and sigh out a good night,

but her hand is already still,

her breathing deep and even.

We lie together on the edge of dream,

the beat of her heart my lullaby.

Lilith is Alive and Well - Samantha Birch and "Beat"

I have a very special guest on "The Passionate Mind" tonight. In June of last year, I had the privilege to write the introduction to a book of poetry by Samantha Birch, called "Beat". Without further preamble, here's what I had to say:

Do not stick your head out of the window of a moving car.

That admonition, from Samantha Birch’s poem 87, could easily be applied to the poem itself. Climbing into the passenger seat of her mind as she takes language and wrenches it into forms that are vital, harrowing, inspirational and terrifying, can make you feel as if your head’s going to be sheared off at any moment and left tumbling along the highway as she speeds on.

But it’s too late for warnings. When you read her work, there is no stopping.  

It feels like an old house

It is home to me

The broken motorbike

leans against the shed

Telling me I belong here,

I am loved

The above lines from Custard Creams and Midget Gems echo with the happiness and ache of something as simple, as precious, as coming home. But the world is not a place where we can retreat into the warmth of home forever.

Rid the deranged of bizarre spirits
in hypocritical excess of black bile and shame
It sticks and swirls; There are no winners here

As in those lines from Folly, the great monsters of our time—things like hypocrisy, cruelty, ignorance and pain also take unforgettable shape in her writing.

To characterize Birch’s voice in the words of an introduction is not possible. The poems themselves will speak to that.  They offer an indelible journey into the thoughts of a woman who is a visionary, a fierce lover, a caring friend, a warrior, a mother, a daughter, and who at times wields her gift with words very much like a scythe, cutting away anything that is false, exposing necrosis in the body of our society; looking hard at things that make us flinch, challenging us not to turn away.

A wild wind is calling to me beyond the closed window of a moving car.  I should stay in my seat, safe within walls of glass and metal. But no, that sense of safety is illusion. And there are words in the voice of that wind that I am desperate to hear. 

And here is a sampling of two of the amazing poems from the collection. Sammie, I hope you'll give us some insight into the visions these two works present!

Thoughts On Losing Lilith

On first wake with beast, quietly tethered

A beauty appeared; born of filth and sediment

groomed from my own creation

Impure dust forged clean

Coccyx stump hacked and weeping

Burned and bound

As weakness flows into rivers of primary blood.

Surely not the same earth and clay

From which my own perfect ego birthed.

Thoughts of capture re-emerge

As the beasts distaste struggles

against a futile coupling.

Turning to face my glorious gift

I feel hope, with a prayer

That the tide would turn

To my favour...

"Will you match me in strength and faith?

and not ask that I lie beneath you

still and tolerating as the beast you tamed and refused?"

She bears Sin, the first

Of independence and strange notion

The blood of a hardened mind shows

Within universal eyes

Weakness desert me!

I cannot contain us

The burden is hers

To re-live...

To hold...

Forever more.

"Those who know Love as the sacred word

and who use it justly,

must be strong enough to hold on for the ride"

She speaks of the light within

And travelling poisonous tides

Soaking in corrupted rains lest myself be lost

We were one, her front to back

Yet now she seeks to utter a name

In rising above, she takes the blame.

She... demon queen; in separate form,

I see my need abandoned; a limb

A shadows departure through the boundaries

A flickered glimpse through gates of destruction

and catastrophic shores of abandoned oceans

Shame, my love, shame; show remorse

For lives of whispered children lost in "defyant" battles

Slumbered seduction bears the spawn of life's ruin

Punished and banished in free-will's cage.

With ego dimmed I ask for more

My falsified rib is ripped and torn

Re-emerging as succulent fruit

To tempt and strip bare the truth

I am no longer protected

I see the purity that once was

And I turn to regard the amputated part

With contempt and anger

My own proclivity mirrored

once more, in beauty's face

Her Sin is the second...

She has unveiled my failure as a man

____________________________________________________________________

87

Prophet!  (or Profit?)
Your reflective surfaces show sickness
in magnified proportions

Look... LOOK
Your attention please!

An inspection of the air
reveals sullied skins; grime
boiling in iatrogenic conditions
with superbug resistance
See what you have done
See what you have become

Selfish concentric, ever INCreasing circles
play and ripple in pools of cynicism
and forgotten peace

So-called civilised playgrounds appear
Organic, at first, rollin' with the trees
To be heavily replaced
with perfect, concrete slabs 
In cracked and open doorways
and solar-mirrored walls; cue sunglasses

Human nature is corrupt
(no-brainer)
The destroyer of all things
That means you
So keep your fingers to yourself
Steal nothing, protect EVERYthing
Play dead

Do not stick your head out
of the window in a moving car
You'll barely breathe for long
before it's swiped off at the neck
and smashed up like coffee beans
for a motorway brew on double yellows

So much to lie about, so little time
but you'll only have survived the ride
if you're mad...

or eighty-seven

________________________________________________________________________

 

Sammie's book is available in hardcover and as an electronic download here:

BEAT by Samantha Birch

Ancient Reflections of the Sacred Feminine

Those of you who have followed the first two novels in the Siobhan Bishop series know that despite being filled with eroticism, the stories are also filled with spirituality, which manifests through the main character, Siobhan, exploring passionate but also enlightening writings from the deep past.

In the third novel, The Unbound Goddess (which I am writing now) the story circles around the concept of the Sacred Feminine, as embodied by Lilith. Though religious scholars differ greatly about how divinity differs between men and women, still I was fascinated to read this passage from the Kabbalah (which is my primary source for understanding the mysteries explored in the novel):

“There are two aspects to the female of Z'er Anpin, one when she is contained initially in the male, and the second when she is separated from him and he gives her the crown of strength... When she separates from him and becomes an autonomous aspect, then the two of them are in the secret of a husband and his wife, the male alone and the female alone."  

Remember that the story of Lilith has her wanting to share passion equally with her husband, which doesn't sit well with (the to my mind, pig-headed) Adam, who rejects her. She then "speaks the secret name of God and flies from Eden on her own."

In the italicized passage above, which is not talking specifically about Adam and Lilith, the man is described as "giving her the crown of strength", each becoming separate and strong, and then becoming a true husband and wife as a male alone and a female alone. In other words, both actualized as individuals before truly bonding.

I'd say Lilith had it right from the start.

Fascinating indeed, to find in a text from the 14th century.

These are the kind of wonders that come like treasure to a writer, finding a home in something as commercial as a novel in the Siobhan Bishop Erotic Underworld series. Is it any wonder that I love to write?

Kama Sutra: Pillars

Over on my Goodreads page, where I began the "Passionate Mind" blog, I had explored two subtle phases of the Kama Sutra that also found expression in my poetry. In the first, the concept of all of us possessing "seven senses", and in the second, the beauty of joining our oneness to nature with our sensuality. In this third poem, the Kama Sutra once again goes beyond (or rather, enhances and deepens) the physical, in the way that we can become whole when joined.

Kama Sutra: Pillars

There are moments of love

that are crafted to be living echoes

of temples raised to the sky;

towers that call down the hungry moon.

We stand, and together

our pleasure joins heaven and earth.

Sthita is the first step,

with a wall to aid us.

Her hands rest flat

on the plastered surface,

which still holds the heat of the day;

her palms burn with it.

She looks over her shoulder,

seeking the eyes of one who will rival

that sun's heat, and fill her with it.

Turn then,

and give your back to the wall,

let your feet spread, wider and wider,

until you sink down onto me,

so that I am the pillar

suspending you.

Face to face, Sammukha.

Whisper to me what you would like

to feel within you.

She says, "I wish most of all

for separateness to leave us,

for me to see into you,

as you enter me."

Then twine your thighs around mine,

lock your feet to my knees,

clasp my neck,

and I will lift you into the swing,

which is Dola.

Catch me in the cage of your arms

and crush me,

force my knees apart,

and sink slowly into me.

Dadhyayataka, the churn.

So we will blend

into perfect fiery harmony.

I want you to draw up one leg,

nestle it here, behind my knee.

Let us move

in a single stride, Traivikrama.

One step, just one step,

purely joined.

I do not remember

what it was to be alone.

We have banished the horizon;

sky and earth are joined.

Tears are in my eyes,

a moaning rises from my center.

I did not know

that my body could stand so,

burning into you, consumed

and consuming.

I love you.

And I love you.

Life Blood - using eroticism to redefine the vampire mystique

"Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood" - Kahlil Gibran

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." -Plato

"It's not too much to hope for things to feel all right. Nursing a drink till I get sleepy and go to bed and dream about sex and heaven, that's not empty shit." -Jonquil Florio

The above are not exactly the kind of musings one might expect in an erotic vampire novel. But each one appears in my new novel "The Blood Jaguar", released today from Passion in Print Press. In the book, I steer the Siobhan Bishop Erotic Underworld series into territory both new and very, very old. Vampires are the stuff of frenzy in creative media of all kinds these days; seems like everywhere you look on television, movies, books, someone is smiling back at you with bared fangs. A lot of those works repeat or revise themes popularized by Bram Stoker's classic "Dracula", or Anne Rice's wildly popular modern spin on the subject. But the human fascination with blood and sex (the essential elements in the tales of Stoker and Rice) goes back as far as human history, and has taken shapes from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other -- from fear to desire, from dark passion to bright exaltation.

For my own own exploration of the fierce sexual phenomenon of the vampire, I wanted to take things to a new and different place. So I rooted the story in a culture steeped in things that are quite the opposite of the dark and unholy night creatures of modern entertainment. Life, reverence for the faith and power in sacred things, love of the sun and delight in the day, along with intense eroticism, were the elements I wanted to weave into the vampire mystique. Not much like Dracula, I'm afraid.

I also wanted to bring things down to earth a bit. Most vampire tales are filled with fantastic elements like becoming "undead", having a strange form of immortality, possessing a form of sexual hypnotism to lure victims...right on down to sleeping in coffins or turning into night mist. Fun as all that is, I wanted to write about things on a level a little closer to our own. The fact is, there are real people who adopt a "vampire" identity as part of a lifestyle choice. In my current hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida, one need only go down to the city park in the center of town to see young men and women who call themselves vampires, and they have little use for stereotypes, embracing an alternative lifestyle in which they mix blood ritual with their sex lives.

So I took those two basic approaches -- the "vampire mystique" as a source of life, energy, sex and health, and a subculture of realistic young people looking for an alternative way to have passion in their lives -- and wove "The Blood Jaguar". Among its characters, along with the regular protagonist occult book expert Siobhan Bishop and her lover Professor Richard Blake, are a young intellectual nihilistic woman working in the Central Florida sex trade; a highly successful Mexican couple of Aztec descent who run a high-end resort that offers the raptures of sexual enlightenment through "vampire" techniques; a devout Baptist pimp who is a sucker for hearts and flowers love; an equally devout Catholic woman who wears a silver cross given to her with affection by her vampire lover...let's face it, we're not in Transylvania anymore.

The eroticism of the story is intense, but under it is a theme I always strive to bring to works that explore sexuality: how does passion excite the soul along with the body? Without one the other can only be shallow and empty. Can the soul be excited by a wild closeness to our life-blood, and sex that is both savage and sophisticated? Ask the sangre angeles, the "blood angels" of "The Blood Jaguar", along with their kiss that changes both body and soul.

To Be Naked

As a writer of erotic fiction and sensual poetry, the act of becoming naked is certainly one that I depict over and over again. But in every one of those scenes, whether it be an interlude in a novel or a stanza in a poem, I remind myself that the exposure of the body is basically empty without an opening of the soul to accompany it. And yet, how often during physical intimacy does this really happen? In my poetry collection, "Touch in the Bed of Light", I try to explore this in many ways. From couples who close themselves off to one another intentionally -- because of lack of fundamental trust, or fear, or the presence of cruelty in the relationship -- to those who have achieved the kind of love where the soul does indeed become naked. For men in particular, this seems to be something at times almost inconceivable. Why? One poem in the book takes the concept and looks at it head-on, and raises a question that perhaps we all should ask: have we ever, truly, shown ourselves to the one we offer our body to in the sharing of passion?

Naked

He wonders

how many grasping, clutching, hungry bodies, seeking solace,

seeking connection to life in the immensity of the warm night

have ever truly been together naked.

How many have spoken these words, which she says now to him?

More than just a fuck tonight, sweet love.

Open yourself, and I will lie open for you.

How easy it would be

to send the most vulnerable part of his soul,

that which feels the most,

into hiding; to send out his avatar,

well trained by him in the motions of tenderness and passion,

but with the core of aching light held back.

Men do it all the time.

He supposes that many women

believe that core does not even exist in men.

Her fingers deftly undo buttons, and her mouth opens,

gesture of anticipation,

tongue appearing for the briefest moment between her lips.

How many men have spoken these words, as he speaks them now?

When I touch you tonight,

that touch will be everything that I am.

The motions of pleasure, crafted by men and women

since water first sought the earth,

change only a little;

he wonders how often they become a pantomime,

feasting, without fullness achieved?

His tongue will enter her sex, soft circles inscribed

upon a flower seeking to unfold at the touch of true light offered.

He will harden it to let its tip pass into her, and he will listen

for her small cries that speak of an equal door

cracking open in her soul.

In the moment when she looks into his eyes

a tremor of fear appears within him, and passes.

He does not wonder any more

what it is like to stand in a sacred place.

He is naked.

 

"History's Greatest Love Story" and the demonizing of the sexual woman

When the concept of history's greatest love story is bandied about, there are certainly many that leap to mind. Arthur and Guinevere perhaps (though their claim to being historical rather than fictional is dubious)...Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn (for which a whole system of belief and politics was uprooted and re-shaped, in the English Reformation)...but in my mind, the love story of the Roman poet Catullus and the noblewoman Clodia tops them all. Catullus wrote stunningly intense and immediate poetry about their love affair, made even more poignant because he wrote equally agonized poems about its collapse. Catullus died young, and there was no happily ever after for them. There is debate even as to whether the "Lesbia" (as Catullus calls his beloved in the poems) is Clodia at all. But having studied that debate myself, I believe she was. And that leads to the second part of this blog's title, the demonizing of the sexual woman. Clodia was considered notorious,and has often been portrayed in literature as downright villainous. A state which both Guinevere and Anne Boleyn have endured as well, when you give it some thought. And why? By and large, despite being part of love stories that have inspired lovers for centuries, because of their powerful sexuality. It's a double standard that has always troubled me, and one that I believe is alive and well today. The stereotype of the "evil temptress", the "fallen woman", as well as invectives far more crude.

I love to write about love, and about the sensuality of the body, mind and soul that accompany it. But the concept that sexual power equates automatically to a fallen women is a stereotype I can never embrace. Rather, sensuality, when embraced by a secure and unthreatened partner, elevates both lovers.

In my novel about Clodia and Catullus, "The Festival of Seven Nights' Passion", I take the demonizing of Clodia apart, placing it instead in the context of a time in history when women, even aristrocrats, were considered little more than possessions...where romantic dalliances by men were considered a sign of virility, and by women, a sign of wild immorality. Sound familiar? Some things haven't changed much since the First Century BC.

Here's a brief excerpt from the book, in which Clodia looks back in her mind at the men she has known:

Possessed. The men who had possessed her in one way or another, had laid claim to her body and all of its shocks, pains and pleasures...possession had looked different for each.

     I can’t hear the tone of Sulla’s voice any more. For a long time when I had nightmares, his voice would seem as real and present as if he stood right beside me, or held me next to him. “Claudians. Why is it that Claudians are always such beautiful things? Come here little Claudia, take it in your hand. You have perfect hands, my child. I’ve never been touched by anything half so soft.”

     Then later, crying at all the wrong times, embarrassing father at the dinner table when I tried to put food in my mouth, or to cease playing out in the garden and suddenly kneel in the dirt and wail. Father would cuff me with his palm and send me to my room. You came then, Publius, sneaking in to see me when the house was asleep. Always with the same promises, to get revenge on all the old men, the bastards, to let me watch while you tortured and ruined them. Holding me, rocking me, kissing me. When you held me in your arms it was like being cradled, even though I’m the older; or caressed and loved by my own mirror image, my own soul given the shape of a man, who could do things, change things. “I won’t let any of them have you, Claudia. Not ever again.”

     Then Metellus, and that was the final end of such illusions. He was rough with the Knot of Hercules on my wedding dress. He pulled off my red veil and dropped it on the floor. He didn’t bother with kissing me. Pluto stealing Prosperpine, taking her to the Underworld on his black horse with red eyes, whose hooves could cleave rock.

      Finally, Catullus, there was you.

     “You have no meter, Clodia.”

     Meter’s not important. It shouldn’t be about meter. There are other ways find mastery of the secret language, the one that enables souls to look into one another as one would look at the sun, and without being blinded.

     Clodia let her hands stray to the curves of her body, still beautiful, still desired, even after all the ravaging forces.

     But now I belong only to myself. Perhaps that was always true, and it has just taken the longest time for me to realize it.

.....
The Festival of Seven Nights' Passion by R. Paul Sardanas