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POETRY

poems of the month

orpheus in soho

a seriously sexy man

fish

measuring my face

old clothes

modern iranian poems

my hero

face at the bottom of the world

perhaps (maybe)

the diogenes sequence

where to store furs

i am and am not:
      fragments of rumi

destiny and destination

the zen of no-enlightenment

the iraqi monologues

already backwards

a light in ruins

separate amputations

the sexy jihad

awaiting the barbarians

the smell of possibilities

ultimate leaves

rejoice in the dog

post-millennium maggot

the book of nothing

dispatches from the war against the world

albanian poems

french poems in honour of jean genet

the hells going on

the joy of suicide

book disease

foreground trouble

the transcendental hotel

cinema of the blind

lament of the earth mother

uranian poems

haikai by okami

haikai on the edge

black hole of your heart

jung's motel

wine and roses

confession from belgrade

gloss on rilke's
ninth duino elegy

jewels and shit:
poems by rimbaud

villon's dialogue with his heart

vasko popa:
a shepherd of wolves ?

the rubáiyát of omar khayyám

genrikh sapgir:
an ironic mystic

the love of pierre de ronsard

imagepoem

 

BETWEEN POETRY AND PROSE

good riddance to mankind

the maxims of michel de montaigne

400 revolutionary maxims

nice men and
  suicide of an alien

anti-fairy tales

the most terrible event in history

the rich man and the leper

disgusting

art, truth and bafflement

 

SHORT STORIES

godpieces

the three bears

three albanian tales

a little creation story

waybread

lazarus the leper

 

ESSAYS & MEMOIRS

one not one

an occitanian baby-hatch

ancient violence in the amazon

home, sweet home no longer

the ivory palace

helen's tower

schopenhauer for muthafuckas

never a pygmy

against money

'original sin' followed by
crippled consciousness

a gay man's guide to soft-willy sex

the holosensual alternative

tiger wine

the death of poetry

the absinthe drinker

with mrs dalloway in ukraine

love  and  hell

running on emptiness

a holocaust near you

a note on the cathars

happiness

londons of the mind
& dealing death to the caspian

genocide

a muezzin from the tower of darkness

kegan and kagan

being or television

satan in the groin

womb of half-fogged mirrors

tourism and terrorism

the dog from sinope

shoplifting
in britain & america

combatting normality

this sorry scheme of things

the bektashi dervishes

a holy dog
& a dog-headed saint

fools for nothingness

death of a bestseller

vacuum of desire: a homo-erotic correspondence

a note on beards

translation and the oulipo

the visit

 

PHOTOGRAPHS

introduction

metamorphotos

 

Nuadú, God of War


field guide to megalithic ireland

houses for the dead

ireland & the phallic continuum

the sheela-na-gig conundrum

french megaliths

a small town in france

western values

 

 

 

 

 

zoo- philia

 

 

 

VACUUM OF DESIRE

a short correspondence
via e-mail
between two 'gay' men.

Part Two

There was only a stain on the rug.

From: John
To: Anthony
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 1:23 PM
Subject: messages, text-messages, and yet more messages.

Anthony,

I was very upset and angered by your e-mail. One thing you must understand is that my name is John, always has been. I have never been called Paul and I am not like him so you must never subscribe his 'attributes ' to me or indeed anyone else. Unfair!!!

Should you wish to remain in contact maybe a nicer e-mail would be good.

John

It is wonderful to hear from you after five silent days.
I am really sorry. I had a very bad experience with Paul never showing up and not telling me.I have had a really bad time the past few days, too. We seem so suited to each other, but e-mail unfortunately allows people to write unconsidered stuff and send it off instantly and irretrievably. The night Rosie was here I had too much wine to drink (she was driving) and so the Paulpanic rose up and I sent off the e-mail without waiting another hour.

YOU ARE A LOVELY MAN AND I STILL LOVE YOU.
Will you forgive me ?

Malcolm also thinks you are lovely.

Why does the whole world not think you are lovely ?

Can you forgive if not forget ?

xxxx

DroopyCock


xxx


Dear Sweet Anthony,

Just because I was angry and rather upset didn't mean to say that I had stopped loving you. However I am not available to speak, text or e-mail 24 hours a day. I do work hard and although the job I have is stressful, I do like doing it. When I come in from work the first thing I do is to switch my phone off, charge it and go for a rest. It keeps me sane, or as sane as I think I am.

If you like I could come down on Friday for a few hours, I am unfortunately working early on Saturday so the visit would be a short one.

Let me know what you think.

John
XX


Hello YummyLips,

I want you no matter when, no matter for how short a period. I'm looking after an irrepressible puppy - a gorgeous canine tornado - this week and training her and giving her lots of exercise. Are you allergic to dogs ? If so, I'll deliver her to Malc tonight and be able to meet you unencumbered.

Yours emerging slowly from the depths of despair up to the light of your lust.

xxxxxx

Slightly-less-droopy-dick

 

Dear Sweet Man,

I have to go to a Medical examination on Friday. But I am free Monday and Tuesday.

Are you ?

John
XX


Dear ScrummyScrotum,

Hope your willy passes the medical test today. Will they hang weights from it ? Will they squeeze your balls and ask you to cough ?

Dr Wolf


I'm really looking forward to Monday, are you ?
I'm not sure when I will be able to come down, I have no idea if the buses are running even.

Do you mind if I stay over till Tuesday morning ?

The medical this morning went well, my blood pressure was a little on the high side of normal, but this was probably due to having to wait for over an hour before I went in. A full bladder too! So now I am free to apply for a NI driving licence and will do so when the holidays are over, no point in rushing the application so that it sits for 3 days in the sorting office is there?

I hope all is well with you now and your cock is dribbling, you're making me so horny that I may be forced to rape you on my visit!

You sexy wonderful man!
John
XX


Dear Delicious Rapist,

I have just phoned Ulsterbus and found out that there's a special Holiday Service on Monday and Tuesday. So on Monday you can take the 0930 or the 1045. Then there's a gap until 1345. We can sort out the Tuesday return service later. I'll pick you up in Crossgar again.

Of course you're staying overnight. I want to spend a whole night snuggling with you.

Don't you have an English driving licence ? why the need for an Northern Ireland one ?

Not sure I want to be raped immediately we meet. (Wonder should I get a straitjacket for you - then I could do all sorts of wicked things.) I wouldn't mind a bout of kissing first!#

Please don't wash the rapecock. I want to taste under the foreskin.
(I always wash mine because I produce smegma like there's no tomorrow, and most people don't like it. So tell me whether or not you want me to wash mine.)

I need a bit of love and man-milk just at present.

xxxx

Resurrected Cock.
Behold! He has risen!


The glistening head of your gorgeous organ and its tattoo are a major source of inspiration to me in my wanking hours! If you don't want me to wash my dick, I won't, I produce a fair amount of smegma too, so maybe a sniff to start with, then take it from there.

I'm so tired that I'm having difficulty concentrating on my spelling and grammar, so please forgive any lapses. I'm not too fond of smegma so maybe a slight wash would be better for me, I will leave it in your hands, unless you'd rather I washed it for you?
it will probably be better for me if I can catch the 1345 hours bus as it gives me plenty of time to rise from my lonely bed, potter about a bit and get ready. I'm not a morning person and do take a lot of time to get ready for anything.

I do have an English driving licence but I want to get a NI one as it will enable me to change my bank account, all banks I have visited so far require a form of identification with an Irish address on it, and at present I don't have one. One thing though, I was not asked to cough at the medical, the doctor didn't even look at my fluffy bits let alone handle them.

We will kiss a bit first, but I am feeling a little horny and am suffering from coitus fuckallus! The melon I have been using had a headache last night. So, be prepared!!
Your seemingly ever erect

John
XX


I'm glad you like my cock. It might be splendidly erotic to have you wash it. I was thinking you might like to cut my hair to No. 1 as well ? Real barbers do it naked, wiping their Cowper's exudation on their clients' beards.

I'm looking forward to your unwashed love-organ. It's actually very exciting for me finally to fancy someone who is not circumcised and to want to savour their exudations. (Isn't that a nice word, now ?) You are a really exciting man and we must not quarrel ! (I am a bit paranoid about missed rendezvous, but I won't make that mistake again.) It is quite wonderful to be sexually resurrected like this - thank you very much indeed, Mr Juicy.

Irish doctors are terrified of genitals. My current one obviously didn't want to examine me for testicular cancer but felt he ought to - so I put him out of his misery by telling him that "my boyfriend" (Malc) examined me regularly!

Your spelling was, as ever, immaculate.

I'll see you at the same place at 25 past 2.
Since you're arriving in the afternoon we won't break up our time by going to Malcolm's on this occasion, but we'll eat here when we feel peckish. Malcolm can receive us another time.

A very strange thing happened yesterday. I was crossing a busy street in Downpatrick when the driver of a passing car waved at me, then indicated he wanted to talk to me. I reached the opposite pavement and he drew aside from the stream of traffic, causing yet another minor obstacle.
- Are you an artist ? he asked. My beard and general demeanour would indicate some such occupation. "Well - er - yes, sort of," I replied.
- Would you sell me one ?
- Well, yes, maybe. But I don't actually sell my work.
- Do you paint landscapes ?
- Er, yes, a few.
- Can I come and see them? The boy here is very keen on pictures and I want to buy him one. A small one - not too expensive, something around £700-£800.
The boy - about 12 - said nothing.
I said: "My prices are lower than that. I'm not interested in money."
He just looked at me.
I said: "I'm on my way somewhere else and I'll be there all evening."
- Give me your phone number.
I gave him my phone number.
I also wrote my address, but I could see that he couldn't read it.
- I'll be back home tomorrow morning, I said.
- What time ?
- After 11.
- I'll phone you.

It turned out he was staying on the other side of the fjord. I continued on my way to Malcolm's.
Next morning I drove home with two quite saleable pictures from Malcolm's to add to the dozens here..
No phone-call.
Two o'clock came.
At half past two I heard a voice at the door (which as usual was open) - and it was the man himself with his County Clare-registered car. I wondered how he had found his way to my house without any directions from me.
I made a few pleasant remarks about county Clare, but he made no reply.

- Lovely house you have here.
- (!!!!!)
- Have you shown in Dublin ?
- No. Once in Belfast, once in Berlin and a couple of times in Downpatrick. I sold nothing.
He then proceeded to look at most of the pictures in the house, including the male nudes.
- Did you know Gerard Dillon ? (GD is probably the only painter of serious merit that Northern Ireland ever produced - a tortured closet queer who committed suicide in the 1960s.) Ireland's only genuine Expressionist. I had never met him.
(Pause)
- Have you shown in London ?
- Have you shown in Paris ?
- No. I told you I'm not interested in shows and galleries and commerce.
- Oh.
(Pause)
- Have you been to America.

The silent boy indicated one that he liked - one of the landscapes I had brought from Malcolm's. A rather good landscape (photo attached) recalling the "basket of eggs" landscape of county Down, with fields forming segments of the circular hillocks known as drumlins. The boy obviously had a good eye.
- How much do you want for it ?
- £500, I said.
- £350, said he.
- £400, I said.
Done.
Pause.

- Who painted that one there ? He indicated one I have by my kitchen cooker, featuring hide boats (curraghs) in the west of Ireland painted by a 'holiday painter'. I had bought this for £25 a few years ago because I liked its distortion of landscape.
- Someone called R. Browne.
- Don't know of him. Bryan.
- No, Browne. I wrote down the name - but realised of course that he couldn't read.
- Is he well-known ?
- No - he's a holiday painter. Probably dead. I'll look him up on the internet.
(No R. Browne Northern Irish painter appeared on Google)
- Would you throw that one in ?
- Well, no. You can have it for £100 . I explained that I had bought it in a junk-shop some years ago.
- OK. He shook my hand. I'll just take it with me and come back tomorrow for the other one with the money.
- Well, no. I want to photograph them both before I part with them.

- Ah. (Pause.) OK. I'll phone you tomorrow before I come over on the ferry.
No phone-call ever came. I think the guy had hoped to make off with one picture for free. But surely he wouldn't have thought that even I would be so dumb ?
The silent boy was a mystery. Was he rendered quasi-autistic by his voluble father - who was obviously(or had been) a Traveller (formerly known in Ireland, the only country in Europe where Gypsies never came, as Itinerants), since he couldn't read.
His refusal to talk about county Clare indicated that his Clare-registered car was second-hand. It looked expensive, but had extremely worn front tyres. Since he couldn't read, he couldn't read the CE (for Clare, as KE stands for Kildare and KY for Kerry) in the middle of the Irish registration plate.
It was a very strange thing altogether. Maybe he'll come back in some days' time and remove all the pictures from my walls when I'm at Malcolm's....
There's nothing I could do to prevent that: locking the house would be no hindrance when it is completely out of sight. This is a second reason why I never lock it...

I couldn't live somewhere I had to lock. Our house was never locked when I was a child. I rarely lock my car (and never the boot). When I stay in other people's houses, I go through the distasteful procedure of locking with...distaste! But I think I may have said this before!

hugs and kisses (never locked),

LoveWolf.


Dearest Man,

I do like your cock very much indeed.! I want to be filled to overflowing with yours and I want to fill you with mine. This will mean penetrative sex but I do want to have your love juice inside me and to have you kiss me passionately at the moment of ejaculation, and you will get the same from me. I will carry a little bit of the man I love in me till we next meet, which to me is such a beautiful thought.

I will wash your cock for you, (without soap,) and would be honoured to cut your hair for you, (NOT THE BEARD!) We will both be naked when the ceremony is performed.

I have not washed myself at all since yesterday morning before work, should I? My unwashed penis is a little 'sniffy' at present but you can always wash it for me if you think that it is too sniffy.
I'm glad were not going to Malcolm's, I would rather spend all the time alone with you, kissing, cuddling et al. With the occasional pipe break of course!

My cellphonee is playing up terribly at the moment, I will have to get another one soon.
See you tomorrow at 1425 ish!

John
XXX


Hello ScrummyScrotum,

I can give you a cellphone. It was a replacement for mine after it fell into a stream while I was gathering watercress. It is a superior (but oldfashioned) Nokia. Both gadgets were pass-ons from Rich Folk. The only condition is that you rub your cock against it occasionally. My old one recovered, of course, after a couple of weeks drying out.

Oh no, I did not want the beard to be cut. How could you think that ?

Keep the Johncock ripe. As you say, if it is a bit over-ripe I can wash it (probably with my tongue while holding my nose ?!*$%) but I like rich, animal smells. I am one of the few humans that has sniffed a living bull's balls. When I was small I used to walk to a farm in Dundonald (now of course built over) where my cock explored the mouths of young sucking-calves. This is/was probably a hanging offence.

Only recently I made a medical discovery which of course is one of those things that no-one tells anyone else, least of all doctors. The simple cure for smegma, from which I have suffered itchingly for years. Washing the cock only makes it worse. Fungicides don't work. But all that is needed is, once a day only, to retract the foreskin and give the organ some air so that it dries up. After 2 days of doing this, I encountered only pleasant, pheromonal smells on pulling back the foreskin, and the smegma problem has vanished - at the age of 63!

Something else boys never learn at school.

Let's take things slowly with penetration. I want to get used to your outside before I venture inside. Going and coming inside a man isn't something I do often, because I feel I can only be so 'invasive' with a manbeast I know really well and love, and who feels the same about me. Fucking too soon is emotionally risky for me... It is a sign of utter intimacy, abandon, love.

I'm not explaining myself very well... but we can discuss this (and much more) tomorrow and/or in The Fulness of Time.

Attached is another lovely beard, as painted by the terrific but under-rated English painter Walter Sickert. Hope I haven't sent it before!
Pictures like this are erotic for me, rather than pornographic - though the two obviously overlap...

I would have been 43 when I first encountered pornography! When I was a teenager there was little or no porn around, and, in any case, I wasn't attracted by breasts or buttocks. I had satisfied my curiosity about vaginas when I was a kid - by examining those of my female playmates.

I certainly had no idea that there was homo-porno. I don't know that I would have been interested, since dicks didn't attract me particularly.

It wasn't until I discovered that there were hairy bearded men, and that I was attracted to their doggy hairiness, and - crucially - that some of them found me a turn-on, that I found (some) cocks and many balls beautiful. Subsequently I discovered hairyporn. One day I'll probably prefer my chosen screenshots to actual men!

Am counting the hours until tomorrow - now less than 24 hours away!

(Down boy!)

xxx
nuzzles and licks

acheyballs

Oh destiny! that brought us - incredibly - together!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

My dear,

I have ordered a phone from argos so there is no need to take your spare one, though the offer is very much appreciated.

You haven't explained yourself at all well re. fucking. This is something that I want to do to you and want you to do to me. Maybe I should give you more time to get used to me, but I will say this. It will happen. I need to express my love for you in this way.

John
XX


Dear Mr LoveFuck,

Yes I (we ?) may need a little more time.
We hardly know each other - and we could easily burn out from sexual overkill. If sex is our only 'platform' we could easily break through the floor and sink into the swamp beneath (so to speak).

I need (and want) to know you, appreciate you for your non-sexual attributes, too.

Of course one learns quite a bit about someone through how he fucks, but the easier we take it the longer it will last.

Although I rather like being fucked by one of those few who have the sensitivity to know how to, I am of the (physiological) opinion that fucking is for cunts not for arseholes - not least because of the shit-hazard!

My cock has been hard most of the day.

good-night kisses

xxxx

SleazeWolf


From: Anthony
To: Artyom
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 10:10 PM
Subject: The end of the affair...

...or: JUST ANOTHER STAIN ON THE RUG

I have never had a correspondence quite like the above - a fantasy-reality in itself rather than a prelude to reality.

Today I spent the morning preparing to receive Mr Bus in true romantic fashion for his overnight visit. Celery and potato soup; avocado and green peppercorn dip. I baked a loaf. I chopped up the spinach-like sea scurvy grass with lots of garlic for a pasta and cheese dish with baked red peppers. I selected wines, laid the fire, chose the incense, replaced candles in the candlestick, and so on.

I met Mr Bus (off a bus) in the early afternoon. I took him to see Brocks' Acre (about 10 km away from where I picked him up) where I planted a shrub. He was not too good at ducking under branches or hopping over barbed-wire. He is only 48 and I - who can hop over or crawl under barbed wire as I always could - am 63. He was not exactly dressed for 2 days in the country: red shell-suit bottoms, some styleless top thing, and sneakers. I commented that he had not brought his toothbrush - nor indeed any little treat for our love-fest.

Then we drove to my house, where I served him tea as requested, before we both went upstairs to the Love-room, where I turned on some spacey-flowy music and lit the incense. There we stripped and he cut my hair to #1 with the clippers while I nuzzled his balls and kissed & licked his cock. This symbolic and exciting job done I opened the Crémant de Limoux and we we dove under the duvet.

We had an amazingly kissy couple of hours or more: he is a fantastic kisser, despite almost permanent allergic nasal blockage - which means that he snores even worse than Malcolm. I really think (in my incipient or romantic dementia) that kissing is the most satisfying thing in the world, especially when lubricated with champagne (or in his case with champagne and my champagne-piss). Eventually Mr Bus came copiously and satisfyingly three times in succession over my face and beard. Yum, yum. And we continued to kiss. But something was preventing me from wanting to ejaculate (though I had several cerebral orgasms), something veiled, unrevealed, unrevealing, unforthcoming, sealed off…about him. A physical intimacy without any intimacy of spirit: quite different from my (misled) feelings of galactic interpenetration with Paul.

We kissed and nuzzled a bit longer, and then I started talking about dinner and what flavour of ice cream he would like me to make. He then announced that he was not staying overnight after all, since he had to work next day.

This was quite a slap in the face with a flaccid willy. The day was Easter Monday, with very basic bus services which I had to phone up about. I realised that the clock in the love-room had not been advanced for Summer (Daylight Saving) Time, so it was an hour later than I thought: 19.30. I rushed downstairs, and couldn't get through to the bus company. So I just went upstairs again and woke John up (!) and said I would run him home to Belfast (30 miles) immediately since I hate driving in the dark. Even if we had had dinner, I would not have been able to drink wine before driving him either to the last bus (which turned out to be at 20.30) or all the way to Belfast.

Next day (Easter Tuesday) was also a Public Holiday with a special bus service, and all drivers on that day, too, earned twice the normal rate. It was highly unlikely that he had suddenly been called in to work, since drivers always and naturally compete for such a remunerative shift on a day when they are otherwise at a loss to know what to do.

And so, without a word spoken between us, I drove to Belfast, where he recognised a bus-route and told me brusquely to leave him at a bus-stop (only 3 miles from his house) - though, being Easter Monday he might have had to wait half an hour or more for a bus to come. I got the impression that he did not want me to come anywhere near his house. I also suspect that his house-mate ex-lover, was the reason why he had to report back that night.

I drove home, chagrined that I had made one of my rare trips to the city without being able to go to shops for one or two items which I will have to ask Malcolm to get for me. I lit the fire, and, some time after 21.00 hrs, had some of the dinner and wine I had prepared, to music that I had selected that morning. I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast.

So ended the non-relationship with Mr Bus - a man who (it turned out) dislikes roast parsnips and has no interest in breakfast, landscape, art, philosophy, poetry, stones or wine.

I don't expect to hear from him; I doubt if he will have the integrity to apologise. Sometimes I feel that I am one of the few reliable romantics in the world! And now I am feeling rather good. He was very good at kissing - that's all. Once I realised that he was dishonest I just felt glad to detach.

This capitalist society is so controlling of people's lives that its culture of career- and work-slavery actively inhibits people from having friendships outside their jobs, or relationships beyond television, family and child-rearing.

In the next two or three days a digital camera will arrive, for Mr Bus asked me to go halves with him to replace his that was broken in transit from England. I spent a lot of time on the internet researching good-value digital cameras with decent optics for non-professionals, and found a bargain on the Amazon Marketplace site (a second-hand one still within its guarantee period). So now (unless a really unlikely thing happens and he sends me £100 and a request to forward the camera to him) I will have a digital camera which I do not want. Perhaps I will sell it on eBay. Can I be bothered ?

As a friend said after my report on these events - it's just another stain on the rug!

Both 'love' and sex are, differently, hoardings behind which hide desperate competitions.

Hugs,

Volchya


From: artem
To: anthony
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 12:03 PM
Subject: No comments, just abstract words...

Oh, Tonchya, what can I say ?
...except that we are all prisoners of our personalities. Character gets more pronounced with age and we can less and less escape from the restricting limits of our ideas and habits - especially a 'socialised' person. But even (especially!)if you're a hermit you'll be trapped by your judgements and preconceptions.

Indeed, even saints rarely escape this, I'm afraid. Only the wise heart could do so, and the owner of such a heart might be just an ordinary, absolutely undistinguished man (except for this gift). In that sense the more complex and developed a person you are the more problems it brings to you in relations with other human beings.

Probably that's why so often the only apparent solution is to
turn to unlinguistic nature and unselfish animals - which is only half a solution, because in the end you failed to connect with beings of your own kind.

I think only the Christian-orientated mind could see the tragedy in this state of things. Buddhists might say that if you were born human there were certain 'reasons' for it.

You're very fortunate to have the capacity to be aware of suffering (but that's another topic).
In the end, I believe in forgiveness and understanding - because I experience it sometimes...

Human hugs from

Tyomka

PS Remember what I wrote to you at the very beginning, on seeing his photo: "he looks like he needs sex every half-hour".


From: Frederick Lowe Jr.
To: Anthony
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 2:40 AM
Subject: Re: The end of the affair.


I don't know what to think other than it seems clear that he overwhelms himself and then doesn't know what to do with the experience or the feelings it engenders. I'd just caution that you do not know him well yet, so it's hard to know what things mean. I think you will hear from him again. Tho' I can't be sure, it will surprise me if you don't.

I think it's curious that he had you drop him off only a few miles from home. An obvious reason would be if he were married or lived with someone else - can that be ruled out? Or is it that he needs to preserve something separate from you? I'm thinking of Artyom's observation about the strength of your personality.

We will see.

F.


From: gerald90
To: Anthony
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 5:35 PM
Subject: Stranger than fiction: you could not invent it!


Boy oh boy!
Life really is stranger than fiction. Your correspondence is the most amusing, sad, whimsical, piece of writing I've laid eyes on for a very long time. Now I remember why I detest all modern poets and fiction writers. They could not invent two characters such as yourselves. I am trying hard not to piss myself with explosive mirth as I type this...

I feel the human race to be a kind of fable. A story being recited to the universe at large. For entertainment, or instruction, I know not which...

atb

gerald

LISTEN TO A MESSAGE FROM GERALD TO ANTHONY


There is nothing so exquisite as non-ejaculatory, non-penetrative, whole-body/mind sensuality - especially between two men happy in each other's company and conversation.


CLICK FOR THE STRANGE AND FELICITOUS CODA TO THIS CORRESPONDENCE >


In May 2005 I finally met Ivor the Artist, the man I confused with Mr Bus in the initial stages of our correspondence. I was delighted to learn that he was actually older than I - oh joy! I have always been looking for a man older than myself who was not a pathetic lurker-in-the-closet. Ivor is one of the few I have found, and, he surprised me by his expansiveness and urbanity present in even a "well-travelled" Ulsterman who exhibits his competent paintings in Brussels, Paris, Marseille as well as Dublin and Belfast.

So we lingered over our champagne and talked about plants and painting, music and the Road to Nowhere which is Northern Ireland and its politics, while caressing and admiring each other's surprisingly unravaged bodies and tumescent dicks, kissing and hugging. Some hours passed this way with no 'wham-bam', no urge to detumesce, but a lot of cuddles. We felt hungry, and so, naked, I cooked a quick and partly pre-prepared meal of my own specialities - after lighting the fire. We opened the excellent wine which he had brought from France, and continued caressing and talking and listening - and listening to music.

This continued after dessert, and so the two calmly sensual old men (one 63, the other 69) drifted up to bed where, after more of the same, we fell asleep in each other's hours, waking up a few times briefly in the night to kiss and caress.

And suddenly it was breakfast time, and Ivor had to drive three hundred miles to Wexford, so I got up quickly and made his breakfast. Although 'nothing had happened' a great deal had happened which would not have happened otherwise. We both felt very sexual, still tumescent, but also deeply satisfied as one rarely does after ejaculation.

Ivor texted me a few hours later to tell me that he could still feel my delightfully cuddly body beside him, and this feeling had sustained him over what might otherwise have been a dismal drive (it was grey and wet, too).

More texts came from Wexford...then from West Cork...then from Longford...then from his home in county Derry. And a few e-mails. Here is an e-mail from me - and one from him:

Hello Mr Cuddly ThickDick,

I'm so glad that you appreciate that we had a poetic time together. I prefer poetry to lust - it lasts longer and has no sad aftertaste. Of course lust can be poetic, but unfortunately that's rare. Certainly I prefer the gentle and ungenital evening and night we had to a whambam session that is (as they usually are) a one-off or, worse, a hit-and-run. Experienced sexmen used to call me "a slow burner" (this was not a term of abuse) and I guess I like slow burners myself. Intimacy is far more interesting than sex. And when they combine it's wonderful. Transcendental.

Looking forward to transcendental times,

hugs and kisses

ANTHONY

You are lovely and restful to be with.

If you suddenly get a window of opportunity, you can visit anytime.

===============

Hi SnakeWolf!

It's a bit the same for me.All i know without analysing it to much ,is that it felt good and 'comfortable' to be with you. Sort of natural, as though we'd known each other in some way before-? It was neverthless a sexual experience, like a long slow orgasm - slow burning maybe, but lasting .. and in many ways more complete. It also leaves something for a future meeting and all avenues have not been explored but tentatively suggested at. I do think its better to push the boat out gently and put up the sails a bit after so that you can perhaps gain speed as you get used to handling the craft...

want to visit again , but my life here is so hypocritical and difficult, it is most difficult to arrange anything.

Hugs for now,

IVOR

===============

15th June 2005

Yesterday I was invited to spend the day with Ivor/Silverbeard/Thickdick the ?painter. He lives about 80 km away.

His wife met me at this self-built artist's house surrounded by shady bowers and a stream and a pond...Abutilon, Azara, Cornus kousa, Clerodendrum, many clematis, hundreds of iris clones, etc. etc. - she seemed a little strained, but had a very nice face. Being a queer, I am not interested in women's bodies so can concentrate on faces. (But I'm like that with men, too, come to think of it...) After serving weak coffee and factory biscuits she went off somewhere in her car.

Ivor showed me dozens of his paintings - not one of which I particularly liked. All were bland and superficial. Many were of irises and pansies, some were of very clean landscapes and needed a wash of burnt umber or a nice muddy dog to roll over them, and there was not a single portrait. Not even of his wife or married/separated offspring. Surely someone who does not paint portraits cannot be called a painter ? Even if he shows in expensive commercial galleries for the crass rich, such as the Galérie Médicis on the Place des Vosges in Paris!

After a light lunch of fried rice with egg and a glass of Marquès de Cáceres we went off and looked at a few local megalithic sites in the rain - three of which I had not visited before. One (with lintel and portal-stones) which I had seen some thirty years earlier had disappeared into a vast and hideous quarry, many of which are wrecking the Irish landscape in the name of progress and employment (code for greed and breed-greed).

About 6 pm we returned, and I the supersensitive who is so often out of his depth, noticed an atmosphere in the house. Middle-class conversation skated on the surface of things. Actually most human talk is about nothing and is completely pointless. After all the strutting words have passed, there's just the trampled truth. Or the beggar truth.

Then dinner was served. I had said Don't Make me Vegetarian Food since vegetarian food made by meat-eaters is always pathetic and usually stodgy (except in France where they will without a shred of flair or imagination offer plain cooked vegetables). Along came a dish of potatoes baked with cheese and cream. Potatoes and sheep-cheese with salad and roast peppers is my default food when I can't think of anything else to make, or have nothing else in the house. Ah, well. I ate it, and there was hollow conversation to match the cheap (and highly-subsidised) French wine without a molecule of personality. Our intercourse was like walking on the outer casing of a submarine. Then I asked the wife what she thought about Ivor suddenly deciding he was gay. She jumped up and ran out of the room sobbing.

Ivor said: "I wish you hadn't said that". I said: "I don't like being set up in a false position, and things as important as that need talking about."

Shortly afterwards I left. Ivor said: "I'll be in touch."

I don't think he will. He is a shallow, self-indulgent, selfish man. What a set-up! How dishonest (as he said)...I'm out of my depth with most people, I just don't understand their closedness and their misery-in-smug-luxury. (Huge rambling house, at least 2 studios, an acre of bowery garden, two cars.)

There was poor, handsome, intelligent, sparkly dog outside who was never allowed in. That says all there needs to be said about my day with the greedbreeder normals.

Back to my haven of elective solitude, untroubled by people, where a case of excellent wine had been left in the scullery by an obliging van-driver.


Every day that passes
I loathe the turnkey classes
More and more.
(I never lock my door).

________________

18th June,

Hi Anthony.

What can I say .

It was a good day and I enjoyed exploring the countryside in the drizzle with you.......have been playing the CDs..and equally .. enjoying them and thinking of you...and missing you too.

But - she had made an effort, and you took her (and me) by surprise. Had she had time to know you a little better the reaction would have been more considered...However, nothing has changed my resolve to break up next Spring when I intend to sell the house.

That would have happened this year had it not been for my inability to finish off various areas to realise the maximum potential. - Necessary to split both ways and leave me with my property in france.........

Enjoyed your company. hope you're OK-

Hugs Ivor xx


THE IRISH ROVER !!


19th June

Hello Ivor,

What do I say ? I couldn't understand why I was there. You gave me no clue. But I certainly felt an atmosphere. The conversation was a bit like running over the hull of a submarine. So I felt I had to say something to break the artificiality. I expected anger, which I would have sympathised with, not tears.

Your whole set-up puzzles me. Your wife has a lovely face - but I didn't see a single portrait of her! Why paint flowers when you have a deep George Eliot face like that around you ? (My absolutely only female pin-up is George Eliot, a lovely old photo of her is in my bedroom!)

I hope you know what you're doing. Your chances of having a meaningful gay relationship in France are almost zero. Gay men are obsessed with the false god/devil of (callow) youth. You and I are well outside the solar system, so to speak. I can truthfully say that I have met scores of men since I came out (to my spinster aunts) at the age of 40, and of them perhaps three or four were serious people rather than emotionally-retarded flibbertigibbets. Malcolm is one. We quickly got over the sexual stage (mainly because he wants to be dominated and I am domineering enough by nature without wanting to be a boring top-guy in sex) and have a very deep and very open relationship. He knows all about you, and everyone I meet. Sometimes he goes to the gay sauna in Belfast, and I get a blow by blow account of that.

He used to work on the Gay Helpline. Now he works with a voluntary group which does up old tools to be sent to Africa so that people can be more self-sufficient. He seems happy enough for me to live part-time in France (if it is logistically feasible) and has seen the house in Saint-Antonin and also loves the area. He decided that it would not be a good idea for us both to move there, for he would never learn the language just as he could never learn to drive a car. (He went to a Special School...)

Apart from Malcolm, there is my impoverished and wonderfully loyal Canadian friend Dennis in London with whom I had bad sex once, and thereafter became really close to. And I can't think of any more for the moment - apart from Pierre, one of my French pick-ups who clung to me for quite a while, at the same time as his Gorgon Mother was clinging to him... He did a little suicide number and nearly killed us both entirely by accident, because he didn't know that I would panic and drive him to hospital in dense fog, crashing into a wall en route....so we both ended up in hospital.

What I'm trying to say is that you could lose more than you will gain by this. Apart from which, I have the impression that you are not that interested in other people's feelings. You are very self-focussed and self-indulgent: this might be a self-indulgence too far. How is Patricia going to cope ?

Surely the worst kind of husband is the one who leaves his wife during the menopause and decides to have another adolescence ? Isn't it a bit callous ? It is not uncommon - but then marriage (in my opinion) is a daft if not criminal institution. Like Christianity, it asks too much, and failure is the norm. Have you ever met a sane, pleasant, happy human ? I haven't. Dogs are sane, pleasant, happy and fun - and we bore them to distraction when we don't make their lives a misery.

I think you should show this letter to Patricia. Then have a talk about the meaning of life, love, marriage - and death. Although she may not realise it, I am an impartial witness. I have nothing to gain or lose by expressing my honest opinion. (Actually, I am compulsively honest in a country where dissemblance, obfuscation, hypocrisy and blatant lying are the national compulsions.)

Yours sincerely,

Anthony

PS - I am due for a difficult few days. Part of the land I have been given in lieu of cash (for a big debt) goes on auction on Tuesday. But if no-one buys the 4 hectares (or offers too little), I will be left with useless land, and no money - and no house in France. (I live on £100 a week.) And deep depression. (I'm still weepy over the disappearance of Oscar...)


CODA

I was offered just enough money for the land - but I had foolishly reckoned without the auctioneer's fees, which came to over € 9,000. So I had to borrow that money using continuing short-term credit-card balance-transfers: 0% interest but a few small fees to pay. Dennis in London (who had been bought out of his tiny rented flat in Notting Hill) most generously lent me £2,000. I hope to clear these debts when the rest of the land is sold, and my debt repaid to me after no more than seven years.

The four hectares was re-sold four months later for over € 100,000. I had been shafted.

A year after the above non-events, when the lovely little house in Saint-Antonin was mine, and I had stayed there several months (and Malcolm several weeks), Malcolm met a pleasant fuck-buddy in a Belfast sauna: a handsome, very sweet and good-natured chap whose only interests were sex of the crude, penetrative kind; kerosene lamps - and art-déco. George, (a mild satyriatic a.k.a. The Garrulous and Gentle Ramrod), was extremely good for Malcolm, because he had a generous way with him, was sexually very generous, too - and liked Malcolm enormously. His satyriasis is probably a function of his mild depression: many men try to ejaculate themselves out of depression - and, of course, their minds.

This had a very good effect on Malcolm's and my non-genital but cuddly and very loving, loyal relationship. For I had become almost completely asexual, with no interest in hairy men beyond (or should I say below) the æsthetic, nor in ejaculation more than once every couple of months. My complete disillusionment with men and my increasing shame of being human had the felicitous result of rendering what sexuality remained in me entirely and peacefully auto-erotic. I have never before felt my mind and body so much in tune.

I simply get off on my own smells. No problems of compatibility there! And I rarely wash parts other than my face, hands, feet and arse-crack.

What every child knows about sex is that it is fascinatingly silly.

The garrulous, restless George and I got on well for very short periods - even though his partner was...Mr Bus...whom George says is "as odd as two left feet".

But then I'm as odd as two left eyes.

June 2017

John and George were two of the three witnesses at the Ceremony of Civil Partnership between Malcolm and myself, not long after the 25th anniversary of our meeting. George was cheerfully garrulous. John, now suffering from diabetes, arthritis and gout - but can still drive - was very subdued. We entered into this official partnership very largely because of the UK government's decision (following a bizarre referendum) to leave the European Union, plus my decision to live permanently in France, not far from Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, while Malcolm remains in Northern Ireland, at least for the time being. Who knows what the future may bring ? I, 75 years old, may become incapacitated. He is twenty years younger. One of us may need to look after the other - in France. Civilly partnered with me, an Irish and EU citizen, he, a British citizen, will be eligible for those rights and benefits accorded to an EU citizen and perhaps denied to UK nationals.

 

<< BACK<<



It never occurred to me
that sex for most people is some sort of validation.

Yet this might have been part of the soft,
rich tapestry of feelings I had
on those few occasions when intimacy was flawless, wonderful.

 


I have now revised my notion of the Spectrum of Sexuality.
The little hetero-homo spectrum is just a section of the band that stretches between
polymorphous-perverse to solipsistic and on to null.

I also now think that most homosexuality is simply pathological.
Kids get fixated on one person or incident occurring some time between the ages of 6 and 16
and their emotional development is arrested.
This is not to say that heterosexuals are not also emotionally undeveloped.
Perhaps most humans, unlike dogs, are specifically emotional cripples.
The function of civilisation is to cripple us and sell us crutches.


DARE YOU SEE THESE PICTURES ?


homosensuality

bearded men kissing single track in the snow&the visit - two more misconnections


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