February 14

W. H. Auden – gay poet

Two gay icons: Christopher Isherwood (left) with poet W. H. Auden (right), on a train leaving for their 1938 trip to China.

On Valentine's Day one often indulges in poetry. I am directing you to a gay poem, an obscene one from the pen of W. H. Auden. Here’s the beginning and end of his poem from 1948 (use a search engine to read the rest of it):









A Platonic Blow – W. H. Auden

It begins:

It was a spring day, a day for a lay, when the air
Smelled like a locker-room, a day to blow or get blown;
Returning from lunch I turned my corner and there
On a near-by stoop I saw him standing alone.

I glanced as I advanced. The clean white T-shirt outlined
A forceful torso; the light-blue denims divulged
Much. I observed the snug curves where they hugged the behind,
I watched the crotch where the cloth intriguingly bulged.

Our eyes met. I felt sick. My knees turned weak.
I couldn't move. I didn't know what to say.
In a blur I heard words, myself like a stranger speak
"Will you come to my room?" Then a husky voice, "O.K."

I produced some beer and we talked. Like a little boy
He told me his story. Present address: next door.
Half Polish, half Irish. The youngest. From Illinois.
Profession: mechanic. Name: Bud. Age: twenty-four.

And ends:

We aligned mouths. We entwined. All act was clutch,
All fact contact, the attack and the interlock
Of tongues, the charms of arms. I shook at the touch
Of his fresh flesh, I rocked at the shock of his cock.

I plunged with a rhythmical lunge steady and slow,
And at every stroke made a corkscrew roll of my tongue.
His soul reeled in the feeling. He whimpered "Oh!"
As I tongued and squeezed and rolled and tickled and swung.

Then I pressed on the spot where the groin is joined to the cock,
Slipped a finger into his arse and massaged him from inside.
The secret sluices of his juices began to unlock.
He melted into what he felt. "O Jesus!" he cried.

Waves of immeasurable pleasures mounted his member in quick
Spasms. I lay still in the notch of his crotch, inhaling his sweat.
His ring convulsed round my finger. Into me, rich & thick,
His hot spunk spouted in gouts, spurted in jet after jet.

British born in 1907, Wystan Hugh Auden chose to live in the USA. In the 1930s he lived in an apartment in Brooklyn with gay artists Carson McCullers & Benjamin Britten and was a friend of Christopher Isherwood. W. H. Auden’s work has perhaps the widest range and greatest depth of any English language poet of the past 3 centuries. Auden wrote in a voice that addressed readers personally rather than as part of a collective audience. His styles and forms extend from ballads and songs to haiku and limericks to sonnets, prose poems and constructions of his own invention. His tone ranges from spirited comedy to memorable and profound, often in the same work. His poems manage to be secular and sacred, philosophical and erotic, personal and universal. And at times even obscene.

Whew! Happy Valentine's Day to all (click the image below).