This week I got set a poetry challenge. Choose another person's poem. Take a line that represent the heart of the poem, then each stanza must begin with a word from the line. Then just to make it more of a challenge I had to take the opposition opinion from that expressed in the original. I hope the original poet sees this as a compliment.
To fully live, we must embrace the natural, unashamed flow of desire and joy
To fully live we must engage with the world as it is,
not yearn for a nostalgic past,
one not as pure as we imagine,
with fumblings in alleyways,
back street abortions,
and shot gun weddings.
We must embrace the guilt not as shame
but as part of the human story,
a jouissance – pleasure in the taboo,
and found in titillation,
pornography depicted on the walls of Pompeii,
echoing lust,
it’s all sex, my friend.
Watching the deed,
in the comfort of your home,
comprehends our universal nature.
The natural spirit of man or woman
or those born in the wrong body,
transforming,
turning trauma into fantasies,
guiding us to orgasm,
in ways uniquely our own,
honest, raw, real.
Unashamed by its source,
like rivers converging,
heavy, tumultuous, twisting
shaping us into strange, beautiful forms,
wild branches bending
unpredictable, perverted.
Flow of desire like the tide,
is not a constant,
it ebbs and surges,
but companionship endures,
even when the shore is bare and exposed,
and the body weakens with sickness or age.
And joy lies beyond these realms of satisfaction,
beyond the clickbait of our desires.
Look to history,
remember those afraid to be themselves,
to the Marquis de Sade,
to Oscar Wilde,
fucking is ancient,
it’s as old as humanity itself,
unbounded, human and wild.