SpokenVerse | Rapture by Galway Kinnell (read by Tom O'Bedlam) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded June 2012 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
You know that scene in the movies where people make love for the first time. They dash into the apartment kicking the door shut, roughly tearing off each other's clothes and falling over the furniture like there is no time to lose.
Well, don't do that. There's no hurry. Sex might be an emergency for a man, but for a woman the longer it takes the better, within reasonable limits. For one thing, the man has to be certain she is a willing partner - if he ravishes her then he might have difficulty establishing consent afterwards.
There's another thing - that might be her best blouse so she doesn't want it ripped or separated from its buttons. Probably she would prefer to freshen up first, powder her nose, and do other things you don't really need to know about. And, anyway, what girl wants to go home looking dishevelled? (There's a name for it - it's called The Walk of Shame)
In any case, strenuous activity immediately before sex is a bad idea. Cool down. Take it easy. Let her go to the bathroom first. You too - when did you last attend to your personal hygiene?
When you're agreed that you're both willing, why not just go to bed? Turn the light out - let her undress in the dark. Most girls don't like a close all-over inspection. Even when you're both in bed, don't be in too much hurry to get started. There's strong magic in anticipation. It's good to let your bodies to settle a while, your pulses to slow down, your temperatures to stabilise and equalise.
The movies have convinced us that love is immediately exciting in the first assignation. It ain't necessarily so. In fact it's unlikely that your first experience with a new partner will be all confetti and fireworks. It's more likely there will be embarrassing and awkward moments.
There are some people who prefer courtship to consummation, but for them sex is the denoument, they lack the ability to form a stable relationship because they need novelty, always looking for "the romance after the dance."
Real relationships depend on the best combination of excitement and familiarity. Sex never bores us by repetition. We have no real recollection of it. Once we have found the right formula, the same things will work every time, even better than they did before.
Most of all, don't ever think you're a "great lover" or "good in bed." Of course there's advantage in not being totally naive but everything you learned from films, books and other partners is worth nothing. On the first encounter you don't know what your new partner desires or expects. So ask her. But be subtle about it. Proceed with caution. You will do much better as a lover if you are willing to learn new techniques, rather than eager to demonstrate your old ones.
The stills are from the Spanish film, Sex and Lucia, streaming on Lovefilm and Netflix.
You can hear the poet himself read it here:
poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=9497
I can feel she has got out of bed.
That means it is seven a.m.
I have been lying with eyes shut,
thinking, or possibly dreaming,
of how she might look if, at breakfast,
I spoke about the hidden place in her
which, to me, is like a soprano's tremolo,
and right then, over toast and bramble jelly,
if such things are possible, she came.
I imagine she would show it while trying to conceal it.
I imagine her hair would fall about her face
and she would become apparently downcast,
as she does at a concert when she is moved.
The hypnopompic play passes, and I open my eyes
and there she is, next to the bed,
bending to a low drawer, picking over
various small smooth black, white,
and pink items of underwear. She bends
so low her back runs parallel to the earth,
but there is no sway in it,
there is little burden, the day has hardly begun.
The two mounds of muscles for walking, leaping, lovemaking,
lift toward the east—what can I say?
Simile is useless; there is nothing like them on earth.
Her breasts fall full; the nipples
are deep pink in the glare shining up through the iron bars
of the gate under the earth where those who could not love
press, wanting to be born again.
I reach out and take her wrist
and she falls back into bed
and at once starts unbuttoning my pajamas.
Later, when I open my eyes, there she is again,
rummaging in the same low drawer.
The clock shows eight. Hmmm.
With huge, silent effort of great,
mounded muscles the earth has been turning.
She takes a piece of silken cloth
from the drawer and stands up. Under the falls
of hair her face has become quiet and downcast,
as if she will be, all day among strangers,
looking down inside herself at our rapture.
You know that scene in the movies where people make love for the first time. They dash into the apartment kicking the door shut, roughly tearing off each other's clothes and falling over the furniture like there is no time to lose.
Well, don't do that. There's no hurry. Sex might be an emergency for a man, but for a woman the longer it takes the better, within reasonable limits. For one thing, the man has to be certain she is a willing partner - if he ravishes her then he might have difficulty establishing consent afterwards.
There's another thing - that might be her best blouse so she doesn't want it ripped or separated from its buttons. Probably she would prefer to freshen up first, powder her nose, and do other things you don't really need to know about. And, anyway, what girl wants to go home looking dishevelled? (There's a name for it - it's called The Walk of Shame)
In any case, strenuous activity immediately before sex is a bad idea. Cool down. Take it easy. Let her go to the bathroom first. You too - when did you last attend to your personal hygiene?
When you're agreed that you're both willing, why not just go to bed? Turn the light out - let her undress in the dark. Most girls don't like a close all-over inspection. Even when you're both in bed, don't be in too much hurry to get started. There's strong magic in anticipation. It's good to let your bodies to settle a while, your pulses to slow down, your temperatures to stabilise and equalise.
The movies have convinced us that love is immediately exciting in the first assignation. It ain't necessarily so. In fact it's unlikely that your first experience with a new partner will be all confetti and fireworks. It's more likely there will be embarrassing and awkward moments.
There are some people who prefer courtship to consummation, but for them sex is the denoument, they lack the ability to form a stable relationship because they need novelty, always looking for "the romance after the dance."
Real relationships depend on the best combination of excitement and familiarity. Sex never bores us by repetition. We have no real recollection of it. Once we have found the right formula, the same things will work every time, even better than they did before.
Most of all, don't ever think you're a "great lover" or "good in bed." Of course there's advantage in not being totally naive but everything you learned from films, books and other partners is worth nothing. On the first encounter you don't know what your new partner desires or expects. So ask her. But be subtle about it. Proceed with caution. You will do much better as a lover if you are willing to learn new techniques, rather than eager to demonstrate your old ones.
The stills are from the Spanish film, Sex and Lucia, streaming on Lovefilm and Netflix.
You can hear the poet himself read it here:
poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=9497
I can feel she has got out of bed.
That means it is seven a.m.
I have been lying with eyes shut,
thinking, or possibly dreaming,
of how she might look if, at breakfast,
I spoke about the hidden place in her
which, to me, is like a soprano's tremolo,
and right then, over toast and bramble jelly,
if such things are possible, she came.
I imagine she would show it while trying to conceal it.
I imagine her hair would fall about her face
and she would become apparently downcast,
as she does at a concert when she is moved.
The hypnopompic play passes, and I open my eyes
and there she is, next to the bed,
bending to a low drawer, picking over
various small smooth black, white,
and pink items of underwear. She bends
so low her back runs parallel to the earth,
but there is no sway in it,
there is little burden, the day has hardly begun.
The two mounds of muscles for walking, leaping, lovemaking,
lift toward the east—what can I say?
Simile is useless; there is nothing like them on earth.
Her breasts fall full; the nipples
are deep pink in the glare shining up through the iron bars
of the gate under the earth where those who could not love
press, wanting to be born again.
I reach out and take her wrist
and she falls back into bed
and at once starts unbuttoning my pajamas.
Later, when I open my eyes, there she is again,
rummaging in the same low drawer.
The clock shows eight. Hmmm.
With huge, silent effort of great,
mounded muscles the earth has been turning.
She takes a piece of silken cloth
from the drawer and stands up. Under the falls
of hair her face has become quiet and downcast,
as if she will be, all day among strangers,
looking down inside herself at our rapture.
