JEANETTE WINTERSON
Robertson Davies
exerpt from Art & Lies
"And what good are the treasures of Egypt," said Doll Sneerpiece, "if I never again see his sweet face?"
I am a Sexualist. Casti connubi? (as the Pope says). It's all Latin to me. Why marriage? Why chaste marriage? Is there nothing else? Nothing more? An alliance of love.
What marries me to you? Is it a piece of paper? Then I am not married to you . Is it Church approval? Then I am not married to you. Is it the fact of a roof, the fact of a bed, the fact of two keys in one lock? Then I am not married to you. Is ith the Eye of the Law? Then I am not married to you.
If it is the daily pleasure in your face. If it is the quickening of my spirits at your face, if it is your face I seek when I seek no other, if it is the love of you that is consent, if it is consent to be of the same mind, then let me not to the marriage of true minds andmit impediments. There is some Latin that I understand; Consensus facit matrimonium et non concubitus.
And what about copula?
Read between the lines and there's nothing but dirt. Dirt under my fingernails, dirt in my mouth, dirt between my legs where the pleasure grows. Don't trust Rome. It was Savonarola (Florentine 1452-98 Occupation: Martyr and Zealot) standing in the courtyard of the Medici who denounced me as a corruptor and a devil and had my work burned.
My work. My work. The words spitting upwards in tongues of flame. The words smoking the clear uncritical air. The words curling off the manuscripts. The manuscripts cracking in the fire.
Sophocles (Athenian 496-406 BC Occupation: Playwright). "Gods, what impassioned heart and longing made this rhythm?"
My heart, my longing, the heart at bay where you hunt me. The heart that runs through the wood, sees a stream, crosses it, takes the cut against the cliff, and comes cornered to the sea. Where now? Where now, with the beating blue water behind me and your voice at my head?
This is the nature of our sex: She takes a word, straps it on, penetrates me hard. The word inside me, I become it. The word slots my belly, my belly swells the word. New meanings expand from my thighs. Together we have sacked the dictionary for a lexigraphic fuck. We prefer to ignore those smooth, romantic words, and dig instead for a roue's pleasure. The mature word, ripe, through centuries of change, the work deep-layered with associative delights. The more the word has been handled, the better we like it. For me, the perverted challenge of re-virgining the whore. Aren't we a couplet? Two successive lines of verse that rhyme with each other? Press your eye to the keyhole and you can see us, one on one, swiving at hte perfect match of dactyl and spondee. The coupling box where we must make ends meet. My well coupled fill, me her rider in mid-air.
See me. See me now. I'm not a (R)omantic, I'm a true C(c)lassical, I don't believe in love at first sight.I'm not falling for you, but one step forward, and you might fall for me.
What things fall?
Once, an angel, leaping out of heaven to find new worlds, his hands snagged on a zigzag of stars. Lucifer, whose cuts bled light...
The thunderbolt, Zeus-hurled, through the timid clouds, the comet's head, nuclear discuss gold-thrown.
The Dead, down to Tartarus, black poplars by a black stream. The black shaft smooth-sided and jag-toothed dog.
Iscarus, the flying boy, his body sun-glazed. His sun-glazed body that shattered the glassy sea.
Autumn. Long leaves of bright undress.
Hermes. Star spurred.
Fall for me, as an apple falls, as the rains fall, because you must. Use gravity to anchor your desire.