Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Geometries

Here's another poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) that was unpublished in his lifetime, and since it's not available on The Eldritch Dark, here's the complete text:


Your body and mine, upon the bed opposed,
presented changing forms and lines Euclidean.

Our heads' irregular and hairy spheres
pillowed in close conjunction, or describing
tangents, diagonals, parabolas
in the unresting play of love.

Your tongue's obtuse triangle
parting and rounded curves of our four lips,
advancing vibrantly, and vibrantly retracting.

The spiral of my kisses 
climbing from base to nipple gradually
about your full maternal breasts unspoiled,
whose hemispheres were flattened later 
beneath the planes of low male breasts.

Caresses of our straight-drawn fingers
in tender parallels,
caresses
of fingers bent, half-angled and half-arced,
of concave palms enfolding knee or buttock
or breast or shoulder;
and intersections multi-angular
of arms and legs embracing.

And lastly
the lingham's rigid rectilinear line
bisecting the yoni's cloven, soft triangle.

All these were figures formed in time,
figures that changed and vanished,
and passed, perhaps, into eternity,
rejoining their Platonic absolutes.

And afterward
you went away, and I was left to ponder
on love's geometries of straight and curved.

This poem is more explicitly erotic than most of what flowed from CAS' pen, and yet despite the references to the lingham (usually spelled "lingam") and the yoni, it's little more than a technical exercise in describing a carnal encounter in geometrical terms.  I doubt CAS intended for this particular piece to be read by others, but nonetheless it's an interesting example of The Bard of Auburn experimenting with a new mode of poetic expression.

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