Rejected Draft @ 27.055 MHz: Ad Astra; Adagio, In A Hotel Suite, West London, 1889, 1

I sure do---yes!---admire Mister Wilde's tongue,

from which so many witty slurs emerge

to cut down and reduce critical foes

to nothing; and, if possible, to less

than nothing.  Each of words will outlast

them all---those poseurs whose time is a waste.

Though Cockney, I am called Adagio

by him during our lovemaking:  the flow

of pleasure quickens us, but without haste.

Our sumptuous feast of bliss is never fast.

This hotel's suite is full of luxury

(a beige decor, with a huge tapestry---

Orpheus and Kalain's passion---hung).

Safe in his firm, yet delicate, embrace,

I yield my slender, almost nakedness 

given entirely to him to caress,

as he desires, without imposed condition

(or any thought to prudish inhibition).

His tongue glides over me to take a taste;

even to sampling (through silk socks) my toes;

and always gently, always tenderly.

When I am with him, I am not afraid

of haters who resent us and degrade

our feelings and would like to cause

to us, and others like we are, duress

and couthless insults they have crudely flung.

But none deserve to fear when love is made.

As lavender flowers come the bee,

I harvest his sweetness during its surge

(in seven waves)---and, sometimes, with a trace,

after the final lap, left on my face.



Author's Notes/Comments: 

They tell me that Adagio's presence, in the life and history of Oscar Wilde, requires quite a bit of scholarly effort to document; and I am grateful to those who provided me with the information.  They also suggest that the character of Tadzio, in Thomas Mann's novela, Death In Venice, might have been so named in a euphonious allusion to the relationship of Oscar Wilde and Adagio.   I ask the reader to indulge the shameless puns I have placed into the poem.  

 
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SSmoothie's picture

Very cleverly devised I

Very cleverly devised I hardly noticed the puns engrossed in the description as uncomfortable to read it was still appreciated even after the postscript more.


Don't let any one shake your dream stars from your eyes, lest your soul Come away with them! -SS    

"Well, it's love, but not as we know it."

S74rw4rd's picture

Please forgive me for failing

Please forgive me for failing to acknowledge my gratitude for your kind comment.


Starward

saiom's picture

mars and venus

 

One of my favorite Wilde lines is his comment on foxhunting:

'the unspeakable in full pursuit of the inedible'

 

An astrologer once told a man he had had conflict in resolving the relationship of his mars to his venus... and he replied "I was a Victorian lady in my last life.. very happy.. it has taken me 30 years to be happy in a man's body.. but I have arrived'

 



 

 

S74rw4rd's picture

Please forgive my failure to

Please forgive my failure to acknowledge your comment.  I had read of that remark of Wilde's some decades ago, and had not thought of it until looking at your comment.  I was taught, in junior high school, to dislike Wilde; and Dorian Gray creeped me out.  (And in his playm Salome, he fouled up a couple of rather obvious historical details; apparently he hadn't done his prep.)  But now I think he was judicially persecuted and abused after the libel trial, and I feel deeply sorry for him.


Starward