Jonathan Wald, U.S.A Bio: In 1994, I was working in a childrens book store in New York City. One day a co-worker turned to me and asked "Do you ever write erotic poetry?" I glanced at the six year old reading a picture book a few feet away. "No" I said. "Too bad" my collegue responded. "If you ever write any raunchy poetry," he continued, "you should show it to me - I edit erotic poetry collections, and I'm always on the lookout for new work." I hadn't done any creative writing for six years, but two weeks later, i wrote a poem, and my co-worker published it. I have been writing regularly ever since.

Initiation sweat lodge, winter solstice, 1994 That icy dawn we woke to work piling dead wood silently.  We suspected what we loved, hid in dark corners; if we'd known what awaited we'd never have lit the match.           ___________ Afternoon: in the forest by the frozen lake we stacked cold stones on our bed of wood place ice on the pyre sang to the fire and the fire sang back: are you ready now? The branches above swayed in response..           ___________ Afterwards, stepping in to the night icy and black skin on fire we blinked away sweat naked and blind the forest was singing singing us home.           ___________ If you fear your heart is cold as ash, don't despair. It merely awaits the proper commitment of terror and joy darkness and light to ignite again. No matter how long you wait the fire accepts you when you're ready to burn. What's so sexy about speedos? Just say the word lighting briefly on the ee's hurrying through to surprise endings, the final oh! the possibilities, just barely contained in suggestive shapes, a Rorshach test of sexuality. Say it lovingly. your lips lingering like that, at the end, reaching, pursed, ready. Scientists will discuss resistance and hydro- dynamics with a growing excitement they pull lab coats over laps to disguise. Don't be distracted. Ask them: Is there a measurement for ease of removal? There is magic in spandex and elastic no physics can explain. So next time you're at the pool, and you see a man, suited, sexy, poised to dive, or dripping, looking somewhere else, breathe a silent sigh of thanks, your eyes all drawstrings and logos, to the scientists, hands tense in pristine pockets, always reminding you: your imagination is your greatest lover. Cupid and Psyche who, after all, was stingy: like most gods refusing to grant the only gift he possessed. Like a new boyfriend or a teenager's parent he gave her things he loved and she didn't want but didn't know better: a well-muscled body a beautiful house comfortable routines the accessories of ecstasy. How often did you convince yourself, Psyche, in the dark, touching his cheek, his chest, his inner thigh, that you you needed nothing else? Can a virgin truly settle for the silence of a toga easing like a zephyr over smooth bronze skin? Meanwhile, Cupid must have known how pleasure melts under scrutiny into uncertainty. Stiff in bed, supposedly sleeping, needing all this innocence and ignorance, nonetheless fearing, like Bluebeard, deadly patterns in unique events. It would never have worked to sleep afraid and wake, more tired than before it would never have worked. Release for Greg No one said sex would be like this an anatomy lesson in internal organs my stomach heaving my heart raging my love for you is flooding through my darkest cavities my putridest fluids biting like acid at the back of my throat body screaming heart raging vomitting clear in wonder and shame my fear. Stealing a Jockstrap for Matthew Bergmans Department Store: my eyes move nonchalantly from pajamas to undershirts to The Forbidden, a minutely calculated trajectory worthy of the greatest strategists but I am not cut out to be a criminal, too afraid of being caught sussing swimsuits, underwear especially jockstraps apex of my larceny pictures on boxes my vision snatching stretch, bulge, colour commiting them to tenuous memory no security system more effective quietly I will hurry home as quick as possible - mental anatomies lose their specificity and their usefulness vanishing like Cheshire Cats even the smile fading leaving nothing in my hands but wisps of hair losing their usefulness with time and distance but not their intensity.                     I want to cup your pouch in my palms                     test the fabric's tensile strength                     'til your cock pokes out the top                     and your balls fall out the sides                     with a force that only the overly                     restrained can muster.                     My recidivism rate will be astronomical. I should have been a pair of spying eyes, sneaking 'cross floors of silent aisles. My love song will not be sung over store intercoms. I'd like a more respectable profession: I am waiting, hoping, ready to be caught, to hear you say give yourself up though in the end, repentant, too scared to claim my guilt I'll admit to taking nothing nothing in my pockets nothing in my sleeves nothing in my hands but desire. Revisionist History I can only wonder what divinity inspired me to masturbate under the table as the Jews fled out of Egypt. I'd like to say I had a vision a rapturous glimpse of God or at least some sexy, sandalled Egyptian calling me to service from amidst the crowd - it would have been less lonely. I had found the bread of affliction when athletic Andrew Abrams showed me my first pornography, straight - "You have to admit, it tastes great!" My dick stiffened as I bargained flush and triumphant, I weighed a moment's gilded pleasure against Andrew's ass, angelic, bent to kiss a fallen prayer book, and the cup untasted would not have been enough for me rising briefly from degradation to dignity. Two boys, survivors of plagues buoyed by flight, self-taught, who were unable to ask, sneaking a kiss under sheltering palms, scrambling with sticky, awkward gaits to rejoin their exodus from a watery fate: Theirs is the history I study sub rosa, under the table, in solitary glory unaided by portents heavy with fear - not just of miracles but of their aftermaths the Jews in the desert for fifty years in the time of bondage the hope of redemption - creeping through terror towards ecstasy. Possession/ Transmission Possession I write to you, plural, from the galaxy of signs and symbols the world of lonely silence your old home. I envy your shared semantics your possessive pronouns your casual hand diagramming the small of his back. I, single, signal strangers shyly speaking secret tongues desperate dialects few linguists could decode: Listen. Respond. Understand my wordless pleas my silent exclamations my glossary of meaningful glances my incoherent grammar of desire. Transmission The first time I got fucked I fell in love for a week. Limping home in a Bacchanalian glow I fantasized finance-sharing and caterers for the commitment ceremony. I forgot the blood, ignored the pain - I'd have done what he asked if I'd seen him again. When memory is branded with unattainable cravings pools of water just out of reach a resting place for your heavy stone don't come to me. I am afraid of temptation, of offering you the weight of my life. As we become a tangle of neckties and underwear, I may whisper words relinquish responsibility dizzy on musks overpowering caution's light perfume and if I am lucky and the gods are kind I'll limp home bearing only the scent of frankincense a bit of caked blood and a fading memory of abandon. All works Copyright Jonathan Wald

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