difficulty with works of art that are based solely on love, or the beloved, is that sentimentality often seeps right on in and soaks the work in sugar-sweet emotions. when that happens we feel used, cheated, manipulated, spurned by the work because it contains nothing of the authentic in it.

but as d.a. levy reminds us to 'fuck hate,' and the beatles told us that all we need is love, then fuck it, for there are artists and works that revel in all of love's plenitude. thom gunn is for me such a writer, for his love poems contain a raw carnality that i find so appealing. no maudlin sentimentality to sucker-punch the reader into believing that the speaker of the text really, really loves the beloved.

so then, i know a gunn poem that is almost pornographic in its desire, but true to the sources of love. from his 1982 book the passages of joy here is one of my favorite love poems.

The Miracle

'Right to the end, that man, he was so hot
That driving to the airport we stopped off
At some McDonald's and do you know what,
We did it there. He couldn't get enough.'
-- 'There at the counter?' -- 'No, that's public stuff:

'There in the rest room. He pulled down my fly,
And through his shirt I felt him warm and trim.
I squeezed his nipples and began to cry
At losing this, my miracle, so slim
That I could grip my wrist in back of him.

'Then suddenly he dropped down on one knee
Right by the urinal in his only suit
And let it fly, saying Keep it there for me,
And smiling up. I can still see him shoot.
Look at that snail-track on the toe of my boot.'

-- 'Snail-track?' -- 'Yes, there.' -- 'That was six months ago.
How can it still be there?' -- 'My friend, at night
I make it shine again, I love him so,
Like they renew a saint's blood out of sight.
But we're not Catholic, see, so it's all right.'