O mercy-
The air is hot here.
Heat, a wretched heat, balms me alive, as if I am endemic
To this post-colonial tropical island.
And that smell,
That smell of pure ammonia,
Pure, burning fumes,
Keeps me alive.
How melodic, to be haunted
By the stench;
It is poison willingly swallowed
In this pleasurable act.
I want to loathe it.
I want to love it.
I want to bring someone with me,
And have ourselves lose one another in it.
Together, smelling the poison,
Indicating the fumes, and trapping them
Like nosegays of lace in moldy glass jars.
We will murder doilies
From our antique sexual performance
Between us two men,
One bearded yellow, the other clean,
Yet a dirty one whom hates doing it.
Where are the men here, on this island?
I want to do this performance.
I want to loathe it.
I want to love it,
Until I hate it again.
O that pleasure!
I seem to never get enough of the performance,
Wherein I shatter mirrors after finishing,
Another disruption of repulsion.
Of course, I was correct.
I want to smell the ammonia once more,
The burning stench
That comes from conjoined flesh.
Where are the men here, on this island?
You there,
In the canvas loincloth!
In that golden helmet, that red plume!
Your clinging armor, revealing apricot skin
And its complexities
Of lean muscle, muscle, muscle.
I can see you from the great mollusk
The Marmara Sea had given me.
I can see you,
So big and so clean.
I can see you,
Your flaxen hair, your sparse beard, your Achilles tendon.
O I have seen you in history!
Come, let us do it together.
Smell the stench,
Let us make our own.
Pure ammonia,
Pure fumes, sweat,
And the giving of spit.
Pure you.
Let us give our reins to it,
Let us give ourselves to it,
And have ourselves lose one another in it.
Shamelessly, shamelessly, shamelessly,
Like we both are shy nymphs;
The stench remains here, and I must come again.
We must smell it more,
Beginning deviantly, and ending regretfully.
O mercy!
The smell, the smell,
These burning flames.
Our sweat, our spit, our strange performances,
And my contrite wit to ask you to do it with me,
To make you share.
I know I will never truly enjoy it.
I do not want to be involved in these pleasantries anymore.
Leave me alone with Calypso,
For that stench, it is always there.
