Francis Bennion - Poetry - Poemotions - A Man's Desire for a Boy

His name was Arnold, not of Rugby fame.
Although a pedagogue, his school was little known.
Public it was, but in a different sense.
The brutish state approved it, gave the boys
to suffer its rigours in their search for love.

Arnold was searching too, but looked in vain.
His love was not among the outcasts there.
His love lay smooth of skin under a blazing sky
or danced and tumbled to the breakers' roar
ripened and burnished by the Tangerine sun.

This love was Riffi, nimble Berber boy,
used and abused, fighting to survive,
his unused love till now disdained,
pushed aside for lust, denied for shame,
yet through it all unstifled and alive.

So Arnold saved his pay, went through his classroom day,
cared nothing for the half-hid yearning eyes,
set his face against the brutish starving youths,
hardened his heart, and did his work,
no more than to avert his Head's rebuke.

He scarcely noticed Dan, delicate and pale,
elusive, almost lost, in the coarse grey uniform.
Those light blue, yearning, eyes Arnold ignored.
Such gentle, hopeful gestures as Dan made
never compared to Riffi's thrusting grace.

Start of page 217 in the book

On the plane to Riffi, Arnold hugged all his fancies.
No sea was so blue, no boy so beautiful,
as this Mediterranean, and this Berber child.
Impatiently, he was awaited there:
longed for. It was destined so.

Back home, within Arnold's culture,
his cultural icon Dan was left bereft.
Dead in his starved boy's heart
Dan felt a cold body lying -
and resolved never to trust again.

Start of page 218 in the book

Body's Work and Body's Waste

Body's Work

We have our senses, you and I:
we have the strong sense of what is fitting;
yet if we love it is fitting we literate love with words:
what words will not convey, our loving glances must.

Unfleshed and disembodied
we speak and longingly look:
trying to force words to bear a hundred times their weight;
compelling our eyes to do our bodies' work.

But our marvellous eyes shrink to say more,
from shyness, cowardice or wont,
than ever words could:
so we are back where we started.

Your body's work
your eyes and tongue after practice essay;
my eyes my body's work return:
leaving the practised hands atrophied in my lap.

Even that touch of hands -
small piece of body's work -
our glances usurp.
I patiently watch the eye-fight.

So no surprise, none at all really,
love withers having tried
to live unseen, while body's work
is done by words alone and looks.

Start of page 219 in the book

Body's Waste

Underneath your earthly clothes
your youthful body glows.
Mine, past glowing,
is better not showing.
Yours not showing wastes.

Passing time will douse the glow.
Every hour you're not on show
wastes the thrill before that time.
Every minute you untouchéd go
wastes another aspect of that glow.

Every second not spent naked
for you is an aeon wasted
of your body's glow.
I should know.
Oh hell and hallelujah I should know!

Under mine or any body's gaze
you could show
what ought to show, and not waste -
every glimmer of your fleeting body's glow.
All that ever was or is to know.

Start of page 220 in the book

Men In Their Thousands

Grown men in their thousands
lust after pubescent boys:
it's a common trait
that is obviously embarrassing,
and therefore not generally recognised -
still less accepted.

Admirals experience it;
Major-Generals do too -
even Air Marshals.
Numerous kneeling males
while being decorated by Her Majesty,
for this reason avoid Her gaze.

No one knows
why all these exalted, excellent, men
should lust so vividly
after silly young boys:
worse than that,
no one cares.

Even police constables
long for the bodies of delectable youths:
police inspectors do too.

Scoutmasters have every opportunity to fondle
the intimate parts of budding boys:
and that's what they often do.

Swimming instructors
lurk in chlorinated environs
sniffing youthful prey.

Start of page 221 in the book

Lucky them, screams the Major-General,
wishing, sobbing in his heart,
he might be a swimming instructor of delicious boys.

These men in their thousands need to remember
that despite appearances the poor boys
are only children, earnestly seeking respect
from older men.
The boys run sobbing
when their heroes try to seduce them.