Just my latest poem, triggered by a song I heard on a jazz program, ‘The Touch of Her Lips’.
The Magic of Sex
Why does the touch of her hand, the sound of her voice
send vibrations through us, rattling our windows
as if a small earthquake made our building shake
stirring the foundations of our comfort, not of our choice?
We call it love, something that can take us by surprise
different from the simple animal coupling
that comes from genes and hormones, parts of our bodies.
Love is not in the brain but in the mind, shown in our eyes.
Was it known to our hominid ancestors out on the plains
of Africa, or is it like speech, a mutation of the Sapiens
spreading across the world, that made their tribes so strong
and left a legacy more lasting than their fossilised remains?
Love appears like magic, powered by the energy of sex
but somehow transcending that essential to survival
of our species. Any one of us can fall under its spell
and most, perhaps not all, become a victim of its hex.
Ideas in our mind we try to understand as patterns in our world,
and love is one that puzzles us, so our response is made
in songs and poems and paintings that illustrate but don’t explain
the turbulent emotions into which we might, by love, be hurled.
© Malcolm Miller 27.1.2013
