Three Poems

by Craig Constantine


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Since I could love

​Black storm clouds diffusing
Into tendrils of coral and magenta.
 
Silken fingers of sky interlaced,
Like ours.
 
Petulant phone,
Tossed aside.
 
Greedy, needy sex
Outfoxed
By a finer intimacy.
 
Bossypants ambition,
Decamped.
 
We sit close together on a rooftop.
The sunset insists we watch.
We gaze inward instead.
 
My unsteady fingers thick with anger
Used to fit abrasively
With yours so long and full of music.
Now they mesh like worn brocade.
 
My palm used to sweat 
Not that you minded 
But not anymore.
So you have gentled me
At my neuromotor core.
 
This just this 
Is all I ever really wanted,
Since I can remember.
Since I could love.
To take a girl’s hand, and sit quietly
For the longest time.
 
Nothing more, or less.
Holding hands, like hungrily
Conjoining souls.
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​Bullfinch's Pornography 

All very discreet, I assure you.
At one of the better clubs –
The gentleman was waiting for me.
A scowling, imposing fellow with sidewhiskers.
Declines my offer of a port.
“I should like it settled, if you must know.”
He handed over the package,
Tastefully wrapped in brown paper.
He scratched at his temple furiously.
Hounds bayed in the distance.
Terror flitted over his eyes.
A curious sort, as it transpired.
 
In the study, under lock and key,
I perused at leisure.
The nymphs! What sport we made!
Amazons!  I worship thee from afar!
And what ravishing youths!
Adonis! Ganymede! Hyacinthus!
I confess, my head was turned.
The water-nymph Salmacis fiercely
Embraces translucent Hermaphroditus
Until they become one.
The very likeness of my schoolboy friend
Whose delicate advances I spurned –
I relive, and think more kindly on them now.
 
And such wanton bacchanals!
Rivers of wine, flesh, and spilled blood.
Maenads and Bacchus himself
Make of these the holiest sacraments.
Why not the Dionysian Amen to life?
The solemn glories of Christendom
Suddenly seem anaemic and humourless
Beside the radiant colors and hectic magic
Of these inexhaustible ancients.
It is too much.
I am Tantalus, who having feasted with the gods
Knows only greater hunger and thirst.
 
Such delicious revenge!
Juno in her splendid umbrage!
Redressing Jupiter’s betrayals tenfold,
Turning his paramour, Io, into a cow.
And his many bastard children into obscure points in the sky.
Procne, butchering her son Itys
And feeding him to King Tereus
Because he violated her sister, Philomena.
Hold – I no longer find this agreeable.
 
Mercifully, I turn the page.
And now I am Actaeon,
In my glittering royal hunting party.
Our javelins slaked with blood,
I wander off to find repose in the sacred wood.
Innocent enough, you have my word.
Now through the boughs I see
Crocale arranging the goddess’s hair,
While Nephele and Hyale draw water for her bath.
Who among you could look away?
So I gazed upon Diana, unclad.
Such a sight – most unbecoming for any mortal.
My eyes aflame as the nymphs scream in horror.
But their mistress dares with steely calm.
“Now go and tell, if you can,
That you have seen Diana unapparelled.”
 
Panic. Terror. I now know
From these transcendent, macabre pages
How the gods wreak lurid death and ignominy
For a mortal’s least trangressions.
Give a wide berth to the affairs of deities.
Or suffer the fate of Phaeton,
Stampeding his father’s horses
So that the lambent chariot scorched all earth and sky.
Or Semele, incinerated
Upon seeing her husband in true raiment.
 
How can I unsee the fatal sight?
Who will rid me of this cursed book?
My temples throb as the horns take root.
I hear the hounds’ blood-drunk cries,
Closing in on their master.
I cloak my shame in fresh brown paper.
I am 20 minutes early to the Athenaeum Club.
I pray the poor chap won’t be late.
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Persephone

Yes, your uncle carried you off.
Cry me the River Styx.
You soon had the besotted old goat
Bent to your every whim.
Not tragedy - destiny.
You were the fabulous Queen of Hell.
Party-hopping in your stretch Mercedes
From Malibu to Mulholland.
Starfucker, procuress, emotional dominatrix.
Shelling out hits of self-pity
Like so much Special K.
All those bruised egos eating you up.
 
See, I knew you back when.
Two weird kids who somehow found each other.
We fed on each other’s sadness.
We were junkies for nihilism.
Our dirty little fumblings
Not nearly as intimate as our shared
Tantrums of misery.
 
When Hades abducted you
To your paradisiacal netherworld,
I didn’t look back.
You had so many other lovers.
I didn’t miss your sullen
Runway-model looks.
Your neediness,
Your presumption.
You thought you owned me along with the rest.
 
Then out of nowhere I see you again.
At Trader Joe’s, walking your wolfhound,
At the bar at BLVD Steak, everywhere.
I couldn’t shake you.
A mistake, giving you my number.
But you looked like money, and celebrity.
And now we’re at Petit Trois, swilling wine.
 
The waiter studies your famous cleavage
As he tops off that last glass.
Your foot brushes mine.
I let my guard down.
Now you’re pressing me against the wall.
My hands are cuffed,
Somewhere in your dress.
Your body feels no different,
Just filled out.
Such a relief just to surrender.
A long-caged beast breaks free.
 
Now we’ve had a lost weekend, or three or four,
Two months running. I’ve lost count.
Thus depression kills memory.
I thought, “Well, that’s it.
We were destined for each other all these years.”
This is how it ends, with a loveless, possessive,
All too cozy and indulgent mistress.
Like Sid and Nancy at the Chelsea.
Or Kurt and Courtney, the dark muse lives on.
 
But now your sleeping body repels me.
This pile of heaving pampered skin.
Smug even when slumbering.
Nobody leaves Persephone.
But I dress while she’s murmuring
Something in a sex dream,
And steal from the room.
 
The morning shines like an Oscar.
The open road blows me another kiss.
I am free of the sad goddess.
Until the next time, in those Jimmy Choos,
She struts back into my life.
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Craig Constantine is an editor-at-large at Poetries in English Magazine. His poetry has appeared internationally. Constantine lives in California.


​​​​​​​​​SHARE - Issue: 2.1 / October 2026