Mitch Sisskind's Collected Poems, 2005-2020

From the book, this poem, which we first posted on February 8, 2015:

Balzac Speaks of Salvation Through Sexual Intercourse

How else to keep alive the spirit
Of sans souci, the flame of youth,
But with sexual intercourse?
That sphere of glowing delight
To which, once I acceded to it,
The luminous channel has never
Closed to me – as all my work
Is wrought there, charity obliges
That I advertise its pleasures and
Fairly attribute the curious vitality
Derived there that each night
Invents names and faces for me
As if my heart were still a boy’s
And my pen were the prick of one.

You can order Mitch Sisskind's Collected Poems, 2005-2020 here.

How else to keep alive the spirit
Of sans souci, the flame of youth,
But with sexual intercourse?
That sphere of glowing delight
To which, once I acceded to it,
The luminous channel has never
Closed to me – as all my work
Is wrought there, charity obliges
That I advertise its pleasures and
Fairly attribute the curious vitality
Derived there that each night
Invents names and faces for me
As if my heart were still a boy’s
And my pen were the prick of one.

Comments

[burak. C. D.]

Kind of prickly, but touching, nonetheless.

[Lucas Florida]

"Balzac Speaks of Salvation Through Sexual Intercourse": great title and poem equal to it in rhetorical power.