It seemed to him that he was living in many different worlds at the same time. Each of them was equally true.

I might forget you eventually, but I’ll never forget your body.

– from Depths by Henning Mankell

The small studio was beautiful and I shall always carry it in my thoughts. It was mysterious and holy, due to something – what I might best call our youth. A hallowed afternoon hung suspended there, golden flakes in the warm mist of cigarette smoke when footsteps sounded outside and a woman entered –

– from “The Dream of the Silver Eaves” by Paul Leppin

This fire, like the eye of a gordian snake,
Bewitch’d me towards; and I soon was near
A sight too fearful for the feel of fear.
In thicket hid I curs’d the haggard scene –
The banquet of my arms, my arbor queen.
Seated upon an uptorn forest root;
And all around her shapes, wizard and brute,
Laughing, and wailing, groveling, serpenting,
Showing tooth, tusk, and venom bag, and sting!

– from “Endymion: A Poetic Romance” by John Keats

Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
Red mouth like a venomous flower…

All thine the new wine of desire
The fruit of four lips as they clung
Til the hair and the eyelids took fire,
The foam of a serpentine tongue,
The froth of the serpents of pleasure,
More salt than the foam of the sea.
What ailed us, O gods, to desert you
For creeds that refuse and restrain?

– from “Dolores” by Algernon Charles Swinburne