Sculpture on the Beeld boulevard, Scheveningen, the Netherlands

Igor Mitoraj

The Sex of Men

 

I am deeply puzzled by the sex
of men. What drives, what powers
them to do what they do? And do so much?
Read the papers, check the court lists, and see that rape
is obviously something more than a few
men pursue. Some call it politics in action, but I say no
chance of keeping that purple-veined ramrod stiff
and rocking in motion without pleasure, as they hump,
and pump it like rutters with the back-looking
goat-eyes in a bliss of hot squint: some love
it all right, obviously. Spiked screams and cries
of a suffering other, seem only to spur such beasts
to longer, harder efforts. What’s up with that?
And what of those axe-men who look only to split
young girls like forks of green blood-wood?
I will never, ever know how that works.
Often men will hunt for a woman
in packs, in a bar, one joking while another
drops the stunning mickey in her fruit punch.
Within the hour she is gaping at a ceiling
she has never seen before, except in nightmares.
Some say it is one of the real reasons they go
to war, to whore the women they find, to take
them and break them, screw them into balls
of shudder-bundled rags by a roadside.
In the womanless wastes of prisons,
or on ships, they will do themselves
the favour of taking whatever tight
situations offer: a fist of lard in a hot
brown loaf, or a warm-blooded liver
behind the kitchen door. Oiled knotholes
in barrels, or an oozy-ease in candle-waxed
cunts of canvas. Sailors and scout-
masters, and priests on knees for the sacrifice,
will pump the plump bums of little boys
till they squeal like whipped piggies.

But watch out for the psychosexman, mad
with his weapon in his pants to match
the steely one in his hand. You will be
lucky if he doesn’t come on like a full-
metal-jacket man, clamp a mouth
upon one eye, suck it, spit it from your face,
and skull-fuck your brain like a beetroot.