Courage, a Tale
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 3:47 pm
Courage, a Tale
There was a Child
who heard from another Child
that if you masturbate 100 times
it kills you.
This gave him pause;
he certainly slowed down quite a bit
and also
.............. kept count.
But, till number 80,
was relatively loose about it.
There did seem plenty of time left.
The next 18
were reserved for celebrations,
like the banquet room in a hotel.
The 99th time
was simply unavoidable.
Weeks passed.
And then he thought
Fuck it
............ it's worth dying for,
and half an hour later
the score rose from 99 to 105.
–––Thom Gunn, Collected Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994), p. 292
There was a Child
who heard from another Child
that if you masturbate 100 times
it kills you.
This gave him pause;
he certainly slowed down quite a bit
and also
.............. kept count.
But, till number 80,
was relatively loose about it.
There did seem plenty of time left.
The next 18
were reserved for celebrations,
like the banquet room in a hotel.
The 99th time
was simply unavoidable.
Weeks passed.
And then he thought
Fuck it
............ it's worth dying for,
and half an hour later
the score rose from 99 to 105.
–––Thom Gunn, Collected Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994), p. 292