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PARTISAN REVIEW
The sense of growing desire and longing culminates in section 24, where
playing gives way to direct phallic arousal, and introduction of the calamus
theme. The sperm is risen up:
You my rich blood! Your mtlky stream pale strippings of my It/e.
As the poet imagines himself making love, his assertions become bolder. He
refuses the stigma that society may attach: "What we do is right and what we
afftrm is right. " The imagery becomes more violent as he asserts his right to
homosexual love:
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
All that is hidden must be exposed; there must be no secrets, in this metaphor
strikingly similar to the more modern' 'Out of the closets into the streets!" As
his ire increases, the blood and sperm rise, he introduces his calamus symbol
(' 'Root ofwashed sweet-flag, timorous pond-snipe, nest of guarded duplicate
eggs") as a metaphor for his own genitals, and he is able to sing all of the
body, with penis and sperm (' 'Your milky stream pale strippings ofmy life' ').
The extraordinary crescendo ofsection 24 is based in sexual ecstasy and reaches
its culmination in a sexual climax: "Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven."
And yet suddenly the passage comes to an end with the apparent arrival
of the dawn, which would destroy the night. The reference is at the same time
ambiguous, since the physical dawn would end the nighttime vision, but the
day-break of sexual ecstasy would show the poet the possibility of ultimate
victory over the day through his sexual powers.
Dazzling andtremendous how quick the sunrise wouldkzll me,
IfI couldnot now andalways sendsunrise out ofme.
We also ascenddazzling andtremendous as the sun
We found our own my soulin the calm andcool
ofthe daybreak.
Man can make his own sunrise and thereby master the natural world and
escape the necessity of the cyclical pattern-recalling the ftrst sexual experi–
ence, section 5, which also took place in the morning. Making love in the
morning seems to break the tyranny of the day.
The next few sections record the poet and his playful reluctance to give
in, to let himself be brought to orgasm, a coyness which is ended by rebirth of
section 28.
