Roz Kaveney's Blog, page 14

And this one is sort of the punchline for these incest poems

CATULLUS 91

I really was an idiot to trust

someone I know to be obsessed with sin

around my love. I thought, she's not his kin

and so she's not a target for his lust.

I'm mad for love of her, that's my excuse.

So mad I somehow thought that she'd be safe

forgot he's one whom all restrictions chafe

thought he was bound by friendship who's so loose

Normal considerations don't apply.

I burn for her with such intense desire

my common sense consumed in raging fire

He reassured me, did not even lie.

'I love her like a sister'. Should have known

that meant she's on his list of girls to bone.

Even more incest

CATULLUS 90

They're always at it, Gellius and his mum.

So let some magus from their fucking come,

redeem their sin. It's awful if it's true

but that is what they say the Persians do

to make the priests who hymn the sacred flame.

And get away with incest with no shame.

Their child will sacrifice to Jove each day

gut fat that like their guilt just melts away.

This seems to be an incest cycle

CATULLUS 89

He's so much slighter than you'd ever guess.

Why not? His mum's the apple of his eye

Such healthy lives – she never bakes a pie

Too fattening. His sister's more or less

a health freak too. The uncle's really fit.

Works out a lot, though never at the gym,

and mostly it's the weight that presses him.

So nice to see a family closely knit.

Third cousins, nieces, the adopted brat

grandma acquired while on a trip to France

Half-naked nephews wrestling half-dressed aunts

This fitness kick is rather more than that.

Incest's the vice that really keeps them thin.

They've lost the taste for anything but sin.

Oh Gaius, Gaius

CATULLUS 88

He thrusts astride them, dinner through to dawn

mother and sisters, and he makes them lick

his large excessively incestuous dick,

their clothes ripped off and all the bedsheets torn.

Of course it's not just after them he pants.

He pulled his uncle from a bridal bed

He slapped him silly and then gave him head,

fucked second cousins and three maiden aunts.

There's no forgiveness he could ever get.

Not Oceanus the ruler of seas all

nor Tethys with her world-edge water fall

could wash him clean or even make him wet.

He's practising a swivel of the hips

to get a blow job from his own sweet lips.

I've been trying to get this one for days

CATULLUS 111

Aufillena, the best thing for a wife

is - love her husband truly all her life.

Or maybe simply put herself about

for some have morals, some make do without.

To fuck your uncle – low as you can go!

Your son's the only cousin that you know.

Tonight's instalment

CATULLUS 104

How can I curse my love, the one I prize

above all else, dearer than my own eyes?

One harsh vile word ? one syllable thereof?

I can't; I am so deeply lost in love.

But you'll say what you want to put her down

snarl like a monster, giggle like a clown.

And another

CATULLUS 103

You've got ten thousand pounds I paid in fees.

Now pay it back, Or mind your manners, please.

Be loud and rude, but at your own expense,

I hired you – and your manners cause offense

which, in your line of work, makes little sense.

I don't care if this makes me look a wimp.

I pay for better manners from a pimp

Just so you don't think I've forgotten all this...

CATULLUS 106

That pretty boy now dates an auctioneer.
His price went up. To me, he's always dear.

i was wrong

Also in Lambda Literary http://www.lambdaliterary.org/reviews/04/16/tiny-pieces-of-skull-by-roz-kaveney/

It's that scene in the showbiz movie where they're in the bar waiting for the first editions...

First review of Tiny Pieces of Skull, from DIVA

"‘Well-spoken cream-cake loving Annabelle meets beautiful but unreliable American Natasha and, in a memorably queasy scene, is soon convinced to get spur-of-the-moment breast implants under a local anaesthetic. Then she’s leaving London to visit Natasha in Chicago, where she discovers she must fend for herself, working on the bar scene alongside a supporting cast which includes includes neighbor Alexandra and her python Rudolph, bottle-blonde Nazi sadist Inga, numerous johns and dodgy cop Detective Bunckley, whose appearances carry a threatening edge. “Most of it happened, more or less,” notes Kaveney of events in this whip-smart novel, a portrait of late 70s trans street-life written in 1988 but never before published. How great that it has been now. It’s a story of friendships, flawed and genuine, and of self-determination and resilience, but one which doesn’t dip into sentimentality; Kaveney has a superb gift for dialogue, with her main characters wonderfully adept at trading cutting put-downs, charmingly delivered under a polite veneer. A sharp delight."