Close Your Eyes and Think of England
She was given a tried and true adage
For when the deed is being fulfilled under duty.
Every time she lies down with her companion
She closes her eyes and thinks of England.
Occasionally, she notices him there.
She tries to ignore the bonds of love.
Instead of dwelling on any martial acts and positions of passion
She closes her eyes and thinks of England.
She doesn’t cry out in a voice, firm yet tender.
She doesn’t respond to the playful stimuli and backwoods methods
She ignores the sounds and sensualities that he gives away.
She closes her eyes and thinks of England.
Her thoughts don’t drift away on barges destined to lagoons
Her heart ceases to function and the act becomes biological and automatic.
It makes me wonder if the fair damsel is lost to the satanic hermit
When she closes her eyes and thinks of England.
So is she thinking about the thousand million Souls of the Realm?
Even those who would have taken the opportunity to be with her?
So the privileged dines with the peasants and foul is fair
Every time she closes her eyes and thinks of England.
The gothic trait of escaping should be expunged.
The marriage based on politics and human chess should be annulled.
And the virgin should learn to love on that will love her as well
Instead of to close your eyes and think of England.
Date of First Draft: 18 December 2000
Information:
Close your eyes and think of England.
It is traditionally attributed to Queen Victoria (1819-1901) as the sexual advice she gave to her daughter [which one I don’t know] on the eve of her wedding. This is supposedly the same Queen Victoria that was devoted to Prince Albert and very critical of the upcoming women’s rights movement in 1870 (“ought to get a good whipping” and this is her words). The XX century interpretation was obviously made on the basis that the Victorian era was a somewhat modern version of the chastity belt time and this will be the age of Aquarius.
Now the original motivation for writing this poem was to play with repetitive lines and crafting together various bits of information mixed with my own commentary. And after reading this quote (I discovered this in the introduction of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale), I didn’t take it too well. This is mainly because I want my martial sex to be meaningful and magical. This is also because I am frustrated of being a white gentleman living in this present time period of feminism and paranoia (on all sides).
The more I read about the history behind the quote, the more confused I end up becoming. I get pulled around in the Internet from biographies of Victoria and how loyal she was to Albert to various other books depicting Victoria’s adage as the verbal chastity belt, restricting women to a submissive role and viewing as a marriage duty (this was the inspiration for the contemplative mood). But oh well… it’s a pretty good poem.
The phrase "backwoods method" is making a reference to Kama Sutra. I chose it because I was thinking of the whole "white man's burden" mentality as well as the fact that India was at one point the crown jewel of England. The phrase "thousand million Souls of the Realm" is very British (thousand million=billion, Realm=England).