The Hammam Name
(after a poem by a Turkish lady)
Winsome Torment rose from slumber, rubbed his eyes, and went his way
Down the street towards the Hammam. Goodness gracious! people say,
What a handsome countenance! The sun has risen twice to-day!
And as for the Undressing Room it quivered in dismay.
With the glory of his presence see the window panes perspire,
And the water in the basic boils and bubbles with desire.
Now his lovely cap is treated like a lover: off it goes!
Next his belt the boy unbuckles: down it falls, and at his toes
All the growing heap of garments buds and blossoms like a rose.
Last of all his shirt came flying. Ah, I tremble to disclose
How the shell came off the almond, how the lily showed its face,
How I saw a silver mirror taken flashing from its case.
He was gazed upon so hotly that his body grew too hot,
So the bathman seized the adorers and expelled them on the spot;
Then the desperate shampooer his propriety forgot,
Stumbled when he brought the pattens, fumbled when he tied a knot,
And remarked when musky towels had obscured his idols hips,
See Loves Plenilune, Mashallah, in a partial eclipse!
Desperate the loofah wriggled, the soap was melted instantly:
All the bubble hearts were broken. Yes, for them as well as me,
Bitterness was born of beauty; as for the shampooer, he
Fainted, till a jug of water set the Captive Ransom free.
Happy bath! The baths of heaven cannot wash their spotted moon:
You are doing well with this one. Not a spot upon him soon!
Now he leaves the luckless bath for fear of setting it alight;
Seizes on a yellow towel growing yellower in fright,
Polishes the pearly surface till it burns disastrous bright,
And a bathroom window shatters in amazement at the sight.
Like the fancies of a dreamer frail and soft his garments shine
As he robes a mirror body shapely as a poets line.
Now upon his cup of coffee see the lips of Beauty bent:
And they perfume him with incense and they sprinkle him with scent,
Call him Bey and call him Pasha, and receive with deep content
The gratuities he gives them, smiling and indifferent.
Out he goes: the mirror strains to kiss her darling; out he goes!
Since the flame is out, the water can but freeze.
The water froze.
James Elroy Flecker
An amusingly over the top poem about the beauty of a boy that causes chaos on
a bathhouse. I don't know if Flecker was gay - there are a few suggestions that
he was, but nothing concrete, and given that he was part of a literary scene in
the early 20th century with a lot of openly gay or bisexual people, like his
friend Rupert Brooke, it does seem likely that Flecker's homosexuality would
have been spoken about more, if he was.
But that doesn't matter, because the salient point is that if Flecker wasn't
gay himself, he was well aware of homosexual traditions in the Arab world in
which he went to travel and live, as a British diplomat. His poetry, like his
wonderful verse play Hassan, takes its inspiration from this exotic vision of
the Arab world, and the Arab love of boys, and the extravagant terms in which
it is expressed is part of it and the subject of this poem.
There are some clever poetic images, as in "All the bubble hearts were
broken. Yes, for them as well as me,/Bitterness was born of beauty..." When
bubbles burst all they leave is faint bitter tasting trace of soap, and that's
what he sees happening when hearts burst, leaving only bitterness behind.
'Plenilune' means full moon so we can take it that the subject of this poem
had a truly full and wondrous arse!
The last line: "The water froze" made me laugh for showing how the
extravagant conceit of the poem was taking to such an absurd extreme. And yet,
there are times when you see men who are just so beautiful, so compelling to
look at that, that is easy to loose all reason or sense just thinking about
them,
Vikram
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