The Beast

1.
When I was first married
I tried so hard to be good.
Didn’t have any sexual contact
with equines for a year.
Relations with my husband declined.
Human sex always felt wrong.
I could do it
but I couldn’t learn to like it.
Even closing my eyes,
pretending he was a horse
didn’t work after a while.
[girls are far more likely
to be attracted to horses than boys]

2.
It’s uncertain if there is a legal basis
for marrying an animal. The Sudanese goat
marriage incident made small headlines.
[Japan doesn’t recognise same-sex marriage,
has not outlawed making wild love hunting whales]

3.
Animal spirits frequently assume human form.
Theriomorphic deities were common. The Norse god
of poetry appeared as a purple finch, a hermit thrush.
Many gods had their way with us.
[they copulate, as we do]

4.
I’m completely heterosexual
currently interested in wolves.
[I’m not dog exclusive]

5.
I think people’s animal magnetism has faded.
Expectations, agendas, putting in the effort to get close.
Animals never have those issues.
[the animal’s ability as an agent
to communicate desire]

6.
I get along with humans fine.
Some of my best friends are humans.
[among men living in rural areas
the figure shot up to 50 percent]

7.
The cow flirted with me first.
She was much older than me.
I was too young to commit.
So we drowned her in the ocean.
[lie with any animal
make yourself unclean]

8.
It’s very impolite
to do something with someone else’s animals
without permission.
[much depends, of course, on how
the notion of animal is defined]

9.
It’s outrageous that sex with animals
is according to many, sick or abusive
in a world that sells KFC
in a bucket.
[collect a bull’s semen
just don’t swallow it]

10.
I truly hope that one day
genuine zoophiles
[a disorder only when accompanied by distress]
can tip the scales, openly long for hide.

11.
Yes, bites and risk of trampling.
Either the authorities
re-home your lover to freedom
or euthanize them.

[there seems to be no end
to the bestiality of men]

Note: sections of this piece rework text sourced from various zoophilia online forums

David Stavanger is an Australian poet, performer, cultural producer and lapsed psychologist. In 2013 he won the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, resulting in the release of The Special (UQP), his first full-length collection of poetry which was awarded the 2015 Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Prize. David was Co-Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival (2015-17) and is the Co-Editor of Verity La’s SLOT MACHINE, Australian Poetry Journal 8.2 SPOKEN, and SOLID AIR: Collected Australian & New Zealand Spoken Word (UQP, forthcoming 2019.) He is also sometimes known as Green Room-nominated spoken weird artist Ghostboy. These days he lives between the stage and the page.