Apologies to Mr Lewis

Not entirely sure about this one, but it popped into my head on a boring train journey, and I may read it on

Saturday afternoon at the LGBT poetry event. I expect poor old Clive Staples will be turning in his grave. It's partly a reaction against the dispiriting tendency I've seen for people (particularly pagans, who should know better) to portray satyrs and even the All-Begetter himself as sexless eunuchs for fear of upsetting the casual observer.

The Song of Mr Tumnus

A hundred years of winter,

So it felt.

Once limber branches grow numb and splinter,

Life frozen, unchanging;

Jadis, solitary, the table cleaves

Songless woods sepulchral stand,

Leached of hope, fallen with the leaves,

Veined skeletons spiralling into mulch.

All that was once held so dear

Decayed, dissipated.

We few survivors, tired with fear.

Would Aslan’s roar echo

Promise throughout the world?

No lion’s thunder stirred me;

It was your greeting that unfurled.

Softly spoken,

Shivering up my spine

Dissolving a century of snow,

Letting our songs entwine.

Quiet but richly echoing

In forest vaults strong,

Arterial lust calling me back from death.

Sighing a syrinx song.

No lion’s panting,

But your breath upon my nape

Melted the Gorgon’s indifferent gaze,

And granted our escape.

Warmth flowed to your touch, colour blossoming

I took your hand and we danced up the Spring,

Sometimes you leading,

Sometimes I, trampling winter’s sting.

The lion-heat of summer

Cannot come till first

Tumnus tumescent

Quenches his forgotten thirst.

Goat-boy you called me,

And so I am.

No Son of Adam I,

But a Child of Pan.

I tell a different story

Neglected by the Spawn of Man.