A Meditation in Silk: Poetry and Photography by Bill Wolak

Some more wonderful and unique photographs and poetry. I'm struck by the juxtaposition between pleasure and pain, sight and blindness, as well as other sensations.

The left image is entitled "Smooth as Candlelight" while the right image is entitled "In the Hands That Never Wait". Similar looking images, but completely different tone and context. All you have to do is feel the expressions to know that each are telling their own different story. One is subtle, relaxed, while the other is urgent, almost pleading. Yet they're both forms of confidence.

This poem is about anticipation, followed by arrival, the fait accompli of temptation followed by the "hook" of acquisition:

With All the Promise of Song

That night I lit a candle

on every step up the stairs

to the bedroom.

Then with all your clothes

heaped on a chair near the window,

suddenly you fell into my arms

like deep snow sliding

off a steep roof all at once.

With all the promise of song

in your voice and your body

like a room dreaming in every mirror,

quickly I drew you nearer

and felt that first sting of pleasure

when whispers merge

and every kiss points deeper

like a fishhook.

They say that lack of sight enhances the other senses. The left image "The Uneasiness of an Even Deeper Uncertainty" speaks to all that is unknown and its oppressive weight, compared to the right image "Longing Only for Your Tongue" is direct--you know what you're going to get.

This poem speaks to the tactile, the sense of touch and physical feeling, and in this case the covering and uncovering, in constant motions, of our skin, where we feel these sensations:

Freckled Flesh

She was always

dressed to undress

with her hair the color

of a burning barn at dawn

and her freckled flesh

that blushed when aroused.

Until she offered

all the secret touches

that enhance desire,

I didn’t comprehend

why love expects

only arrivals.

Until she hugged me

harder than an unexpected

embrace after close thunder,

I didn’t understand

how moonlight

clings to tattoos.

She was always

dressed to undress,

and her outstretched nakedness

was sleeker than quicksilver

flashing in the mirror

of desert lightning.

These images run the entire gamut of sensation. Top left, "At the Threshold of Tingling" again speaks of anticipation, followed by top right "That First Lingering Touch of Desire" is a fulfillment of that promise or expectation. Bottom left "Fleeting as an Erotic Trance" illustrates how impermanent and ephemeral touch can be, transformation into something different if not disappearing entirely. Then, at last the cycle begins again in the bottom right "Seeking That Unfamiliar Tenderness" as if to say, it is not enough to simply be touched, it must mean more.

Finally, we see that we're all simple bound by this endless desire, but we enjoy the ride, because it is who we are.

The Willingness of Perfume

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Bill Wolak is a poet, collage artist, and photographer who has just published his eighteenth book of poetry entitled All the Wind’s Unfinished Kisses with Ekstasis Editions.  His collages and photographs have appeared recently in the 2025 Dirty Show in Detroit, Amorous Art 2025 in Indianapolis, the 2025 Rochester Erotic Arts Festival, the 2020 International Festival of Erotic Arts (Chile), the 2020 Seattle Erotic Art Festival, the 2018 Montreal Erotic Art Festival, and Naked in New Hope 2018. He was a featured artist in the book Best of Erotic Art (London, 2022).