Aleister Crowley’s “White Stains” (Hidden Seminal Poetry)

As legend holds, Aleister Crowley was “The Wickedest Man in the World.” Born in 1875, Crowley was a British occultist, writer, mountaineer, philosopher, poet, yogi, and opium addict. He figured prominently in several occult organizations including: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the A∴A∴, and Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.).

In 1898, Crowley published a work of poetry entitled White Stains. The topics in this work included homosexuality, pederasty, bestiality, corprophilia, and necrophilia. Printed in Amsterdam, “White Stains” had an initial run of only 100 copies, most of them were seized and burned by British customs. I have excerpted several of the poems for your reading pleasure.

A BALLAD
OF PASSIVE PEDERASTY

Boys tempt my lips to wanton use,
And show their tongues, and smile awry,
And wonder why I should refuse
To feel their buttocks on the sly,
And kiss their genitals, and cry:
‘Ah! Ganymede, grant me one night!’
This is the one sweet mystery:
A strong man’s love is my delight!

To feel him clamber on me, laid
Prone on the couch of lust and shame,
To feel him force me like a maid
And his great sword within me flame,
His breath as hot and quick as fame;
To kiss him and to clasp him tight;
This is my joy without a name,
A strong man’s love is my delight.

To feel again his love grow grand
Touched by the langour of my kiss;
To suck the hot blood from my gland
Mingled with fierce spunk that doth hiss,
And boils in sudden spurted bliss;
Ah! God! the long-drawn lusty fight!
Grant me eternity of this!
A strong man’s love is my delight!

GO INTO THE HIGHWAYS AND HEDGES,
AND COMPEL THEM TO COME IN

Let my fond lips but drink thy golden wine,
My bright-eyed Arab, only let me eat
The rich brown globes of sacramental meat
Steaming and firm, hot from their home divine,
And let me linger with thy hands in mine,
And lick the sweat from dainty dirty feet
Fresh with the losse aroma of the street,
And then anon I’ll glue my mouth to thine.

SLEEPING IN CARTHAGE

The month of thirst is ended. From the lips
That hide their blushes in the golden wood
A fervent fountain amorously slips,
The dainty rivers of thy luscious blood;
Red streams of sweet nepenthe that eclipse
The milder nectar that the gods hold good–
How my dry throat, held hard between thy hips,
Shall drain the moon-wrought flow of womanhood!

WITH DOG AND DAME

AN OCTOBER IDYLL

Her other hand is mischievous
To bid the monster Dane grow mad,
His red-haw gaze grows mutinous,
Her eyes have lost the calm they had,
My body grows all amorous.

I yield him place: his ravening teeth
Cling hard to her — he buries him
Insane and furious in the sheath
She opens for him — wide and dim
My mouth is amorous beneath.

Nor move, though now essays the Dane
To cool his weapon in my mouth;
Her lust bestrides me, and is fain
To quench in his sweet sweat her drouth
Her finger probes my bowel again.

All three enjoy once more, and I
Am ready ever to renew
These bestial orgie-nights, whereby
Loose woman’s love is spiced, as dew
On tender spray of spring doth lie.

NECROPHILIA

My nostrils sniff the luxury
Of flesh decaying, bowels torn
Of festive worms, like Venus, born
Of entrails foaming like the sea.

Yea, thou art dead. Thy buttocks now
Are swan-soft, and thou sweatest not;
And hast a strange desire begot
In me, to lick thy bloody brow;

To gnaw thy hollow cheeks, and pull
Thy lustful tongue from out it’s sheath;
To wallow in the bowels of death,
And rip thy belly, and fill full

My hands with all putridities;
To chew thy dainty testicles;
To revel with the worms in Hell’s
Delight in such obscenities;

To pour within thine heart the seed
Mingled with poisonous discharge
From a swollen gland, inflamed and large
With gonorrhoea’s delicious breed;

To probe thy belly, and to drink
The godless fluids, and the pool
Of rank putrescence from the stool
Thy hanged corpse gave, whose luscious stink

Excites these songs sublime. The rod
Gains new desire; dive, howl, cling, suck,
Rave, shreik, and chew; excite the fuck,
Hold me, I come! I’m dead! My God!

“Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales” ~ Aleister Crowley