I was ABOUT leaning on the bridge close by the Miracoli, 
mixing close with the "entice" word, and the "disgust" one, in other words in the company of the Prostitute, Courtesan, Siren and so on. Or in Italian – meretrice – which of course sounds so much more beautiful, but always "Disgust" alongside the "Entice".
And there you are too! – 
this ‘unwilling’ witness, trying to avert your eyes, disgusted,
while – I go placing the bag of gold coinage into your ‘unwilling’ outstretched hand.
I am disgusted too, some deep corrupting quality to these mal-alliances made on shadowy half-landings of staircases seeming to lead down, here in the city of Venice, past walls peeling salt stained plaster and mold, towards the slops of putrefaction …
… only down, corrupting and degrading, especially the being watched by you,
venal – ‘street-walking’. Of course, that too – Wanderlust (aka R Solnit … a History of Walking Chapter 14 Walking after Midnight: Women, Sex, and Public Places ). Words doubly corrupting, this ambiguity creeping in…
… twisting the words. In London yesterday at the (Royal Academy) Chola Bronze exhibition, Shiva – pronounced the sibilant ‘Ssiva’ in the Tamil south Indian
tongue – is always processing the streets with his/her consort Uma, sinuous
bending and swaying arms and legs, so nearly naked but never are. – "He passed this way…", the Holy poets sing, " with the young woman whose mound of Venus is like a cobra’s spreading hood / He passed this way… together with the young woman whose soft breasts fill her taut bodice / He passed this way… (etc)".
ABOUT ‘street-walking’ I learned four important details from the exhibition of bronze statues from Southern India; firstly that the words of the poets who wrote the sacred Tevaram canon are the first to bring them in front of our eyes. Preceding any other representation or art, before the bronzes, the songs of the poets first bring them ‘street-walking’; secondly that the potency of the God is only manifest when ‘she’ is there too; thirdly our task as pilgrims at the end of a pilgrimage is to look – the word is ‘dashan‘ – during the festivals when we are being "enticed" to receive the blessings of their gift.
And the fourth detail? Also "Disgust". During ‘street-walking’ all of us become impure, degraded, corrupted; pilgrims, priests, onlookers, everyone – the "disgust" when we are caught looking in the moment of "entice". Even the Gods are disgusted themselves, even Shiva and Uma, so that after they return to the temple they must be thoroughly cleansed and purified, scrubbed clean with milk and sandalwood – over time the bronze statues worn literally smooth – until the next appointed time we and they go ‘street-walking’ to "entice", overwhelming "disgust".
mmj