Posts Tagged ‘The Many Faces of Love’

It’s For You

I could hear your dog barking
When you answered the phone.
And your voice was so clear, so near.
Then a fire truck went by,
All those miles away,
Outside your house.
Or were you in the garden then,
As you talked with me?
What a wonder,
To have you standing so close to me,
Breathing your words in my ear,
Laughing and excited.
And I can almost touch you
Through the phone.
One by one your words
Fill up my heart
With your warmth.
And here I am,
In my little room,
Half the world away.
You are in day,
And I am in night,
Hoping my kisses
Reach you as clearly as my words,
And my love wraps you
As tenderly
As yours does me.

Tony Crisp

Knowing You Knowing Me

Do I know you?
Yes, my eyes know you.
On seeing you a smile
Dances on my face
And in my eyes.
If I were a puppy
I would wag my tail.

Do you know me?
Yes, your lips know me.
They know every soft touch of my mouth.
Your lips have caressed
My face, my throat and my eyes.
Your lips know me
And speak love to my body.

Do I know you?
Yes, my fingers know you.
They have sped and roamed
Over every glade and woodland,
Each peak or dell of you.
My fingers have talked with yours
In their own soft language.
If there is knowing,
My fingers have it.

Do you know me?
Yes, even in your deeps you know me.
Has my body not bathed you in its waters?
And has not your being
Taken the essence of me through your skin?
There, under the surface,
In the life of the blood
My particles roam with yours,
And you know me,
And I know you.

Do I know you?
Yes, I know you.
For I have kissed
The flower that blooms at night.
And in kissing
My tongue has sipped the nectar
From the heart of the flower.
And my fingers
With gentle caress
Have excited the soft petals
And loved the flower.
Yes, I know you –
And you know me.

Tony Crisp

The Glory

I had walked this same path countless times before, but this day I noticed something different.

Yes, it is the same path leading up from the street I live in. It still leaves the main road to rise between the country cottages lining the unpaved stony lane. It still takes me under overhanging yew trees in the lonely graveyard, devoid now of the chapel that has become a house.

In rain, in fervent sun, in despair and in joy, alone, or with my dog; or better yet, with H. I had walked so many times from the stony road to the narrow footpath. If it were summer and wet, the long grasses would crowd the rutted path, soaking my shoes and trousers.

The path runs halfway up the river valley following the course of the Misbourne. Below it lie the long wonderful gardens of the old High Street houses, rich and splendid. Above it gently rising are the farm meadows of pasture, the wheat, and wooded tops of hills.

The seasons, the mood I am in, my age, through the years, have brought constant change to it all. For it is more than a path. It is the geography and historic measure of my soul. Its length and breadth hold landmarks of my becoming. That old barn there is where, as a child, I first dared enter someone else’s property to see what it held, and found treasures of ordinary things wonderfully new to me.

There, down the valley, beneath that stable loft, I first glimpsed the top of a woman’s soft thighs as she climbed the ladder to the loft. How I came to be there I have no memory. But the beauty of her naked thighs I cannot forget.

And that stretch of lane passing the school is where I dared go beyond the boundaries of my childhood fears. I dared to walk further, and go into the unknown, to sail over the edge of my world and survive.

On that path there, between the houses, I knew the smells of bruised elder, and the incense of privet in bloom. Over in that distant copse I discovered where the nightjars nested, and where the grass snakes writhed by the lake.

Far across the valley, up high on that distant hill near the reservoir, H. and I tumbled among the fir trees, and loved each other on the carpet of leaves. Then, in the quietness following our love, we looked up and saw four fox cubs playing, almost near enough to touch.

Today though, I am standing admiring a tree. It is a giant elm, gnarled, weathered, its bark broken in places, leaving a hollow interior. What history this tree knows. What relationships it holds, and what storms survived.

But it is not the tree that has called me. Or, maybe it is the tree, the smell of elder flowers, the privet, my woman’s lips on mine, the summer, the winter – all. And in the mood of that wholeness I walk on, turning up Cherry Lane, up into the hills as evening spreads its quiet.

Standing in a high meadow, looking back into the valley as the light fails, there is a great richness in the light places and the shadows, the contours, the folds of hills hiding people and their dwellings. So is my life rich when I do not stand too close, and distance enables its tapestry to be seen.

And in the middle of it all, there is something out of which the weaving and the colours come. All the hues are there, but only some are used.

Is this my life? The deep blues of this night hiding the details of the valley—is that my life?

The quiet here is like music. And I look up, and the heavens are ablaze with an extraordinary number of stars. I am breathless with the wonder of them, with the singing I can hear.

Can you hear it! Can you hear the song of the heavens? The stars are pouring out glory upon us. Glory to you! Glory to me! The earth is bathed in glory. Wonder falls upon us.

My gaze returns to the valley. It is alive with lights. Hundreds of people are in the streets gazing at the marvel of the heavens, drinking in the new wine.

Transformation is upon us!

Your Warmth

How warm the darkness, hiding all our faults, making us into voices, a warmth when near each other. Our fears are lost and found in the darkness, and I have done both, for you are with me.

Words escape for a while as the heated matter of the long lain feelings find words to compass. But the words ceased, and I fall forward on your breast to be healed, and to heal you. The deep lain engulfs us in silence. I am a child in your arms, and they are comfort. Hold me warm to you. Be what you are with me. Stroke my hair and my stubble with your fingers, and put your cheek to my forehead. Whisper nothing, nor think beyond the moment of what we are feeling.

So warm are you, so willing to my arms, each movement a response, each kiss a satisfaction. Tenderly be with me. Handle my affections as your own, and take away the wanting with your love. To you I am. To you I will be. To me you are – all in that moment of pillowing my head upon yourself. There is no more than this…

Art by Alexander Danel

Our Child

I felt something stir when her name was spoken. It was strange to feel it move upwards in me, released from some region I have not yet discovered. Its movements were gentle and explorative, and I knew it was fresh and untouched by the rest of me.

It was silent when it came, and I let the silence remain the better not to startle it. It had heard her name, and the vibration had woken it. But the name had passed, and it looked about in me wonderingly, listening and perplexed. There was no shape to it, only a quality that lit up whatever in me it touched, rather like a passing candle in some old gallery. Yet it seemed trying to form the name inarticulately, and failing.

I repeated the name to myself quietly. “Sylvia. Sylvia!”

It took up the echo, now far away. “Sylvia.” But it wasn’t the name it was seeking. The name was only a finger of confusion, touching awake memories, and only then did I know it for what it was.

It was a child. My own at that, and I had not known it. Sensing the recognition, it repeated her name again, questioningly, “Sylvia?”

But I could give it is no hope, for I had none. My poor inverted dream, projected backwards into myself until it was lost in my shadow, from whence her name had made it known again, unrecognisable.

Now I could see it. What a sweet face the child has. How like my own when young. Yet with more loneliness and pathos than my own. How could it be otherwise though, for I had gathered those two since childhood, and had wept them into the features. The trusting eyes, the loneliness; I had dreamt them all for Sylvia, and lost them in myself for lack of somewhere else to put them.

Yes, how like me the child is, and yet it has her nose, and the auburn tint of her hair.

Strange dream to trouble me by day. Strange blessed dream, for the hands, the lovely hands, were not hers nor mine, but those of an holy angel.

Looking back to see where it had come from in myself, there was no path, no passageway – nothing. And looking, it melted quite suddenly back into that very same nothingness. All that is left is the silence. But it does not disturb me now, for I know there, in the shadow, is an angel.

Young Girl

Is that somebody crying outside in the wind?
Some lonely person dying,
Weeping because they sinned?
No, it’s only a poor girl’s sobbing,
Carried by the gale,
Only a young girl,
Lost in the lonely night,
Limbs and feelings tired,
With no strength left to fight.

Only the comfort of being alone,
To weep as deep as she cares,
Walking along with the wind and leaves,
Blown against her hair.

There’s nothing in words to say,
And nothing in doing to do,
But walk with her wind fluttered shadow,
And share her misery too.
It’s only a young girl’s arm in mine,
Slim and cold from the night,
And I touch the arm,
And I leave the arm,
And I know what I did was right.

There’s a girl in the wind and I call her,
With a cry the same as her own.
And the wind it carries it to her,
And she knows she’s no longer alone.
For the wind has carried the weeping,
From all the ages of men,
Has carried the breath from the sleeping,
And put it back again.
For the wind is the soul of women,
The spirit of men’s unrest,
And we carry its child within us,
Living in our breast.

Yesterday

Gradually you undressed.
As shy as you are,
You took off your pride.
Then, with a glance at me
Off came the bandages
Covering the wounds
Left by lost love
And abandoned hopes.
There were tears in your eyes
As your face changed
With the pain revealed.
No words were spoken,
But your expression
Was a history
Of your dashed eagerness.

Seeing your red scars,
And knowing my own clumsiness,
I said I was not the man for you,
Being too likely to create more damage.
You looked at me,
Your face swollen with misery,
And you said,
“I don’t want anyone else!”

Wondering

I’ve been wondering
After listening to women talk
About desires and love,
Why such a push for sex?
Alicia said she needed it,
Or her sense of identity suffered,
And when she split with Michael
It hit her badly.
Rachel explained
She wants sex so much
That if she has no regular partner
She has some “fuck buddies”
She can phone
For a noncommittal shag.
I remember when I first visited
She pulled me into the house,
Closed the door,
And we were on the floor.
Sandra thought perhaps
There is confusion
Over need for love.
She gets love with open legs.
But I sense there’s more to it than that.
Mary has an ocean
Of warmth and connection
Flowing out of her
As sexual pleasure.
But Sue has met
Troubles with her men that way;
Hassles, pain, disturbance,
Followed in the wake of romance.
Yet she presses on,
Supporting her child alone,
Still hoping to be loved,
And perhaps there is the key —
Unmet longings,
Needs never fulfilled,
Parts of us pressing
To grow and flower
With so much to give,
So much to receive —
And who will be our
Partner in it?
To become.
To reproduce.
To know oneself.
To find a helpmate and support.
They are all involved.
Perhaps we need so many people.
Someone to want us specially
And recognise who we are.
A delightful sexual partner;
Then we need a practical
Down-to-earth problem solver;
And of course,
Someone to stimulate our mind,
Our creativity and growth.
Oh yes, the friend we can
Tell everything to,
Without their judgment or pressure.

And I?
Well, I hear and witness these things.
There are so many ways
Of seeing people.
David said to me
That his lover
Told him he must be impotent
Because his manhood would not rise.
And he watched her
Applying vaginal lubricant
Because she produced none
Of her own.
And he thought
There are two of us here
Who are impotent,
But only one admitting it.
So is it all a crazy fit,
An excess of our hormones
That we get shaken by?
Or perhaps a flowering love
That promises so much,
But in so many of us,
Has only put a tip above
The surface of our life,
The glory of which
Fails to emerge.

So I walk by the lake shore,
Watching the swimmers,
Without much urge to
Be immersed myself.
More needy of warm companionship.
Your body near me,
Than to be in the
Waves and currents of sex.
But I am an old man,
And life gets easier
And hormones less.

Waters of Life

With the juice of
Your body
Still on me
I am anointed
With life and love.
Here is the Holy spring
We bathe in
For renewal.
Here is the place
To kneel
For blessing.
For you
Have bathed
Me
In yourself.

Art by Lee Bogle

Walking With Me

To discover love,
When I have walked
So long alone,
And find you
Walking with me.
To be loved,
When it was I
Who killed love
In my youth,
And stood with
Bloodied hands
Before You.
To find love dead,
And bend with pain
To tend it.
To plant one fallen
Tear of it and
Call it into growth
Through the years.
Till I can stand
With arms raised
To touch its boughs
And kiss its tender
Leaves.
To love you
Through the branches
And the leaves
Of my soul’s years.
To love you
Tender, awakening,
Reaching for what
I lost and was lost
Without.

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