Posts Tagged ‘The Many Faces of Love’

Smoke in My Eyes

I looked at the world through smoke smeared eyes this morning.
A fire had burned furiously in me during the night.
Twice I had reached out to you across the thousand miles.
The voice on the end of the line said you had gone.
Distance made me helpless.
The miles were a locked door between us.
Could I love you so much,
And it seemed, you me,
Yet you have gone?
The future crumbles away.
The present is full of flames burning inside.
The past, once a meadow of growing flowers,
Now holds the dead weeds of question marks.
A terrible story unfolds,
Full of deceit and hidden purposes.
Such stories are written
By the struggle to understand.
But what can I believe,
When I look at the world
Through smoke smeared eyes?

Sea Woman

The wild wonderful things were said,
As the clouds passed over the hill.
The sea is the mood of the wind and the sky,
And I am waiting still.
Waiting alone for the things to be called,
That were written upon your limbs.
Waiting alone with the seagulls cry,
And the sound from your throat like hymns.

How can I ever imagine a thing
Like the call of the tide on the shore,
Reaching and falling,
Hoping and calling,
For ages and evermore.
So went my words
And my blood and my arms,
My feet and my thighs and the rest.
So went my longing
And need for belonging,
In warmth and desire at your breast.
Oh Mother the Sea –
Oh Mother to me –
Oh Woman who calls to my tide,
Be like the Earth to the oncoming surf,
Beckoning, restraining, Seaside.

Tony Crisp

Sailing the Seas of Love

I passionately sailed the seas of love from birth.
When more so than as an infant?
When more so than when it seemed
To lose my mother’s loving milk meant death?
From that so frantic, gut felt love,
I understand the singers ever chanted cry,
“I cannot live without you.”

That was my wordless call,
“My life, my mother, I cannot live without you!
Hold me, kiss me,
Want me as desperately,
As mortally as I want you.
Then I will know we are lovers
That nothing except death can separate.”

I sailed the storm wracked seas of love,
Near rocky desperate coasts,
As the young boy.
My sails set for howling winds,
I met the waves and troughs
Of separation, of abandonment and betrayal.
Isn’t that the normal route we sail?
The rage, the painful doubts,
The hope filled meetings, the misery of loss.
Those indeed are tempestuous oceans to voyage on.
Those are troublous waters to navigate through.

Shall the turn of wind and sea
Take us to the Ocean of Despair,
To harbour in the river of The Lost Victim?
Or will by strength of arm and soul,
Our craft float upon the Sea of Transcendence,
And harbour in the Bay of Courage?

Tony Crisp

Robin

I saw a robin dancing, on a
Branch of briar,
Pouring out his heart in song,
To a robin higher –
All his body moving,
Rhythmic to the song,
Weaving out a pattern,
Beautiful and strong.

I heard a robin singing,
To his robin hen,
And my heart went dancing,
Back to you again.
Skipping on the chimney tops,
Over valleys green,
Dancing back to you my love
Across the hills between.

Tony Crisp

Married

Married we be, though no ring shows.
By all the things in me and thee –
married we be.

Though no one roof will shelter us,
No common babe be ours
Married we be.

Apart we live together,
Our love to cradle
Other lonely hearts.
Though all the world between us,
Married we be.

Not needing one another near us,
The chosen task to share
Some others life.
Constant in each other,
Married we be.

For now we know –
What matters?
Near or far apart
Our love has set us free.
My hand in yours –
Married we be.

Tony Crisp

Partings

Isn’t this a pretty shell
On my bracelet?
She said, as we stood close,
Saying goodbye.
Tears were rising
For both of us.
Only a temporary parting.
But months together,
Shared kindnesses,
Given kisses,
Slow, gentle, intimacy,
With unwrapped words,
Had joined us
In the subtle parts
That feelings signal.
Weeks of ordinary things
Done with each other,
Without friction,
With play and laughter,
Had married us.
And that bond
Robbed parting
Of real pain.
But partings
Can make such ruin
Of the structures
We build of self,
That only years mend,
Or soften the stark
Outlines of destruction.
The links that
Decades spent together
Build and shape,
Do not part easily.
Lava sometimes flows
From the deep rents,
Burning and hurting,
Exploding onto others.
Or else collapse.
Breakdown of the fabric
That make us who we are.

Tony Crisp

Red Negligee

She walked in from another room wearing only a tight one-piece silky red negligee. She had never worn anything like that before, so at first I didn’t understand its meaning. Then she moved in a way that was supposed to be suggestive. It hurt me to watch.

You have to understand that my wife is a beautiful woman. She had never needed to act out being “sexy”. A beautiful woman doesn’t need to bait her attractiveness. She is allure without effort.

Slivers of pain and distrust had slowly been pushed in like splinters between us. Enough had entered to form a gap in our togetherness.

Gaps can be peopled with pleasure. The gap between us remained empty. Empty of exchanged warmth. Empty of eagerness to be near each other. Empty of sex. Just empty.

A memory stands out from that time. I was walking alone along the village high street. A car came toward me on the same side of the road. As it got near and passed someone in the car recognised and waved to me enthusiastically. They were going too quickly for me to see who it was. But I wept because someone had been pleased to see me. Someone, a woman I think, had wanted me to receive her feeling of pleasure. I did, and from it knew how lonely I felt.

All of that was the backdrop to Lorraine standing before me in the red negligee. All of it was part of the pain I felt.

We often forget how much history is in everything we do. But as Lorraine stood looking at me, I knew it all. The arrow shafts still emerged from where they had struck us both.

But the core of that history still remains to be exposed. I had left Lorraine and partnered another woman. Lorraine and I were facing each other now because I had returned to tell her of the change. So, as she posed in the red negligee I shouted at her angrily, “Fuck you Lorraine!” and turned away.

You see, the red negligee was crying out to me that Lorraine was convinced the only reason I would turn to another woman was that for nearly six years our marriage had been without sex. And that was like a punch in the face. The reason I had wept in the street wasn’t because I was longing for sex. What I needed was to see eagerness and admiration in my wife’s eyes. I longed to be wanted and have my woman proudly show me to her friends. I wanted a wife.

Tony Crisp

Peace At That Touch

Delight is in the arms that hold me closer now.
Firm is the hand in mine,
That long withheld its pleasure.
Peace at that touch,
It stills my tumbled longings.
Peace at the presence that merges into me.

How can I tell of the years I wanted?
How can you know the dreams that troubled me?
What do I care, now that you draw me closer,
All dreaming now, wrapt in your lovely hair.
Now see my heart has stopped its wild beating,
Living for ever, the moment of your kiss.
Peace at your touch,
It stills my many longings.
Peace at your presence now merged into mine.

Tony Crisp

Peace

Dear woman,
I am at peace
In my love
For you.
Striving neither
To the right,
Nor to the left.
In stillness
I watch the Flower
Of love grow,
Listening to the
Voice of silence.
And if the petals
Of that Flower fall,
The silence stills me.
For Flowers
Bring forth seeds,
And in the stillness
I will watch.

Tony Crisp

No Words

No words,
But let your heart be gentle
Like a jelly,
Or your belly
When you laugh.
No words,
But lots of kisses,
And wet noses
Or damp crinkly toes’s
Like when we have a bath.
No words,
But smiling
At quick fags
Had by starlight
On your garden path.
No words,
Not when you hold me
And enfold me
Slip sliding
And colliding
When you warm me at your hearth.
No words
As your titties
Press against me
As our eagerness has ebbed
And we lie there
Breathing silence
To touch each others heart.

Art by Caroline Atkinson

Tony Crisp

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