Mountain Climbing and Other Views on Romance

A writer friend and I got into an interesting discussion recently regarding a fiction blog series of his entitled Jaylen's Journal.  I read the piece and was really intrigued by some of the ideas about it and that lead to a VERY long comment that I decided to turn into a blog post of its own.   I recommend you read the blogpos first and then my comments make a litle more sense.  You can find the post at: Doin Just Fine: Jaylen;s Journal, Entry 1

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You always manage to construct phrases that stay with me. Your final line that it's easy to sleep with a broken heart when that is all you know (paraphrasing please forgive me) was poignant and sobering. So much so, that I am going to deviate from my usual pattern. Instead of analyzing the technical aspects of the piece, I will follow in the footsteps of your subject and respond from a place that has little use for quantification, reason, or order. I will give voice to the intangible.

To love is not a very difficult task. What is very hard is the recognition of that emotion; the simultaneous act of taking ownership of it while giving it away to someone else to hold, nurture, protect, and harvest. I think the difficulty emerges from the fact that although we give it away in the hope of receiving those blessings, love can be dropped, stunted, violated, and left fallow. So we are left yearning but fearful.

We climb the heights of passion sometimes slowly other times quick to stand at the precipice that overlooks paradise but we are afraid to enter it because it requires us to set foot off of the mountain we have spent so much time climbing and to free fall with only an all consuming hope that some how we will float or lean to fly and make a new home in heaven. That is the dream of love that sustains me at least.

But as you know. I don't sleep much and therefore have precious little time to dream.

And I don't like climbing mountains or heights and alot if other shit that I used to paint my poetic picture.

When you climb you get dirty. You bleed. And by the end of it all you tend to end up looking a hot mess. Not to mention that in my metaphor the only options you have I'd you manage to get to the top are to stay at the top of the mountain probably with some sense of accomplishment, but alone and probably hungry. Or you jump, and learn the same lesson as icarus that you pobably should have kept your feet on the ground, fuck what you heard.

So keep climbing.

(shrug)

What the hell else do you have to do today?

Red Ink, Chapter 3

I stood shivering in the rain outside the hospital.  My throat was raw from the sobs that had racked my body for that last hour.  I was spent and alone in the dark, but I could not go back to that room. 

“God,” I whispered through chattering teeth. 

“Why?”  I asked. “Why?”

I looked up to the heavens, but the only answer I got in return was a rumble of distant thunder and the pitter-patter of rain on my face. 

“Fuck!!!  FUCK YOU!!!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.  It was clear my questions and threats were going to go equally unanswered.

I had to escape.  It did not matter where I wound up I just had to get as far away from this place as possible.  I chose a direction at random and began walking.  By this point my clothes were completely soaked, but I did not care.  I did not care about my clothes, the rain, or anything.  I just needed to keep moving, to do something other than sit and wait.

“Is this Mr. Dupri?” 

Cars zoomed by me as I wondered along the side of the road lost in the haze my thoughts.  My path zig zagged on and off the sidewalk as I replayed the night in my head.

“Mr. Dupri, sir.  There has been an accident…”

The sound of a blaring car horn startled me back into reality.  I hesitated for a breathe as the car barreled towards me, but jumped back onto the sidewalk expelling the air from my lungs.  This was no good.  I could feel the helplessness of earlier creeping back to the surface threatening to unsettle my momentary composure. 

I looked on either side of the street and spotted a bar with its lights still on.  I darted across the street, this time paying careful attention to the oncoming traffic.  There was light music seeping out of the bar onto the street outside. 

There wasn’t a bouncer so I just walked in and grabbed a seat at the bar and looked around.  It was nearly empty except for a couple sitting at a table in the corner and a few old timers sitting at the end of the bar talking to the bartender.  It was exactly what I needed.

“Well you look like shit,” one of the old guys barked with a grin.  “Didn’t your mama teach you to come in out of the rain.  You are as wet as a dog.”

I looked down at my soaked clothes, “I guess your right.”

“Lay off the boy Mike,” the bartender said as he walked over to me.

“What ya havin’?” he asked.

“Jack.  Straight up,” I replied.

I watched as he poured the drink and handed it to me. 

The lobby smelled like Lysol and I could feel my hands sweating. 

“So, what you doin’ at a bar in the middle of the week looking like you feel in a pool wit ya clothes on?”

“If you don’t mind, I didn’t really come here for conversation.” I spat back.

“Have it yo way.  You just looked like you needed to talk a bit,”  he said.

You can go in, but you should prepare yourself

I downed the whiskey and let its warmth thaw the chill in my chest before responding. 

“What is the use of talking it won’t change shit,” I said.  “All I want to do right now is have you refill my glass.  That would be a big help.  And this time make it a double.”

I offered him a crooked grin that didn’t reach my eyes along with my now empty glass.  He gave me a look, not buying my bullshit grin for a minute, and refilled my glass.  I picked it up I knocked it back without a wince.

“One more please.  You can put this one on ice,” I said smooth as silk. 

The bartender simply poured and headed back to the old timers.  I wrapped my hands around the glass and stared at the amber liquid. 

I stood in front of the door trying to will myself to take one more step.

I took a sip from my glass.  I could feel the effect of my previous two shoots starting to take effect and sighed as I could feel my mind drifting off.  Hiding from that room even in my thoughts. 

***

I don’t remember how long I staid at the bar, but I do know I was good and drunk when I left.  The bartender wanted to call me a cab, but I refused and stumbled my way back down the street.  The walk seemed even longer on the return trip and by the time I got back to the hospital my legs were about to give out. 

It took all of my remaining focus to retrace my earlier steps back through the winding corridors of the hospital.  Left.  Right.  Left. Right.  Until, I found myself standing back outside the door just as lost as before.  My hand trembled as I reached for the door handle, but I willed it still.  I opened the door, took a breathe, and walked in. 

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I promise to reveal who is in the bed at the hospital in the next chapter.  Lol, I know I have been dragging it out a bit, but I was trying to decide between a few things that I hope will make the wait worth it.

Echoes: Verse 10, Ted Hughes

Theology
by Ted Hughes

No, serpent did not
Seduce Eve to the apple.
All that's simply
Corruption of the facts.

Adam ate the apple.
Eve at Adam.
The serpent ate Eve.
This is the dark intestine.

The serpent, meanwhile,
Sleeps his meal off in Paradise--
Smiling to hear
God's querulous calling.


Hughes, Ted.  "Theology."  Norton Anthology of Poetry.  Ed.  Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. (1813).

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Examination at the Womb-Door
by Ted Hughes

Who owns these scrawny little feet?  Death.
Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death.
Who owns these still-working lings? Death.
Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death.
Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death.
Who owns these questionable brains? Death.
All this messy blood? Death.
These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death.
This wicked little tongue? Death.
This occasional wakefulness? Death.


Given, stolen, or held pending trial?
Held.
Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth?  Death.
Who owns all of space? Death.


Who is stronger than hope? Death.
Who is stronger than the will? Death.
Stronger than love? Death.
Stronger than love? Death.


But who is stronger than death?
                                                  Me, evidently.

Pass, Crow.



Hughes, Ted.  "Examination at the Womb-Door."  Norton Anthology of Poetry.  Ed.  Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. (1813-1814).

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Ted Hughes was born in Mtholmroyd, South Yorkshire, England, and was raised in Mesborough, a coal-mining town in South Yorkshire.  He won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge, but served two years in the Royal Air Force before matriculating.  He studied English, archeology, and anthropology, specializing in mythological systems (an interest that informed much of his poetry).  He later worked as a gardener, night watchman, zookeeper, scriptwriter, and teacher.  In 1956, he married the American poet Sylvia Plath, and the couple spent a year in the United States before moving to England in 1959.  Plath committed suicide in 1963.  In 1970, Hughes settled on a farm in Devon.  In addition to poetry and books for children.  He also edited numerous collection of verse and prose, and was founding editor of Modern Poetry in Translation magazine.  He was poet laureate of England from 1984 until his death.  His poem vividly describe the beauty of the natural world, but celebrate its raw, elemental energies.  He often embodies the primal forces of nature as mythic animals sch as the pike, the hawk, and "Crow," a central character in a long cycles of poems.  His translation and recasting of Tales from Ovid was published to critical acclaim in 1997, and less than a year later he broke his silence on his relationship with Plath with the publication of Birthday Letters.  He received the Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth II only twelve days before his death, from cancer.

Echoes: Verse 9, David Frechette

Safe Harbour by David Frechette

Though Destiny did not decree
That we become lovers
It's in your arms I find
Safe harbour from
A tidal wave of woes
Threatening to engulf me.

Your smiling eyes are my lighthouse,
Your lips seal out chaos.
The smoothness and warmth of your body
Keep the coarse chill of
The everday world at bay.
And I'm not afraid to christen you
My temporary shelter from the storm.


Frechette, David. "Safe Harbour." Brother to Brother: New Writing By Black Gay Men. Ed. Essex Hemphill. Conceived b Joseph Beam. Washington: RedBone Press, 2003. (80).

Get Ya Mind Right: To Be Black, Gay, and Happy

Question:  They say we're all on the same political boat.  We should be brothers.  But, before I accept his kinship, political, or otherwise, this is what I want to know.  Where does his loyalty lie?  Priorities, that's what I want to know.  Come the final throwback, what is he first, black or gay?

I was going through one of my old notebooks and stumbled across this question.  I am pretty sure I got it from a book somewhere, but I didn't make a note of where I got, but I do remember when I wrote it.  It was about three years ago when I was first struggling with my sexuality and its implications for the rest of my life, my friends, my family.  I had just taken genuine ownership of my Blackness and wore it like a coat of arms, proud and majestically draped in shades of green, red, and ebony.  And yet, here was the possibility that I didn't quite fit the mold of the strong Black man; a splash of fuchsia thrown across my mosaic of afrocentricity.

I was afraid to ask questions of myself or my family.  Afraid of rejection.  Afraid of having to choose between my life and culture for this foreign part of myself that I still didn't really understand.  Then I came across a film called Tongues Untied by Marlon Riggs and he gave me an answer to my unasked question.

How do you choose one eye over another, this half of the brain over that?  Or in words this brother might understand, which does he value most, his left nut or his right?

Simple and yet profound.   As I sit and write I actually think I might have pulled that earlier quote from the same film (and if I didn't it sure as hell would have fit).  For a very long time I kept trying to figure out how I would manage to incorporate this new thing about myself to the life that I had created.  How would I choose and it wasn't really until that film that I stopped to ask who was making me choose.

I came up with a laundry list of society, my culture, my family, but the truth was that the only one who was really making me chose was myself.  I didn't need to change.  I had always been this foreign thing and it didn't detract from the good of my life.  Oh that is not to say that there were not moments of...adjustment.  Like the first time a guy kissed me in public.  Or the moment when I finally told someone other then my first partner.

But those moments came and went.  And I survived.

For anyone still struggling with the question of how to live in both worlds I leave you with these words by Kendall Thomas from his article "Ain't Nothin' Like the Real thing": Black Masculinity, Gay Sexuality, and the Jargon of Authenticity published in Wahneema Lubiano's anthology The House that Race Built.

For all it's ambivalence, the example of "slender gay" James Baldwin taught some of us ohow to be gay men in, and of, black America.  the life and work of James Baldwin thus give the lie to the notion that black and gay identity are hostile to one another at all points.  They show, too, that while "[i]t is difficult to be despised," black gay men and lesbians must resist the demand (heard in some quarters) that we must choose between these two sources of the self and commit a kind of psychich suicide (Thomas 122).


Peace.

I.M.


Tongues Untied, prod. and dir. Marlon Riggs, 55 min., color, 1985, videocassette.

Thomas, Kendall.  " ' Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing': Black Masculinity, Gay Sexuality, and the Jargon of Authenticity."  The House that Race Built.  Ed. Wahneema Lubiano.  New York: random House, 1998.  (122).

Red Ink, Chapter 2

"Hey.  You getting in or not?" the cab driver asked.

I did not reply and instead simply climbed in the back seat of the car.  I had been standing outside for the last 10 minutes trying to hail a cab and I was dripping wet from the rain.

"You deaf or what?" the cab driver asked.

"What?" I said in a faint whisper.

"I said, 'Where to?'" he repeated.

"I need to go to Washington Circle.  Down by I and 23rd."  I replied.

"Down by the hospital right?"

"Yes," I said.  I was surprised by how calm I sounded.  I had spent the entire time pacing back and forth on the street trying to stop my brain from thinking.

The cab driver just nodded his head and pulled away from the curve.  I looked straight ahead while  trying to ignore the loud Arabic music coming from the radio.  I could see the cab driver looking back at me through the rear view mirror, so I turned my head at stared out the window.  The cab driver could sense my mood and did not attempt to engage me in conversation.  

The ride was uneventful and allowed me time to relax my nerves.  The woman on the phone had been vague.  It could be anyone at the hospital.  

"I could be anybody," I whispered to myself.

It was not long before the cab driver pulled up outside the hospital.  I tossed him a few bucks, hopped out, and made my way to the lobby of the emergency room.

"Hello sir.  May I help you?" asked one of the nurses behind the desk.

"I am not sure," I said as my voice unsteady.

"Well let's start with the basics honey.  What's your name?"

"Dupri.  Adonis Dupri," I replied.   

"Well, I am sure that we can figure out what you need.  Are  you hurt or sick?"  she gently asked.

I simply shook my head, not trusting my voice.

"Okay.  Are you here to see someone else?"

I gave a slight nod.    

"Do you know the name of the patient?"

"No."  I answered.  "I mean, I don't know.  I just got a call and they said there was an accident and I needed to come down.  Here."  I could feel my earlier calm slipping away.

"Okay sir.  Not to worry," she said.  "Let me just check my log book and we can see where you need to go.  You just go take a seat there sir and we will get you taken care of.  How does that sound?"

I walked over and collapsed into the seat she had indicated.  The lobby smelled like Lysol and was making me feel nauseous.  I looked down at my phone waiting to hear Chrisette's voice trying not to get nervous as I waited for the doctor.  

'Mr. Dupri?" I heard a voice ask.

I looked up and saw a young man in a white lab coat holding a clip board with a bunch of papers on it.

"Yes.  I am Mr. Dupri."

"Hello Mr. Dupri.  My name is Dr. Tate."  He reached out take shake my hand but I simply looked at him until he lowered his hand back to his side.

"Earlier this evening we had a patient who was brought the the ER.  They had been in a pretty serious car accident and suffered a great deal of trauma.  The patient has been in surgery for the last 3 hours and is now in recovery,  Now there..."  

I interrupted him and said, "I am sorry sir, but I still don't know why I am here."  

"Oh.  I am so sorry," he said.  "When the patient first arrived we couldn't find any identification.  The only thing we found was a cell phone.  We scrolled through the most recent calls and saw your number listed several times."

I tried to swallow but I could feel my throat tightening.

"We were hoping you could help us identify the patient."  The doctor looked at me but I simply looked at the ground avoiding his eyes.

I took a breathe to steady myself.  Then I looked back up to meet his gaze.  

"Alright then.  Show me where I need to go."

"Please follow me," he said leading me through a winding set of corridors.

"Now, I worn you you might want to brace yourself.  The patient suffered massive trauma and has been in surgery for the last few hours.  It's still very touch and go and they are very heavily sedated."

Sooner than I would have liked we were standing in front of one of the trauma rooms.  I could feel my chest constrict as he opened the door and stepped into the room.  I tried to fall him, but my legs wouldn't move.

'Mr. Dupri?  Sir, if you could just step into the room."

I tried to take another step but halted as I glanced into the room.  All I could see were tubes and bandages.  Black swollen skin and the smell of sickness.  And then I saw it and my foot froze mid-stride.

"I can't.  I can't I can't.  Can't can;t," my words began to jumble together and my resolve shattered.  All of the worry and pain I held been holding in swelled to the surface as my eyes focused on the hand lying on the bed.  On the index of the right hand I could just make out the gleam of a silver ring with a onyx setting.  I would know that ring anywhere.

"Mr. Dupri," the doctor urged.

"Can't..." I said as I burst into sobs and fled back down the hall blinded by the image of a silver ring against black skin.

Pen and Paper: Forbidden Fruit

an ode to love

 

 

you are

butter pecan

with a hint of mocha

blended into

a cosmopolitan delight

that eases the chill in my spine

replacing it with

desire that

runs through me like fever

and leaves behind

distilled tastes of innocence

purified perfection

tastes of royalty

not born of Kipling’s India

 

 

I’m talkin’ bout the

fruit of concrete jungles

of urban life

fruit of trees whose roots

cling to the South

drawing nourishment

from the shores of Oshun



to taste even the seeds of this tree

is a temptation

only a child of Eve

freed from false sin could extend

a new age pilgrim

I am

 

 

come

asking for

music

evanescent joy

transcendent sound

that can stimulate me

to an existential state

of

procreation

that impregnates the tongue

giving birth to truth

and ecstasy

that lingers in

mind body and soul

like footprints

in the sand on a beach

with no tide



timeless blessings

conveyed by the

hidden knowledge of the tree of life

knowledge of you

me

us



manifested in the curves

of your body

the essence of your being

conveyed by

the meeting of your lips

with mine



at your command

your time and place

I

will come

for

you

and in our union

we will

make long

everlasting

peace

Echoes: Verse 8, e.e. cummings

may i feel said he
by e.e. cummings

may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
alot said he)
why not said she

(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)

may i said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
umm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)


cummings, e.e.  "may i feel said he."  The Norton anthology of Poetry. ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2005.  (1395-1396)
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since feeling is first
by e.e. cummings

since feeling is first
who pays attention
to the syntax of things
wille never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fae
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers.  Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
our eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other:then
laugh,leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

cummings, e.e.  "since feeling is first."  The Norton anthology of Poetry. ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2005.  (1394-1395).

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Edward Estlin Cummings was born on October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Edward and Rebecca Haskwell Clarke Cummings.  His writing style is one of the most innovative of the twentieth century. He uses distorted syntax and unusual punctuation to illustrate simple, and often satirical themes on either the decay of modern society, or on love.

Many say that cummings' multitude of love poems stem from his many marriages. On March 19, 1924, he married Elaine Orr, who he had had a daughter with some years earlier. He divorced her on December 4 of the same year. In 1927, he married Anne Barton. He later divorced her to marry model and actress Marion Morehouse, with whom he remained married until his death in 1962.

When considering the writing style of e. e. cummings, one must note his use of punctuation, sarcasm, rhyme and enjambment. The poetry of e. e. starts with the basic principle that punctuation is an art form all its own. He uses punctuation like a second alphabet, to add to the intensity of his poems, and to make points without using words. Perhaps a more commonly used form of poetic device is called enjambment, or the running-on of a sentence from one line to the next. Not only does e. e. use enjambment, but he uses it so freely that one sentence might be the entire poem, and might take up fifteen lines with nine words.

Pen and Paper: Poem for Huey

Poem for Huey

Need
A panther in my belly
Paws heavy in my gut
No peace
Just claws
Tearing at my insides
Always wanting
Freedom

Eclipse, Chapter 1

What follows is an on-going bedtime story I started telling someone the other night...

Eclipse, Chapter 1

Once upon a time before there was time.  Before man. Before words and deeds, there was a vast darkness simply known as The Void and at its center sat a single solitary Thought. 

The Void did not speak so the Thought spent its days in silent isolation surrounded by chaos and shadows.  The Thought tried to speak to The Void, but only heard a distorted echo of its own voice bounce back.  One day, tired of being alone, the Thought stirred in the void and reached out to the darkness and where it met The Void a great soundless wind began to blow.

Both The Void and the Thought stared on as the wind picked up speed drawing in some of the heat from Thought and the coldness of The Void into its center.  It churned and turned in upon itself, drawing the bits of the two onlookers into its core where a bright glow began to form.  The glow was streaked with golden rays and silver flashes that became the first light in the dark.  The glow became a glare and both The Void and the Thought backed turned away, blinded by the light.

As they parted the wind slowed and the glare dimmed until the light was no more than a warm glow. The Void and Thought looked back to find that there wasn't one glow but two!  The to approached the pair, careful not to touch each other for fear of what would happen.  As one they looked down at the two points of light that lay nestled together,

One of the pair appeared to be made of silver and diamonds.  The other was of pure gold and studded with rubies.  They lay wrapped in each other’s arms with their eyes shut as if the glare had been much for even them to endure.

Thought looked down and was curious.  This was the first new thing he had ever seen and he longed to wake the pair to see if they would help ease his loneliness.  He carefully reached out to the pair and waited.  When nothing happened he gently shook them awake.

Their eyes opened and stared into the face across from them. In that moment they both vowed without knowing to never let the other go. Thought saw the look in their eyes and was moved.  After moment, It decided to call it Love.  The Thought reached out and touched the minds of the two lights and the word took root in their minds. 

“Love” they said.

Their voices cut through The Void and became the first sound.  They nodded their heads in unison as the word bounced back to them.  Yes, Love sounded like just the word to use.  The Thought laughed to itself as it watched the two lights attempt to rise on wobbly legs.  They helped each other to their feet and their light flared brighter and brighter, each reflecting the glow of the other in rhythms that pulsed in time with their hearts. 

During all of this exchange, The Void maintained its silence and merely looked on.  It continued to keep its own counsel as The Thought scooped the lights up and took them back to the center of Its darkness.  It watched on as the lights pulsed in each other’s embrace careful not to let its mind wander, least Thought grow leery of It’s watchful eyes…

Echoes: Verse 7, Elvira A. Gasser

I have been wondering if I will have reason to say this anytime soon....

Don't Worry My Love....

by Elvira A. Gasser 

My love, our time is coming near
I can't wait until we are together
Sometimes you may feel lonely, but I am here
And I will be your best friend forever
Until the end of time my dear
Until the end of time, I will be here
To hold you in my arms
And kiss your soul
And we can walk holding eachothers hands
I wish you were here right now, my hands are cold
You're my best friend and the lover of my soul
Don't worry my love, the time is almost here
Soon we'll be one flesh, and together we'll grow old
I get desperate sometimes, I know
Because I miss you, my sexy soldier
And my love for you I can't wait to show
Do not worry my soulmate, that we will be together forever.