More than I could bear

 

The church bells are ringing.

Tuesday is practice night for the faithful and unfaithful campanologists. The peal is uneven, discordant and untidy. A novice is hauling the rope. The sound disturbs the silence. The evenings are usually so quiet here.

I sip my wine. It is nothing special. A syrah grape without provenance, but it fills my mouth with blackberry, and pepper, and smoke. And summer. And memories of her.

She was far too young for me. A child when measured against my grey hair and dark experience. And yet she touched me in a way that few have ever done.

She was lithe and slender and had eyes that saw beyond the obvious, She was as sharp as a glass shard and far cleverer than she realised. Her demeanour was a mixture of swagger and vulnerability. She had the face of a model and the bewitching smile of a girl. She pretended that she was five foot six, but she wasn’t. Her legs were breathtaking, her breasts spectacular on such a petite frame.

She was as heavenly as sin.

She gave herself to me with poetic solemnity and a glorious sense of drama. In retrospect, I think she meant it. She lived for the moment and, just then, with her head bowed, I was the moment.

I am a master of discipline, manipulation and control. But I’m not sure I could ever have tamed her.

She was a wild and wayward spirit.

I don’t know what has made me think of her. Perhaps the confusion of bells, the wine in my mouth, spring rising, the overwhelming certainty that evening is descending on me fast these days.

We drifted apart.

I am glad we did.

She would have only disappointed me.

And that would have hurt her.

More than I could bear.

.

.

© the author writing as Romantic Dominant

I found this as I wandered through my writing the other day. It brought back memories.

Art by Thomas Saliot

 

Next Best Thing

 

It was perpetual summer, richly fragrant with potent mary jane and pungent patchouli.

I was sixteen.

She was two years older – so far out of my league that she should never have even noticed me.  And yet somehow I was there, amazed at my good fortune, hopelessly in love with her, and in complete awe of her friends. They were ultra-hip, achingly cool and comfortably rich.

Whereas I owned the Levi’s I stood up in, a couple of faded shirts, a borrowed guitar, and my notebook of spidery poems.

There was a gentle candle-lit dinner party in one of daddy’s spare houses.  The room was beamed and flagged and full of style and music. I was a pretty boy – an amusing novelty to wear like a trinket on her arm.  Although I never realised that at the time.

The conversation turned to views of what a perfect partner might be.  She waxed lyrical about what would excite her.  Intelligence, a sense of humour, a slim, slender physique, a writer, a revolutionary, a mass of golden curls, eyes that could both command and romance.  I swear she was looking at me. I thought she was talking about me.  I was young, proud and special.  I had smoked perhaps a little too much dope.

‘Thank you.’ I said, when she had finished.

There was a moment of stunned silence before the table erupted with mocking laughter.  She reached across and patted my hand.

‘Oh, darling boy.  Did you think I meant you?’

I lowered my eyes, blushing fiercely, almost tearful at my own stupidity.

‘Don’t worry,’ she consoled me. ‘you are the next best thing.’  There was more laughter.

It was an instructive and humbling moment that I promised myself I would never forget.

It still lives on, all these years later, in my e-mail address:

nextthing@_________

.

.

© the author writing as Romantic Dominant

I first posted this in 2012 writing about a memory of my teens that never faded. I suspect we have all had moments like these in our formative years

Photograph by Matt Eaton

 

Next Best Thing

 

It was perpetual summer, richly fragrant with potent mary jane and pungent patchouli.

I was sixteen.

She was two years older – so far out of my league that she should never have even noticed me.  And yet somehow I was there, amazed at my good fortune, hopelessly in love with her, and in complete awe of her friends. They were ultra-hip, achingly cool and comfortably rich.

Whereas I owned the Levi’s I stood up in, a couple of faded shirts, a borrowed guitar, and my notebook of spidery poems.

There was a gentle candle-lit dinner party in one of daddy’s spare houses.  The room was beamed and flagged and full of style and music. I was a pretty boy – an amusing novelty to wear like a trinket on her arm.  Although I never realised that at the time.

The conversation turned to views of what a perfect partner might be.  She waxed lyrical about what would excite her.  Intelligence, a sense of humour, a slim, slender physique, a writer, a revolutionary, a mass of golden curls, eyes that could both command and romance.  I swear she was looking at me. I thought she was talking about me.  I was young, proud and special.  I had smoked perhaps a little too much dope.

‘Thank you.’ I said, when she had finished.

There was a moment of stunned silence before the table erupted with mocking laughter.  She reached across and patted my hand.

‘Oh, darling boy.  Did you think I meant you?’

I lowered my eyes, blushing fiercely, almost tearful at my own stupidity.

‘Don’t worry,’ she consoled me. ‘you are the next best thing.’  There was more laughter.

It was an instructive and humbling moment that I promised myself I would never forget.

It still lives on, all these years later, in my e-mail address:

nextthing@_________

.

.

© the author writing as Romantic Dominant

I first posted this in 2012 writing about a memory of my teens that never faded. I suspect we have all had moments like these in our formative years

Photograph by Matt Eaton

 

Just poetry

 

Sometimes

my poetry

is just poetry.

 

It is not

a song

from my soul.

 

It is not

a yearning

cry for help.

 

It is not

the burning

of desire.

 

It is not

a statement

of intent.

 

It is not

secretly

about you.

 

It is not

how I feel

right now.

 

Sometimes

my poetry

is just poetry.

 

A jumble

of words

I strung

untidily

together.

.

.

© the author writing as Romantic Dominant

Art by Victor Bauer

 

 

Thursday’s Child

 

Thursday’s Child

.

Well, I hear that you have been travelling

with a friend in an open-topped car,

and you revealed to him all your secrets

and you showed him your operation scar.

You painted his name on your mirror

with a lipstick glossy and red,

and you posed for imaginary photos

in the warm nest of your unmade bed..

.

He sent you a handful of spidery poems

that you captured with pins on your wall,

I read them when you were sleeping

and they seemed to make no sense at all.

Yet you recite them when you are bathing,

trailing your sharp nails over your thighs,

and you emerge mysterious and glowing

with a wild, vacant look in your eyes.

.

There is more to this than just attraction

or some strange late night trick of the light,

and you shouldn’t be reading his memoirs

in a dress that is so transparent and white.

And I fear that you’ve sensed a religion

in the casual, brave cut of his coat,

as you kneel so sublime at his alter

clasping tight all the letters he wrote.

.

Now I hear you’ve constructed a bonfire

from the things your sweet mother knew best,

and that you comfort his wide-eyed supporters

who sleep with their hands on your breasts.

But you never once give them the shelter

they crave when the light has grown dim,

and while you suffer the press of their bodies

you save all your mystery for him.

.

I miss you when the round moon is sailing,

I feel your caress in the turn of the tide.

it is as constant as the ache in my shoulders,

It is the sharp stabbing pain of your knife.

And oh, how I hunger for you to be near me,

your peeled clothes like a sea at your feet,

your pale skin tasting of salt and seaweed.

I’m a slave to your scent and your heat.

.

But if I plead with him to release you,

with just a snap of his finger and thumb

will you forget his smooth benediction,

or the velvet magic of his silver tongue?

.

.

I apologise to regular readers who have read this often – but it has been a year since the last posting. This is one of favourite my ‘performance’ poems. In fact it might even be one of the poems I am most proud of having written. And it was written many years ago. It started out as a song but I struggled to develop a chorus.  As I said, It has appeared in many places. I have posted it a number of times here before when this blog was even less popular than it is now.  It tells a story that was inspired by (my) real life events.  Because it is penned in the first person, the reader/listener tends to think that the narrator is writing about himself. Actually I was the writer of the ‘handful of spidery poems’.  

Do listen to the audio – it was a poem that is meant to be read aloud.

© the author writing as Romantic Dominant

Photography by Ines Rehberg.   Model is Megan Szczypka. I chose this photo because she is not unlike the female subject of the poem

 

Next Best Thing

 

It was perpetual summer, richly fragrant with potent mary jane and pungent patchouli.

I was sixteen.

She was two years older – so far out of my league that she should never have even noticed me.  And yet somehow I was there, amazed at my good fortune, hopelessly in love with her, and in complete awe of her friends. They were ultra hip, achingly cool and comfortably rich.

Whereas I owned the Levi’s I stood up in, a couple of faded shirts, a borrowed guitar, and my notebook of spidery poems.

There was a gentle candle-lit dinner party in one of daddy’s spare houses.  The room was beamed and flagged and full of style and music. I was a pretty boy – an amusing novelty to wear like a trinket on her arm.  Although I never realised that at the time.

The conversation turned to views of what a perfect partner might be.  She waxed lyrical about what would excite her.  Intelligence, a sense of humour, a slim, slender physique, a writer, a revolutionary, a mass of golden curls, eyes that could both command and romance.  I swear she was looking at me. I thought she was talking about me.  I was young, proud and special.  I had smoked perhaps a little too much dope.

‘Thank you.’ I said, when she had finished.

There was moment of stunned silence before the table erupted with mocking laughter.  She reached across and patted my hand.

‘Oh, darling boy.  Did you think I meant you?’

I lowered my eyes, blushing fiercely, almost tearful at my own stupidity.

‘Don’t worry,’ she consoled me. ‘you are the next best thing.’  There was more laughter.

It was an instructive and humbling moment that I promised myself I would never forget.

It still lives on, all these years later, in my e-mail address:

nextthing@_________

.

.

© the author writing as Romantic Dominant

I first posted this in 2012 writing about a memory of my teens that never faded. I suspect we have all had moments like these in our formative years

Photograph by Matt Eaton

 

Next Best Thing

 

It was perpetual summer, richly fragrant with potent mary jane and pungent patchouli.

I was sixteen.

She was two years older – so far out of my league that she should never have even noticed me.  And yet somehow I was there, amazed at my good fortune, hopelessly in love with her, and in complete awe of her friends. They were ultra hip, achingly cool and comfortably rich.

Whereas I owned the Levi’s I stood up in, a couple of faded shirts, a borrowed guitar, and my notebook of spidery poems.

There was a gentle candle-lit dinner party in one of daddy’s spare houses.  The room was beamed and flagged and full of style and music. I was a pretty boy – an amusing novelty to wear like a trinket on her arm.  Although I never realised that at the time.

The conversation turned to views of what a perfect partner might be.  She waxed lyrical about what would excite her.  Intelligence, a sense of humour, a slim, slender physique, a writer, a revolutionary, a mass of golden curls, eyes that could both command and romance.  I swear she was looking at me. I thought she was talking about me.  I was young, proud and special.  I had smoked perhaps a little too much dope.

‘Thank you.’ I said, when she had finished.

There was moment of stunned silence before the table erupted with mocking laughter.  She reached across and patted my hand.

‘Oh, darling boy.  Did you think I meant you?’

I lowered my eyes, blushing fiercely, almost tearful at my own stupidity.

‘Don’t worry,’ she consoled me. ‘you are the next best thing.’  There was more laughter.

It was an instructive and humbling moment that I promised myself I would never forget.

It still lives on, all these years later, in my e-mail address:

nextthing@_________

.

.

As I continue to go through pieces of my past, I found this. I first posted it in 2012 writing about a memory of my teens that never faded. I suspect we have all had moments like these in our formative years.

.

© the author writing as Romantic Dominant

Photograph by Matt Eaton

 

Back home

 

‘I think it is time,’

he smiled sadly

collecting up

his battered notebook

black pen

dark cloak

sad guitar

and half empty bottle,

and kissing her forehead,

‘for me to go

back home.’

.

.

© the author writing a Romantic Dominant

Photograph of Johnny Cash. Source unknown.

 

 

Thursday’s Child (once more, with audio)

 

 

Thursday’s Child

.

Well, I hear that you have been travelling

with a friend in an open-topped car,

and you revealed to him all your secrets

and you showed him your operation scar.

You painted his name on your mirror

with a lipstick glossy and red,

and you posed for imaginary photos

in the warm nest of your unmade bed..

.

He sent you a handful of spidery poems

that you captured with pins on your wall,

I read them when you were sleeping

and they seemed to make no sense at all.

Yet you recite them when you are bathing,

trailing your sharp nails over your thighs,

and you emerge mysterious and glowing

with a wild, vacant look in your eyes.

.

There is more to this than just attraction

or some strange late night trick of the light,

and you shouldn’t be reading his memoirs

in a dress that is so transparent and white.

And I fear that you’ve sensed a religion

in the casual, brave cut of his coat,

as you kneel so sublime at his alter

clasping tight all the letters he wrote.

.

Now I hear you’ve constructed a bonfire

from the things your sweet mother knew best,

and that you comfort his wide-eyed supporters

who sleep with their hands on your breasts.

But you never once give them the shelter

they crave when the light has grown dim,

and while you suffer the press of their bodies

you save all your mystery for him.

.

I miss you when the round moon is sailing,

I feel your caress in the turn of the tide.

it is as constant as the ache in my shoulders,

It is the sharp stabbing pain of your knife.

And oh, how I hunger for you to be near me,

your peeled clothes like a sea at your feet,

your pale skin tasting of salt and seaweed.

I’m a slave to your scent and your heat.

.

But if I plead with him to release you,

with just a snap of his finger and thumb

will you forget his smooth benediction,

or the velvet magic of his silver tongue?

.

.

© the author writing as Romantic Dominant

Photography by Ines Rehberg.   Model is Megan Szczypka

This is one of favourite my ‘performance’ poems. In fact it might even be one of the poems I am most proud of having written. It started out as a song but I struggled to write a chorus.  I have posted it a couple of times before when this blog was even less popular than it is now.  It tells a story that was inspired by (my) real life events.  Because it is penned in the first person, the reader/listener tends to think that the narrator is myself. In fact I was the writer of the ‘handful of spidery poems’.  

 

Than This

Than This

.

There is nothing

I want more

than this.

Your hair

a dark storm

on a white sheet.

.

Your body

perfection

beneath my hands.

Your heart

beating fast

for this moment.

.

There is nothing

I want more

than you.

.

.

© the author writing as Romantic Dominant

art by Loui Jover

I wrote this a year ago. But I like it. So I will inflict it upon you again.