Taking time off

Following two bad bouts of flu I'm taking a couple of weeks off. If urgent, please call my cellphone.

Song: Let me do dishes

Verse:

Sweet moon and June is only part of the tune,
The first flush that possesses your brain
There's more to romance if we'd just take a chance
And celebrate all that's mundane.

I want to . . .

Do the dishes for you.
I want to mow the lawn.
I want to fix the hi-fi for you.
To be your shelter from the storm.
I want to do dishes,
Please let me do dishes,
I'll grant all your wishes,
To make your bed comfy and warm.

I want to . . .

Peel the spuds for you,
I want to sweep the floors.
I want to tune the TV for you,
To draught-proof your windows and doors.
I want to peel your spuds,
Please let me peel your spuds,
Soak my hands in soap-suds,
Get to like all your in-laws.

Yes we can trip the fantastic.
Yes we can walk hand-in-hand.
But love isn't only such drastic
Waves of sweet love's magic wand.

I want to . . .

Make the beds for you,
I want to burn your CDs.
I want to paint the walls for you,
To be just as busy as bees.
I want to make the beds.
Please, I'll make the beds,
I'll do all the housework you please.

Please,
Let me not only
Make love and love only,
To worship you from near and far.
So please let me do
All a true love can do:
Wash dishes,
Peel spuds,
Grant all of your wishes,
Soak my hands in soap-suds,
Sweep all your floors,
Get to like your in-laws,
Do any or all of these chores,
So you'll know that I truly love you,
Doing all that a true love can do.

27/08/08, 9.40am

I started composing this song in my head while doing the dishes (for myself)

and I thought how I'd much rather be doing them for my beloved.

Broken petals

I name her rosebud,
but really she's a whole garden.
She dances through the desert of my hungry heart,
and flowers blossom from her every fruitprint
like dewfall, like starfall.

Sometimes her pathway takes her over the hill
and I can no longer see her blossoming,
but the wind carries her perfume to me,
and I breathe her in like the Spirit of life
which inspired me on the day I was born.

Sometimes I discover broken petals in my pocket,
rich as the day she shed them into my arms;
I bury my face in them
and she is with me once again,
as if she had never gone away.

I lie abed of a Sunday
meditating upon the reality
with which she reddens the evening skies of my days.
I need these times of separation
so I may discover her anew.

And then to close my eyes in sleep,
knowing that whatever I may dream of and forget,
the sweet scent of memory will never be forgotten.

17/08/08, 3.35pm, Wortley Hall

Unchanging

The masks come off at midnight.
I am revealed,
“braw in cramassy”,
a scarlet sentinel'
my pen an unsheathed sword,
weaving a basket of light around us,
protecting you from all comers.

Where are your ass’s ears now, my heart?
The light from the street stripes me like a tiger.
The roar of a car echoes the image.

The night passes slowly.
There is truce in the war between us,
between the mannish woman and the womanly man.
My balls are scrotum-tight in flight-or-fight mode.
I shall be who I am.

This shape is my only shape.
The sexual warrior, peacemaker, lover.
Three-in-one.
Shapeshift me how you may,
this is an eternal truth.

I see a rainbow in your eyes.

July 30, 2008, 1.15pm

“Braw in cramassy,” brave in scarlet, a description of Mars in Hugh McDiarmid’s Bonnie Broukit Bairn:

Mars is braw in crammasy,
Venus in a green silk goun,
The auld mune shaks her gowden feathers,
Their starry talk's a wheen o blethers,
Nane for thee a thochtie sparin'
Earth thou bonnie broukit bairn!
- But greet, an in your tears ye'll droun
- The hail clanjamfrie!

“Broukit” means heartbroken – appropriate in this context.

A sad song for Rosebud

Click HERE to hear Abdullah Ibrahim.

Song: No Other Time

This is the only moment,
Time to find what each high and low meant.
Go well!
There can be no other time.

There have been vows unspoken.
Now when our hearts are still unbroken
Go well!
There can be no other time.

Just when we thought we'd never
Find a way to love for ever
Suddenly we are fancy free, and now . . .

There's no more time for waiting
We've spent too much time hesitating
Go well!
There can be no other time.
Stay well!
For this is the only time.
New words to Some Other Time, tune by Leonard Bernstein, original
words by Arthur Freed (from the film musical, On the Town.)

For tune, go to http://www.karldallas.com/someothertime.htm

27/07/08, 6.12pm
This is not a song of parting. Go well (Hamba Khalie in Zulu) and the
response, Stay well (Sala Khalie) suggest "until we meet again".

Alternate words for the bridge:

Time is a mighty river.
Drink from it now or never.
Suddenly it's time to see . . .

Link to a song, Some other time

A song that sums up my present mood