Promises

Your greatest offense
was the flat-out denial
of the pain I would suffer
just to know that you smile.

A friend, my friend, a friend. (I)

Her voice like polished candle-wax

with words like wicks, like shined brass tacks,

the pow'r of every golden lock

when backed by sun, of heaven's stock.

As if to bring the light to bear

to bring it shining through flaxen hair.

She called again today, as did Mary. A simple question of this, or that, or whether I would see her then, or now, or where I would be at such a time, you get the idea. True friends, and truer Christians, are those with whom I may share my life, and few men, manhood nonwithstanding, I find, learn this until late, that a life shared, a unity of purpose in the will of God is that simple singularity of which consists the 'Love' which all seem to desire, but not to recognize. And so I am found with more sisters than heart-felt brothers, sisters who are unafraid to share another's drink, to bear freely their souls, to appear weak. You see, men, just as women, are plagued by society's insecurities, but after this, men are expected to still maintain an appearance of emotional composure, whereas women are expected simply to maintain physical composure. Men, overcome their fear of being too strong, of standing too tall, are often, unawares, still afraid of being weak, of ever sitting down. But enough justification.

Back to Lu. She and Mary were both asking after me today, as I found upon my return home. I love them both, in ways it would seem that most would find to be a sort of strange, uncommitted bigamy. (not to mention the cuckoldery given John and Lucy's relationship. Every masculine-feminine relationship seems to imply sex. Granted, it does, but in a different way). I don't seem to understand it. But then, neither do I think the world does. Plus, I'd willingly step into polygamy as soon as more friends came along, if that be what you silly people would insist upon calling it.  If my life is not pledged to any certain person, then it is pledged to everyone, at least as far as it could be pledged to anyone at any time.  Is a priest a polygamist in marriage to the church?

Now, Mary, of course, left a long message, going on about this or that, or something she was happy about, or singing for a moment, spinning my name around her finger and throwing it through the phone as if to catch me off guard, to startle me into remembering how much I love her, and her me in turn. And Lucy, never much for long strings of words, but an introvert in every sentence, left a simpler one. Both seeking the same, both expressing the same, that we were friends, that friends are in love as any lovers, that love is joyful, happy, and gay, like every word I know they say.

And yes, you're right that, as emotions go, love is hardly a well-paved road. But, then, who would you say has paved the road for friendship, or brotherhood, or marriage? And are these even different? I would say to my wife, with Solomon,

You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride,

You have ravished my heart with one glance of your eyes.

And I would say the same, grandly, to each Mary, or Lu, as leads emotion and as leads inspiration, and romance, and really, love. The love of a man and a wife, nowhere, is distinguished from that of a sister, and that of a sister and a friend is only distinguished as far as unity in doing the will of our father in heaven would distinguish some from others. We so often live as though Christ did not come, and though he did not change marriage, he did gave circumcision of the heart, gave a new opportunity for love, of which marriage is one part.

Now, I say this not to disparage the exclusive and monogamous love of Lucy and John, but rather, to put in perspective the role of women in my life (sounding as if to pretend that a woman's 'role' is any more restrictive than that of a man). I am to say that romance is as a part of any true friendship as it is the life of a man and a wife, that masculine and feminine find love and unity in a special way, even without that unity of male and female, that biological convergence which, necessary, is made sacrament, both sign and reality of total, physical, spiritual, human unity. They were created man and woman, male and female is simply how their bodies, forced into reality, fell into place around the grander truth. Sexuality is but potential for a sacrament, bodies are unconsecrated hosts. The Eucharist is Christ in fullness, but not one man can look on it and see the fullness of his glory.  Any protestant, however, can pray to God, can love him, but it is simply not the same.

But that, that is what I said to John today, for that is where I was when the two called upon my home. I find myself explaining myself to others quite frequently, something which, justfully, slightly worries me. In living radically, set apart, I am to expect a certain degree of explaining, of justification, but far from assuring that I am living radically and correctly, the fact simply assures me that I am living differently. I suppose this is enough for now, and that I must only do my best. And that conversation, referenced, with John--I would to share it here, but I do not wish to lengthen unnecessarily this post, and so, I will share it later, or tomorrow. It is one in which I share much of my heart; I would gladly share the same with you.

***                ***                ***                ***                ***

Greetings, all, as I am new to this space.  Michael, you will see, is my name, and I share with you poetry disguised as prose (for fear of being too self-satisfied, I might call it poetry which I am far too unpoetic to express properly).  Take what you might of my words, I have written them to be read.  This, here, might be called fiction, but, of course, nothing of any import herein is fabricated, as all characters are as real as myself, and confront things still more real than that.

Peace.

Solemnity

O, most precious celebration,
greatest feast of all creation
when all workers break their station
and all men their hearts unbind.

O, most vulgar and most vigorous,
most simple and most rigorous,
and all shadows timorous
on this most blessed night.

When words break frothing on the shore
like olden ships or Kings of lore,
no human kin left wanting more;
choose the darkness or the light.

As all blackness runs in boiled fright.

Achromatism

Two people, they say,
live in worlds, one in each,
and when, as they say,
they collide, they can reach
a point of a breaking
a fracturing.

When two people meet
When they stop trying to pretend,
that they have everything in common
except their humanity, and everything that comes along with it,

When they acknowledge
authentic reality;
the sheer majesty of two wills
in one place, at once.

Then those worlds,
fantastic planets,
collide in rhythm and melody.

Two worlds were never two.
But two perceptions of one, as different as the color of each pair of eyes.
There were never two.
We are all the same.
But that we are different, divergent, distracted.
It is but that we are different, that we are all young in our own ways,
and old in others.

It is our differences
which are the glory
of similarity

It is our separation
which is the beauty
of collaboration.

It is Love, it is Heaven, it is that in which all hope lies.
It is God.
Pure, unbroken unity in all chromatic being.

Given one melody, all harmonies are implied.
But let us glory in our irrational superfluity.

**

The music is more
It is more
The only thing that is more.
It is the only thing that is more.
Because--because music made from
broken trumpets
and unstrung strings
and woodwinds all left in the rain--
Music made from instruments which cannot play in tune any more than they can play themselves--
Music made with raw throats and with bleeding, callused, ragged hands--
Music made in agony--
Music made in forsaking all else--
Is such a kind of music more than music itself.
And it is more beautiful than the best of perfect intonations.
Because God did not become perfection--
He became human.
He became sin who knew no sin.
And that being is far more existent than existence itself.
All things real bow down to a paradox.
For God himself is not real.

We are real.
But we strive not to be.
That we may, in ourselves, be that which we cannot be.
That which we cannot understand.
That which is not created, cannot be perceived or explained, but purely...is.

Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, for perception cannot but attempt that grand, unfathomable experience which is to behold.  For to behold implies, in its very inception, to be beheld.

The only truth is that Truth is not rational.  The best thought we can have is that no thoughts make sense.  All rationality ends in the truth that nothing can be both rational and True, that nothing can be both existent and real, that no mystery is fact.

Ethics

Romance hangs to beating drums
and tolerance and upright thumbs;
Romance hangs to lover's sighs
all virtue runs, then breaks, then dies.