My Love, Antonia

Your skin glows like a comical pear in deep moonlight;
You smell as sweet as the unlaundered clothes in a Charity Shop
without even a deodorant to your name,
My yearning heart dotes on your lilting  queenly voice
 and leaps like a seasick kitten at the whisper of your Latin name,
 Antonia.
The evening descends softly over that great Wren Cathedral in the City.
I am calmed by your body chemistry;
 I carry your odour into the twilight like a bat out of hell.
I see the moon beams and I hold your  rubber gloves next to my table napkin at dinner
so I can steal some food for tomorrow and leave no fingerprints.
I am filled with such  intense and tremulous joi de vivre I am going round in hyperbolas.
May I dry your tears of ink and buy you a biro ball point and some artificial tears?
As my left ear falls onto your breast,I apologise at once as
it reminds me of your three dimensionality and your solid geometry.
And your perfect  female symmetry.
I have waited too long saving up for a diamond when a curtain ring would have saved years of hard labour,
In the hushed noontide, I wait for the last drones of the USA to pass over
or may be it’s just a herd of wasps having afternoon tea.
My heated hands leap to put  your sweet blue shawl around you lest you get a chill
I wait in the crystal moonlight for your sentimental piece of verse to be finished
so that we may drive as one,arm in arm
We discourse spitefully on the spiritual nature of true love.
I have more than once tried to roll your stone away
but your tomb is impenetrable without angelic help.
Oh,Jesus, another nightmare.I am glad to meet you..
I could hardly wait..
And this is my girlfriend,Antonia.
My sweet Lord,
Really want to know you,but it takes so long,I know.
I’m in Heaven..
Here’s Nye Bevan..
And Lord Beveridge..
And He looked and saw it was good.

All I know is that diaphrams are a form of birth control.
I am puzzled by that because we all have diaphragms, yet some of us have no control of any kind.
If your diaphragm doesn’t move you can’t breathe so you can’t procreate.
No,you’d be dead!
A very strange form of birth control.
Maybe you can just faint and then your husband can have his way with you.
But would you want sex with someone unconscious?
It’s another case of a-symmetry.. a man can have relations with a faint woman but if the man faints that’s the end of it.
How disappointing.
I suppose you  might use a carrot instead.
Well,it would be a form of birth control.
And girth control.
How come?
Sex is exercise,isn’t it?
Being alive is exercise!
Keep moving in any way you can,.however irregular.
Regular is better…
But anything goes today.
Even carrots.
Control..you love  to lose it.

Stan was polishing the windows again with his blue cloth.The computer was on and as soon as he finished the sitting room windows he planned to look at a google  document  he was co-writing with his girl friend Annie.She only lived next door but they both liked sharing new techniques of various kinds .He sat down in front of his  computer  and looked at his mail.
There was an email from Annie.
“Hi Stan
I didn’t really want to keep some of those remarks you made at the bottom of our documents when we were both online having a chat,so I have deleted them. They were not related to the topic we were discussing so I know you won’t be interested.
with my  love,Annie
Stan felt  angry and cross. He went very red.What was so dreadfully wicked about his remarks?He had only asked Annie if her dead husband George might have been bisexual.Stan had once seen him kissing a man round in the park.Annie didn’t seem bothered last night.She never gave the impression me she didn’t like it.
Anyway she should not have  deleted it completely without asking me first.
He sent her an email saying he was very angry with her for attacking his freedom of speech.It was unethical.It was too powerful .He must assert himself
So he was not going to work simultaneously with her on any more documents ever again nor chat on IM or Google chat
.
When Annie got the email she was stunned.She apologized to Stan immediately but her refused to accept it.Nothing she said could change his mind.So they were both feeling utterly dreadful.
Why did he want to know if George was bisexual?She wondered.Was he saying it to try to turn himself on or me?Or is he just interested in sex of all kinds like most people secretly are?
But it was not concerned with the document which was about ill treatment of prisoners in India under the British Empire
We have so little time together, with him being so busy.I wanted to talk about us,not poor dead George.Whatever George’s sex life,he’s dead now.So leave him  in peace.
Meantime.Stan was thinking about how women were always interfering in his life,correcting him and improving his grammar.Making him cups of tea when he wanted brandy.He liked talking about bisexuality.
It made him feel a sense of wonder at the differing habits and desires of humans.Why couldn’t she just go along with it or at least say something then rather than deleting his words secretly when he was off-line?
He was a man .He was not going to let a woman ride over him like a steam roller. Annie must learn her place in the scheme of things.
Where is that,asked his tom cat Emile.
I’m not sure but it’s not above me.It’s either the same or lower.
Can’t you forgive her.she may be in another dimension,another space,another universe of discourse?
Certainly not no way.Stan answered,
But you love her,you said many times in here.I heard you
All the more reason to maintain some boundaries!Love is not the be all and end all of life
Next she’ll be cutting bits off me with her pinking shears,he cried in horror!
She’ll castrate me.She’ll turn me into a woman.
She won’t,she’s a woman,said Emile.She wouldn’t ever harm you.she’s very gentle.
She has invaded me,she has crossed my boundary.
Some people would be glad,mewed the cat.He was always hoping a lady cat would come by.
Meanwhile Annie was sitting sobbing wetly in her bedroom.She really enjoyed co-writing documents and letters with Stan.Now he won’t do it anymore,she whispered softly to herself
She had not cut anything from the document,just the little chatty remarks they had been indulging at the end, but still he was really mad at her.He must be feeling truly upset and aggravated beyond human endurance.She had assumed too much and now she was paying the price.She cried and sobbed loudly for a while.Her eyes were bright red and bloodshot. not attractive at all.She was so sad she had unwittingly distressed dear old Stan.Life is so tough she thought reluctantly.I wish I were somewhere else.
Still,there were those new neighbors who had just moved in across the road.Two brothers,both very handsome.I wonder if they like writing on the computer,she thought.That cheered her up a bit,though she was very fond of Stan.In fact she loved him greatly and had kissed him gently yet thoroughly many times though she had never actually gone to bed with him ;never known him in the biblical sense.Was that the problem?Too late now either way,she muttered balefully
So in her mind she was moving from loving and adoring Stan to being puzzled by him.Was he afraid of being dominated by a woman?What would he be like as a lover?
But why try to talk about bisexuality?Could he not have thought of something else?
There was a new book by Betty Dodson teaching women how to have orgasms.Would he have enjoyed discussing female anatomy and pleasuring her naked female body and its organs of love and all the rest,[she always liked a kiss on her throat]?
Well,she would never know now.That was certain.Definitely.
Thank God I’ve found out what he’s like before things went any further.He might be a little too dominating or perhaps not enough?
In fact she was so upset her thoughts began to turn towards women.
Would it be better all round to love a woman.Especially as I could show her how to have an orgasm having being studying this book for some weeks?Though she may already know,I guess.Still,a change is as good as a rest!
How do I find a woman who’s into other woman, she thought.Can I find one on the internet?Will there be a club we can go to?How exciting!
So Annie grew more optimistic.A woman wouldn’t mind a few words deleted from a chat either.So a feeling of mild joy came over her and her sobbing died down.
Stan was sitting in his kitchen feeling superior and dominant.Except Annie had not come for coffee so it was hard being dominant all by himself.He began to feel depressed and morose.Should he change his mind?Would he lose his window of opportunity
Why is life so trying.Why are women so manipulative, why do they all turn out fakes,he asked Emile.
It’s partly one’s own character,Emile replied.
Hearing this Stan lost his temper and threw a cup at Emile.Luckily it missed but Emile stalked out and went off to the shed leaving Stan more alone than ever.
How hard life is Stan shouted. I feel like topping myself. i”ll jump off the roof.I’m going to ring the fucking Samaritans.
Just then his wife Mary walked in.What’s up Stan?
Nothing dear.I just dropped a brick on my toe
Why have you got a brick in here,in the lounge?
I was playing with it.
With a brick?
Well,it has a certain cold masculinity,he replied.
Shall I make some drinks?
Yes,please.
Oh,look there’s Annie walking past arm in arm with a woman.
I knew George was bisexual but now I see she is also or maybe she’s gay!Were they both gay?Is that why she only kissed him and never went further?
Well,it’s not our affair,said Mary quietly.
Aha,thought Stan.That’s what you think.If only you could see inside my mind.
Inside his mind though ,he was wondering if Annie would ever see him again.But I will not forgive her,I won’t.I won’t!
What he might have said more truthfully was “Can’t”
For indeed,it is hard to forgive people for trampling into one’s sacred space even if it is an accident or misjudgment not a deliberate attempt to dominate.but if not ………
Such is life,alas.
We are such fools as dreams are made  of.

Blood, blood,wonderful blood..
It’s needed by all who are not made of wood.
Blood  runs throughout us in arteries and veins.
It may feel quite pleasant  when it feeds our
forebrains.

Blood,blood sing it again.
Blood for all women and blood for all men.
I’d like to see it on some kind of scan…
As it runs down  to my feet and back  up to my brain.

Even when we are  all asleep in the night
Our blood is still working to keep us alive.
Let us be merry and drink plenty of tea.
Then we won’t run out of  the water for wee.

For  the kidneys are filters which take out the dross
And it flows down to the bladder till out it gets passed
So the kidneys are partners with our own life blood.
Isn’t that clever and isn’t life good?

 

Why do you read 1000 things about change and never change? | Barking Up The Wrong Tree

We were sitting as usual by the window
gazing at the wintry trees;
You began to scream:
The house is under attack,
A storm is coming up!
The glass will shatter-
We’ll be stabbed.
We’ll be killed. I must get out

Looking out ,I saw only the calm bare branches
Of the maple
And two wood pigeons in the fir tree
were chuckling to each other.
The wind had not changed.

I know it’s midwinter with the bitter
breeze with an edge to it like a knife.
The sun low like lemonade in an almost emptied glass.
Semding light through the forsythia onto the old fence.

I turned to you puzzled
Reached out my hands to comfort;
But you shouted
Keep away
as you got your thick coat out
and ran from the back door into the dark woods.

If there was real danger,why did you desert me?

Years later you told me of bad news you’d had.
Seemed like the inside and outside got confused.
I became, for you,a Fascist.
I was a flaxen Anglo-Saxon.
I was Hitler’s grand-daughter.
I was a descendant of the Borgias
A witch , a demon, a torturer.
You believed that
I would break my glass; cut your face
with the jagged edges amd laugh wildly.
Unlike in real science,
We can’t go back and repeat the experience
as if it were an experiment.
See if we were drawing the right conclusions

If you’d stayed a few minutes more
You might have realised
You were half asleep
And dreaming.

Once gone,you’d never return
To the house where the glass broke
into shards and cut you to shreds.
And a possessed woman loved you.
I don’t blame you
We are often deceived by our imaginations
We see not what’s here
But what we most fear.
And flee the human contact
Which alone might help.

I always leave the door ajar
And some food on the kitchen table;
In case you come back hungry and tired.
It was your mind that shattered,not the glass…
And that’s much harder to mend.
But it can be done
If you stop fighting.
And let the inner seas flow free.
You need a hand
But it also frightens you,
And,besides, my hand is not strong enough to hold you.
Only to touch you gently
To say how sad I am.