catharsis as an act of survival
I started to cut and paste my classic "I should have been immortal" in this blog entry, when the light shifted and new words formed on a dry tongue.
I had been reading through my private archives (yes, E.J., I know you go there) and came across correspondence from her. damn. I can't admit to needing her, as that would be so unfair. it would be placing myself above all her other obligations. I have always run second best to other aspects of a lover's life, be they a god, a husband, a mother, a boyfriend, a career, a disease, a fate. and so it is with this Caesar.
ladies and gentlemen, fresh from the forge, before the blood dries on the page, I give you
love is an howling beast
love is an howling beast.
consumed by rage that cannot hate.
fate, sealing wax and clay and stone
o'er bone and blood and flesh.
yes, flesh, meshing in memory.
memories born of hope.
torn to grope
in darkness, when what you need
bleeds out in the gutters
as silence utters
a grave pronouncement.
a riot act, a solemn pact
stacked atop distant mountains
too far to see more than
featureless white.
I would peel back my own flesh
with raw fingertips
to know again the texture of her lips
the scent of her hips
and to not have as mocking memory
the trips to the well of her heart.
I am that grotesque statue
left in silent field
for future generations
to wonder on the purpose of.
William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.
"It doesn't hurt if you don't mind the pain." - William F. DeVault, ideation of survival
2 comments:
I have to say this. When a man writes something like "Love is a howling beast," he's perceived to be so sensitive, the longsuffering romantic. "My, my look how he longs for his lost love." *queue the violins*
When a woman writes something like this she's perceived to be clingy, not able to deal with reality, a fool who lacks a good self-concept and begging a diagnosis of borderline pesonality disorder or something else that requires lots of therapy and psychopharmaceuticals perhaps because she can't get an old love out of her system.
"Damn, he's been gone a long time. Get over it, lady!" people whisper "You're pathetic." *queue Hitchcock's psycho music* You may disagree, William, but as a woman who hears the whispers, I think I'll have the final say on this one. ;-)
Frillie
I agree with you, love. 'tis true.
Nothing is more inspiring than seeing someone in love, indeed, it is when I write love poems that I get most approached by women, not when I am available! It is like in Los Angeles...when I wore my wedding ring right after my divorce, I was inundated with suitors...take it off, I blended in.
I think your observation has to do with the perception of male and female roles in courtship. Men are expected to be the aggressor, so when they are foiled, denied, we perceive their groans of pain and futility as some stamp of nobility and virtue a noble but defeated warrior, laid low by a mortal blow. Prometheus and Ouranos.
Women are construed as being passive (not in MY experience, God love 'em...I have more often than not been the one surprised by the midnight raid...again a part of the prejudiced roles...if a man took the aggressive sexual role that some of my suitors have taken, he'd be branded a satyr or a rapist!) and thus a passive moan of grief is considered to be an unseeming exaggeration of her natural state.
Wrong minded? Yes, but native to our culture and species, on the average. I personally love a sexually aggressive woman and have a hard time being the aggressor, as I think too much ("If she needs me to be the aggressor, then maybe I am misreading the signs and she really doesn;t want or need me. I will respect he nonverbally expressed wishes.")
Thirty years ago, if a man stood in a woman's yard at night, staring up at her window, he'd be Romeo...today he'd be locked up as a stalker (not all wounded hearts are armed, you know, but for that one in a thousand who is, the society must suffer).
If a woman attempts suicide over a lost love, she's a romantic icon. If a man does it, he's weak and foolish. (Never have tried this, but have danced close to the cliff's edge in pain.)
So, the roles our society calls for us are constrained, but we, as writers, have the power to influence, slowly but with great leverage, the perception of love and the conduct of it. Just remember, to quote Tom Cochrane, "Modern love was invented by minstrels in dark ages..."
Someone fetch me my lute.
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