A F Harrold

A Song Of Love

Last Wednesday week, whilst reading Homer in Greek, I pondered the follies of love
when a zephyr-like breeze crept round my knees and I caught the faint coo of a dove
and I found my gaze drawn to a dear little friend who, I never had noticed before,
bore an uncanny resemblance to a subtle and sensuous version of Evelyn Waugh.

Now, my heart has been shaken several times in my life and more than once found itself stirred
but it had never before felt as joyous as this, like a kitten who’s thoroughly furred,
and so I looked to my friend, who came from Gravesend, and I gave him a coy little look
but he turned on his heel, with a movement of zeal, and commenced to continue his book.

In my time, I must say, I have known every way of the pleasure the sensate life brings,
with Maharajahs I’ve courted and roughly cavorted, taking great joy in my springs,
but all that was as nothing to the love-flavoured stuffing that spread through my fingers and toes
as I looked on my friend, whom I loved, yes I loved, whom I loved to his pink little nose.

And my mind drifted then to a balcony when, in a Riviera evening, I waited
for my love of the time, who wore nothing but wine in a way that was quite understated,
but each glistening breast that swelled from her chest suggested little to me but my friend
whose waistcoat, though wide, was frayed at the side, and which I wanted, so madly, to mend.

For once, watching the sunset, with a dancer I’d just met, I too wore a waistcoat dethreaded
and though she only spoke Russian and I had slight concussion the repairing led us to be wedded
and for several years as she bathed in her cheers I would sit in the wings and gaze at her
and though I know in my heart that we all fall apart I was entranced by my friend’s waistcoat tatter.

But he edged out of my reach, my darling, my peach, and he started to hum rather loud,
and I blushed and I trembled and my thoughts then resembled those of the man who, too proud,
stumbles and falls and badly appals all onlookers who, looking on,
assume that he’s drunk, or lacking in spunk, and his chance to impress them is gone.

In vain I stammered some words that I can’t swear he heard, but I pledged and I promised my heart
would be always his, as I longed for his kiss and his cuddle and never to part,
but he raised up his arm, in a movement with charm, and a taxi cab deftly he hailed
and he then climbed inside, as if he grew shy, and for three miles behind him I trailed.

I had cause to recall that time in Nepal when Johnny Gielgud and I went out trekking
and in our tent, every night, as we turned out the light, John invited some cute little Czech in,
but, now, (and this is the point) we would daily anoint our feet with an ointment or balm
for the walking was hard and it made sense to guard our sensitive soles from all harm.

But running behind that cab was a bind for I’d come out of doors in my slippers
which were just as much use as a duck to a moose or a Fabergé Egg to some kippers,
and in a short time they were nothing but twine and I stumbled and fell and I grazed
my knee in the dust and the earth coloured like rust and I fainted as if I were dazed.

A week or so later I woke to discover white sheets tucked up to my neck
and small bowl of grapes and three macaque apes (who’d been snuck in the ward for a bet).
I’d not been hospitalised since before I was baptised but I soon got back into the swing
by convincing the nurses that really my verse is about me my second best thing.

To cut a short story shorter I drank plenty of water and soon was as fit as a fiddle
and my knee was all healed where the skin had been peeled and I’d lost several pounds from my middle
and I met up with my friend and as poets have penned we loved and we lost and we parted
not terribly tragic, we just lost the magic, but I’ve learnt how to live broken-hearted.

For, love, it would seem, is naught but a dream and tossing or turning disturbs it
and sating desires just douses the fires and living a passion just curbs it,
but I’ll cling to my view, though hardly brand new, that pedestals exist to be mounted
and dreams are just fine and if you’ve got the time stand up, come with me and be counted.