“Somebody died for this
Somebody died
For just one kiss”
The Cure, ‘Just One Kiss’
‘Le Baiser’, Robert Doisneau
A kiss on the forehead
A kiss on the forehead – erases misery.
I kiss your forehead.
A kiss on the eyes—lifts sleeplessness.
I kiss your eyes.
A kiss on the lips—is a drink of water.
I kiss your lips.
A kiss on the forehead—erases memory.
Marina Tsvetaeva
The garden
Thousands and thousands of years
Would not be enough
To tell of
That small second of eternity
When you held me
When I held you
One morning
In winter’s light
In Montsouris Park
In Paris
On earth
This earth
That is a star
Jacques Prévert
“A kiss, when all is said, what is it? A rosy dot placed on the “i” in loving; ’tis a secret told to the mouth instead of to the ear.”
“Let these words touch you as my hands.” Twitter @HANKarcher
I was six or seven years old, at infant school, when my classmate Tony revealed his feelings for me; he gave me a box of chocolates. I remember my teacher being very puzzled and ‘keeping them safe’ in the stock cupboard.
“Are you sure they are for Helen?”
Alas, glasses and geekiness then ensued and I waited in vain for another Valentine’s day delivery at infant, junior or secondary school…Sob…
“My aim in this blog is to draw attention to beautiful, thought-provoking and inspiring words.” (October 2011) But perhaps Tony was right in thinking that there are some things that words can’t quite express. Love, in every sense of the word, is a deeply personal, intimate and extraordinary emotion – a tender, warm, passionate affection – beyond language or intellect.
Amidst the rose-shaped soap, fluffy pink pigs and DVDs of ‘Titanic’, I do not dare to suggest that I can label your emotions or tell you how to feel. I humbly offer a few suggestions of apposite and compelling words for Valentine’s Day.
To begin, a triplet of songs. The first is “heartfelt and nutty in equal measure”; Madness, ‘It Must be Love.’ The video alone will bring a smile to anyone’s face:
“I never thought I’d miss you half as much as I do
And I never thought I’d feel this way, the way I feel about you.”
The second couplet is The Cure live; a whimsical pairing of the melancholy ‘Catch’:
“Yes I sometimes even tried to catch her
But I never even caught her name”
and the effervescent ‘Why Can’t I be You?’:
“You’re so gorgeous, I’ll do anything!
I’ll kiss you from your feet
to where your head begins!
You’re so perfect!
You’re so right as rain!
You make me, make me, make me,
make me hungry again.”
The lovely e.e. cummings, of course, offers a myriad of stunning and consummate lines:
“love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star”
‘being to timelessness as it’s to time’
‘Dancer’ by Joan Miró
or, from perhaps his most famous poem, [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)”
If you are still struggling to find the right words, the poems of Pablo Neruda offer the whole spectrum of emotion from ecstasy through to despair via jealousy and tenderness: http://www.poemhunter.com/pablo-neruda/poems/
“And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.”
‘I Like for You to be Still’
However, if I had to recommend just one poem, my current favourite would have to be ‘Valentine’ by John Fuller. It is clever, funny, charming, profound and rather naughty; I hope it makes you giggle:
“I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I’d like to teach them how to count,
And certain things we might exchange,
Something familiar for something strange.
I’d like to give you just the right amount and get some change.”
One of the founts of knowledge that resides at my place (we have a surplus; it’s all chiefs and no Indians around here!) tells me that there is Russian lullaby, the gist of which goes,
‘Hush, little baby, or the naked Russian bear will get you…”
Comforting. Mind you, ‘Rockabye baby’ isn’t much better! It amuses me when people fret about Harry Potter and such being too scary. Have you read a few fairy stories recently – the originals, not the sanitised versions? They literally are the stuff of nightmares. As the Salford bard, John Cooper Clarke puts it,
“You make life a fairy tale… Grimm!”
Writers of all ages and genres know that there is nothing more disturbing for children and adults than what is lurking in our own heads. Songs and stories verbalise these fears and we find some comfort in a shared experience. Witches, goblins, monsters, wicked step-mothers and things that hide under the bed co-exist in the recesses of our thoughts and dreams with heroes, princesses, chuckling babies and fluffy lambs. Too much of one or another is not a healthy thing.
“Ourself, behind ourself concealed
Should startle most”
Emily Dickenson
The deliciously dark, The Cure have their own haunting version of a lullaby:
“On candystripe legs spiderman comes
softly through the shadow of the evening sun.
Stealing past the windows of the blissfully dead,
looking for the victim shivering in bed.
Searching out fear in the gathering gloom
and suddenly a movement in the corner of the room!
And there is nothing I can do when I realise with fright
that the spiderman is having me for dinner tonight…”
It has a frisson of anticipation, fear, excitement, fascination and desire. Yummy!
All of which brings us on our merry, meandering way down the labyrinth of dreams to a magical forest created by William Shakespeare…of course. I’m surprised I’ve managed to get this far without mentioning him before!
My first significant encounter with his words was in a school production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. The directors decided that the play needed a sixties feel – the lovers were mods, the court was Sergeant Pepper-esque and the fairies were hippies. Thus it was, that clad in a green khaftan, I entered the stage as one of Titania’s fairy minions and chanted:
“You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
Come not near our fairy queen.
Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm,
Nor spell nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good night, with lullaby.” (Act 2, scene 2)
‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is a dream within a dream, a play within a play set on midsummer night, blurring reality and muddling identity. The play reveals the dream and nightmare of love and confuses gender roles. It offers a glimpse of anarchy, where normal rules don’t apply.
It may not have been the most significant or well acted of productions but it was massively memorable to me. Believe it or not, I was a rather shy little soul and was delighted to find myself in the midst of fun, music, confusion, magic and irreverence; bathed in the reflected glory of the key players. The play opened to the fairies dancing to The Beatles ‘Twist and Shout’ and closed with ‘Here comes the Sun’.
I had a huge and totally unrequited crush on the lad playing Nick Bottom. His depiction of the death of Pyramus was sublimely funny. I managed to sustain this for a whole year, which just goes to show how much of an optimist I am! Strangely, he turned out to be my second cousin and the last I heard, he had gone to Australia! But thanks, Geoff, it was a beautiful dream!
And so to bed…Sweet dreams…
“Now it is the time of night
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate’s team
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic…
I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door.” (Act 5, scene 1)
sedsemperamor 