Love is in the air
and is intoxicating
as the fumes
of brandy in a glass balloon
it wafts beyond the
happy pairs of lovers
rekindling memories
of a younger age
re-living and reeling
with heady recall
Three grandsons now perhaps
have found their matches
and you know when
talk turns to children
and which football tribe
they should be raised in
that these are keepers
I have never been to a match
and been drunk on shared
passion in a huge crowd
but watching a film
whilst waiting to meet
the latest and last to
join the set, we shared
the intimacy of lovers in
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
A camera takes us
to the heart of an orchestra in concert
with a closeness to each player’s
breath and movement
as they embrace their instruments
to pull on our heartstrings
and film likewise grants us
close-ups of couples
we would never see in real life
our neighbours love lives
hidden in semi-detached suburban rooms
separate, unknowable, ineffable
no matter how openly
the rest of our proximate lives
are lived
was it different in the
warm fug of tribal longhouses
lovemaking couples as close
as the next cocooning hammock?
Children don’t care to imagine
their parents making love
imagining they are beyond all that
however deep the love they daily show
and parents don’t dare to imagine
their children either
the perils of the heart
the baton passed
but when love is in the air
for those lucky enough to have
roots deep in the rich soil
of happy parents
there is the hope of
templating happy families to come
Such open-hearted boys
have not escaped without
venturing up blind alleys
at least two have had
songs of heartbreak
loss and bewilderment
plucked painfully
on their heartstrings
before finding their way
safely to harbour in
calmer but still deep water
after storm-tossed seas
I held those boys as babies
drew or close-up photographed
their sleeping faces
turned their living-room
into a fort, cave, nest
or whatever their imagination
could conjure from the
jumble of throws and giant cushions
taught them the love of the pun
witnessed tantrums and triumphs
watched football from the sidelines,
school and scout uniforms
gowns and mortarboards
how could I not be
drawn along in the
wake of their love lives
dropping away like the pilot boat
waving up to the after-deck
as I slow down
and they gather pace
on their own voyages of love
The calmness and Giaconda smile
of one, the bubbling enthusiasm of another
perfume from Morrocco the first impression
throwing one off the scent
of the depths of a doctor
the brightness and humanity
of all of them
grandsons and girlfriends alike
mingling as a family
dancing in ever closer union
my head spins and
my heartstrings resonate
simply on the fumes
as love is in the air.
© Andrew Wilson, 2023
Written unprompted and posted for Björn Rudberg (brudberg) in Live, OpenLinkNight over at dVerse Poets Pub
A true tour de force. really enjoyed the ride – thank you. A confident and ambitious write for sure. Was wondering how you would close, as I wnrt along – but you delivered me nicely to the satisfaction of where I wanted to be… Bravo!
Thanks Peter, coming back to the beginning so often works to close the circle – thanks for visiting…
I am so moved by the love that weaves through this piece, Andrew… and I am really impressed that you kept me hooked from beginning to end with a relatively long piece!
<3
David
Tanks David! It was a couple of weekends ago that one of our grandsons came to stay with his new girlfriend and we got to meet her and I was moved to get up and write this while everyone was still asleep…
Stunning work done, Andrew! I was especially moved by these lines; “Such open-hearted boys have not escaped without venturing up blind alleys, at least two have had songs of heartbreak, loss and bewilderment plucked painfully on their heartstrings before finding their way safely to harbour.” 💖💖
Thanks Sanaa! If heartstrings did not exist as a metaphor we would definitely have to invent them…
What an interesting set of thoughts in your poem. I enjoyed hearing you read it today on the live meeting.
Thanks Dwight! There is so much in this poem that you probably need to read it but I love to read aloud, my own or other people’s poems and I hope it came across clearly…
Holding the pace in such a long piece is a true achievement. Well done.
Thank you Petru – I am glad you found it so – it’s always a worry as to what is the appropriate length of a poem but I reviewed this and could not find anything I would want to cut out and as you say, the pace seems to sustain…
I loved to hear you read it and the love that goes across generations is so well described
Thanks Björn, it was a pleasure reading and listening to all the others too…
I really enjoyed the reading, Andrew – it’s always good to hear another British voice – and the zooming from cinema to a scene in the film and back to real life and ‘our neighbours love lives / hidden in semi-detached suburban rooms / separate, unknowable, ineffable’ and then back in time to the ‘warm fug of tribal longhouses’, which then took us to the truism that ‘Children don’t care to imagine / their parents making love’. I also love the intimacy of these lines:
‘I held those boys as babies
drew or close-up photographed
their sleeping faces
turned their living-room
into a fort, cave, nest
or whatever their imagination
could conjure from the
jumble of throws and giant cushions’
and
‘how could I not be
drawn along in the
wake of their love lives
dropping away like the pilot boat
waving up to the after-deck
as I slow down
and they gather pace
on their own voyages of love’.
I now have two grandsons, one five and the other almost a year old, and I hope I get to see them into adulthood.
Thanks Kim, I certainly opened my heart with this one and the muse of poetry was kind enough to allow it to come out right…
I love the whiff of brandy in a balloon and those football tribes. That’s what they are for sure. Most sports, having just read “Beartown” I know how very important it is for adolescents to belong. To belong to the right “tribe”.
Good journey and wonderful telling of a family.
Thanks Yvonne, the three boys are, like their father – Liverpool supporters but the latest girlfriend supports Manchester United…
I enjoyed seeing and hearing you read this poem Andrew.
I also had some work done on my ceiling a few days ago. But your ceiling is much prettier than mine by far😊
Much🖤love
Thank you Gilllena – it looks lovely at night with the lamp… Thanks for visiting!
What a lot of love you’ve been able to share in! I’d like my children to all find partners, but so far we have only one definite and one hopeful.
Patience Jane, patience! We ar hoping for a little girl when the time comes since all the grandchildren are boys…
Wonderful piece Andrew. It really kindles the heart. Oh yes, looking back to the younger days.
Was it a misspent youth or quite the rightly spent – that is the question Rob…
I really love this one, and there is so much in it, Andrew. I love how you move through time and space–the generations of love and shared such intimate and tender moments:
“we shared
the intimacy of lovers in
Portrait of a Lady on Fire”
“I held those boys as babies
drew or close-up photographed
their sleeping faces”
The longhouse reference made me smile. Early American divorce records are full of depositions of people hearing others making love–sometimes next to them in the same bed.
I am so glad you liked it Merril and that last detail you mention is fascinating…
I love this poem, it had such a strong sense of family and the stanza about watching the grandsons grow was very powerful. Thank you for a good read.
I find myself able to bare my soul in poetry better than any other way – thanks for visiting Alison…
I enjoyed reading your poem. You remind me of the fact love makes vulnerable, though, relief is found in the good wife.
“Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun”.
(Ecclesiastes, 9:9)
Yes Anders – no love without opening oneself to risk…
I held those boys too. This brought goosebumps and wet eyes. The empty nest twice. And I’ve always wondered about love making being so secret.
I’m glad it’s not just me wondering! Thanks Colleen – I write these things dry eyed bur when I read them aloud I often tear up…
My parents never made love. What are you talking about.🤮😂
“songs of heartbreak
loss and bewilderment
plucked painfully
on their heartstrings
before finding their way
safely to harbour in
calmer but still deep water
after storm-tossed seas”
I really like this part, and the connectedness of all the people throughout the whole piece.
Surely you of all people must know, now that you have your own that there is putative prophylaxis, omission of opportunity and terminal tiredness lol 🤮😂
I really liked that part too – I wonder who first used the idea of heartstrings – such a good metaphor…
This is a wonderful piece as a reader I can feel the deep family connection. It’s great when the imagination is set free. I remember as a child using blankets over the dining room table and calling it my castle. haha…
turned their living-room
into a fort, cave, nest
or whatever their imagination
could conjure from the
jumble of throws and giant cushions
taught them the love of the pun
Sometimes, one or other of my grandsons lists the things they remember me doing with them as they grew up and den building is always up there – Thanks for visiting Truedessa…