true love – an insight
“Love’s Secrets“ (1896)
_________
the only way you can hate someone
you’ve loved is if your love was selfish,
true love can never not love, ever
Richard
Richibi’s Weblog
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Category: reflections on love
December 24, 2016
December 1, 2016
Puccini on poets
“Cigarette La Bohême“ (1879)
______
with a friend today over lunch I told
her that we’d watched, my mom and
I and a mutual friend, “La Bohème“,
an Australian production of it, Baz
Luhrmann directing, a man we both
knew, at my place last Sunday, we
were all wowed by it, I extrapolated
the only opera I’ve ever seen, she
said, was “La Bohème“
where did you see it, I asked, and
when
with my first husband, she replied,
in Vienna
was it wonderful, I inquired
it was, she answered, I had on a
long dress, my husband was in
coat and, essentially, tails, we
walked up a very long staircase,
I remember
coincidentally, the first time I’d
seen “La Bohème“ was also in
Vienna, I can’t remember the
staircase, couldn’t remember what
I wore, can’t even remember where
I was sitting, what I remember, as
though through a telescope, darkly,
was Mimi and Rodolphe looking for
the key she’d lost, on their knees
on the floor, in the dark cause her
candle ‘d gone out, he’d put his out
surreptitiously too to join her
your little hand is so cold, he sings,
when he, unforgettably, finds it
in this production, Rodolphe has
found the key but conceals it
from Mimi until she sees it in his
eyes, he pretends to return it but
instead manages to hold her
hand
your little hand is so cold, he
sings, again unforgettably
there’s nothing to fear, he
continues, the moon is out, let’s
get to know each other
who am I, he asks, to start the
conversation, I am a poet, he
declares, and proceeds to tell
us what it is to be a poet
you’ll be utterly enchanted
tell me about a world, I ask,
without poets, tell me about
a world without poetry
where would we be without
dreamers, I wonder, where would
we be without dreams
watch here, and wonder
Richard
September 13, 2016
“The Man I Love” – George and Ira Gershwin
“Apollon” (1937)
_______
when my heart is broken, I learn the
words to torch songs, and wallow in
my misery until the poignancy of the
poetry seduces me and I revel in its
caress
for a while now I’ve been yodelling
along with Hank Williams, who,
incidentally, sings in my key, though
the accurate reach of his far-flung
notes can be tricky
but today, I inadvertently slipped into
this Sophie Tucker classic enough to
change my tune
watch this wonderful rendition of
“The Man I Love“ in a version you’ll
never forget for both its originality
and its great humanity
Richard
August 27, 2016
“Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave”
_______
halfway through “The Last Picture Show“
recently, a celebrated movie from the early
Seventies I was watching, about the early
Fifties, I was sidetracked by the Hank
Williams soundtrack till I was out and out
stopped by its fervent “Cold, Cold Heart“
I put the film on pause
another love before my time, I warbled,
made your heart sad and blue, and so
my heart is paying now, I wallowed, for
things I didn’t do, in anger unkind words
were said, I rued, that made the teardrops
start, why can’t I free, your doubtful mind,
I fretted, and melt your cold, cold heart
but I wanted to hear Hank Williams do
it too, live if I could, and lo and behold
I got it
but listed as an option among other
options nearby was also a longer
feature purporting to be a
representation of a concert he
never gave the night, December 31,
1952, he died, the movie is called,
not inappropriately, “Hank Williams:
The Show He Never Gave“
the actor who plays Williams steps
right into his shoes, he’ll break your
heart, you’ll need a lot of Kleenex
one of he best film biographies I’ve
ever seen
Hank Williams died of a heart attack
on the night of December 31, 1952
he was 29
may he rest in everlasting peace
Richard
June 21, 2016
me in the key of B major – my birthday
“Bad Boy”
______
le coeur a ses raisons que
la raison ne connaît point
( the heart has its own,
inscrutable to reason,
reasons)
– Pascal
my birthday is coming up
long I held that I’d been premature,
my birthday was not after the
requisite number of months for a
legitimate pregnancy, but I held to
the private drama of my story rather
than ask my parents any questions,
only later during adolescence did I
find out from my sister that I had
not been premature
that I could have so misconstrued
astonished me at the time, how
narrow could be one’s apparently
infinite perspective, how confined
and misdirected, a lesson never
easily, however recurrent, learned,
see love
my father would never have forsaken
my mother, nor ever has, he was a
principled man, a responsible man,
a man who prized his honour, his
friends’, his family’s
the men in his family were such, all
devoted husbands, though one, late
in life when the children were grown,
left his wife for greener pastures,
became a nudist, his wife used to
change her clothes in the closet,
he later on complained
as a corollary, he cultivated in his
new environment many girlfriends,
it appears, despite, by then, his
advanced age
about my aunts, however, my other
uncle used to say that though he
had five sisters, he had 17
brothers-in-law, which isn’t counting
the ones who hadn’t been husbands,
I’d add
put some clothes on, Cid, my aunt
Doris, his sister, said, one morning
when he was visiting, he was coming
down the stairs to breakfast – they all
then, three sons, Aurèle, or Aurelius,
Cid, Alcide, and my dad, Conrad Hector,
had the heroic names of Greek and
Roman warriors, of even, some more
distant uncles, Hebraic characters,
Ephraïm, for instance, owing to our
French, therefore Latin, background
my aunts’ names were, however,
more prosaic, common
my aunt Doris, of the sisters, was,
perhaps the most uncharacteristically,
prim, though I suspect she didn’t
change in a closet, but I would’ve
never used even the word “penis” in
front of her for fear of causing her
alarm, though clearly she’d grown
up among them
she is also the first aunt I confided
in about my controversial then
situation, after, of course, having
told my parents, they would know,
I knew, I had therefore to be the
first to tell them, but only once I’d
found my own closet, my own
home of my own
I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love,
I said to her over the phone
what’s her name, she asked
his name is John, I retorted
how wonderful, she replied, but,
let me hand you over to your
Aunt Anne, her sister, she said,
while I pick myself up off the
floor
my Aunt Anne was, as usual, only
love and compassion, though she
never had any children she raised
at least six, none her own, all of
whom remained ever profoundly
devoted
to my other relatives, that information
was later on only implicit, and I was
grateful to have found from them only
ever love and acceptance, my own
particularities were understood to be
anyone’s, everyone’s, we all had our
inclinations, what mattered was the
bond
Richard
April 3, 2016
“Diet Mountain Dew” – Timothy Donnelly
“Dew Drenched Furze“ (1890)
_____________
I have been, perhaps still am,
a grasshopper, which is why I
react so strongly to this poem
at twelve already, after having
read Somerset Maugham’s
“Of Human Bondage“, I knew
such would be my own fate,
love wouldn’t be kind to me
it hasn’t, it ain’t easy being
green
Richard
____________
I have built my ship of death
and when a wind kicks up
I’ll cut it loose to do its thing
across an unnamed lake of you,
a firefly sent pulsing through
the non-stop estivation of
the verses of our South, who in
its larval phase would feast
on bitter worms and snails, who
emerges from its mud chamber
our planet’s most efficient
luminescence, who turns
chemical energy into radiant
energy shedding very little heat,
so will I sail the compass of
you pleased with my cold light.
I have built my ship of death
aglow in sturdy chemicals
and powered up at night like
American Express, I’m all
customer service only minus
the customer, no service to speak
of other than death, you will
know my logo by its absence
and slogan from the past
ad for the sugared style of you
on TV in my youth, it goes
like this: “When my thirst
is at its worst . . .” and then I
let it trail off into the unsayable
or is it just unsaid because
my mouth is full of you again.
A green like no other green
in the dale, indelicate green or
green indecent, surpassing
the fern and sprout and April’s
optimistic leaflet some stop
to admire in nature, they take
photographs noncognizant
of other vehicles, you are too
green for pasture, you are
my green oncoming vehicle,
usurper of green, assassin
to the grasshopper and its plan,
I put me in your path which is
the path a planet takes when it
means to destroy another I think
you know I’m O.K. with that.
A green like no other green
resplending in production since
1940 when brothers Barney
and Ally Hartman cooked it up
in Tennessee qua private
mixer named after moonshine,
its formula then revised by
Bill Bridgforth of the Tri-City
Beverage Corp. in 1958, year
Linwood Burton, chemically
inclined entrepreneur and ship
cleaning service owner, sold
his formula for a relatively safe
maritime solvent to Procter
& Gamble of Ohio, who went on
to market it under the name
of Mr. Clean, whose green
approaches yours then at the
last second swerves into
a joke yellow plays on green
to make blue jealous till it
blows up in its face but I can’t
not love the smell of it, citrus
reimagined by an extra-
terrestrial lizard which is to say
inhuman in the way you say
inhuman to me, a compliment
unravelled in the drawl: “Hey
you, over there, you look
so unaccustomed to temporality
I would’ve sworn you were
inhuman,” and time for it after
time I fall, further evidence
of my humanity: I am at heart
no less susceptible to rot
than the felt hat on the head
of the rifle-toting barefoot
hillbilly, your mascot until he
disappeared in 1969. Instinct
says he must have shot his
self in the woods in the mouth
one sunrise when a frost
was at hand and the apples
fell thick and he was way
too awake when he did so not to
think there would be another
waiting like a can of you in
the 12-pack in my refrigerator.
I have built my ship of death
and enough already, every
toxic sip of you preparing for
the journey to bloviation:
I leave to return and return
to depart again the stronger
for a satisfaction being bound
to no port has afforded me:
I have built my ship of death
so that even when I crawl
back down into the hold of it
alive as what unnaturalness
in you can keep me, it’s only
to emerge from the other
end of it intact, and perfectly
prepared to be your grasshopper.
May 11, 2015
on watching broth boil
“The Night of the Water Searcher“ (2005)
_______
though my friend whom I’d advised to
watch water boil probably didn’t heed
my suggestion, on the grounds that
she didn’t have the patience, much
as people who won’t do yoga do
despite the evident benefits, not
even myself for that matter, I’ve
continued to watch not only water
boil, identifying its myriad
permutations, but broth as well for
its incidence in homemade soup,
rice and, inadvertently lately, hot
toddies
before it erupts into a boil, a froth
will foam forming miniature bubbles
each the colour of rainbows until
they pop from the pressure that’s
built beneath them
Annie Lennox was on, I’d purchased
the video from iTunes of her latest
superb concert, to spend a quiet
evening while the chicken bones,
herbs and vegetables simmered
I haven’t yet even considered
watching anything simmer though,
certainly not yet broth
therefore Annie Lennox
her concert, “Nostalgia“, was a
recollection of blues greats that each
and every one of them had meaning,
roots in my, our, experience, songs
like “Georgia“, “Summertime“, “It’s
Just the Nearness of You“, “You
Belong to Me“
I broke down at “I Can Dream, Can’t I“,
needed lots of Kleenex
a song is a milestone, anchoring us to
our memories, to who we were then,
each time we hear it, over and over
again, like a chronological refrain,
informing us, each time, who we’ve
become, who we’ve been, if you don’t
remember the time or the place, each
fading in the distance, you remember
the feeling, how you incorporated the
meaning, made it fit you and your
particular ache, made you believe
this song must’ve been written for
you, however outlandish, however
improbable the idea, however
nevertheless real
Proust did the same with a crumpet,
a “madeleine”, dipped in tea, which
opened up for him remembrances
of afternoons at his grandmother’s
imprinted unconsciously on his
senses, and revived inadvertently
by a distant, but unexpectedly
related incident, a time warp
such is also the magic of music,
a means of keeping your soul
together
such is also art
Richard
psst: my eventual cheeseburger
soup, if you can believe it,
with ketchup, mustard, and
even dill pickles, turned out
to be delicious, a wonderful
accompaniment to an
evening of cozy, if
bittersweet, reminiscences
April 19, 2015
an April poem
“Red April“ (1970)
_____
as March was a month of music for me,
specifically mostly Beethoven, with pop
but poignant love songs thrown in, for
pathos and corresponding agony,
surefire anti-depressants, April is
purportedly the month of poems
here’s one, to itself, the month of
showers, flowers, but also of
ephemerality, evanescence,
regeneration and change, according
to this poem
don’t throw your Aprils away, it
says, tend to them, they’re what,
for better or worse, we have
Richard
________________
April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.
There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;
The men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.
The larger streams run still and deep,
Noisy and swift the small brooks run
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun,
Pensively,—only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep.
April 14, 2015
winning performances
“The Singer“ (1903)
___________
though a new winner was crowned
this year again at Québec’s “La voix“,
last year’s winner, who made a guest
appearance at the ceremony, wins
again hands down, I think, Yoan
Garneau incontrovertibly delivers
listen to him sing both “J’entends
siffler le train” and “Good-Hearted
Woman”, wherein I am of course
the good-hearted woman
listen to Peter, Paul and Mary do
“…siffler…” in the original English,
you’ll cry
meanwhile at “The Voice UK“, Stevie
McCrorie sings “I’ll Stand By You“,
powerfully, and wins despite the
formidable opposition from Lucy
O’Byrne doing “No Surprises“,
wherein I am the very air that
bristles around her music
Richard
March 30, 2015
a grab bag of love songs
“The Scale of Love“ ( c.1717)
______
a clutch of other pop songs that have
moved me in March
for its unabashed servility, “Mon Dieu“ – Johanne Lefebvre
please, God, she says, let my lover be
with me still even for a short time, time
to tell each other of how we adore each
other, time to create for ourselves
memories, six months, three months,
two, one month only, let him remain,
time to begin or time to end, time to
glow or time to even suffer, please,
God, don’t take him away
for its irresolute resolution, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long“ –
Emmanuel Nwamadi
for its recriminations, self-flagellation, “Jealous Guy“ – Kevin Bazinet
for its out-of-control hormones, “Sing“ – Liana Bureau
and Dominic Dagenais
Richard
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