cathedrals in their middle age
sourly contemplate
the platitudes of worship
(what longing made
the history of their long struggle
and what prayers like smoke
stain the minds and hands
of old men
): their structure is a torsion—
pleasure and silence
twisted
at invisible altitudes—
below, the dark
icon of betrayal
above, a whispered light
revealing nothing.
without ceremony
no voice to read
a lesson
or to preach
and no believers (especially
if there are no believers)
at the end of worship
silence is their business.
if I was such a man
—my eyes removed
for safe-keeping
through the wars
my memory buried
in a field—
how could I then say
what my body meant to say?
Category: Writing
Writing posts.
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[cathedrals in their middle age]
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the dear departed [lovers that have gone]
the dear departed lovers that have gone angels that once terrified us threatening to bring death so near as love sometimes return. these lost loves, whose provenance and history is harder than a coin passing hand to hand through all the dull business of the commonwealth, arrive at our aching arms unexpected. the strange gifts of a stranger, a once familiar mind. thoughts that tasted like water, answering an ancient need. we may go down to the shore and take a boat to be more completely under a sky we knew at a happier time, remember love like one who is newly blind remembers color, listen to our bodies sing their old pain. our untasted souls, we hoped would feed another life to propagate our own, make, at any spot we stop to feel, the feast of questions loving is.Originally published in Out of the Box: Contemporary Gay and Lesbian Poets, edited by Michael Farrell and Jill Jones, Puncher & Wattmann Poetry, 2009
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In museums of beautiful art
In each great hall an exhausted tourist or a lover of art
whose life has come to this fine point, standing still as a sign,
is troubled to learn the truth of his companion’s mind, and
cannot calculate how far he’s come to know so little.He knows the museums of beautiful art are full,
as much with pain as love; and all the masters, old and new,
knew just what we go to them to do… At every other corner
a blood-soaked scene, vengeful, pitiable, famous or obscure,is excessive proof—with martyrs, slaughtered innocents, rapes,
betrayals—the world was shaved by a drunken barber; and,
at the next corner, the beautiful starvation of youth, which, like a theory
facts have not yet spoiled, reminds us of all longing unfulfilled.It’s true, as we’ve been told, every dreadful martyrdom
must run its course. Paris, if he is not in love, is just a city
full of old stuff, unhelpful, jaded waiters, and dog shit.
Fall flat on your face in Rue Saint Denis, and Parisians laugh.On such a day—beyond where Veronese’s butcher-cook hacks
away just above Christ’s head; and, following the signs, in the hall
past the spot where Leonardo’s Mona Lisa woodenly endures
the tourist crush—one more painting waits for him…Saint John, the Baptist. From within the black world where nature
and hope have disappeared, the saint’s left hand rests upon his heart;
and his right arm, pointedly, shows the way to another world.
He steps into the traveller’s light and, with a kind word and gestureto offer, smiling, says, “I know that you, too, suffer.”
Meanings that will not bring words to a traveller’s mouth,
the wounds he spoke of to himself at night, are recognised,
fixed forever, in the master’s art and the smiles of artless saints.Originally published in Out of the Box: Contemporary Gay and Lesbian Poets, edited by Michael Farrell and Jill Jones, Puncher & Wattmann Poetry, 2009.
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Dinner at Whistler’s
The interior, like a fresh, young face,
is a masterpiece of simplicity.Traffic moves along straight lines
between what is said and what is done.At the dinner table, even the menus
are painted to illustrate the feast.Desire is a red plate.
Love is a black bowl.It is ironic that his mother,
now an exhibit in Paris,is surrounded by impressionists
and looks very sad.Aesthetes imagine a blue square
is the most beautiful space.Peacocks and all other flightless birds
no longer lay claim to parts of the sky.The quarrel of art and money is over.
Needing each other, they kiss and make up.The rooms we lived in, the meals we made,
the words we spoke, themselves all masterworks,numbered, rotting, forgotten,
will no longer be the cause of any emotion.A regret, like a tremor, wakes us.
He goes to piss against the wall.I am the stranger here, in the room
made for blue and white porcelain.This poem appeared first in Out of the Box: Contemporary Gay and Lesbian Poets, edited by Michael Farrell and Jill Jones, Puncher & Wattmann Poetry, 2009
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‘How do you know if someone loves you?’
An older man is fucking a younger man. Several people are sitting around a table, talking about a matter that it seems cannot be answered, and someone says, “You’d might as well ask, How many angels are on the head of a pin?” And someone else, “Or how do you know if someone loves you?” The older man is standing behind a younger man, who is bent over a table, taking it in the arse. The older man says, “That’s a good question. How do you know when someone loves you?” The younger man turns his head around, still bending over the table, to say, “Give me a matchbox.” He begins writing on a piece of paper the names of everyday objects and places: ‘rice’, ‘pen’, ‘book’, ‘chair’, ‘carpet’, ‘spoon’, ‘candle’, ‘plate’, ‘shirt’, ‘photos’, ‘glass’, ‘bathroom’, ‘shoe’, and so on. He puts the paper in the matchbox and hands the box to the older man, saying, “In a year, give this box back to me.” A year passes. The older man gives the matchbox to the younger man who opens it, takes out the piece of paper. “You see,” he says, as he reads through the names of things, “love changes everything.”
Stephen J. Williams 
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