A male friend told me it's quite easy to separate love from sex. One evening years ago, he spent close to a case of beer (because that's how long it took to explain that shit to me) trying to get me to see how easy it is to separate the two. These days, the friends-with-benefits concept is I guess the modern way of making the separation between love and sex absolutely clear. I still don't get it.
I can't coldly separate mind, heart, and body. For me all are involved! all are consumed! (hehehe! My apologies to all who love Martin Carter's poem "You are involved.")
But seriously, the reason I'm really enjoying John Agard's Lovelines for a Goat-born Lady is because the poems speak on all possible aspects of a couple's involvement--the physical, the cerebral, the spiritual (all my loose distinctions)--and they show the connections between these dimensions in a light, playful manner.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about:
By All Means Bless
By all means
bless the cloth
that wiped
the face
of Jesus
By all means
bless the towel
that unfolds
an infant
like the miraculous bread
By all means
bless the towel
the boxer returns to
- a brief harbour
after a harassing round
By all means
bless the sacred silk
that garbs
the sumo’s
amplitude of loin
But I say this also
bless the towel
that unwraps
your buttocks
(fresh out of the shower)
with such casual ease
we overlook
life’s small epiphanies
If yuh ever piss off yuh man or woman, pull out this collection and read him or her a poem or two from it. That ought to put a smile on his or her face. Warning: Don't try to read any poem to your man or woman before you have confessed to and apologized profusely for the foul act you committed. Wait a few hours or days (depending on the seriousness of the crime), then slowly tickle your honey with Lovelines.
And if that doesn't work, then maybe you'd be better off in one of those disconnected relationships where presumably you can avoid messy, involved fights.
