You tend me to goodness

What’s that old line? The Nick Hornby one? He wrote it about a love of football and women. It’s a gorgeous one, full of rhythm and soul, yet pithy and knowing. Like a wry smile between two deeply bonded swans, how they fly above us! I love swans. I love their grace, and poise, and style and clout. I love how they embody the eternal desire to find a woman, chase that woman, and keep chasing her long after she stops and leaps towards me. I love swans, man. Coolest things around. Anyway, the Hornby line goes:

“I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: Suddenly. Inexplicably. Uncritically.  Giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.”

See my predicament? I knew very much that this line, which I read years ago from a book I borrowed but never gave back, that this line was possible. The words strung together could give form to a particular biochemical concoction that would be characterised as such. I knew that love was the Devil’s low-range water park slide, complete with insipid attendants telling you that the slide was very fierce, whatever that meant. I knew love could be like that, as an exercise in theoretical irrealis.

I knew that until I met you. In truth, it was not when I met you. When we met, I wanted to conquer my stand and then hurriedly rejoin my book and candlelight. But you pushed me down the slide I never went down. It’s your fault my body has burns and skin torn. It’s your fault I’m down the precipice. But, I’m so, so glad that it was you that I fell for: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically. I give no thought to the pain or disruption that this budding romance of ours will sow, but I know it’ll be worth it. You tended me to a goodness I sought through pages and words and ink and music. You tend me to goodness, and off I follow, like the romantic I yearned to be.

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An amoral heart is what I’d say I had,

An amoral one indeed,

I yearned for a life of gold and flux,

Full of high tables and low inhibitions,

Set upon a canvas of silk and cotton,

Given to drink and delight,

Men gushing,

Women lusting,

Off I went to seek my prize.

—————

But my prize took a lighter shade,

Then petty meals and falling dresses,

I found upon a star,

A source of wonderment and deliverance,

My most envious prize of all.

Within this shining, glowing star,

I put upon a stool,

A charm so lovely and fizzing,

To wipe away my thoughts,

Of temptation and abandon and seclusion and adoration,

And direct my adoration to a more shining star still.

—————

My amoral heart,

Seeks no vengeance,

Upon a youth fettered,

All those girls not had,

All those pills avoided,

But still a minx within,

Lives your minixer self,

Your heart takes my heart,

And pieces it in place,

For goodness exists,

And stars give forth

A woman that plies my soul

And renounces my failings,

You kiss my lips and grip my hand,

You tend my heart to longing days,

And you tend me towards my goodness

—————

Wake up and smell the roses,