That Day Of The Year Again

Valentine, schmalentine ...? As a rule, I'm allergic to anything excessively schmaltzy, but I used to get excited over February 14. My enthusiastic exclamation of, "It's that day of the year again!" has since withered into an alternatively cynical and exasperated, "It's that day of the year again."

Once upon a lifetime, I would spend my time and money on February 13 selecting and buying flowers for my girlfriends. I don't know why I did what I did, but I'm blaming the ad nauseam appearance of Valentine Day ads on the telly and in the national rags, and the endless dozens of bodice-rippers I was then (openly) reading.

The only truly memorable thing that ever happened on February 14 was when I was 16. (Okay, so it's not the only truly memorable thing, but it is the funniest.)

I arrived in school on the morning of February 14 with stalks of roses (and one stalk of lily for Jen). By the end of classes, I had distributed every single stalk of flower to specific girlfriends. Min received a single stalk of white rose (I think) and, as she had brought a whole bunch of painted dried wheat stalks (in dusky-rose), she gave me a stalk of wheat.

The boys were amused by the girls' frantic flora exchanges, of course, even though the boys themselves would have secretly bought stuffed toys and flowers for their prospective girlfriends and crushes. My then-ex-crush who saw my exchange with Min laughed and said, "What?! You gave her a rose for a wheat? Darling, how about I give you a lump of coal and you give me a diamond?"

Exactly seven years later, I found myself on my hands and knees, scrubbing my toilet. As my arms burned from the vigorous scrubbing and my knees ached from having so much pressure put on them for so long, I wondered about myself: picking washing my toilet over going out with Liam who had asked me out, twice - what the hell was wrong with me?!

I no longer harbor any fantasies - some would say delusions - about February 14; haven't, not for a long time. I had one of my fantasies came true (someone who liked me cycled all the way to my place to give me a pressie and a card), and had another fantasy very nearly came true (someone who liked me called me to ask me out, officially, but I wasn't home - and those were the days before cellphones were commonplace), while the rest yellowed then slowly disintegrated from my lack of faith and conjuring up.

I don't know ... maybe it's time I start daydreaming about love and romance again - or, at least, stop with the eye-rolling and "It's that day of the year again".

Anyway.

Two love poems that should make even a heartless cynic (i.e. me) smile:

I Wanna Be Yours

let me be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
let me be your ford cortina
i will never rust
if you like your coffee hot
let me be your coffee pot
you can call the shots
i wanna be yours

let me be your raincoat
for those frequent rainy days
let me be your dreamboat
when you wanna sail away
let me be your teddy bear
take me with you everywhere
i don’t care
i wanna be yours

let me be your electric meter
i will not run out
let me be the electric heater
you get cold without
let me be your setting lotion
hold your hair
with deep devotion
deep as the deep
atlantic ocean
that’s how deep is my emotion
deep deep deep deep de deep deep
i don’t wanna be hers
i wanna be yours



John Cooper Clarke

:::

Valentine

The things about you I appreciate
        May seem indelicate:
I’d like to find you in the shower
And chase the soap for half an hour.
I’d like to have you in my power
        And see your eyes dilate.
I’d like to have your back to scour
And other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
To chase you screaming up a tower
        Or make you cower
By asking you to differentiate
        Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I’d like to successfully guess your weight
        And win you at a fête.
I’d like to offer you a flower.

I like the hair upon your shoulders,
Falling like water over boulders.
I like the shoulders, too: they are essential.
Your collar-bones have great potential
(I’d like all your particulars in folders
        Marked Confidential).

I like your cheeks, I like your nose,
I like the way your lips disclose
The neat arrangement of your teeth
(Half above and half beneath)
        In rows.

I like your eyes, I like their fringes.
The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk.
I like the way your elbows work,
        On hinges.

I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I’d like to teach them how to count,
And certain things we might exchange,
Something familiar for something strange.
I’d like to give you just the right amount
        And get some change.

I like it when you tilt your cheek up.
I like the way you nod and hold a teacup.
I like your legs when you unwind them.
Even in trousers I don’t mind them.
I like each softly-moulded kneecap.
I like the little crease behind them.
I’d always know, without a recap
        Where to find them.

I like the sculpture of your ears.
I like the way your profile disappears
Whenever you decide to turn and face me.
I’d like to cross two hemispheres
        And have you chase me.
I’d like to smuggle you across frontiers
Or sail with you at night into Tangiers.
        I’d like you to embrace me.

I’d like to see you ironing your skirt
        And cancelling other dates.
I’d like to button up your shirt.
I like the way your chest inflates.
I’d like to sooth you when you’re hurt
Or frightened senseless by invertebrates.

I’d like you even if you were malign
And had a yen for sudden homicide.
I’d let you put insecticide
        Into my wine.
I’d even like you if you were the Bride of Frankenstein
Or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian’s Jekyll and Hyde.
I’d even like you as my Julian
Of Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan.
        How melodramatic
If you were something muttering in attics
Like Mrs Rochester or a student of Boolean mathematics.

You are the end of self-abuse.
You are the eternal feminine.
I’d like to find a good excuse
To call on you and find you in.
I’d like to put my hand beneath your chin.
        And see you grin.
I’d like to taste your Charlotte Russe,
I’d like to feel my lips upon your skin,
I’d like to make you reproduce.

I’d like you in my confidence.
I’d like to be your second look.
I’d like to let you try the French Defence
        And mate you with my rook.
I’d like to be your preference
        And hence
I’d like to be around when you unhook.
I’d like to be your only audience,
The final name in your appointment book,
        Your future tense.



John Fuller