Now Dave wears his shirt undone
Manhood sprouts from deep inside.
He holds Mae, his beloved one,
The woman who will one day be his bride.
Mae, accepting, smiles her apple-tasting smile,
Cuddles closer to his circling arms.
She'll be completed walking down the aisle,
Neither bliss nor ignorance confuse her native charms.
Davy on his wedding night finds out;
Mae, long-tempted by romance, wakes up to know
How mutual nakedness is an act of doubt,
A red-faced fumbling in the night. No afterglow.
In the morning days, those sweeter noughts:
The heart-pounding words, the glances eye to eye
Become the questions in the darkness, random shots
Of blame, of misunderstanding, asking why.
Dave locks a door inside his soul.
Mae offered pleasure: it was a bitter fruit.
Now he must talk of things and fake control.
He betrays no feeling, no sign of where his deeper passions root.
Mae tries to pour herself in him:
Her wild emotions overflow. She flies above
His steady hands. She rages now at every whim.
He is strong or silent. She thinks of love.
Dave locks the house with her at home again.
Her prison is where she is free to weep.
He walks the streets with his heart in chains.
Now neither of them hears the other cry out in sleep.
Dave walks one pace forward. He becomes a man.
Mae assumes a woman's fears and learns to frown.
She tempted him with paradise till hell began.
He promised her the earth but it was barren ground.
Six years after Part One (The Ballad of Dave and Mae), this came out of seeing so many couples, many from other cultures, walking with the man ahead of the woman. I wondered at the nature of partnership and how it goes from misty-eyed hope to calamitous disregard.
I conjured with the ways in which we build our own prisons according to social norms we barely see. The man imprisoned in his heart and soul, still believing himself to be free and empowered. The woman chained in different ways, often restricted by that same maleness, that patriarchy, free within boundaries.
You can figure out if, forty years later, anything much has actually changed.
Manhood sprouts from deep inside.
He holds Mae, his beloved one,
The woman who will one day be his bride.
Mae, accepting, smiles her apple-tasting smile,
Cuddles closer to his circling arms.
She'll be completed walking down the aisle,
Neither bliss nor ignorance confuse her native charms.
Davy on his wedding night finds out;
Mae, long-tempted by romance, wakes up to know
How mutual nakedness is an act of doubt,
A red-faced fumbling in the night. No afterglow.
In the morning days, those sweeter noughts:
The heart-pounding words, the glances eye to eye
Become the questions in the darkness, random shots
Of blame, of misunderstanding, asking why.
Dave locks a door inside his soul.
Mae offered pleasure: it was a bitter fruit.
Now he must talk of things and fake control.
He betrays no feeling, no sign of where his deeper passions root.
Mae tries to pour herself in him:
Her wild emotions overflow. She flies above
His steady hands. She rages now at every whim.
He is strong or silent. She thinks of love.
Dave locks the house with her at home again.
Her prison is where she is free to weep.
He walks the streets with his heart in chains.
Now neither of them hears the other cry out in sleep.
Dave walks one pace forward. He becomes a man.
Mae assumes a woman's fears and learns to frown.
She tempted him with paradise till hell began.
He promised her the earth but it was barren ground.
© BH, 1989
Six years after Part One (The Ballad of Dave and Mae), this came out of seeing so many couples, many from other cultures, walking with the man ahead of the woman. I wondered at the nature of partnership and how it goes from misty-eyed hope to calamitous disregard.
I conjured with the ways in which we build our own prisons according to social norms we barely see. The man imprisoned in his heart and soul, still believing himself to be free and empowered. The woman chained in different ways, often restricted by that same maleness, that patriarchy, free within boundaries.
You can figure out if, forty years later, anything much has actually changed.
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