Antony and the Johnsons

The following was written while listening to Antony and the Johnsons. It is not their fault.

You sing to me of fading light and weeping. A Jewish ghetto clarinet weaves through your words, transforming persecution's pain into tragic beauty that beats out a dance of joyous love. Quavering voice of ecstasy, you dream transcendentally of times that never are before you descend to earthy desire.

If you want me. If you need me. If you love me. Grip my heart with romance's voice incarnate - carry me where you want me to go. I can be what you wish me to be. I can be what I barely see from the grave of leaves fallen from that hated oak whose shade has kept me from the sun. Together, we will march into the day. Chanticleers drinking dubonnet, in a duet of desire.

Pounding rhythm. Staccato words. Pause for drama to enter. Follow this with booming orchestra. Repeat. And repeat yet again. The sense of your words overcome by the magic of your sound. Brave singer. My love. My love. Please be the one to reach within and release that which lives behind copses none have ever breached.

Sea sounds flow from your crystalline piano. You weep at the window. Somewhere in the distance I hear low thunder. Rising over it your Gothic voice rends the castle's curtains with its polished black nails to let in the blue light between day and night. Below, the ocean's waves crash on beaches of slate. Your tears fluoresce and fade, leaving me to wonder if they ever were there.

Waltz over a black river, but not the Styx. Find me a path past this sadness by diving deeper into it. Dive in and taste the bitter wave, savoring each bilious gulp. Then. Then. Oh yes, then soaring up with an angels' joy transform anthracite into diamond. Make the blackness gleam so brightly that it pushes all darkness away.

Enough of tears. Enough of romance. So much emotion, so much self absorbtion, so much dreaming and longing. Silliness. Rapture is a lie. Hope but a mermaid waiting to die on reality's rocky shore. How dare you sing and play such a dangerous game.

Now there's something different. Violin and growls. Your heart is broken. Good. Damn you. Break it again. Weak willed, you must be the pansy to the roughneck's anger. You are but a flower crushed beneath a heavy heeled boot. Your false promise of glory revealed in all its plainness – a bog not a boon. Still, much as I try I cannot shake the haunting wail you leave behind.

Very well then. Goodbye to manliness. You do hold my heart in your hands. Let the rapture in. Let us begin again, passion's dance. Life holds up. Love bears up our souls, even though they do not exist. The feelings rouse us. Amazement breaks forth to live again.