Five Friendship Sonnets
Best at a Distance
Some say that friendship’s realm is nowhere but
Nostalgia. Love of man for man exists
In regions where the friend is absent, shut
Out, exiled, say, or better dead, subsists
On mourning, loss, and echoes. Because if
He is actually in the room with you and shares
Your breath, you might run the risk of a whiff
Of male underarm or see the dark hairs
Protruding from his nose. But of course
The major threat is that if he disagrees
With your pet dreams, he might attempt to force
You to accept the visions that he sees.
His second sight might overwhelm, dismay.
A friend has even been known to betray.
Sad Substitute
Those eyes, that mouth reminded me of Glenn,
My friend of forty years ago. The hair,
Though, wasn’t crinkly thick. This specimen
Was balding on the top, the strands too spare
And thin to be a substitute for my
Young man of fourteen thousand nights ago.
The Glenn-like span of flesh from neck through thigh
Was strong, and since this new young male was so
Absorbed in scholarship about some slight,
Arcane religious controversy, he
Might just as well have been a Brinsmeadite
Keying in crank laptop notes surreally.
No, no! He can’t be Glenn’s latter-day twin.
He doesn’t have the snaggle-toothy grin.
Twenty-five Years On
Three hundred “portraits” of Montaigne–no, more–
Exist. Just one of them includes his friend,
Étienne, whose amitié was the core
Of hermit-like Michel’s love, start and end
Of all that was outstanding in his life.
Montaigne’s philosophy denied the claims
Of other friendship thinkers, lived in strife
With Greeks and Romans. Lone Michel proclaims
That separation only benefits
Souls forced to be apart. Divided fates
Are not divided. Male devotion knits
Men together. Their unity dictates.
This logic was of heart and not of head.
He had to think thus, since his man was dead.
“O mes amis, il n’y a nul ami”
“My friends, there is no friend!” Diogenes
Laertius has Aristotle cry,
Despairing of the chance that theory’s
Demand for one who’s more than ally,
Gives more than scratch his back and he’ll scratch mine
Delight, is more than merely pure, ideal,
Yes, offers more than virtue, nearly divine,
In parallel with yours. He needs to feel
An absolutely balanced love, as strong
And equal as the one you have for him.
No wonder all the ancients know it’s wrong
To think of Anthony as Caesar’s limb.
Because of Étienne Montaigne denies
Philosophers’ lies. Only he is wise.
Set Him as a Seal
“I give myself more to my friend than draw
Him to me”—so says old Montaigne, but long
Years after Étienne had died. The flaw
Is pretty obvious, right? “Love is strong
As death,” another wise man’s song insists,
But are we all convinced? He’s in the tomb
For Christ’s sake! The stench of death persists
No matter how much incense and perfume
We waft around. You can’t exhume the man
To life, embrace him living in your arms.
This isn’t Tinker Bell and Peter Pan,
Or children believing in fairy charms!
“Mais oui,” Michel says, “I have him best.
I have his breathing body in my chest.”