STAINED GLASS
Foreword: In the novel The Road to London (Glastonbury Publishing / Mirador), following an epiphany, a boy approaches another boy opening up his feelings and sexuality to him. This is how things might have worked, if only, or in a different dimension, maybe, just maybe... in this alternative world, they are now pacing down the aisle to seal their love, not just to one another, but to two more people as well. Each of the grooms (or brides if you prefer) has a short story to tell, or paint, the moment that made this wedding possible.
But as I slepte, me mette I was
Withyn a temple ymad of glas,
In which ther were moo ymages
Of gold, stondynge in sondry stages,
And moo ryche tabernacles,
And with perre moo pinnacles,
And moo curiouse portreytures,
And queynte maner of figures
Of olde werk, then I saugh ever.vii
Like butterflies on glass, the stars shine through the rose above and paint their tears on marble columns white with silent strokes of light that dance in crimson, gold and emerald smiles upon the past of darkened tiles where feet have walked without a trace; they whisper colours like the ripple on a river through the nave which floods and swells with hymns of worlds endured by souls now resting still as kites against the winds of winter: strong, assured, fulfilled the sail withholds the breath of waves that plague the ocean with their memories of lost encounters; it rises high above the sky and brings its warmth to meet the Sun. The bells now echo peals of future laughter shared between the sheets with welcome guests.
The violins are bowing to the heart of light, and speak.
The harp remembers sons for long unsung.
The keys melt black and white.
The choir sings.
One note.
Yes, I will, yes. That day temptation seized me; my fist was hard, the storm of scorn and million words blown on deserts, sweeping fast across the golden waves of sand had grabbed my arm. Your blood came through my dreams and soaked the floor. I ran, I ran, I ran away from me and what you’d told me: but centuries of deafness bit my heels and dragged, they dragged, like tide they sucked my feet and legs and heart and mouth beneath the searing soil. Day after day, night after night I was stuck, no wave no motionviii. A canvas, blind with gore and dry with tears, stared back at me through the grey mirror, day after day, night after night. The dagger clenched within my fist; voices, voices, voices. My mind was pulled along the paths that anger, fear and shattered confidence now whispered all around me. Day after day, night after night, the faded colours of the stars were ebbing slowly, steadily away to other worlds. I squared the canvas with my fist. Your words were etched into the frozen sky: ‘My friend, I love you.’ But then, yes, then, the tiny glint within your eyes, like butterfly’s wings opening, and shedding light upon the grass, the sky, the world, then, yes then, I stopped, and walked away. And yes, I will, yes, I will accept the one in me I had denied, and you with us, to paint this world with all our colours. Yes, I will, yes.
From wing to wing, from glass through glass
The silent storm at peace with past
Impressions steps along
The whispered chains of gold and holds
The humid breath of silver grass
Along the aisle four grooms now pass.
Yes, I will, Yes. I will string your memories like pearls the sea has forgotten within mine. When time came creeping upon me, as we were lying by the river late at night, the breeze froze moments yet unborn as in the beads beneath your eyes your whispers begged to pour your past within my future: he came to us upon your breath. A mirror blind of ice and darkness, thundering in dreams that could not be, came crushing down upon my soul: sharp shards like thorns did crown my heart in barbed wire and in drops of sour lemon, and bled it dry of selfish red for days and nights when loss of me in you became an empty wilderness of winds that swept like sand storm in the drought of light. But harbingers of rain were weeping far beneath the horizon of my blindness. As time stood still, their broken voices came on coloured wings blown on your lips. And yes, I will: I’ll weave my veins within the tapestry of your lives, and hold the softness which your palms will bring. Yes, I will, yes.
For waves are but the echoes of the tide
That bows to chords played by the Moon,
I’ll let you paint my canvas white
With all your voices, sighs and light.
Yes, I will, yes. The peace you gave my dreams, not you, nor you alone, but all of you. I stayed for years on the sea bed, like oyster clinging fast to a useless gem; observing all around me all your movements, waves crashing on the shores in roaring foam of million broken promises that block the light and stain the salty glass with their own selfish shells; the very beams that through you made the million colours of your watery memories so bright, so varied yet so one to me; I watched, from hidden caves beneath the sand, I watched and heard you sink like scattered tesserae of a mosaic that cannot find its frame, its shape, its own identity. I watched; your voices scared me, till, the wind asleep on farther shores, your eyes descended to the floor and found me, waiting, waiting: ‘It’s you we are missing,’ came like strings of violins flood air with choral waves of light. You dived down deep beneath your world and found the missing link in a street corner; your hands in mine, we left the pavement, found our home. I will, yes, I’ll keep you embraced one to the other, and through my skill I’ll breathe your warmth. Yes, I will, yes.
Hold on; look round. The street you thought
Led to your future sleeps and weeps
In corners lost beneath your eyes
And at your heels if feels your steps
Crush leaves the wind has picked and spewed.
Don’t chase the Sun beyond the land but stop
And pick up what your past is yet to yield.
Yes, I will, yes. My brush stood staring at the canvas, speechless, struck; ‘They want us both with them,’ hovered your words in the still air. The skyscape flat and grey had lost its Sun. Day after day, night after night I stared; there was no motion. No spark, no light, no star in sight upon the airy ocean. The murky smoke that filled the wind poured forth from caves of ice the world had kept untouched through the ages and charcoaled my emotions. The sneering sky had left the day; my fists clenched the empty air, and could not breathe. I stared; I stared. It stared back with empty greyness. Yet, blood surged, hot and steaming, up my chest, my shoulders, scorching down my arms and hands and filled my fingers with its wrath. I scratched; I scratched the sky away. Under my nails the dusty blanket of my past came crumbling down. Then grass, and trees and stars and water, butterflies had filled the air and fluttered in a dance upon the waves of light. Colours, yes, the green, the blue, the red, the gold I had forgotten, lost under dusty words and dusty smiles. Yes, my brush will paint this canvas bright with all the hues of all your lives, your memories and dreams and all your light. Yes, I will yes.
The Priest now white in recognition
Speaks the words that God had taught and we had lost
On streets that lead but do not pause and think, nor love,
Or welcome more than self and cold and freeze the air, the eye, the ear
Of million voices loud and clear who listen deep beneath the waves of time and fear, for drops of rain to call and sing along the million bells that peal in joy from church to church from house to house and spread like light across the sky on silent wings of sparkling shades, the land the sea, to other worlds, and moons and suns and milky ways of stars that live beyond the horizon of our mind, like souls suspended beyond time and yes, we will, yes.
THE ROAD TO LONDON: ALSO AVAILABLE BY THE SAME AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My gratitude goes to the magazines and websites that kindly published these stories. In alphabetical order:
Cosmofunnel.com
Free Fiction Daily
Lesbian Times
Rainbow Books Galore
Religion Everyday
The Modern Poly Commons
www.booksie.com
www.gay-literature.com
www.readstories.co.uk
www.short-fiction.co.uk
Adriano Bulla, 2013
END NOTES
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