THE GENTLEMAN RETURNED

 

          Night loves to make its moves just when it most seems to be going nowhere.  In the room I was in, no one noticed the turbans on the tea tray, the gas lamps in the corner.  I thought: I might as well be in the Andes.  A gentleman nudged my left elbow and grinned.  Sir, I said, you have insulted my wife.  But I didn't have a wife, and the gentleman, cowed, scurried away.  By now the room was swimming around me.  Even the floor bubbled up from the rug.  What a strange bouquet, a man at my right elbow said.  It was the gentleman returned.  But how did he get to my right side without my seeing him?  He put a finger to his lips and leaned toward me.  Won't you marry me? he whispered into my ear.  I looked over my shoulder for my wife to rescue me, but suddenly, with the exception of the gentleman and me, the room was empty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A SCANDAL

 

          One day a child who had been reading Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit decided to dress himself as a priest and walk into his  backyard where he might confront Nature not as a childish Notion believing itself valid in and of itself, but as that which Reason might allow him to accept as the Great Influence which, if Hegel was right, might overwhelm him with Oneness.  But instead of Oneness he found a green man sitting in the tree. 

          Are you the Oneness that Hegel spoke of? the child/priest asked. 

          Not likely, said the green man, leering at the lad in the cassock.  Then he dropped from the tree and, lifting the boy's cassock, ravished him. 

          Eventually this same boy became a priest.

          Mine, in fact.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOW TO MAKE LOVE TO GREEN MAN

 

          A priest wanted to make love to the green man, but he didn't know how. 

          Do I do it with this thing that others also do their love-making with, this thing that my thoughts have the means to effect changes in, so that at times, when I am without thought, it lies flaccid in my hand, and at other times, unexpected times, it rises even though I am thoughtless?

          Why ask me? said the Green Man.  If you don't know what use to make of your at times flaccid, at times hard thing, I'm not going to tell you.

          You are cruel, Green Man.  I only want to know how to make love to you, because it is to you alone I am attracted.

          So I've been told.

          Please, Green Man, don't be coy.  I want to make love to you.  I want you as my mistress.

          Talk, talk, talk, said Green Man.

          Of course I'm talking, Green Man, said the priest, that's what I do best.  How else am I to learn how to make love to you if not through the motions my mouth makes in order to produce sounds that will necessitate an answer from you?

          I don't know, Green Man said, then leaned down from his green branch and touched the priest on his left arm, causing the priest to spread his arms and begin to sing.

 

 

Tom Whalen's poetry and prose have appeared in AGNI, Caketrain, Chicago Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Hotel Amerika, The Idaho Review, The Iowa Review,  Missouri Review, Marginalia, The Modern Review, Northwest Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review and other journals.   His recent books are Dolls (prose poems) and An Exchange of Letters (fiction).   His website can be found at www.tomwhalen.com.