In need of a ride

What I’ve noticed about writing these columns is that, in some sense, I don’t have much of a choice as to what goes in them. You can only waffle on about whatever it is that’s on your mind at the time, and, much as I’d love to be able to give you an easy time this week, I can’t. I’ve been thinking about the ride all day.

I know, I know. Jaysus, Tom ’tis Sunday, and you just want a bit of peace, but lookit, no one else in the room will know what you’re reading, and you don’t have to read it all in one go.

The hunger is on me

You see, I’ve been on the road for a while, away from my woman, and the hunger is on me. A fortnight is about as long as I can last without the tender touch. I don’t know how the lads in Mountjoy or the Vatican do it. They must improvise, and work with whatever comes to hand.

Ar aon nos, thinking about it — and not just from the obvious rutting point of view, but something about the gesture of it. The generosity of it. Ta si ina lui ag fanacht leat, ar a dhroim mar dearfa (some things sound nicer in Irish) and what I’ve been meditating on is that not only is the most tender part of her exposed, but that she invites you into it. The intimacy of that! The abandonment of safety.

She has asked you into her vulnerability, and is saying, if you choose to look at it this way, that it is in her weakness that she can provide you with shelter and relief. What a contradiction. Extraordinary, really. A remarkable moment of openness.

Sex is often reduced to its most mechanical aspect, and there’s crack to be knocked out of that, but it doesn’t feel that it does me any harm to think about it from this other perspective, too, at times. She’s exposed and choosing to be so. It’s almost as if in her defencelessness, she is expressing great power.

Now lads, I wouldn’t know if our womenfolk would appreciate us thinking along these lines, for sometimes their needs are purely agricultural, and the thing they least desire is a poet overwhelmed and weeping between their thighs. For to deny women the ruthlessness of their sexual intent is as bad as denying men the spirituality of theirs. There’s no peace in this life!

’Tis a curious blend: weakness and strength. And it leads me down familiar roads thinking about it. The Lamb of God for one. (Janey mac! From vaginas to Christ — is there no manners on this lad at all!)

The tribe needed help, you see, and the Almighty was on his way. What magnificent beast would descend from the heavens to protect the oppressed? What leviathan would come to their aid? Here is God, power beyond measure and he is... a lamb.

I’m sorry, could you run that by me one more time? The energies of the universe are coming to save us, the source of all things will intervene, and it’s a lamb? Maybe you didn’t hear our weeping; maybe the savagery of our jailers escaped you. A lamb! Good God... is a baby stronger than an army?

Jesus didn’t arrive with a diamond mind and say, “Lads, I have it all figured out”. No, he took out his heart and said, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first”.

What wobbles attracts

I feel sometimes that the dangerous idea in the conundrum of Christ was that he was fully human. Not just divine, but totally one of us, too. Felt everything we feel. The cratur. The word made flesh. Anyway, back to the ride. When your woman wraps her self around you, it’s her soft bits that get your attention. That which wobbles attracts...

Ah, I’m driving meself demented with this stuff. I’ve summoned up compulsions I can’t handle on me own. I need Mass or me missus. I need a lapdancing nun or a hoor with rosary beads. I need Belinda Carlisle in the nip on Lough Derg, or to walk with Our Lady through the Paps of Danu.

I need to leave you alone is what I need to do; you’ve enough on your plate without having to deal with someone else’s appetites. Your own head is hard enough, never mind mine. You only sat down for a read! Good luck, I’ll see you next week.