The Eberhard Triptych

The Eberhard Triptych.
(Songs for D Eberhard)
By Robert L Hughes III

For Eberhard.
1.
Life is the poor player…
A wonder I have found?...
A living spring in the heart of Quasimodo breaks forth…
I am who I am…
Why should he sup with me?
Who am I to bring joy to his heart as vast as the brilliance of a shooting star?
Do I think so highly of myself as to be worthy of remembrance?
To be talked to?
I am used to having to pass what I call the Cup of Friendship to people
But I am not the one to had to give… not this time!
It has been first given to me.
What can I do?
Foolish heart!
For I am the poor player
I am the shamed one!
I am the dark son.
In my own heart I am not one to be trifled with.
Because there is another player…
Whose on stage, and life’s stage he is one.
He is one who wants to bring happiness to his audiences and though
that he shares the one precious gift.
A Cup of Friendship!

How precious is that to me!
Far more then the arms and the endowment of any man!
More than the greatest of operas!
The stage I entered, and the stage I’ll leave but I’ll leave with at least one
friend
Precious Thought?...

II.
Am I the poor player?
Am I the fool?
Far too many times I thought what was solid had turned out to be liquid.
A Foolish heart with foolish notions.
Do not strut and fret over nothing; do not get your heart up.
You are what you are.
You are the dark son.
The ugly.
You are the faceless!
And what do you deserve from him that you cannot receive?
‘Eberhard is young and foolish’ I say ‘He is pretty by the false standards
of youth’
What do I have to offer him? I cannot compete with such brightness.
What have I to offer him I still ask myself?
Empty words?
Stammering tongue?
Day advances the day…
You are what you are…
Nothing!...
You sit alone locked in your introverted heart and mind
You see people though a wall.
They don’t see you!
THEY DON’T SEE YOU!


III.
I am who I choose to be
Eberhard is who he is…
What he has chosen to be…
We are who we are.
Performers’ and singers bound by the equal stage and by whom we choose
To love.
Bound by the commen love for performance.
How I love the stage!
But how much more do I love life!
After acrid pain!
After the bitter taste of death.
Of twice dying, and being once risen.
But yet the stage beckons and it calls you like it called him.
But you came reluctantly
With hopeless and with downtrodden heartache you came
But what of him? What lies possibly hidden within deep confines of the
eyes? And of the heart?
A smile can easily hide a wound just as the sparkle of one’s eyes can cast
into shadow any sadness that one may have accrued.
What does he have to do?

IV.
My heart calms.
The hope is gone, and for a brief span all things are equal before me
For life is the alluring stage.
No one person plays on it alone.
We play from our own experiences,
And the audiences are none but our own!
Eberhard brings to me a freshness of a memory of what I should
had been.
Of what was once possible.
‘no wine untasted’
Every beating heart reveled of memories—of joys rekindled.
The Stage!
Life!
The Theater and Song…
Of beauty and of wine and of food.
Of happiness that I once knew…
Eberhard—his friendship…the stage….
LIFE!!!


.
An Oath for Eberhard.
I.
For him I will do this, for I am the fool.
An idea grasping at straws.
Will I be put to shame?
I do not do this lightly, I do not take on such a
Ponderous role in the life of him nor do I wish for
another obligation .
but it is with a heart geared toward what I know
is right that I do this.
I tremble with fear, I do not—I cannot say ‘friend’
easily ! for that word is sacred with me and I dare
not cheapen that by foolishly spreading that
around…For the word family is dead to me,
Friend is that word, friend is that power!...

II.
I cry, I morn and I weep.
Days will no longer comfort.
The dark recess of night becomes my mistress.
To not bless him will be like a curse on me,
For I cannot rest!
My heart shall never cease until I have spoken it.


III. The Oath.
‘I cannot give you anything for I am poor.
But I can show you my richness of my character.

I cannot assure you that you’ll never be alone,
But I can say that whatever you will be I shall be
there also either though spirit or though
a simple phone call .

I cannot assure that you’ll be wise, but I can share
With you what wisdom I have

I cannot assure that you’ll go in the ring of life
and knock out whatever life brings to you but I
can assure you that I shall always be in your
corner rooting for you.

I do not know if you’ll ever be safe from harm
But I would sacrifice my life to assure you would be
Safe .

This is my oath I make to you.
My word is now given and I am bound by mighty
cables to it. Only death shall make me part with it.
This oath shall remain alive even if you would walk away from my friendship it shall die when I
will pass on
I shall always treasure you, and what time we
will now spend ‘till we have parted

I will forever and always will be your friend.
I name you friend!
I name you brother!
You chose to share with me your life. What an
hounor you have given me.
I have taken what you have given me and I shall
give it back to you ten times the richer!



IV.
So I will commit myself—in the vast façade of his
youth.
Am I on a fool’s errand?
Are these words some empty, vain triptych?..



The Cup Passes.
i
Come and stand before me and I shall tell you what
I see!
Sie Junge eine!
Stand still with this fact that there is at least
one person in this world who wishes to get to
know you!
You lover of life!
You singer of songs!
Tell me of the songs that you sing!
How many verses has been written down
How has life dictated its pentameter?

In the fast quick-step of youth does
Disappointment lie beneath?
In the quick flash glare of a smile, the brightness
of your eyes reveals to me.
Is there a darkling melancholy?…a brooding like
the sun setting after an afternoon filled with
storms that come with the sudden calamity
that betrayed the start of an easy day ?

ii.
An easy day
An easy way?
Who will be your iron?
That sharpens against you?
Who will be your improver?
I will help
I return the cup that you have given me tenfold
You will be all the wiser for I will share with you
what I know .
And I shall part with the one thing that I have of
Any value in this world.

Wisdom! Oh wisdom!
What I have learned in this life came with a bitter
price.
A price that maybe you will not have to pay.
But my path is my own, it is not yours. we share the
paths that life has given us and perhaps you will
not have to make the same mistakes that I’ve been
Scarred with.

The price that you may have to pay will be your
own, but you shall not bear it alone…
Like I once did!....

It’s the morning of your life, you shall go your
own way
But please be patient with your life, for its only
morning and you still to live your day!

What path shall you take this morning?
What path will you live your day?
No one can truly say.
Nay!.. Not even you can tell !
Only careful Confidence should rest on your
current abilitys
Nothing is assured final!
Nothing is rested in stone.




Except truth undimmed .
Nothing except beating hearts
Nothing except the love of life.
Nothing except the love of family.
Nothing except the love of friends.
These are truths that are real!
As solid as stone
Remember!

III. BENEDICTION.
Walk with me as you have invited me to walk with you.
You flushed in your glorious youth
And I clothed in my shame!
(But I have laid aside these rags and the scared beauty
That was dimmed in me shall once more be lit,
and I shall be seen as what I truly am !
‘Beauty and grace unstoppable!
Kindness unmeasurable ‘
And an honor of old shall be bestowed upon me…
Manhood!
Strength unshakable !! )
An unlikely pair we are!
Our thoughts are not distribed by what the
world says that we should be.

Yes walk with me!
Yes, in glorious friendship!
Let the joys of life surround, and set asunder and
Rebuild anew .
You shall hear new songs in sing them
To whomever you meet.
To people whom I shall never see.
And I shall be glad.

My friendship I give to you,
Because you first give me yours!
Precious Thought!...

copywrite July 2009

Ode to a Fallen Leaf.

Ode to a Fallen Leaf.
(From The Book of Words. Chapter 2 : My Wonderings of Nature.)

In the waning warmth of the year,
The leaves fall.
My heart took on its seasonal coat of troubles
My arched brow sags…I sigh
My spirit fights the power of listlessness.
As I walk along the familiar pathways, the brittle smell of leaves fills my nostrils.
And clouds roll in to cover the blue sky.
Around me there is dyeing life,
Even the last breath of a dyeing Aunt fills my ears.
And finally the leaves cover the ground, and I await for warmer days to come, where there is life in abundance.



copywrite@ 1998 all rights rerserved.

Play Me a Song Piano Women!

In the manic and sometimes overwhelming and deadly busyness that is a college campus, you are always tempted to become focused on things that will not matter a hill of beans when your journey here is all said and done. Oftentimes you will have to look deeper to hear the music that is being played in people’ lives. I recently had an English writing assignment that we all had to do out of our regular class room. The assignment was that we had to write about what we observed. We could write about anything! It was one of the most difficult writing assignments that I ever had.
We all met at the location, and I was given out writing paper, and I wondered somewhat listlessly in our centralized location called The Atrium, The Atrium is part of the Arts and Journalism building located at Ball state University in Muncie, Indiana. I sat in a section where there were some couches and some tables that are located right outside the coffee shop.
I was there a little past the noon hour so the place was packed. I remembered the last time that I was there and I fought back some bittersweet memories and I tried to focus on the task at hand before me.
I sat at a table…a table with three other empty chairs and I was transports to the time I was In some café in Berlin whose name I had long forgotten.
I was told that in Europe it was common for people who did not know one another to share a table together and it just reinforced my fleeting felling of loneliness when I realized that throughout my entire time of taking my notes for this paper, no one sat at that table with me. I wondered why that was so? ‘Is it because I’m a black guy?’ ‘maybe it’s because I’m older?’…’is it because I’m a big guy?’ I didn’t really know. Pushing back those questions and getting to the task at hand, I opened my mind to whatever that would catch it.
To my right I quickly noticed that there was this very small group of girls. They were sitting at the table that was joined to the one that I was sitting in. They were young, and I’d say no more than twenty-three years of age All of them were white, and I would say that from there appearance that they were from a solid middle-class background. From the rapid way that they were all talking it was very hard for me to focus on what they were saying without appearing to be listening to their conversations. Remember that there was a lot of noise in the room! Needless to say from there facial expressions and they body language I quickly surmised that they were talking about nothing in particular. From there incessant and seemingly needless chatter I called them my ‘gaggle of geese!’
It is amazing that how a simple thing such as sitting with people can trigger memories in ones brain. How well I remembered the time when seemingly a few short years ago I was with my friends—the few that I bothered to call friends! How often I remembered the times that we were just hanging out talking about nothing in particular. But times change and people for various reasons leave and change. We all tend to look back on a particular time that has passed in our life and realized that though those memories that we had during that stretch were good times! When one looks back on memories such as that its always accompanied with a longing for seemingly more simpler times. So I looked on them with a twinge of melancholy and bemusement. During my short time at the table I was able to catch some of their conversation. And what I hear is not enough to mention on this paper, but it was enough to confirm my original judgment.
I noticed a woman playing a piano to my left a few yards away from me. Now remember that this room was packed with people, the TV’s in the room were on and they just added to the dull wave of unfocused sound that was in the room. I tried to focus in on her like one would try to focus in on a movie in your family room and everyone is talking at the same time! I deemed her to be interesting, along with the handsome man who wondered about aimlessly trying to look busy cleaning up. That cute looking guy is just a reminder of an echo of the memory that is constantly in the background of my mind.
I never found out the name of that black woman who sat at that piano that day all I knew is that when I first looked at her I took her to be an athlete, she was wearing sweat pants and other lose clothing. She was tall and thin, I would say lanky. Her hair was under a hat, and she wore glasses.
The reasons why she stood out in my mind so much is this: she was playing the piano in a crowded room. She was alone. She had to at least had some experience playing a piano somewhere in her life because you just don’t walk into a room and play on some instrument that you have needed played before! I wondered if she was comfortable in her solitude as I was with my loneliness?
Why did she come here of all places to play? There are dozens of practice rooms inside the music buildings with the same type of piano, why couldn't she play there? What were her motives? She was playing alone, and all the time that I observed her nobody said hello to her. There seem to have not been a single person in that room that even bothered to say hello to her. Didn’t she know anyone in that room that day? I wondered why nobody didn’t say hello to her as they left the room. When a person tries to feed your soul should you not be thankful for at least the attempt, no matter how strong or feeble it may be? To this day I wondered if her attempt to bring some music in a room full of noise was all for nothing.
My eyes looked on the guy who is apparently a student worker, My Clark Kent I called him. I wonder what he was thinking about on that day? That handsome and seemingly quite guy did not talk to anybody in the room that day. There seemed to be not a single person in the room that he found worthy or instreting enough to nod his head and say the obligatory hello to.
In some ways I will sadly admit that my life in some ways was like this fellow. How many times have I’ve hoped to have someone—almost anyone to ask me a simple question ‘ how are you doing today?’ and mean it! I am not the only one who has thought this.
So I asked that question to myself, as I sat in a room full of people ‘ how are you today Robert?’ And my memory is once again activated to the time that I was last in this room.
The memory that haunts me being some two years before comes to the fore, and everything that seems disconnected seems to have some sort of representative connection. The memory that haunts me and that is connected to the piano women and my Clark Kent is this: his name was James and I met him though one of my choirs that I was singing in on campus. This was around 2003 and I was at the tail end of my coming out process. Up until that time in my life I simply did hid who I was, or at the very least come across being asexual. The reason for this is my surroundings. I am constantly around guys several years younger than I am. And who are generally smaller then I am. I am from a different race and an lower economic background, so I was not able to afford some of the things that the gay community here thought essential and therefore outclassed. So the naked questions I always asked myself are… Is it my race? Is if my age? Is it because I’m hopelessly unattractive? They all seem to come down with the same heart crushing judgment. That you’re simply not good enough to have anyone!
These are great hindrances that I cannot seem to completely overcome. If I’m not careful these questions that were born out of dysfunction of families and of people these questions can control my life if I let them. There is no escaping it. I can look at anybody and see that are asking the same basic questions that I have too often lived by.
I finally reached a point in my life where I thought I was worthy enough, and healthy enough to look for someone to share my life albeit it was a college setting and the very nature of college life that its transient and I knew that it would not last forever. But still I wanted it, I wanted what the people in that clamorous room wanted I wanted to live, and if you can’t love who you wish, how in the hell can you live?
James was my Clark Kent; he was a nerdy kid who liked music in all its incandescent forms. But like the piano women I did not notice his song, I was in a room full of life and all its noisy distractions and with its many gaggles of incessant demands of the obligations that I had to do in order to function. The first thing that made me aware of James –unlike the nameless and faceless piano women whose face I never did see, I noticed James eyes. When James focused his attention on me for the first time I could not tear myself from his eyes I felt like a deer in headlights. He just had a way of looking at me that stopped me in my tracks.
I remembered when I realized that a bond was there between James and me; we were sitting at the first floor of the library in a section full of people. I was in a room full of noise, but I did not hear any of it. There was no idle chatter between me and him nor did I let outside distractions get in the way of the connection that I was trying to establish. I first thought that all might be well, and I looked forward to proudly having a statues that so many of my gay friends had taken for granted I Robert Hughes was no longer single.
But all was not well in the land of Smallville. James had other distractions that he was paying far more attention to other then me.
The last person that I took notice in the room that day was a man around my age carrying a bible, so I took him to be a part of the Christian Campus Minstery that they have here at Ball State. The man was talking with someone about two table ahead of me ‘Doing his job and saving souls’ I said to myself as I looked intently at the piano women.
You see James was a religious person and some would say religious to a fault and the face that he was attracted to me was sheer agony for him. He could not find the peace that he wanted—the connection that he needed to be with his god and to be with me could not be balanced. The noise in his room gave him no peace, and with every brief physical encounter I had with him that noise turned into a roar. He finally turned away from me and got himself a girlfriend and eventually a wife.
The relationship that I thought I had was no real relationship at all. My final fear was realized …that I was just not worth being around. And those painful questions came back with a vengeance.
Billie Holiday sings a song called I’m a Fool To Want You. I sometimes wondered if I was a fool to try to love something so unsteady. During James final weeks on campus before he graduated we sat in that very room where the piano was in, only nobody was playing it during our time that we spent together. There in that room we talked about things we talked about our relationship and about the disappointing decisions that life dictated we both had to make and some small talk to try to put a smile on this painful chapter of our lives.
It was one of the hardest things that I ever done. My mind was out of tune; my heart was playing some jangled discords of the pain of being rejected—for a woman no less!
Those scars will always be with me, but the pain is far less potent then it was. The outside noise of life has only made me stronger and wiser. I took one final look around in that room before I walked out and as I looked with wonder of the life that was in that room on the day I made my observation. I wondered about the people that I observed. The noise of life is deafening and I wonder do they really hear each other. Are they paying attention to each other? Can a person play a piano and still be heard? Can they play and not be afraid that they will make mistakes? Can one offer a helping hand and help someone clean up the mess that one occasionally makes of one’s’ life? Can a room be filled with beautiful people? Do you know a person that you have looked straight in the eye and can say truthfully ‘thank you for playing, I hear your music and I appreciate you and I think it’s great! I wonder……

To A Man Who Has Loved. (From the Document of Affections)

To a Man who has Loved?

To a man who has loved.

To a man who will love.

What a blessed thought!

What a keen mind!!

Whose shoulder that I tap so gently.... To the hand that cresses my neck.

Share a thought?

sharing thoughts, a whisper?....and a breath.

Blissful thought! Spare.... but punish me!

I see you in that day! That night In the corner of the doorway!

To a man who has loved...

Ah to have loved good things!

Be content !!!

You are beside me!...

To my right?...

To my left?.....

You are above me, you are never below me.

To a man who has loved!

In the light?... In the dark?.....

On high noon,... On a full moon. To someone who will love . Can they...How much more?...

Can there be any less?

To a man who has loved..... and to someone who will love?

24/7!

Copyright 2000

On Turning 30.

A score of years and one decade is all that makes up this number.
The number in and of itself is meaningless.
For what was done in those years is of great import!
??......What was done?
One could live a long and filling life at this age and die content.
Or one could wake up at the age of 30 woes eyes are just starting to open…Can he die in peace?The dumb can become wise, But what about the one who has a small bit of wisdom? What of him at this age?
Can more wisdom yet be gained?
Happy is the person who turns this age and who is awake!
Good shall be his reward!
Dear Reader I am that score and decade old,
I have not called myself wise, That is from the mouths of others.
Living in the now,
I have no concern as to what will become of me when the sun rises over distant days unknown to me.
In the now, there is no need for such concern.
On turning 30 that age can mean a lot…30 years of jail…30 years of freedom.
Turning 30 can mean a lot,
But it can also mean nothing!

Remembrance.

Remembrance

Remember what was and what could have been.

If by chance you ever think of me one fact should come to pass...

That I loved you dearly.

And paid that price…I forgot to count the cost!

In your searching eyes

In your long fingers….In your voice….

If by chance you think of me one fact should come to pass though your mind.

That I will remember you!

Dear God! Let me not forget what was taught to me!

Let me count the cost!

In baffled fellings, in crushed hopes, but in new dawns.

This is the ending of this chapter, things will pass away.

It never came to being!... how foolish my heart was!

Ah!! My longing eyes!

My empty hands!

My silent voice!

Be Gone!

Be gone my heart!

Remember me Dear One.

For I loved you!

Think of it!... How rare that saying is!

I’ll remember you when you have gone away…you to....Remember Me.

Copyright © 2005 Robert Hughes III. All Rights Reserved

The Debriefing...

The debriefing 1…
This is a REFLECTION on my first assignment, the Literacy Narrative
I liked this assignment! I found it enjoyable to go back and to put to writing my personnel feelings about literacy and reading. I work that I’m handing in is a work in progress..the one thing that I need the most in this class in personnel commitment , and the total willingness to see all the writings that I’m engaged in to see them though completion. I do not know if I should expand on this and use it in my portfolio or not. I might use the theme from this paper in an upcoming assignment.
One of the problems that I have with writing assignments in general is the notion of the required amount of pages that one has to write in order to satisfy said English professor, sometimes I only have a short amount to write with and I fell that if I write anymore I’m just B.S.’ ing , but this may not be the time to bring this up so I’ll drop this for now!
If I had to give myself a grade I would say that I would have a D+ maybe C-.

My First entry

Hello my friends this is my first entry of a wonderful journey. This blog will be use for some class projects and for my writing poems. I might consider using this for my journal. Of course when people ‘journal’ online they do so from the perspective that an audience will be reading it, and in my opinion that is not an honest entry because the persons true feelings are not written down in fear of offending someone! So I might do that…we shall see!