So my friend,
Kathryn Esplin-Oleski, asked an interesting, yet simple question in her
Wednesday Writing Essentials group on gather.com: What inspires you? Granted, I find inspiration in many
things— nature, life, death, human nature —but I'd be incredibly negligent if I didn't mention Camille. I wrote before I met Camille, but I was no writer. I met Camille at a low point in my life. My mother had died the year before, and my relationship with my now-ex-wife had completely unraveled. Essentially, I had become a nihilist—I didn't believe in Life, Love, God, and most importantly, Myself.
I'll save the whole story for another time, but Camille helped me to see that I didn't have to settle for being an "anything" who wrote, but that I could be a writer who could do anything. She inspired me to apply to art school, and helped me be disciplined enough to
actually get in. She inspired the first big burst of creativity in my adult life, and so much more. I readily admit that had she not come into my life, the paths I was capable of following would have been frightening & dangerous.
She also inspired the following poem, among plenty others:
A Woman's Kiss
There is something that lives
in a woman's kiss
behind the pleasure
of her lips slipping
against mine
sof' friction awakening
the beast in the soul
It is something to know
how a woman tastes
tongue touch tongue
soul touch soul
impossible
to better comprehend
anyone
to reveal yourself
naked to her palate
pure
It was a kiss that made me
a kiss that destroyed me
a kiss that consoled me
a kiss that controlled me
but only one kiss to save me:
the one from those
little lollie lickin' lips
that let the sun rise
once again
on this languid life
and left me lost
to anything less
than our destinies
intertwined
like the ideal
lustful lingering loving
kiss
Some of you may remember this poem from the first time I posted it on MySpace, but perhaps Camille will put it into better perspective.
photo: Camille & I at the opening of her first showing at the Baltimore Museum of Art: Looking Through the Lens, courtesy of BmoreArt.