“Annal” Loving…

Let’s take a trip through time. Throughout the annals of history, very few poets have been able to capture and contain the raging emotions and passion that explode within the human spirit in love. The task is elusive, whether in paint or stone, or in the form of words and song. So few in fact have achieved this feat, that when one is successful, the ramifications of their verse and song reverberates through history and exists profoundly in the soul of man, passing down from generation to generation via some genetic osmosis that I have not the vocabulary to describe.

The Greek poetess Sappho (600 B.C.) crafted fiery odes to both her male and female love interests. In the 1700’s Jean-Paul Martini and Jean Pierre Claris de Florian wrote “Plaisir D’Amour”, a poetic lament about a love gone asunder. The Isley Brothers “In Between the Sheets” used literal and metaphoric references to make young lovers engage in steamy embraces and baby-making antics. R. Kelly’s allegorical “You Remind me of my Jeep” took the affinity for cool rides and hot girls to uncharted dimensions in the 90’s.

Then along came the 2010’s and a new epoch of love and expression was achieved when poet Mike Schatz penned his now infamous ode to unbridled passions. “Rusty Trombone” is a sweet, thick-country melody about an act of love, that transports virgin ears to the peak of “freakdom”. No ode, limerick, haiku, poem or song ever in the history of language expresses the untameable desire to “get it in” like this.

Mike Schatz- for Saint-hood.