Dear Brain
There was a milkman, a curly-haired, chubby-faced fellow who might, to the casual onlooker, have seemed twenty when he must really have been sixty at least. He was that kind of person. Age, it would seem, made little impression upon him. Your father had known him for years, or so he used to say, which means the man might have been eighty. His fountain of youth was his whistling. First thing in the morning, after the cocks had crowed and the last of the rooks had flown, his exhilarating serenading could be heard as he cycled upon his round.
What a happy man he must have been! He never whistled a drab melody. He excelled at the stirring march and he would empty his heart to nurture the sweet chords of love which he warbled, free of charge, morning after morning for all and sundry.
Dour veterans of the marital confrontation relented and turned in their beds to celebrate sweet sessions of amorous rapture and all because of this incidental input. The morning was transformed into a backdrop for his princely rendition. He contributed more to the rescue of foundering marriages than any human intermediary could ever hope to, and not unwittingly, I might add.
It often seemed to us lips that he was transported here from some heavenly sphere for no other purpose than the upraising of downcast hearts. How I secretly yearned that you, one day, would purse us into an instrument which would fritter away depressions and upraise the human spirit to its loftiest pinnacles!
Surely the pipings of that dear departed milkman had their roots in his immortal soul and yet it was the orifice of the contracting lips that modulated and measured the bewitching torrent of empyreal sonority which charmed and delighted all those fortunate enough to be within earshot. We, too, might have attained to such fluency had you but persevered after your early failures. There wasn’t a child in the street who did not try to emulate that milk-carrying maestro.
We remember once of an icy morning how he fell from his rickety bicycle, spilling the contents of both his pails and breaking two front teeth into the bargain. Poor fellow, his lips were brutally lacerated. The tears formed in his eyes as the white streams of freshly-drawn milk coursed irredeemably towards the nearest channel, but how quickly he transformed misfortune into triumph.
Supporting himself on his right knee and placing his left hand over his breast he pursed his shattered lips, oblivious to the agonising pain. Then, extending his right hand to his invisible public, he gave the performance of his life. That redition of ‘At the Balalaika’ was the performance for which he would always be remembered. Not even the combined efforts of Nelson Eddy and Ilona Massey in their illustrious heydays succeeded in wringing such total ecstasy from this immortal lovesong. Long before he finished, the underemployed lips of that once dreary street were never so utilised in pursuit of loving fulfilment, and to think that it was a simple pair of mutilated lips which created the mouthpiece through which this masterpiece was delivered. For the listening lovers in the silent houses it was a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Some had never even dreamed of aspiring to such unprecedented ecstasies. Remember, their moment came only after years of waiting. If the world and its people could only wait long enough everybody would, eventually, be kissed by someone, be loved by someone.
However, we lips were not designed for whistling alone. On a more realistic level we accurately direct the airflow that cools the steaming soup, the scalding tea, the gum-blistering stew. Alternatively, we warm the freezing fingers with the comforting breath, but it is at kissing that we excel.
Kissing can be a precarious business, as many a rueful participant will verify. We were designed to kiss and we are capable of producing a true multiformity of kisses. Our kisses may be blown and wafted from our pouting embouchure by the eyes or by the hands, but the imposition of lip upon lip conceals more hazards than thin ice on a bottomless lake.
Lips love to kiss but we also kiss to love and this must never be forgotten by those who would recklessly disburse kisses at every hand’s turn. ‘A kiss on the brow for the dead we loved,’ your late and pious father used to say. ‘A kiss on the cheek for a friend but a kiss on the lips,’ quoth he, ‘is the most imponderable of all propositions and should never be undertaken lightly, especially by those who foolishly presume they are fully aware of the dangers involved.’
In its own time and in its own place and in conditions blessed by love the kiss will melt the icicles of frigidity and replace the pinched cheek with the amorous suffusion. Of all the earth’s moistures there is none so delicate as that of the lips nor can the subtlest velvet match their smoothness of texture. When poised to kiss there are no dewier petals on land or sea.
We, your very own lips, are ambassadors from the court of true love and deserve the respect and deference which are the dues of all accredited envoys. Sully us not by debasement or defilement and do not ever shape us for the spit of ridicule, foulest of all human ejaculations; neither pout us for the contemptuous grin but be aloof and restrained so that we may buttress your dignity and beautify your wrinkling face.
Be not an imitator of posterior wind-breaking but whistle cheerfully in the dark for the benefit of those who may be affrighted. We have served you well and will continue to serve but we are a sensitive pair and would remain pursed rather than be party to grins and grimaces which may hurt another.
You have, alas, imposed us on the lips of females we would rather have shunned and disgraced us by not imposing the gentlest and sweetest of kisses upon the fair face and virgin lips of the lovely Lily Lieloly. Still and for all we are prepared to light for you the golden lamp of love, preserving its mellow glow through all your days and nights and trimming it to last your fretful pace till the final Amen is murmured!
In your lifetime, dear brain, you have kissed far and wide. Be thankful for your share and pity the lips starved of kisses. How goes it in the ancient ballad:
’Tis I my love sits on your grave,
And will not let you sleep
For I crave one kiss of your cold, cold lips
And that is all I seek.
Yes indeed; that is all he sought, poor fellow, and you who are blessed with a living wife and who knows not the pain of loss may kiss when you choose and yet would kiss elsewhere and put your lips for auction to the first bidder. You remind me of the improvident mule who vacates a barely nibbled pasture for the promise of sweeter clover behind the next hill, but then, in matters hymeneal, you could never see the wood for the trees. Would you had piped sweetly but once in your lifetime rather than the chirpings cheap and lewd wasted upon the passing lass. Unmusical and unromantic crow, you never turned a solitary female head whereas the true whistler serenading from his soul wooed the delicate ear and won the most precious heart. We, your lips, are God-given and whether we pout, whistle or kiss, we remain yours to do with as you will, but we would beseech you to employ us in order to issue the sweet whisper rather than formulate the braggart shout which shatters the female ear and dispatches discord like a raging fever through your house and every house.
The sweet whisper is the very distillation of love’s gentle presence and we would have you know that we have responsibility for the processing and distribution of all whispers, sweet and secret, long and short; therefore, engage us unreservedly in this respect and you will be as well rewarded as we will be fulfilled. Where shouting, threats and posturings fail, a whisper carefully wrought and intimately delivered by the lips will always succeed. When our modifying sensitivity is bypassed by the shout and the scream respect is shattered and civility dies.
Look to your lips, dear brain, and the harmony that is absent from your life shall be implanted. We shall infuse in you the fire that shines through the spirit of love and when we part there shall be revealed for the first time the smiles of which you were always capable but never uncovered to a world in dire need of a produce so refined. We should, perhaps, now draw to a close. We look forward to better times and to remaining firmly closed in the face of unjust criticism and broadsides of a malicious nature.
Sincerely
Your Lips