Love’s
Old
Sweet
Song
Love is gentle, love is kind,
love is all things positive;
love can devastate the mind,
vaporize the will to live.
Would Jack and Jill be mad about
themselves absent their gnarly hill?
Would love be love at all without
its coiled, embrangled codicils?
Love’s unrequited, to take
the common case to be the whole:
one oblivious to the ache
that permeates the other’s soul,
a torture reason doesn’t ease,
that logic’s powerless to move;
it's one of love’s vagaries
that only Darwin could approve.
But lightning strikes. People do
meet, and do reciprocate
affection all the time, it’s true;
then they re-evaluate
relationships already sealed,
weigh the pain of leaving with
the anguish yet to be revealed,
the dismal facts against the myth.
Catastrophe in Camelot
could have been avoided had
not Guinevere and Lancelot
usurped the love their vows forbade.
Think of Helen and her boy,
the city sacked, the useless dead;
they traded happiness for joy,
got love’s choruses instead.
And then there are the noble souls
who do resist the sirens’ song;
they learn to sleep on glowing coals
but rarely hold out very long.
Resistance only makes it worse;
passion waxes when denied.
Love has methods to coerce
nobility dissatisfied.
The only mystery is why:
clearly, love’s a losing game.
Ask the pretty butterfly
about the flower in the flame.
8 comments:
Another great peom John - I think I can safely call you prolific. Thanks for the link :)
Love is such a hard subject to write about - you've really done it some justice here - and I like the blue.
It all feels terribly slow to me, Pisces. I just try to make some progress every day, however little. But I suspect you know this...
It's true, Cailleach. Everything you say about it can be immediately contradicted, with perfect justification. But thank you.
I do think the blue is easier on the eyes, especially if you surf by night, as I do now, if I can do it at all.
Should we try to touch the intangible, reason with the most reasonable thing we have? Our apple would be bitter without love at the core.
No argument from me on that score, Minx, but our eyes should be open. It's well known that the only thing worse than finding a worm in an apple is finding half a worm.
Ah, you old cynic you.
By the way, if you find half a worm in your apple, then you know you've had your protein for the day.
That's looking on the bright side, Abs.
Glass is always half full, Carver ;-)
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