Friday 8 September 2023

Of love and other things

Like flowers crack open

the hearts of seeds,

love cracks open the heart! 

Who says beauty and suffering 

are antithetical! 


All the doorways to wisdom

that ever 

cracked open, 

growing up, 

would I ever forget the pain? 

The rain 

when it falls upon the cracked skin

of a scorched earth, 

the vapours that rise! 

The burns caused by passing clouds! 


The courage, 

the nerve, 

the strength it takes, 

to love the river, 

or the mountains, 

the beloved who's everything but home! 

The most natural of all loves, 

aren't ever the easiest! 

Are they? 


The blisters I got

walking barefeet, 

on a path that ends 

right before where you stand! 

The insufferable glory of the dawn of love

when all around is crumbling to dust, 

and you struggle to keep it together, 

all, everything 

that you've worked so hard to create, 

while your heart is bursting open 

at the seams, 

shattering into a million splinters, 

that tear through every layer

of your being, 

defeated and tired and bleeding inside, 

so much that you can actually smell the blood,

and the houses burning, 

and taste the smoke

on your bloodied lips, 

and you can hear 

the chains rattle, 

the bells tolling upon pronouncement, 

the gallows creaking to erection, 

.. and all the names you'd be called! 

So much for the beauty of the dawn of love! 

And to know 

that pain doesn't fly away on the wings of time, 

like you were told!  


If pain and helplessness

and dust and smoke and blood 

is all anti-poetry, 

so is love!


September the 8th, 2023

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