Discourse on Love

Gathered up all the love
I’d previously rejected
pulled it to me
like a well-worn cloak
Imagined the comfort
such a vibration would bring
oblivion amounting to bliss

But love –
my interpretation of it –
does not nullify pain
And I writhed in its intensity
pain physically ingrained
burdened by memories

How can this be? I cried
In darkness I turned to love
projected nirvana
uncovered such an ache

Rejection, I surmise
allots protection
Love reveals
source of suffering
depth of denial
neglect of self

I’ve conjured only what-ifs
and could-have-beens
deluded attempts at restoration

Love does not dwell
in fantastical places
but here, in the moment,
when wide-eyed, I embrace
what is, walls down
vulnerability inviting compassion.

(Art mine)

Labour

Extract the miracle
from the celebrated

Each story is lifeless
until told – its patterns

Stubborn, are innate –
We all crave renewal

I crave renewal
arms extended
fists unfolded

Believe in will –
the power to breathe life
into inert corners

Does not life support us?
Is not consciousness infinite?
and the divine patient?

Yesterday, I gave up
resigned myself to failure
(It’s a joke I play on myself)

This soul labours to find meaning
and I will breathe life into form
until quitting time finds me cleansed.

(Art my own)

Doctoring

Doctoring broken hearts –
my own legacy a training ground –
like an anesthesiologist

I keep the patient breathing,
asleep – muted by kindness,
unconscious and unable to react.

Why?

Because lulling others is more
effective than operating on self –
faux obligations such a balm

Administer lidocaine to the wounds
Numbness preferable to open-hearted
investigation…

no sutures strong enough
to remedy internal bleeding

(Art my own)

Facades

Somehow I knew his mask was porcelain –
impossible to hide the soul’s light
reflected in troubled eyes…

I played along though,
humoured his self-deception
nodded at assertions of calm

Knew that one day the facade would crack
the mask would slip and the rage escape

Why I didn’t run; I do not know
Maybe it was recognition –
my own countenance a carefully construed lie

Maybe I needed to prove to myself
that no matter how violent his storm
this time I would emerge triumphant.

(Poem inspired by Sadje’s What Do You See image prompt.)

Hiss

Wrapped in reptilian attire, change
climbs aboard my well-intentioned scheme
like a boa constrictor – disarming me

I am more inconvenienced than repulsed –
after all, snake is my power animal,
Or so the seer said…many years ago

Days when I would wear the scaly
comportment of power – invite
transformation- my essence a seeker

But I am trying to settle here –
embrace age and its complications
and yet the serpent persists

Sibilance insisting on co-navigation-
and what will be the outcome, I wonder
if I were to surrender to such a calling?

Change does not heed our fears,
our ego-driven agendas…
It bears its fangs and taunts

I exaggerate the threat, of course-
imagine being consumed or suffocated –
disregard the potential for healing

Have no time for reflection or pause –
the course is already set –
I hold on and feign control

(Art my own)

Beauty and the Beast Revisited

Met a bear who proclaimed himself to be a man;
knew the instant I spotted him – lumbering
gait approaching – that he was an animal,
feared for my safety, would have retreated

stayed at my mother’s side – sheltered in
familiarity – were I not so fixated on his
blatant woundedness. Sympathy blinding
sensibility, i listened, hypnotized

by the whiteness of his exposed skin –
wanted to believe the veracity of his
tales of conversion – could visualize
him sitting in church, imagine the

horror of the congregants melting,
as I was, into acceptance, drinking
in his words, hearts soaring at his
professed abstinence from sins

of the flesh; none of immune to
fairy-tale endings; faith above all.
Left the sanctity of mother’s fold;
followed him to his wooded lair;

read humility into his minimalist
housing, swept away his cobwebs
and my dreams, determined to
find fulfillment in domesticity.

The forest has it own story to tell –
nature does not lie – a beast does not
its essence forget, in time his true
temperament emerged, and I, lost

withered into a crumpled ball,
a wisp of a character, weakened,
disheartened; could not bend
myself to become either bear

nor Goldilocks; could not tame
his insatiable grumblings nor
abide long winters confined;
discovered too late the folly

of my girlish fantasies, learned
that sympathy did not beget love,
and denying instincts did not alter
the fact that a bear is not a man.

(Poem first appeared here April 2016. Couldn’t resist the accompanying image – photoshopped by yours truly)