Month: November 2014

love's condition

Love’s Condition

Innocent-love is cursed with lack of sight;
and so, through blind-faith puts good-sense aside.
Long suffering-love imagines what might
have been; thus, emptiness is justified.
Blinded-love will abandon dignity,
it will forsake its need for nourishment;
and so deluded-love craves eternity.
Despite no promise, nor encouragement,
this kind-love, this gullible-emotion,
submits wholly to offers of affection;
and so, is diminished through devotion
to a cause that offers no protection:
. Love’s condition: in disarray, in parts;
. no position to counsel broken hearts.

© Tim Grace, 31 August 2011

To the reader: How often do we see common-sense overwhelmed by a good-cause? Humans, by nature, are emotionally driven. Our first reaction is to feel then respond with an after-thought. Strong emotions can render our thoughts powerless; defenceless and in disarray. Love, of all emotions, has the power to blind-side a rational mind. Love at first-sight … was the last thing she saw.

To the poet: This sonnet, with all its clunky phrasing, is gasping for breath. In an act of resuscitation it’s been given a second-life numerous times; and still it rattles. Punctuated with stops and starts; hyphenated with dots and dashes; ventilated with intensive care. High-dependency on specialist-care is not a good sign for lasting success; this love-sick sonnet limps between treatments.

 

love's condition love’s condition

 

attraction

Attractions

Love is prone to the pull of attractions;
beguiled by sight and a theatre of thoughts;
enamoured by touch and aroused reactions;
exposed to the pleasure of seductive sports.
Too easily flattered by beauty’s praise
love shines meekly through an innocent veil.
And through naive nuance sweet love displays
how subtle twist becomes a sordid tale.
Too eager to feel the stroke of success
love craves the press of an amorous hand;
the nonchalant nudge, the carefree caress
that stokes an embered fire; fuelled and fanned.
. Love unprotected is in poor defence…
. too easily subjected to false pretence.

© Tim Grace, 29 August 2011

To the reader: Love like gravity is an attractive force. And there begins a very short lesson on what physics calls the fundamental forces; four in total, with a fifth being pondered. Gravity is one of two universal forces that can be perceived in our daily interactions with the environment. The fundamental interaction of objects takes place on a dynamic field. As one object interacts with the field others respond to its changing influences; drawn to its impression.

To the poet: The gullibility of love as a weak agent is an irresistible theme; an attraction too hard for most poets to resist. We watch and then describe love’s vulnerability in terms that reflect one emotional influence over another. The lure of love draws heavily on a willing soul; and there seems little a poet can do to detach himself from the strong tug of pen to page.

 

attraction attraction

 

as of now

As of now

Love, as of now, attached to living flesh;
at end, all but fixed to an epitaph.
Love, as of now, tender, ever fresh;
at end, has refuge in a photograph.
What then, says this, of love’s enduring state:
love, so exposed, will weather and degrade?
What then, says this, of love’s most fragile state:
love, so exposed, will but wither and fade?
Surely love, at end, has a greater role:
love can not be fixed to paper or stone?
Surely love, at end, is spirit and soul:
love can not be to the elements thrown?
. Love, as of now, leaves a gape in thinking.
. Love’s fulfilment needs no earthly linking.

© Tim Grace, 25 August 2011

To the reader: Love in all its forms is an emotional transaction; an exchange of spiritual relationships. Being such, we all-too-clever humans have built ‘love’s transaction’ into a thriving economy. At every opportunity we translate love into a material possession that can be mined for treasures, bartered for business, and stolen for stealth. At death, we are then confronted with love’s material redundancy; paper fades and stone erodes… love endures.

To the poet: Half way through Shakespeare’s sonnets, it’s clear the writer’s having issues with fatigue. Love’s pen is flaccid. Whether, at this stage, he knew he was half-way through the collection is unknown; nonetheless, he was doubting the sharpness of his quill. It’s in this section of the Sonnets that the narrator is most exposed to his various demons: he confronts his virility and concedes his wilting wit; unable to write of fresh love in his once so youthful voice.

as of now as of now

 

 

afterward

Afterwards

Afterwards, when there’s nothing of him left
but a bag of bones in compounded clay,
he asks that we not mourn, or moan bereft,
as if scripted tight to a tragic play.
We are not to revisit memories
that through dredging would have our grief resumed.
We are not to resurrect miseries,
not to raise from earth all his bones exhumed.
Let his body go, let it rot in peace;
it wasn’t love got buried in this soil.
Love shall not perish, decay or decrease;
be content that all things but love will spoil.
. Love can not be buried six foot under;
. likewise, decomposed or split asunder.

© Tim Grace, 23 August 2011

 

To the reader: Everlasting love; enduring love; love forever more. The possibility of remembrance beyond now. Appreciation as a welcome after thought that heartens the spirit of forgotten souls. Love, an essence so delicate in life, so enduring beyond the grave. In loving memory, we release the body of its burden and for eternity seek ever-lasting peace and resolution.

To the poet: There is a passage of Shakespeare’s sonnets (about 64 to 78) devoted to the potential of endless love. Afterwards – beyond images and artefacts; beyond graveyards and compounded clay ‘my spirit is thine, the better part of me’ (Sonnet 74). After words – ‘remember not the hand that writ it’ (Sonnet 71) for I am gone in all but spirit and soul. In his instructions to the living he implores release: let me go, let me pass… let me free.

 

afterwards

afterwards