Poetry (The Love)

I read a lot of poetry,
and always seem to gravitate
toward the same one

about lost love, unrequited
love, deep-in love, hope-for
love, falling-in love,

forbidden love, lust-disguised-
as love, wearing-out-of love,
and I-love-love love.

For Su it is Foreign Languages
Neruda it is I do not love you …
and, also, If You Forget Me,

Jong is After the Earthquake,
Lovespell: Against Endings,
and Climbing You,

I Carry Your Heart by Cummings,
Litany by Billy Collins,
and Jukebox Lovesong by Hughes.

Then, of course, who can forget
Elizabeth Bishop with her One Art,
and Love Letter by Sylvia Plath?

I always seek out the love,
when nothing ever seems to last;
I always seek out the love …

That is why I wonder,
even as I sit here now,
if maybe I should write

more of culture, the world,
abortion, abuse, misuse,
wars, gardens, buildings,

feminism, machismo, and food.
I wonder as wonder-ers often do,
turning it over and over,

already armed with the answer.
Maybe it is simply me,
and I am simply uninteresting

because I can’t bring my pen
to write about fruit and,
instead, romanticize the juice.

I wonder what makes a poet,
what causes me this burning,
so often hidden from sight?

I wonder, “Why me?”,
and what this need really means.
Hopeless romantic, dim child?

I hope not.  I hope it
makes me, while not more,
maybe brighter, somehow.

Not silly, or foolish, or
naive … absurd, daffy,
sappy, screwball, kooky,

looney, brainless, or unwise …
but that it makes me, instead,
(somehow) a combination of a few.

(Silly in my foolish happiness.
Absurd in my kooky laughter.
Sappy when anchored alongside.)

I think with these thoughts,
still knowing this is not for
only me to try and define.

Love seems to now mean so little,
fidelity kept by so rare and so few.
Love should still matter!

(Maybe now more than ever.)
I guess this is why I read poetry,
why I write, why I romanticize

my way through writing, self, life.
Love should still matter!
Yes, I guess that is why …

© – SKK