Weekly Poems: A Political Poem and More

UTOPIANS ARE UNREPENTANT MONSTERS

Utopians are unrepentant monsters.
The perfect is the perfect rationale.
O send us serial killers, rapists, gangsters,
Preferably to “should” becoming “shall”!
In those who seek to make their visions real,
A rage becomes the furnace of their zeal;
Nor can they love, who would impose their will,
Sure enough of paradise to kill.

IN LEAVING YOU, I TURNED AWAY FROM PASSION

In leaving you, I turned away from passion
So that my conscience still might spare my heart.
Though paradise has never been my fashion,
I cannot stand your pain now we're apart.
Love does not leave when it is bid farewell,
Looking back to wave one last goodbye.
Love stays, though vow and circumstance compel
One to ignore its unrepentant cry.
Vases hold the loveliest of flowers
Even as they open, bloom, and fade;
You and I must hold our sweetest hours,
Of hope and need and fierce, fierce pleasure made,
Until they vanish in the darkening shade.

LOVE LINGERS IN THE ALLEYWAYS

Love lingers in the alleyways
And wafts across the streets,
And knocks upon my double doors
But never does come in.

Love finds a home in entranceways
And rattles round retreats,
And scurries past the faint applause
Just two doors down from sin.

Ah! Would I love would I but know
What love might have in store!
For I have fears of heavy chains
That jangle in my joy.

And I have fears of floods that flow
From asking life for more.
Silent, I prefer the gains
Such tempests would destroy.

HER LIFE WAS NOT AS GLORIOUS AS SOME

Her life was not as glorious as some,
Devoted to her children and their children,
Taken up by quiet tedium:
What's left when dreams are scattered to the wind.
She loved too well, perhaps, and fought too hard
To make a marriage work that wasn't right.
She was, of all bright loveliness, a shard
Struck off to bring our lives the gift of light.
There are those whose lives are shaped by love;
Whose pleasures, rich and full, are found in giving;
Who make our wild hearts bloom and passions move
Into measured fields made lush by living.
Without her all the gold's gone from the day;
She will be missed far more than we can say.

I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M MARRYING/ MY GRANDMA'S PAPER BOY

I can't believe I'm marrying
My grandma's paperboy!
She said that you were "dreamy"
And the sort I would enjoy.

My grandma! Well, I humored her
And took a look at you,
And saw, those many years ago,
That what she said was true.

But not so fast, because we lived
A continent apart,
And were too young to comprehend
The wisdom of the heart.

We needed time to grow into
The truth that we had seen,
And let some others stampede through
The years that came between.

But Grandma always said that you
Were just the one for me,
And now we are all gathered here
To publicly agree!

How often can we say that love
Was truly at first sight?
But since I first laid eyes on you,
I've known Grandma was right!

PLEASE DON'T MIND IF I MAKE LOVE TO YOU

Please don't mind if I make love to you
Imagining another in my arms.
No one special - anyone will do
Whose claims have not yet sanitized her charms.
Lust loves not love, but finds its joy in power:
To stir someone to sunlit ecstasy;
To purchase someone's person by the hour;
To force the flesh to yield the fantasy.
Love loves not lust, but finds its joy in giving:
Pleasure, yes, but passion slowly fades.
Affection, yes, but one needs more from living:
The knife-sharp edge of lust that love betrays.
Give then, my love, the flesh that spurs the dream,
As I for you, that lust might love redeem.

SINGING AT THE CENTER OF YOUR SOUL

Singing at the center of your soul,
Long may you dance across your inner stage,
Regarding neither rectitude nor rage,
Pursuing neither destiny nor goal.

Suffering is nothing but the road:
You, the traveler, are sheer delight,
A little wisp of lovely, lilting light
Torn from a joy that pain cannot corrode.

Be, then, whatever person time will tell.
Do what reason and the heart deem good.
Take whatever will or fortune would,
Always west of heaven, east of hell.

Within, you are more beautiful than you
Can ever comprehend, though you can feel
A wonder and a passion that are real,
Wandering like a wind through what you do.