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The Cure
“Calling Major Tom--check ignition, and may God’s
love be with you.”--David Bowie.
Love is a chameleon.
It has many faces.
I love
my wife,
shooting pool,
my children,
chocolate,
my family,
strawberry sundaes,
my friends,
movies.
my planet,
rust on anything,
my self,
and starry nights.
Spiritually, we’ve been taught
to love our neighbor
and our fellow man/woman/person;
but the Mongols, the Romans, the Nazis
and have taught us
that hate and violence
can Trump love,
can stifle and cripple it.
Love is like a fragile flower.
Hate is like a very contagious disease,
spreading like a plague pandemic.
I feel like a caged bear
that is poked and prodded and starved,
who is expected to wear a clown hat
and perform tricks for the patricians.
So far I have learned to love
my chains, but not my tormenters.
Love resides within me,
housed in secret chambers.
It has a voice, and it illuminates
my soul. It tells me clearly
not to reciprocate the vitriol
from those brown shirts
and Tammany thugs
that presently people my sphere.
It informs and consoles me
that regardless of the fascist fusillades
and the populist puppet bombardments,
it will survive; further it will rise
like a rabid wildflower
ready to break through concrete,
with arms open and heart vulnerable.
Love most certainly is the antidote
that will heal a broken world;
something wholly true, tangible
and inevitable. I am prepared.
Are you?
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub
17 comments:
The last stanza says everything. It is enough.
No. I am most certainly not prepared. I am clueless about what to do. All I know is how to go by instinct, doing what feels natural in the way that I love. Unfortunately that changes from day to day and can leave those around me confused with their heads a mess. But I do my best.
You, Mister, are an extraordinary poet.
"rust on anything" ... I love that line!
Also these sections:
"I feel like a caged bear
that is poked and prodded and starved,
who is expected to wear a clown hat
and perform tricks for the patricians." ... Never never never should you have to do that. I can't handle rage from anyone but you; here, I kind of like it. Be the bear, Glenn.
"it will survive; further it will rise
like a rabid wildflower
ready to break through concrete,
with arms open and heart vulnerable" ... Yes! Bring it!!!
Nice lines: "Love resides within me,
housed in secret chambers.
It has a voice, and it illuminates
my soul."
I love your glorious message of love and hope Glenn. I believe it will rise like a rabid wildflower.
The Christmas definitely reminds us love is the answer to so many of the worlds ills. This too shall pass...
Yes, love is a force to be reckoned with!
i saw how you thumped and Trumped your way to vividly describe the antonym of love. and how love is the antidote. i am ready.
So many truths in this poem, Glenn, and I love the Major Tom reference. You are right when you write:
‘Love is like a fragile flower.
Hate is like a very contagious disease’.
We can love as much as we want in as many ways as we want but there is always someone out there is always someone out there ready to Trump it.
I love the lines:
‘Love resides within me,
housed in secret chambers.
It has a voice, and it illuminates
my soul’.
I am not sure I am prepared ... nor am I sure I won't leap into the fire of anger given the chance ... What is this immense psychic pressure we feel in a clangingly wrong world? And when someone throws the first stone, who's going to stop the hurricane that erupts? Love tempers the sulphur for now, but for how much longer? I pray for us all to keep founded and true.
..so far I have learned to love my chains..
what a glorious line. I believe i know what it means intimately- but didn't realize it even existed till I read it here.. Thank you.
"it will rise
like a rabid wildflower
ready to break through concrete,
with arms open and heart vulnerable." YES!
And thinking about today, our National Day of Mourning (actually I've been mourning since Nov 2016) - I can not imagine the strength it will take for President and Michelle Obama, President and Secretary Clinton, and Jeb Bush to sit with donald trump in the National Cathedral. On a positive note, my son-in-law, Kevin Siegfried, found out at about midnight last night that his composition, Lay Me Low, will be sung by the Air Force Chorale at HW's funeral service today. What an honor! I choose to focus on the beauty of his music rather than the presence of our current president at this service. Go to You Tube and then search for Kevin Siegfried, Lay Me Low and you can listen to it. It will calm your spirits....I feel we need that these days. (More of his wonderful compositions on his web site)
PS: So many kinds of love you have here.......LUV that you love rust and yourself too. And chocolate! :)
Love is the hardest thing to use... so easy to let other emotions take over. So from one point I'm ready, but I'm not sure that I can handle it.
Lovely, Lillian!
"So far I have learned to love
my chains, but not my tormenters."
I wonder if that is even a requisite to loving the latter? Perhaps we don't need to acquiesce to the boundaries built around us on all sides in order to exercise this greatest force and penultimate gift. To tell you the truth, I was raped by a stranger years ago, but I have forgiven my tormenter. There are residual effects to that fateful night and my mental capacity has suffered (chains) which I don't love and still hope for healing; but the process of forgiveness has taught me more about the gift of love and how to harness it sometimes and surrender to it at others. I sincerely hope that the man who raped me one day knows this love too.
A lot going on in this poem, Glenn, well crafted with a universal message...well done!
JIM
Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy
All you need is love...
I remember sitting in my living room watching on color TV, these four young gentlemen, arrayed in the colors of the rsinbow, immersed in a psychedelic wonderland, surrounding by the pop culture elite of the time, singing about love, me singing and believing right along - and all these decades later our country is ruled by abject hatred and evil... what the fuck is wrong with this picture?
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