HOW TO WRITE A LOVE POEM
gena radcliffe
Unrequited love is best
Good poetry is never borne of happiness
It feeds on your pain
Your pain burns like quicksilver lightning
Lightning, yes, use lots of metaphors for heat and light
Because no one else's love ever burned
Like yours, no one else ever felt the sting of it
Not as much as you do did ever have ever will always.
Since we'll never really experience it
Give us the privilege, make us touch it, taste it
Feel it for ourselves.
Talk about walking on razor blades
Chewing on broken glass
Lay your chest open like Iggy used to do at CBGB's
But of course, he only did it for sport, what a cool guy
You, you're really...serious...about...your...pain.
If, on the other hand, you choose to go the other route
The "love is gone" route, that's fine all the same
But the metaphors change
It's no longer heat and light but flesh and tongue
Because love is not love without sex
And sex is not sex without quivering blossoms
Bring us into the bed with you
Let us feel what you feel
We've never known the ache of pleasure
Or felt another's hands upon our skin
How lucky that we have you, oh Keeper of the Flame.
No torch ever burned brighter
No passion ever ran deeper
No one's anguish was ever misunderstood more
Because the first love is always the last love
And the best sex is always the wrong sex
What was had will never again be offered
And what was lost will never again be found.
Give us your tears, our shoulders are yours
And tell us what we'll never know.
gena radcliffe ©2003
