On the Opposite of Love

Dedicated to Ted from New York who gave me the idea

Image Courtesy of NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Processing: Jonathan Lodge

The making of a poem is a strange experience. Sometimes it’s just a single phrase that gloms onto your inner ear and won’t let go until you work it into a poem. That’s what happened and I confess it took several attempts over several frustrating days to get to the version you see before you. Perhaps it needs another turning, but being of an impatient disposition, I am going to let it fly today. Bugger off darling; you’ve bothered me enough for now though I believe you were worth it…

THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE

….is not Hate

Though Hate is next to Haughty in my Dictionary of Slang &

Having pondered its true meaning

At length

In the pool

At night

I find

It is a dismal collection of disparate deplorable things

Like

The homeless in the parks

     The sudden deaths of young men

           The excess deaths ignored

                The bio-weapon labs denied

                      The official, continuing lies

                            The doctors who sell their souls

     The social justice warriors hurling

The woke cry bullies baying

The people averting their minds

The Science(™)

The War that is not ending

But above all

                                                                 General Indifference

I just want to have a happy life, they cry

That is the opposite of Love

I hear them

Who doesn’t want to be happy in America

That place where the people are expected to

Pursue Happiness as their patriotic due

But it’s no longer possible

For me and you

There’s too much dissolution and despair

The end of Empire seems near

I am not ready for it

It hurts to realize that the centre cannot hold

That we end not with a bang but

A collective whimper

But I can hope, can’t I

It may only be temporary

A lull between now and that next

Big thing

That period where out of paradox and pain

And angry iteration

Rises the Phoenix of a reborn nation

trusting in something innate

That is the opposite of Despair and Hate

I admit this would be a kind of miracle

but it could happen

If we but remember that Love

is not this single word

A poor servant that does not express

What we mean at all

It is insipid

Let us go and make a visit to

The places where Creation

in all its crazy excess

Breathes hard and labours to express

the World where

Agape and Eros are holding hands

dancing in Harmony

     beckoning us to witness

          the unfurling golden flower

               the perfect pink plumage of flamingos

                    the intimate Klimt Kiss

                         the majesty of the towering Totem Pole

     Beethoven’s Sonata #18

          Heart’s Stairway to Heaven

                     The sharp off beat of Flamenco

                          Haunting Delta Blues &

All of Bach & Mozart

Notre Dame

the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum

the Hagia Sophia

If we want we could find faith again

because you gotta serve Somebody

Might as well serve what they call

     The Ground of Being

which is

Nameless yet present

within Us

Always

      In All ways

Forever and ever

                      Amen