March 7, 2005

Hallmark Card Trick

By Tony Brown

No offense intended, but love poems ought to occasionally take a slight detour from well worn ways, don’t you think?

This love will be
forever devoid
of hearts, falling stars,
the sea, the moon,
honey, and moist skin;

for this love is good with ketchup,
vinegar tang on tongue,
shaded far past deep blush,
coating us, rare and red,
perfectly.

Some love
smiles like chintz
and curves gently like paisley,
but this love is burlap
against our asses where we’ve
fallen down half naked on the
warehouse floor and gotten so dirty
it stinks just to be near us —
but we make it again just to be sure.
And then, this love’s
a washing machine
that churns and brings forth spic and span
returning us, cycle after cycle,
to almost good as new.

This love swallows us.
It is no fist sized organ
but a throat that goes
as deep as a whole body goes.
This love’s a pipeline
that ends in
the Mojave Desert. This love
spills out, dries out, blows around,
stings the eyes, gets into everything.

It’s a dustbowl love,
clouds against daylight,
and no moon in sight to break the darkness
around us, thank sweet Christ;

no one can recognize it,
no one can see us well enough
to even try to take it away.

About Tony Brown

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A poet with a history in slam, lots of publications; my personal poetry and a little bit of daily life and opinions. Read the page called "About..." for the details. View all posts by Tony Brown
This entry was posted on Monday, March 7th, 2005 at 1:07 am and posted in uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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