Wednesday 28 August 2019

A love poem, or a poem about love?



Imago

What one hopes for from love is discovery,
Not of the other, but of oneself:
Not a new self, rather something left on the shelf.
Love is rediscovery, a kind of vanity;
A rebirth of the imago that was held
Within ourselves, or that was shelled,

Discarded; the potential that had turned to dust,
Been buried, drowned, or lost;
Bartered, perhaps. But love fails us;
For what we discover under the crust,
What we see as the patina of emotion wears off,
Is rubbed thin - sanded down, abraded, scuffed -

By the ordinary, by the routine, is ourselves
As we were – unchanged.
Departure is arrival.  A similar unshelving
Of shock is sustained
When we see the soft disfiguring
Of our once unique features

As our parents emerge before us
In the bathroom mirror.
Life, fate, love, DNA will deliver
This unexpected, inevitable detritus,
The piled high crumbling of certainties,
The peeling of skin, the shedding of identities:

The plastic surgery of destiny.  Ineluctable!
And so, what we discover about love (the chrysalis),
And what we learn to take from it (the stasis)
Is that it simply makes being alone more bearable.
And what we thought we were was a dream, a hope, a notion; 
A drop of pure water dropped into the salty, tidal ocean.


Imago: Entomology  the final and fully developed adult stage of an insect.
            
            Psychoanalysis an unconscious and idealised mental image of someone,
                                      which influences a person's behaviour



The voice in your head, who is that?  It's a Chinese whisper.

What was the original message?




Nobody changes.


click here to watch on youtube


                                         






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