Wednesday, April 22, 2009

In Defense of Love Poetry

I have been a serial monogamist,
one lover at a time, no playing field.
Like the male of any species I have been led,
no, driven by my reproductive organs,
More than once, while still connected
to my practice wife,
I stopped far short of adultery,
yet well into the realm of lustful thought.
I have been wired since birth to faithfulness
and for this I must stand up for love poetry.

A poet once said love is exponential.
I agree.
While I think she meant our capacity
is to love more than one person at a time,
for a quarter of a century my love
for my forever wife
has grown from attraction, to friendship,
to lust, to passion, to adoration to such dedication
that for me there can be no other.
We have become, in a wonderful way,
a dyad that allows two separate souls
to live as one.

The same poet said monogamy is static.
I disagree. Even after all these years
we continue to discover each other
and rediscover, in ways only time
can gestate and grow to full fruition.

We, the combination of two Is,
have learned through our love
how to love others,
to open our hearts and cast aside judgment,
secure in ourselves,
protected by our communion,
to accept the potential of new relationships,
while saving true intimacy
perfect, unblemished,
for each other, for the poetry of our love.

Let the poets sing of love.
I stand for love poetry.

Sometimes, at least for me, the fun of poetry is to participate in a conversation - point . counterpoint. Dorla Morehouse posted a wonderful little poem Polyamory (you'll see a link to her blog at the right of this page). I felt compelled to speak. Watch yourself, though. Her piece is layered in meanings. I simply snatched one of them for my poem. There's more there with which to wrestle.

1 comment:

  1. So glad to have inspired a conversation! I like your response! Definitely honored to be cited directly. :)

    I definitely also urge you to check out Boland's original "Against Love Poetry," if you've never done so before. It's one of my top 5 favorite poems. I'd be interested in knowing if you'd seen the original before you wrote your response. Your poem is in direct response to mine, but it would definitely be interesting to compare it to Boland's, to see how it looks two degrees removed from the original.

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