Aversion
by claire Friday, Jan 6 2017, 9:53pm
international / poetry / post

what becomes of the living
when an aversion to life
develops?

culture today is distinctly averse to
life and its source, Love,
all creation is a manifestation
of nothing other

love is now a dirty four letter word
never used in its correct context
only to sell and lure humans
to productions, paltry substitutes

devoid of its presence
the species is lost and tumbles
into darkness, loss and self-destruction

the signifier of everlasting life
is today considered pathetic, weak
who could pronounce it to the world
as the source of all things,
the harmony and bliss behind creation?

love is the essential nature
of creation itself
it is the sustenance of poets,
the red of a rose and the glint
in the eyes of a child not yet corrupted

artists drown in it gladly
and lose themselves in its creative bliss,
the more we are not, the more love is
and the more it is expressed by this minority

without it the species falls into chaos
which state offers only more chaos,
misery, desperation and pain

palms sway in the cemetery,
branches responding to the coastal breeze -
the sea laps the shore and rolls over
coastal rocks effortlessly,
marble headstones to the dead
stand frozen in the warm sun
immobile, advertising cessation
yet life surrounds and overwhelms the dead,
asserting the nature of love;

graves overgrown with wildflowers,
dancing joyously in the breeze -
monuments to the dead
are overwhelmed by one of these little flowers
but the dead know nothing of it

you would search in vain for a monument
to the living in this age, though many remain
from prehistory, all announcing the cosmic turning
of cycles, the harmony of seasons
but the time to love is no more
there is no greater tragedy than to live a loveless life

the dominant cultural discourse is war, tribulation
and despair --
little wonder
yet reality is splendour indescribable, which saturates
all space/time

insulated by aversion humanity races to
extinction for the want of peace
and the harmony of L-o-v-e

a gull turns abruptly on the breeze