Love is Vain

[BeerOclock]

Love is Vain
By Beer Oclock

At first, it had the unmistakable idiosyncrasy of a dream;
And I doubted myself awake,
For its sensuous beauty seemed only
Possible in dreams…

Yet by a treat I was brutally brought into reality,
-I knew from the pain I was, indeed, awake-
And for the first time from love I felt horror.

For in sport was he who made me dream.
And “She is for me best,” Said he, but I wondered:
When I got the wealth and beauty, what song sings
The siren that made her gold and I silver?

Yet, watch me stay, as he and she go away;
As I surrender to soreness and isolation,
For consciousness does makes cowards of us all.
And since, from his joy was born my sorrow;
From his absence was my madness,
And although sharp my senses I was futile.

Now, know this, and know it well for it is true:
Not an indefinite wonder, but harsh simplicity,
Not complicated, but obscure…
Not unique, nor own, but public and ordinary,
That’s what love is, and although pleasant,
It is vain.

[white camellia]

BeerOclock, firstly, a realistic nickname you've got here, Beer O Clock, substantial and incisive imageries, just that I wonder what is the symbol of "O" that seems to me has some aesthetic effect, and even a spatial marker.
Then some thoughts called forth as I proceed the reading of your work. Overall, it gives a feeling of "eloquent" if one just follow your logic by which the narration of a personal love experience is presented within a neat form. An ancient Japanese monk and scholar 弘法大師空海, excelling at calligraphy and Chinese literature, especially the Paralle Prose popular in the ages between Southern Dynasty (420-589) and middle Tang Dynasty, discussed "the energy in style" in a composition on the study of poetics. He categorized "the energy in style" into seventeen classes. The first class share the characteristics of a demonstration or description in a straightforward manner, namely, an arrangement that states or questions obviously the very subject the title suggests, thus to infuse the writing with the "energy", or life, in the openning line. Here, I found yours belong to this category, or similar to it to some extent, which could account for the quality of being eloquent and inviting. This only leaves some regret to me that it appears to lack a certain kind of correspondingly powerful rhythm, or the rhythm that is to be felt powerful and soft at the same time according to the somewhat complex emotion you may have possessed toward "love", being both sorrowful and critical. The above conclusion I drew is the one when I follow your logic empirically in relation to the definition of love. Basically, there are two traditional approaches to meaning in the linguistic sense. One is reference, that is to give a meaning of a word to show what it denotes in the real world, and the other is mental representations which is said to be the images of mental entities so that a word can denote because it is associated with an "image" in the user's mind. To define love is whimsical even if we resort to the theory of mental representation for that these images vary in the concept of each individual, depending on different experience, perception and attitude. While the "love" you have experienced so far is vain to you, love may be fertile to another. So is there a truth in love, while it is not possibly a truth like the truth of an object. Metaphysical poet Andrew Marvel's poem The Definition of Love might shed some wisdom and grace on those who seek the truth:
My love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis, for object, strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed;
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

For Fate with jealous eye doth see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close,
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyranic power depose.

And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed
(Though love's whole world on us doth wheel),
Not by themselves to be embraced.

Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear,
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.

As lines, so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet,
But ours, so truely parallel,
Though infinate, can never meet.

Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposite of the stars.

[dramasnot6]

you seem to be trying to cover a lot of ground in your poem. It seems good but very mixed and slightly jumpy. I do like your use of language though :)

[BeerOclock]

Hello there. Cos men and women are different physicly, and so are a woman and another women, of course their opinions r gonna differ.

i take effect, over meaning, and so... u read my words, and like them, but... did u felt something? D desperation of the narrator? "la vencida?" tell me that....

[Dr Eep]

Yes - I did feel something from your writing, an overwhelming sense of disillusionment and hurt and ultimately distrust in love.

I enjoy poems with personal philosophy - because it opens up debate and asks questions of ourselves, I mean, many people will not agree about your 'love is in vain statement' but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be expressed or written down!!

I liked it!