Romance in the Decade of the Bark Beetle
Feeling a bit cheeky asking for feedback because I hardly ever post any more, but I'm feeling rather pleased with this recent poem. Maybe we could do it like this:
If you give me feedback, direct me to one of your own poems that you want comments on. Thanks!
Romance in the Decade of the Bark Beetle
A languid age, teetering indecisive between millennia,
there's nothing in the news, just pop stars, Titanic and Francis Fukuyama.
In this one-to-one pre-digital age,
fading strands of the Romantics reach us through broadcast symphonies
- Beethoven and Bonnie Tyler, Lou Reed's wild side at a seedy pub -
and drift toward a sunlit future unaware of what's to come.
Erudite ramblings of wild wine on sandstone walls,
only the marble stair case witnesses the exchange of threats and poems.
All our friends were placid turtles - Epicurean -
admiring the reflection of their uneventful lives in hallowed ancient scrolls,
infertile contemplations of a timid mind.
Only us, the unacknowledged heroes,
risen from bombed-out cities, barren homes,
were alone
amidst civilized men.
Tectonic rumbling under polished ice.
In the balmy pine wood, a solitary walker and his faithful dog
illuminate the strangest scene: the crude and gentle force of nature,
a synthesis long overdue: your bravado-hidden anguish,
my young love's masterful performance - stylized but true.
Outward-seeking spirit and receptive soul.
Aghast, the torch-bearer scrambles - dog in tow -
toward the glowing windows of his home
to weave more frozen fossil patterns, safe from tempestuous devotion
as we give birth to each other ... to ourselves.
Nobody knows, nobody cares now in the days of Twitter,
fragments of lives pop up like carbon bubbles and burst as soon as they appear.
Only we remember the skill of beast and hunter,
to face what is yours with a steady gaze,
to tame the dying wolf within you and in turn be tamed.
