Cautionary

This records the unfortunate fate of an ex-acquaintance who never got over his wife's desertion.

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“I’ll never love,” I said,
“Women grow old and lose their looks,
And who can love them then?”
Just four months wed, he said,
“When looks have shred like torn-up books
You simply vow to love again
And kiss her age-sagged head.”

But twelve months passed, his wife
Refused him for another man
And snatched her love from him;
His flesh like ice, his life
Collapsed; years gone and dry as bran,
Still smit, he knows not if her beauty’s trim
Has rot beneath time’s knife.

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© July 2017

"But the Greatest of These is Charity..."

The first two lines are adapted from a previous poem, "Song" posted on 21 July 2021 and linked here.

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It’s long-lost loves that ache the hardest,

It’s long-time hates that fester most,
The one can rust the gold-eared harvest,
The other sear like black-ice frost.

So states might fanfare motives purest
When blows erupt for friendship glossed,
Or long-hugged rancour grown the rudest
Might leap to war and damn the cost.

For moral suasion quite the vilest
Besmirching acts will wink and boast,
And intellect’s much dog-eared digest
Will green-light death from hill to coast.

Ah weep your tears and clutch your dearest,
Men run to lash you to a post,
You’ll writhe with prayers and pleas the loudest
As dogs are primed with red meat tossed.

(1 Corinthians 13:13)

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© June 2017