You say you know of love.
You heard there was a man who kept a vow
which cost him songs and woman flesh: you sneered,
and sneer replaced your syntax. Faithfulness
you smeared and so killed story, so you cannot not
betray, and be betrayed. You riddle Raphael,
demand of Gabriel his password, and the blessed
Michael you sequester for his shots. You animate
and warm by devil arts, demanding angel proofs
from pronoun parts contorted in a double helix.
You say you know of love.
You nominate yourselves the chefs of love
with tongues forever virgin of the delicates
of love, unable to obtain old age of love.
So smug, and stupid, and smug regarding stupid,
sitting while befouling hind and feet
in excrement, so proud to sit and trowel
it round to front, then back, for it is warm.
Adjust, again, the angle of your friction
and engorge, and say you know of love.
I say I know of love
but only pose a naked contradiction
for sublimity can only be reported,
never proved. I say love flares in stories
framed by rituals and vows, an agon held
as precious for a lifetime, paths where righteous
souls all trip but rise their seven times per day
to say “I do.” And this, Oh this
is plot and character, the grail, the rose, the wind
that spins the sun and all the summer stars.
I say I know a love you do not know:
in sickness and in health,
both warm and cold,
in hunger and in wealth,
nubile, and old:
“I do.”
When you lost this you lost it all.
Down, your house is down. How great the fall.
TimothyOne 