FOUND LOVE POEM
I found it a little bit confusing to be asked to write / read a poem during my brother and his now wife’s wedding ceremony, given the running theme of my poetry being love as epic failure. But I love my brother, so rose to the challenge.
I said I’d perform a ‘lyric speech’ but it all started to get a bit complicated. I moved on to a refrain — isn’t love a refrain you just want to keep repeating with the right person? Then I found out one of their friends was planning to read out What I Believe by JG Ballard just before me so I had to ditch that idea too. Eventually I settled on a remix—a format I’ve tried and tested, as one ought to before committing to any form. I have a soft spot for anything a little bit stitched together.
I love seeing men cry. Not in a sadistic way. Just nice to see them connecting with their emotions. I wish men would cry more often. I remember Anna Karenina’s character in Une Femme est une Femme weeping, saying “There's nothing more beautiful than a woman in tears”. I disagree. Men in Tears is a movie I’d pay to see.
I looked up and out at the full church while I was reading, noticed whose hands rose to swipe duct fluid from their cheeks. I was pretty choked up towards the last lines. I hadn’t realised how long it would take once I was in front of 150 wedding guests of mostly family and old friends, plus 25 kids. We’ve got an unusually huge and sprawling family.
My brother and his wife read out ‘intentions’ and it was probably for the best that they both seemed to have very good intentions. The words ‘loyal’ and ‘passion’ came up a few times. It struck me that those values are often considered unpopular in the world of modern dating, but they shouldn’t be. It was nice to hear them named.
The church walls endured our secular energy pretty well, only blushing on occasion when the bride said the word ‘bloody’ more than once. It was more variety show than wedding in the common sense. Songs by Cat Stevens and Paul McCartney were sung.
I became a step aunt in-law. I cèilidh danced with relatives I hadn’t seen for years. I did the whole thing sober. I’m on day 56 booze-free or something now. With the right music and momentum, it’s easy enough to feel drunk. Nice to be able to remember everything and not have to regret drunkenly kissing someone or endure a 6-hour car journey on a Sunday feeling like your body is trying to turn inside out.
Just before the carriages all turned back into pumpkins, the dregs of the last guests ground with great enthusiasm to Low by Flo Rida.
FOUND LOVE POEM
Something old & new & borrowed & blue* remix
This morning, as I walked along the lake’s shore,
I fell in love with a wren and later in the day a mouse.
This is the best kind of love, I thought.
Let’s love each other (so good) on the moon,
let’s love the moon on the moon.
We will ascend to the love sky and I will be crowned king.
You ought to look up more often, and always embrace things
—people, earth, sky, stars.
I’m not sure I remember what we did before we LOVED.
Were we gherkins—bobbing in our harmless jars?
If you were a horse, I’d clean the crap out of your stable—
never once complain. Can you love an eagle – tame, or wild?
Can you love a monster of frightening name?
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet.
Love is a universal migraine.
Love is a wild wonder.
To be alive is the greatest sentimentality there is,
and I live to be sentimental, and I love to be alive—
all I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme.
A postcard bearing cherry blossoms arrives in the mail.
It says that you love me.
Your laughter pelts my skin with small delicious blows...
Through that doorway came Crow.
Flying from the sun, he found his home.
I look at you and I would rather look at you
than all the paintings in the world
I like my body when it is with your body. I will hug you solemnly.
Early nights in white sheets with lace curtains—
Pompeii in the distance. In a place that can make you change,
fall in love again and again.
I want you muzzled in gibberish
all over everywhere, all over me, all over.
Love me and lift your mask.
Love is work and work is thirsty and lovely
and love is lovely, and love is lovely and unfinished.
There’s another word for work, another word for love,
a language with one word for both, and a country with no words at all.
No matter how far I travel beyond you, love will stay tethered
like an evil kite I want to always reel back in.
Love you like I’m crying with your eyes
Love you like this one’s for life
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
To be alive is the greatest sentimentality there is
and I live to be sentimental
and I love to be alive.