Divided Heart
I don’t want to be the other half of
something someone lost a long time ago.
I’m not interested in being
the better part of valour.
Everybody learns the hard way,
one way or another. No matter
how good you are at numbers,
you can only count up to broken,
forever.
So eat your liver & onions.
It should come as no surprise
to discover the divided heart
multiplies nothing.
Any child can tell you
love is invisible geography
& Reality’s the only fiction.
The more you look, the less you see.
Like insects whose words are feelers,
we strive to recollect the half-
remembered that deeply mattered,
witnesses to rashness
passing as bravery.
Despite the bad jokes
& Chardonnay
there’s an absence of humour
In what we say.
By resurrecting the dead we glorify
our names, our reputations
as artists, misfits & revolutionaries.
Savages together,
we toast our mutual savagery –
hear hear!! – the clinking solidarity
of well-heeled somebodies.
Copyright © Billy Marshall Stoneking | Year Posted 2015
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