We are each a broken ship
without a sail
buffeted by cruel waves
ravaged by wild storm and hail.

We are each dissonant chords
of a love-song
rhyme and rhythm is lost
as though love has done wrong.

We are each a barren autumnal tree
on the mushy sod our yellow leaves fall
our branches and twigs are breaking
their past glory is beyond recall.

We are each a stolen dream
to be forgotten in the ruins of time
days of youthful splendour have fled
nothing that's left counts as sublime

I don't need reminding
     though time is on my heels
     in impatience.  I know
     age is telling and I'm drifting
     toward the edge of final darkness
     with no return. Yet how calm
     tender, comforting are the echoes
     that are resonating in my being entire
     and how gladsome am I
     to embrace the ultimate beauty
     and poignancy as my heart
     reflects upon the kisses
     of lips, the songs sung and the touch
     that only love alone could ever impart

      for there's no loss nor diminution
      in the willing surrender
      to that which is more sublime, stronger
      than the dying.  All that life is
      is but a dream-felt harbinger
      to a glory and splendour
      beyond the ken of every earthly treasure

      come then,  come
      let me feel the pulse
      of this caressing ending
      that's but the beginning
      beautified, blessed and sanctifying
      the departing that's most endearing

I can't recoup
the harvest
of youth's ***** days
the green field
I trod upon
is now but parched land
pitiful remnants
of my memory

that's nothing left
to reclaim amidst the ruin
of love lost and hopes abandoned
the now is sombre and  bereft

millions of words
have been written
and spoken
they only weigh heavy
on the heart, fragmented
and torn broken
how foolish was youth
to believe love
was the garden of Eden

late winter is laden
with melancholy
and pathos-  old age
weeps in surrender
to time's cruel ravage
how grim and bleak
is its message

when the harvest
is over and the past
is a forgotten dream
what's left to salvage?

The road forward
might not work
you retrace your steps
but couldn't walk
back as the footprints
have been washed away
by the careless rain of time
and you are left
in the lurch

life is about choice
and direction
with imperfect vision
comes the dereliction

should I blame
my heart for its longing
was it impious or wrong?

that most sought after
eludes and does betray
too often the shadows
banish the light of day
love is the common victim
of destiny's unkind play

trapped in the middle
of the unknown faraway
it's all regret and remorse
the lost traveller
stops short of what to say.

Melan,  we are, in the final analysis,  alone---
our flowering and withering is our own doing-
there's none to blame.

We should never betray or disrespect our self-
we live and die in our uniqueness and should not be afraid to declare at the end:
I have treated my self with dignity despite my frailties and failings--
I have lived!

This word I fear
        most is'saturation'
        I'd be caught in extremity
        which defeats satisfaction

If the little
         I know does work
         that's enough
         I won't end up broke!

Be your own person
     life's first lesson

Life is perenially problematic
     always ensure you make the right pick

Much of living
    is just testing

If you have too large a  hope
   would you be able to cope?

Without attitude
     there could be no rectitude

Categorise
  and you agonise

I have difficulty
  myself to teach
  to others
now could I reach?

It's my house
  I open and shut my gate
  it's not my responsibility
  to care for any other's estate

It was my idiocy
that saved me!

Love---thanks for sharing your views. I do agree.

Though there's fantasy and folly in young love, it is a threshold to mature love at a later juncture but only if youth is able to wake up to reality, namely, that love is full of pain, heartache and sacrifice.  Love is a never-ending conversation but too often the dialogue ceases for some reason(s). Then bitterness and acrimony sets in--really tragic.  

No school of philosophy can teach people how to love--too often poets and philosophers  eulogise love and their writings lean toward the abstract which is out of line with reality.  

No person loves in the same way as another as we are unique--some want to be showered with love--all the while--and such demand often couldn't be met while others are content with less-- there is no barometer to measure what amount of love in a couple's life is deemed 'adequate'.

It would be well not to think of love in the abstract but rather view it being manifested in the ordinary acts of daily living--the sharing of joy or sorrow,  of the laughter and the tears, of the ups and downs, of the success and set-backs, of togetherness with loved ones, of health and illness, of burdens and tribulations and, in the end, of overcoming all the odds that come in the way and the ultimate celebration of a life together till the parting.

The couple can then say at the end:
We have loved with the fullness of our heart and found herein its beauty, its bliss and its every blessing--we want nothing more.

with best wishes

Let me shy away
here doesn't fit
something is amiss
though I couldn't define it

what's the unknown undertone?
what's the hidden agenda?
what does it require of me?
these people--I know not what they are.

why do they target me?
I am a nobody by far
my name they don't even know
but they say: ' have a drink with us at the city bar...'

something's lurking and smelling foul
I'll be in dire trouble if I were to stay
there are shadows even at this daylight hour
I will not have them put me away!

This temporal dwelling-place
which someday will but disappear
in empty space

Am I too harsh?
tell me in the name of love
I've given all my trust
do I this rejection deserve?

You said: I love too much
you would rather I don't
but my heart is made of such
walk away admittedly I won't.

You wrote: freedom I seek
your freedom you desire to keep
some words about yourself you couldn't speak
I sense your past hurts still run deep.

Farewell, farewell then
I could not love less
I wish at the end
you would find your true happiness.

The day gets by
it needs no guide
unlike us who struggle
to get through
hardly without a sigh

reality does deny
hopes and dreams
the not-getting
abides side-by-side

the heart is ever
in search for something
nameless and amorphous
yet doesn't understand why

love there is
but where
does it hide?

if found
and cuddled
what if
it should decide
to take flight

as fragility
and disillusionment
is the substance
of life?

on the fringe
of things
we survive

how should
we get by?

Because they merit
  be generous in according the credit

Life allows
no barter
neither is
it a good partner

Success never comes
too late
there will always
be time to celebrate

Excess
     blocks the passage
     the result is no access

To be meek
       is not weak

When just an extra sentence
makes one a thorough nuisance

Un-success
is not failure
but a bridge
to future endeavour

It makes no difference
if I don't have a name
it doesn't change me
as I would still be the same.

I have nothing to trade
   in my poverty I celebrate

To cross
     over to the new
    often entails
    bearing a cross

That's the danger
when the words run overboard
over-fuelled and over-charged
they land bruised on the wrong spot

feelings and emotions
miss the mark when over-wrought
great poems have right proportions
this truth master-poets never forgot

the audience feels uncomfortable
its affection couldn't be bought
by heightened drama or rhetoric
which erodes like lava that is burning red-hot

grant me the gift of simplicity
and sobriety--in gentle thought
nursed by temperance and humility
never to be by proud display senselessly caught.

Dark, deep, melancholic
is the wood with the fading
of day-  the heart begins
to brood amidst the cold silence

dusk its way is negotiating
to partake in the scene
it wouldn't allow itself
not to have a say
while night furtively watches
and waits its drama to display

what are hours
what is time
within which
every life is engaged?
would it celebrate
its freedom
its love
its worth
its dignity
or in default
be caged?  

the day
is a camouflage
amidst the clamour and din
feelings are shut

the night
unleashes all secrets
it is the harshest judge

the heart
is like the wood
in that unknown place
it hides away
to remember
or forget
to recalibrate

the past
its darkest shadows
upon the lonely
and forlorn they cast
refuses to loosen
its iron grasp
and mocks
at the weakness
and vulnerability
the common mark
of humanity

the wood is deep
melancholic, dark

Extracts from ON FRIENDSHIP by A. Clutton Brock, 1925  (1868--1924) in THE WORLD CLASSICS

F stands for friendship

F is above reason...
It is a gift we offer because we must..
(paraphrase--if you want your virtue to be rewarded,
you are setting a price on it
and those who do (so) have no F to give...)

F should come naturally and you should be grateful
when it comes without misgiving----paraphrase

paraphrase---in the warmth of F, you don't judge
and it would be cold thing if you do-
'this warmth is a positive good and a richness of our natures
while the coldness of judging is a poverty'...

'There are men who cannot be friends unless
they are under an illusion that their friends are perfect
and when the illusion passes,
there is an end of their F.
But true F has no illusions for it reaches to that part
of a man's nature that is beyond his imperfections
and it doing so, it takes all else as granted..

it does not assume he is better than other men ,
for there is egotism in assuming that...

A man is your friend not because of his superiorities ...
you and he understand each other..
you relation to him is a rare success among a multitude
of failures and if you are proud of the success,
you should be ashamed of the failure...

paraphrase--if you compare virtues or compete,
the F becomes a burden rather than rest.

'Criticism then becomes a treachery
for it implies you are beginning to doubt
those superiorities upon which your F
is supposed to be based..

In the warmth of F, your friend's guises fall away
and he shows to you the person he is.
That is the test and delight of F
'because we are no longer afraid of being thought less
than we are..neither do we want to seem better.
We know it's not our virtues that have won us F
and we are not afraid to lose it through our vices...
this is a blessed state close to heaven than any thing
else in this life in which affection does not depend on judgement..

'It is a rare state and never attained to in its perfection'

Memories --guardians of the past
time does not ravage, they outlast
the perfumes of love and laughter
upon the fond heart nostalgically they linger

I should not labour
nor squeeze words
by their throat-
coercion is the death
of writing-- self-defeating
totally blind and absurd

with them I'll embark upon
a gentle dialogue
no damage would there be
nor unwanted shock

each an entity of their own
in uniqueness and trait
mutual respect is the route
to fruitful understanding's gate

humble and patient I will be
together we will celebrate
the outcome of a poem
that would beauty and ingratiate.

Lift not that
which is beyond your capability
don't take pride to belittle
that which is easy

for the nature of life
is marked by polarity
the wise person sees
everything in totality.

The morning sighs
the noon hours yawn
as evening's last shadow dies
leading to the night beyond

the heart trembles
as love languishes
hopes end in shambles
lovers' vow vanishes

the sea at midnight
a dirge it does sing
no star is in sight
death spells the longing

a lonely figure is walking
by the edge of the shore
tears from her eyes are falling
in recalling the love she knows no more.

Dear Melancholy.  Thanks for sharing--it's true that love could take place with an exchange of language through the eyes which speak more than words could.  

Yet, love is a product of chance, less of choice.  At its highest point, it erupts like red-hot lava from a boiling volcano or resembles  the onslaught of an all-sweeping avalanche.  Its ferocity and intensity frightens even the most ardent lovers as passion dispels reason, prudence, moderation and all sensibility.
That's why poets and writers are often saying: die unto love.

It is true that love/*** is stronger than and transcends death.  
Freud was right that love/*** was the driving force of life and that, if interrupted, impeded, inhibited or unfulfilled would lead to neurosis and unhappiness.  

I would like to add that love/*** must have meaning beyond its physicality and emotional manifestation or it might not last.  
Also, too many confuse lust with love but that's another story.  

Love defies definition; ask people what love is and they couldn't find the right words; no person loves in the same way as another;  we can't love ALL the time--there are times that love/*** is laid aside, not because it has faded or died but rather there's a time or season for it and other times, when it doesn't surface; we don't love with the same intensity and love does not demand that either; that love in union borders the mystical is never in doubt--
we are stripped of everything else in the nakedness of our heart and soul and, in that highest moment, we are cleansed, purified, transformed and have the sense we have lived forever in that ecstasy.

The most sublime
is yet to be spoken
the unfinished
could be the most welcome token

the poem in hiatus
awaits to be written
love the most-sought after
will wake in time to ripen.

Through the thick autumnal mist
I look holding a poetry book
someone seems to be walking near
while lonely feelings my poor heart does brook

You held it back
so as to punish
you stabbed with your silence
cruelty you did relish

you stood aloof
my love to blemish
your eyes looked askance
pity you did relinquish

you sent a letter anonymous
with anger worse than a skirmish
without using a postage stamp
with these three words: Love is *******!

you have taken every delight
my name to tarnish
and my demise
was you prayerful wish!

I don't ask
anything of you
love does no asking
if it were true

I don't ask
that you should love me
(I might be least worthy)
only let my heart speak in poetry

I don't ask
why love is a mystery
the source from whence it springs
that it should speak to me

I don't ask
that you should pity me
choose what you may
only that which makes you happy.

It was you
who brought the rhapsody
my heart you captured
I don't want to be set free

every note has since
become a part of me
everywhere I go
there's your affinity

I'm fearful of words
often they are said in obscurity
the truest of love if there be
dwells in rapturous melody

that transcends every reason
and ushers in untold beauty
my life rests in your rhapsody
as you are my very ecstasy!

The mind
is the gate-keeper
the heart
is the house-owner

Those who desire
to be heard
would end in being hurt

Those who hanker
to be blest
are most likely
to have little rest

The ugly turned beauty
  is worth infinitely
  more than beauty turned ugly

New clothes
don't change a person
such people could
still live in their past prison

By all means
walk
with me
but we should not talk