Love is
As is is:
In the present tense.
Ergo,
Love is Love.

Over the decades,
We've worked it out.
No need for a Power of anyone.
If I go blind,
You'll be my sight.
And so on.
I will supply
What you lack;
And you promised,
Should I *****,
To leave me on my back.

I believe love has an evil twin,
But I could be losing my mind.
There are petals on thistles,
And thorns on roses;
I can turn 360 or 180
And ride off in any direction.
Tales run like a loop in my brain,
Not recalling who's heard what,
I preface:
I've probably told you this before, but...
Is how any old story begins.
Deja Vu is my new life.
Every thought was once a poem
To be polished and revealed.
Today, they are intermittent.

I've been trolling old television series;
The Monkees were terrible then,
Terrible still;
The Three Stooges were best left in the memory vault;
Bonanza still has Ben wearing his beige vest;
Elizabeth Montgomery is still bewitching;
Jeannie is irritatingly attractive.
I must be leaking grey cells;
Rationality is creaking in my bone-head.

The baboon savant
Will rear and taunt
From high on his hair-swept hill;
He snatches bananas from the unsuspecting,
His reach has no appeal.

He relishes the sound
Of his own voice,
Screeching into the wind;
He sticks his fingers in his ears,
And when he plops down
His ruby-red ****,
His thumb's nestled up his rear.

Iambi

I never knew him to do wrong.
He left me here last Saturday week;
I never saw him again.
A terrible shock.
God was cruel to me.
Words cannot express... my heart is torn.
I have the others.
God spare them to me.
He was the loveliest of all.

My heart breaks day in and day out;
I am just now living for when...

He took a pain,
In the head;
He went to the hospital.
We don't know
What happened -
They didn't,
Until they got the blood test back,
From Dublin.

The next day the baby was born.
At twelve o'clock  there was a crowd,
Neighbours waiting on the news.

They did all in their power.

He was dying.
Words that will ring in my ears...

It was the saddest... most respected
Funeral,
The teachers and children formed
A Guard;
A hundred met him at the Creamery Cross;
Carried the little coffin up the steps
And into the chapel.
Six school pals carried him,
From the chapel,
And left him to rest.

He'll never go off this earth
Without first coming to see me
(Mary, at two o'clock in the morning he came up the hall,
And rapped on the room door)
I do hope and pray
I'm not keeping him
From Heaven.

I wanted to write you to give you a surprise...
It was little thought it would be this sad news.

The baby... is the image of him.

My heart is torn.
I  could be washed in tears.

When she said, Don't talk to me,
She lost some of her voice.
Then I heard, Don't look for me,
She gave no other choice.
Don't touch, I have no feelings,
You make my skin crawl,
Don't expect a pick up,
If you pick up to call.

But I still smell her everywhere:
The shampoo used on her hair;
The bedsheets where we lay bare;
The fragrance of her festive tree;
Her aromatic herbal teas;
The lilies she could grow in sand,
Are sensational in my memory glands.