I read so many poems about the tangling of souls,
or the intertwining of limbs
and hearts.

Combining smiles with flowers,
everlasting this and thats, laughter
with bullets, memories in objects. Boring,
all of it.

I read the cliches, the red colors
associated with passions of flesh
and mind.
The blue oceans mingled with longing.
Still winds with waiting.

I read these things and think of how
far away from any sense of truth.

Neruda finds love in bread,
cummings finds it in buildings,
Bukowski
in beer.

No one remembers that love is
in chemicals - that true love finds
its way through all chemical imbalances,
all sense in senses.

I can be drunk with you,
I can be high with you,
I can be depressed,
anxious,
hyperactive,
crazy, boastful, cheerless,
smug, annoying,
annoyed,
frantic, courageous,
bashful,
broken,
crying, dying and dealing
with my own **** self

and I still feel my love for you
(and your love for me).

Why do poets pick
one image, one allusion,
to craft a poem about a truth that overtakes all?

It seems lazy, unfortunate.
It does wrong
in my eyes. This is where
discipline has destroyed
what they try to express.

When was love ever disciplined?

No, my love is not a red, red
rose because my love is punk
rock and she'll fight you
if you try to say she's not.
She drinks and smokes
and would intellectually crush any girl
who thinks

that love poems define proper behavior.