051103

1am

Love Poem

He thought that just as some journeyed to foreign worlds
Seeking the weirdest sunset, the deepest breath or
The truest drug; others took their journeys
Through the geographies of the heart. They
Braved pathologies to rival any warlord’s;
Cruelties to make dictators blanche; Extremities
That rendered all poles or equators mean.

Those who sought out danger close at hand, he thought,
Were no less heroic nor foolhardy than those who sailed
The Seven Seas. A questing soul might try to turn away,
But knew the trip it spurned would return to haunt,
And haunt again. Until that time the soul be cast away,
Set loose in a fiery longship. When the fire that eats the soul
Could be consumed within the fathomless ocean itself.