A Long Love Song (011 - 024)
011
And some say, to tell the world the time
But my instincts tell me, to proclaim
His undying love to hen that though in grime
He’s made to march her affections to claim
That empty would be life without the chase
For the chicks bring happiness to his face.
But is it for progeny that lovers embrace
So to leave something to them that’s a trace?
I’ve seen animals and humans go to war
Over love – can we say to it there’s more?
012
I’d seen two cocks bend to scratch their eyes out;
I’d seen two lizards flog mercilessly
Themselves with their tails and without a doubt
To see who over a harem had supremacy.
So I’d be wrong to say hawks show love
To hawks but utterly hate every dove
For two male hawks may suddenly act rough
To ward off the other taking its trough.
You ward off others to have a chance
To love your mate – why the unholy dance?
013
Two lizards by the track with bulging necks
Say you can’t help but keep your ground
By dealing with rivals to stem bottlenecks
To prove to your lover you’re hefty and sound.
If you don’t protect your partner and progeny,
Someone else would usurp their bodies and energy;
Use them as slaves in his factory –
Hence to such, you must show hostility.
To get love you must your rivals fight;
To keep love, you must instil them with fright.
014
It’s the reason every element with weird habits
Would mark its territory to keep off rivals;
Humans with barbed wires mark their limits
And make weapons from things like metals.
Or like grain and chaff, is there a mix-up of names?
Did strange emotions hide to take the wrong frames
And instead of walking, would fly like planes?
Is the sack of love full of stones but tagged ‘grains’?
From the lizards, I get not the answer.
Rather, they make me deeply wonder.
015
For on the track, deep into the countryside,
I go the true essence of love to milk
For would a noble feeling ebb and flow like the tide;
To some, its feel is coarse and to others silk?
Books and monuments had been crafted
In memory of a lover that haunted
The mind and the image couldn’t be blunted
By the passing of time though life they’d halted.
Most resonant love songs aren’t about progeny
And some are so sacred they’re heavenly.
016
Then it looks like someone had poured stones
Into our beans so my journey
Might help us sift the meat from the bones
And set quite a befitting boundary.
To cross a brook, you seek a spot that’s dry:
Like stepping stones, trunk or like a bird you’d fly
Or pull off your clothes and wade across you’d try –
Indeed, every trick to get across you’d apply.
The brook before me means I take a makeshift bridge
And step on a ground that is just like a ridge.
017
Bang! Bang! A hunter ahead shoots his gun.
Of course, to kill an animal and take home,
Sell and the money to his needs would turn
Or eat it and to his dog would give the bone.
And do you know the dog which drags out the meat
Expects adequate rewards? Fail to and its feet
It’d drag as you leave again the animals to hit –
For you hoard love, prepare to suffer defeat.
A dog that knows it has a share in the game
Would follow to hunt without you calling its name.
018
Then the equation of love is a two-way thing –
‘Give and take’ seems the motto of great partners;
Real love this way and that should swing;
Mutual respect is the way of great lovers.
The hunter I meet turns out a neighbour;
He has a wife we all think is a terror
But he loves his wife with her every error
And that shows to some are more grace and favour.
So we shake hands and he asks my destination
But it’s hard to frame for him my exact mission.
019
You see, my friend has a wife (with four kids)
Who’s turned him into a slave with the chorus,
‘I’ve born children for you’ so now for their needs
The fellow toils till his blisters are filled with pus
But to our chagrin, he seems not to mind;
To his wife’s follies his eyes he turns blind.
Some say his wife him with a fetish does bind
Making his senses to a halt to grind.
So I say: ‘I’m going round to know
What love looks like in the sun and snow.’
020
‘I guess,’ he laughs, ‘you’re going abroad?
If you love travel, why go through the countryside
Instead of the city where you would board
The plane and be taken on a swift ride?’
I tell him as love in life tends to abound
For the theme in all of nature is found,
City and countryside I’d prowl round
To sample how to diverse ears the beat does sound.
The hunter, as if reading my mind, states
Like he’s knowledge of his neighbours’ debates:
021
‘I came in with ten cartridges, shot nine
Without anything dropping to the ground.
Since I’ve all wasted my money and time
So back home with nil my feet I’d pound.
‘If the sound of a gun I love like firecrackers
To kids at Christmas, I’d go seek the sellers,
Buy more, walk back and make the pellets in showers
Fall on the trees but hating the blunders
‘Which denied me the game, I’d rest the gun;
Cold is my love for game that my cash did burn.
022
‘I’d been told boldly by my very good friend
That I’m being used by my wife – I love her just the
same;
My wife has great faults I’d failed to amend
But her great points I’d praise as the weak take the
blame.
‘I’d a police case once I thought for long
In prison I’d be kept though not that I was wrong.
Everyone ran, kith and kin, but she stayed strong;
Challenged the police so my agony they’d not prolong.
‘She can’t manage money – this I know
And wish this weakness she would outgrow.’
023
It looks like others could be really in love
But those looking at them think otherwise
For the same sky harbours the hawk and dove
And danger is when flying, what’s the height?
I’m guessing, I don’t know much – we shake hands;
As I walk, I’m glad with self I took the stance
To sample the love theme opting to trek and glance
Through the woods and see how the elements would dance.
Even the farmers don’t love a land that won’t yield
So they’d turn to sow and reap another field.
024
And funny enough, a land that you’d take and take
Won’t yield if you won’t give, hence you let it fallow
Or fertilizers you’d make the plants to take –
Then mutual respect for love is hallowed.
The cock lavishly gives his crows to the hens,
Doing it in the sunshine and the rain
But some just give and don’t take – it is plain –
Like the sun that shines on the planetary train.
What do the planets all give to the sun
For the majestic work indeed it has done?
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