Epiphany? My love is shorn to shreds!
A guileless love beguiled by devious ends…
Dark, bitter grief ignites my inner core –
I cannot love this monster anymore!
And yet – I tremble at each docile smile!
I loved the clever traitor all the while.
I now regret that fatal day, when first –
a charming word deceived my artless thirst.
And yes, I still feel dearly for the fiend;
a foolish heart does not know want from need.
Ignore the ingrate! Flee the treachery!
But how we still dream fondly, stubbornly;
demanding vengeance for our suffering,
yet far too weak to do the injuring.
I admire the same-vowelled resonance of "charming" and "artless" in line 8. Line 10 is memorable, and incontrovertibly true! And I love the way this poem begins: with the one-word interrogative. It gets our attention!
ReplyDeleteAnd I like "the clever traitor." (I like it because "clever" is usually used as praise -- qualified praise, to be sure -- but you're praising a traitor!)
Of course, one feels a tad impertinent discussing technique and word-choice when presented with such a deeply felt poem as this. Bravo!
Thanks Dylan! But no matter how you put it, it's still an angsty teen poem! :) Though a sophisticated one, I might add. ;)
ReplyDeleteThis poem is all about contradictions...sometimes we have that one moment where we realize that person we love and trust is suddenly someone who has used us...I still love the person, but I know that I shouldn't since it only ends up causing me despair. Opposing feelings...sudden reversals in character...this idea of contradiction, is I think, interesting...especially put into poetry.
In one way, I think I was influenced by Donna Elvira's tormented aria "Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata" from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni...except the gender roles are reversed and the degree of "treachery" in my situation is far less the deeds of the notorious Don Juan...