Is This Madness Or Just Dark Stuff? Poem by Barry Van Asten

With our monster heads in trouble
We talked of everything and willed matter
As my clumping, cavalier love rushed in

To see something not there and never there.
It's the little things you do, I said,
That drains me of this utter absolute.

Unwholesome in love, these senseless strategies
Lead us deeper into extreme measures
Where beauty can't find it's natural release.

And I don't hurt you, is that what's wrong?
Is that why we crash through our dreams
Into this Caligula of things not done?

This is sick, you say...I know;
This cathedral of little things I give,
Labelled and kept like icons, locked away...

But there's something sinister in love, I said.
Not that I know of, you sighed;
We make time for the good things in life.

And time is on your side, you said;
Nothing's changed, your heart is just the same.
But time's on no-ones side, I said.

And this is a dangerous game we play
For love will fold it's arms with fear
To sit, zombie-eyed in a magazine stare.

And when no one's there, something
Stirs the substance of our ruin,
Yet we elevate above these things

To find love is nothing more, or less
Than some antique devotion, where
We are lunatics wiuth arsenic breath.