two poems about not love

i.

When love is absent, where is it else?

When love is absent, where is it else?

Does it like a soul reincarnate?

Is it like energy transferred?

Will it as a phrase find new object?

When is its eternal return?

If it was, once, is it now not or never?

From once being, now nihilate?

Does pain like a cuckoo make its nest, feather it with hatred and bits of all things lost. 

All things considered only one is certain.


ii.

the midnight scab i keep picking at

the midnight scab i keep picking at

finding the right words to convey in full force

outrage humiliation frustration fear

sadness sadness sadness sadness

anger sadness anger sadness

they chase each other from the fore and to the recesses of my tired mind

if i write this a million times will they go away?

but never love

not ever

the cartography of love and not love is

the cartography of love and not love is--
temporal not spatial.
plotted by contrasts not absolutes.

attend:

the bliss of fecundity, the anticipation of immortality.
the pain of disease, the gravity of dissolution.
a single space that lies along a fold of time.

peace and conflict, home and battleground.

love and not love.

a function of when. but when?