kind to poetry

It has been suggested to me that I 'never post poems on my blog'. While I would point out that I have, very occasionally, put poems on here, I generally agree with the observation. However, I am in a good mood with poetry today. For a change it's being nice to me so I will be nice back.

In a moment of social weakness, also, I posted this work-in-progress elsewhere the other day, and it seems odd to let them see it over there and not you over here. It also ties in nicely to Sunday's magic pig theme.

In Which the Poet Adopts the Shape of a Swineherd, to Little Avail

I love you the more because you remind me
of a painting I saw, of a young pig

kneeling to declare its love to a swineherd.
Oh love me not, young swineherd-fancier,

keening at the morning star, staring at my visage,
but leave me, pig-headed swine that I too am.

Desiring to be heard, and panting
with the effort of the hill, the still-

reeling porcine lover prepares its declaration,
fated always to be ill-fêted.

For why should all my originality,
my selfness, or anyone’s, be subsumed

in some porkish hankering to be loved,
to be not part of the herd, to hoard goodwill

like a memento ⎯ nailing its pictures to your hard-walled heart
⎯ hoping that through accumulation,

by laying its platitudes over each other
one by one, its will will supercede will and become

Love? The hill declines. The pig becomes a boy.
The swineherd changes back into a girl.

Love becomes a painting with tiny brushstrokes.
The painting becomes a dream I dreamed

long before I knew or thought of you.
The very thought’s a vapour.