Collected Love Poems. Brian Patten

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       The Ambush

      When the face you swore never to forget

      Can no longer be remembered,

      When a list of regrets is torn up and thrown away

      Then the hurt fades,

      And you think you’ve grown strong.

      You sit in bars and boast to yourself,

      ‘Never again will I be vulnerable.

      It was an aberration to be so open,

      A folly, never to be repeated.’

      How absurd and fragile such promises.

      Hidden from you, crouched

      Among the longings you have suppressed

      And the desires you imagine tamed,

      A sweet pain waits in ambush.

      And there will come a day when in a field

      Heaven’s mouth gapes open,

      And on a web the shadow

      Of a marigold will smoulder.

      Then without warning,

      Without a shred of comfort,

      Emotions you thought had been put aside

      Will flare up within you and bleed you of reason.

      The routines which comforted you,

      And the habits in which you sought refuge

      Will bend like sunlight under water,

      And go astray.

      Once again your body will become a banquet,

      Falling heavenwards.

      You will loll in spring’s sweet avalanche

      Without the burden of memory,

      And once again

      Monstrous love will swallow you.