The Wandering Poet
A poet staggered into a bar
and the poet said,
(of course he was drunk at the time)
“Love is the price you pay for living.”
He’s right, and it is a heavy price to pay.
Broken promises, broken dreams
broken hearts, lives, families.
Broken everything, or so it seems.
And so, the drunken poet went on
slurring as he spoke
“You can’t live without it
and living with it is impossible.”
Some truth there
we surely cannot live without love
but living in love can be troublesome.
The larger the family
the more trouble will come
and then people change.
Years later they are not the same
and that’s when trouble begins its game.
The poet was sitting now, because he could not stand.
“Love is like two people, each trying to solve
two different jigsaw puzzles at the same time.
They’ll never finish.”
They are puzzles to each other
and each to themself. They change every day.
As a family grows there are more puzzles
added to the shelf. It’s quite possible someday
they would choose to put
everything back in the box.
The poet was then sleeping, waking only in spurts
to utter the following:
“I gave her my heart and in return, got nothing.”
“We could have had a great future together.”
“You can’t put out the fire of love with words,
so why am I a good-for-nothing.... poet?”
His answer lies in the words of Plato,
“At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.”