On a website devoted to love, poetry is an inevitable inclusion. Of the three principal forms of love: Agape, Philia, and Storge (I don’t consider Eros love) the general forms written about here are Agape and Philia as I have relatively little experience with Storge. Anyway, the poetry is heavily political, moral, and social and I hope that you come away from reading it a better person than you went in.

The picture at the top of the page is from a typical teen drama of people living vicariously through hotter, richer, people than themselves engaged in mostly amoral, and thus immoral, lives. It is a proven media strategy time and time again. It’s The Vampire Diaries and the watchers will grow up to listen to mainstream rappers and watch Game of Thrones, Fifty Shades of Grey, Empire, and more. I give Nine Dobrev the benefit of the doubt that she’s a good person, as I try to with every individual. Although I have never met her and cannot attest to her character. The phenomenon, generally, shrinks the little faith I have in humanity.

I like the aesthetics of that show. I like the yuppie chic, manicured, pretty inanimate and human designs. Generally, I prefer upscale settings to poor or middle-class ones. My tastes in optics are old-timey, aristocratic, and bourgeois. In modern settings, I prefer classic-y modern to contemporary modern. Yet, within the classic surface must be a classic substrate of soul. I am not an atheist in any way and every story should be a rhythmic heart-throbbing fable that ultimately God speaks through. And fiction must be fiction, the characters must live in a surreal and uncanny setting, not a realistic one.

In playing the fantasies of the audience, though, regardless of lacking a substrate or being too realistic, the dramas that dominate contemporary media from Billions to The Real Housewives of Atlanta to Southern Charm do represent human psychology. In that sense, they possess depth. That is a source of immense poetry. It is an expression of the human condition. Good or bad, it does say something profound. The metaphorical masturbation of humans to some glitzy ideal says a lot about human nature. I cannot say whether that television series said anything profound during its run as I did not immerse myself in it enough to do so. It, as a single particle in the mosaic that is the story of this species and this century, does. That is how poetry is written. To look into anything and see its truth. Even in something, itself shallow, depth can be derived.

Below are samples of the poetry linked to above, I’d be grateful if you sent me feedback on my poetry by messaging me through the contact page.

I. The Strand A Year On

(May 27, 2020)

Oft do I, on mornings brisk. Whisk my legs and pull them along. To the songs of the sirens and the gulls sweetly serenading the Firth of Clyde. Where the pride of my household and the light of my God were defended on the line by the sea. Richard Spencer and his Odinist army, rose with masts with the curses of our pasts to reclaim the land for nastiness. Clashes of steel and iron of Angels and Valkyries, warriors for the love of peace against warriors for the love of war, roared into the sky as thunders heard from Forth to Skye. Cries of babes on hillsides, abandoned by their mothers, were stolen by us and baptized. Raised to avenge their near demise, the sparkle of life shining from their eyes. Shouts of joy and wonder arise from them.

Spencer and his men climbed the glen again and again and almost did they win. A sun dog appeared, like at Milvian Bridge, and the tide of the scene turned. The might of brawn and the brawny gods outdone by the meek and the seemingly weak. A full week of exhausted fighting as the sun rose and set on the river. The fairies chimed every time one of the valiant of the other side slipped into the Clyde and died. Spencer saw the verdict and was left to fight, his gods saw him as lightweight as he couldn’t force fate against grace. The stars of Mars would lose to ours and Fortuna was outwitted. The Völvas cast empty spells in a last effort to avert the coming bell.

The rains of Hell set forth like the plagues of critters and blood. Omens of the things to come. Spencer lifted his sword, too proud to stand down, he deserted and left us to contend with his flock. We sent them with him and said that we did win and if he wanted the Lowlands, he’d better think again. I walked where it happened and felt safe in the womb of this household and land, where love made her stand and arose in grand triumph over those who would not have her. This sweet beach on the Firth of Clyde, where life was defended and death was held back. Love is sweet but it can attack.

2. The Maiden on The Strand

(June 13, 2020)

Maiden, lay thee on pebble beach as the sky cries and the sea dreams. The night has died and the stars go to sleep. Seeping and creeping is the light from the deep. Limp and weak art thou now, for granted taketh thee this peace. A war was wrought, for years was fought, the tears of mothers and wives for the lives of their lovers dropped here. Now, all of that is asleep and thou art sleepily awake. The breeze whistles and the thistles sting and all things placid so much that one may hear the distant angels sing. The howls and moans of times gone are etched into the archeology, they may be deciphered and their story may be told. Wounded and dying groaning like toads, a symphony that Lucifer, himself, drank with glee. Are still whispers but are but whispers in this abode by the sea.

3. The First Day After

(August 25, 2020)

In the praise-house, yonder miles on. Marion County South Carolina. The empire of Rome, where hedgerows made property lines, propriety was gentle and evil, and things were nice in the ways of ways. Arose a gay. No world would save him. It was the Summer of 1995. His lover clandestine. They would meet in the midst of the night. Shielded from the eyes of society by a whitewashed wooden wall. Abandoned at the fall of Dixie. Where the freedmen were first free before migration took them to the cities. Rotting wood. Bumps in the night would knife them in this backwoods country. Silence and deftness let them do this. In the praise-house by the creek. Preachers suspected. They would look. Death stalked the nook. Hour and hour and hour and hour would flounder in an ocean of dread above their heads. If the future would come soon, if their noon would not be midnight, then all would be alright. Time is an unkind mistress. She knows the future and doesn’t let us taste it. The first steps of emancipation are never the last and those who take them live in the past. They took the step like the freedmen before, they have yet to see LBJ. Today is the first day after the Civil War. Confident their descendants will see light, they huddle tonight, society has made it barely alright, and far in the sky coming down ever slightly is the time when their people will have more.

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