The Book of Love of Man
The Book of Love of Man. Acrylic, paper, ink and metal on wooden board, and framed poem. 57x43cm. 2020.
Private Collection.
The Book of Love of Man (poem). Burned paper, ink, sand, glue, wood, glass. 32x27cm. 2020-2023.
Private Collection.
The Book of Love of Man
What if those fragments came
On floating tides
Strewn among
The larger stones
Stayed at high water
Sea washed and cleaned of words
Become like ghosts of leaves
Brittle white with salt
Amid the leather fronds
Of desiccated wrack
And pink mollusc shells
And burnt stump ends
Of turquoise rope?
Were these not the shards of lover’s hands
Tearing at the spine
Of their beloved’s words?
What unbound prayers
Thrown in vengeful fists
Upon the drift wood fire?
Yellow pebbles mauve with heat.
Two eyes black see only flames,
Fixate upon a whim;
A troubled thought:
That words cannot have meaning,
And so must not exist.
Here I see
Annihilation;
The long forgotten parts
Of The Book of Love of Man;
Unfinished remnants, half cremated
And run aground;
Poems that never ended
And never quite began.
What puzzle for our descendants
To pick through on beaches,
Beneath the loveless stars,
The seaweed prayer
In pieces;
Discarded but not lost
And find in them new readings:
“I pray to thee, oh universe
If all of life is love
As long as I love
Then love exists
And if all the world is words
As long as I can speak
Then meaning surely comes.”
