Wednesday 27 January 2016

POETS UNITED - COURAGE

“The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.” - Jim Hightower

The theme for this week at Poets United poetry challenge is “Courage”. Here is my contribution:

Serenade

How I should love, if love I did;
With tooth and nail most terribly,
With heart and soul
All fibres of my being attuned
To a single note of ecstasy.
How I would love you, if love did I;
With awful earnestness and wild abandon,
My love an overwhelming onslaught
Incapable of pity, torrentially uprooting
Every shred of reason, prudence, caution.

Oh were it that we loved, we two!
How sweet our sighs would echo;
How perfect our harmonious dissonance
Created by our parallel singularities…
Oh, were it possible that I loved you!
What storm and calm, what pain and pleasure
How bitter-sweet, rough-smooth it would be
A paroxysm of desires sated, thrills enjoyed,
Each wound of mine dealt, each lesion
Would be healed and my pain assuaged.

What courage need I muster just to dare to love you,
How bold and mettlesome I must be.
One needs audacity, strength, wilfulness,
Brazen effrontery
To swim against the current and survive
To reach a goal that has been set upstream.

The image above is Pablo Picasso's  "L' Aubade" of  1942

12 comments:

  1. An unexpected take on the prompt. I love the passion in this poem. (And great quote.)

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  2. This is gorgeous!! Especially loved these lines :D

    What courage need I muster just to dare to love you,
    How bold and mettlesome I must be.
    One needs audacity, strength, wilfulness,
    Brazen effrontery

    Beautifully done!
    Lots of love,
    Sanaa

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  3. I love the quote - how very true..and whatever love we pursue..it does tend to feel like swimming upstream...but then if it was an easy drift downwards would it be so satisfying or desirable

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  4. This is wonderful, Nicholas. So VERY true that it takes courage to REALLY open the door to LOVE another person. One does indeed need audacity, strength, and willingness to even begin to risk love. But the rewards are worth it in the case of true love! I like the idea of 'parallel singularities.' This means to me that the two people keep their own personhood, but parallel means that they walk well together on the path rather than clashing here and there! In addition to having a good message, your poem was well composed. Appreciations!

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  5. This line really anchors this poem: "What courage need I muster just to dare to love you" - most authentic.

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  6. Beautiful poem Nicholas. Made me think of my love for the world and ask myself if I have enough courage to stand up for it, to really love it. Also, made me think of my husband and ask myself if I love him with the purity of what real love is. Obviously, I enjoyed your poem and appreciate the thoughts it provoked.

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  7. Upstream is how it can seem to be sometimes. This is beautiful Nicholas!

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  8. Yikes! I wonder if it is worth the fight at times? But especially when it comes to children and teens, it definitely is. And if so for youth, even more so for the true love you speak of here.

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  9. Thought provoking.Takes courage to navigate the minefield of love and in the process, to determine if it is worth it , since it entails so much suffering. In my experience, the course of true love never runs smooth.I personally do not think it is worth the pain although it does inspire some fine creative expression. Incidentally I have never been able to differentiate what true love is and what is not....love is all true to me...all the more reason to close the lid on the hearts and flowers box,throw away the key and lead a mundane, content existence which I would relish, before I shuffle off this mortal coil:)Your love poems are passionate and beautiful.Lovely work Nicholas !

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  10. I so resonate with this poem. I have to admit I have lacked that courage for a very long time. But, fortunately, there are dogs, lol.

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  11. "What courage need I muster just to dare to love you,"...there's much evidence of that 'courage' here...whew...it needs courage to channelize that overwhelming passion into the sweetness of true love..great lines Nick...

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  12. I love how your courage is described as not of cowardice but of compromise and conformity. That can also be an evil hard to overcome in certain situations. Glad you bought it up.

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