Was it ever Love? [sonnet]
[For Viva]
When what we think is love does turn its face
towards a nightmare shadowed from the sun;
then tenderness and joy it will displace
with laughing masklike fury’s smoking gun.
For love is not the same as naked lust
(although it sings with mimic tuneful sighs).
The first one gives — the other’s base is thrust;
but power to heal will never brutalize.
How can it slake your soul when fists hail down?
(But yet some strange attraction draws you in).
You’re both his puppet and his random clown
unless you cauterize him from within.
When dust has cleared revealing light above
the question thunders: “Was it ever love?”
© 2012, Alan Morrison
The Naked Troubadour 