October Poems 2024 >> unrequited love

A poem for each day of the month in which I was born  
 
October 11  
unrequited love    
 
i am inclined, on impulse, to complain,  
yet knowing i must be thankful once again:  
it’s worse to be forgotten but not gone,  
than gone and be forgotten with the dawn.  
 
among the sweetest words i’ve ever heard  
are those you’ve just upon my heart conferred.  
caution is wisdom, though it bruise the soul:  
swell oceans, where hot tears cannot console.  
 
your eloquence could stand before a jury  
and shatter my petition with deft fury!  
and yet, my heart shall wither from its ration,  
except it find an inkling of compassion.  
 
let not the lamb be slaughtered for vainglory,  
nor yet this page death-vanish from the story;  
for, grander than the book in which it’s written,  
it lullabies for one who stands here, smitten.  
 
my shirt - no tell-tale prints! my heart - it bleeds!  
your acumen - how grand! my shame - it speeds  
me to the dark side of my universe,  
where honey in the rock flows like a curse.  
 
© Copyright 2024 October 10  
by Clyve A. Bowen♫