the proclivity

a quick thankyou to my lovely new readers- i'll try to keep you entertained! do let me know if there's a topic you'd like to see approached. do let me know if this writing is genuine dribble.

 

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what does it mean, to fall in love? 

have you ever done it? 

have you ever seen somebody do it? 

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the poets have discussed it at length, of course. each with different perspective- some with a kind outlook towards it. see Pablo Neruda:

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way"

others have a strict aversion towards the topic, see Phillip Larkin: 

"So your old name shelters our faithfulness,
Instead of losing shape and meaning less
With your depreciating luggage laiden."

likely, for many, love takes on the form that Walt Whitman recounts:

"a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word."

Roderick Ford's gritty and rugged piece reflects a resigned ideal of it:

"Then they put her head and her hands
in a box for burial
and someone tried to take her wedding ring,
but the others stopped him,
and the ring stayed put."

Love bares witness to replacements- to the accumulation of similar people, finding the previous love in others (Ian Duhig):

"I grew fond of company
that knew when to shut up. Then one night,
disturbed from dreams of my dear late wife,
I hunted down her torn voice to his pale form."

Bukowski may have correctly attributed connection within the strongest of the strange:

"sometimes
you will only note
their
existance
suddenly
in
vivid
recall
some months
some years
after they are
gone."

these "poets"... these here men... they've recalled an emotion, and experience. it's interesting, how conflicting in nature the male oriented poetry is in comparison to that of the females. the age old debate of nature vs nurture can be applied in most circumstances, and here we can consider it deeply. why, in an abundance of poetry, do the women so consistently and indignantly insist on the rottenness of it all. 

Patience Agbabi:

"Soon you’ll be forty… he whispered, and how
could I not roll over on top. I rolled and he drowned
in my flesh. I drowned his dying sentence out."

Carol Ann Duffy:

"Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful."

Sylvia Plath:

"I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead."

the anger is prevalent within these accounts, and this continues with thousands of other poets. i'm not trying to make this a whole women hate men thing, i'm not trying to instil a sense of misandry. do not misunderstand me. love can be rotten in other ways, too.

Julia Copus:

"And yet if that same dark-haired boy
were to lean towards me now, with one shy hand
bathed in September sun, as if to say,
All things are possible – then why not this?
I’d take it still, praying it might be so."

it's not just the poets. it's the musicians, too. who i suppose are poets in their own right. naturally, as a singer-songwriter, the poetry in lyricism is what appeals to me. i have loved a lot of people in my short twenty years on earth, and a few of their chosen lyrics and chosen poeticism has stuck in my mind. 

"you give me power
you give me power
you're like a gun or a knife
be my wife"

"pretty words that you whispered

maybe I misunderstood

somebody's not paying attention

what they promise and their word isn't good"

"i just think it's best
'cause you can't miss what you forget
so, let's just pretend
everything and anything
between you and me
was never meant"

"God gives, God's wise

the way that she smiles

it should be no surprise

at work, at home

i'm introduced to so and so

but you're the one they want to know"

i wonder if, like me, every person has a culmination of lyrics that they have imprinted on their skin and bones and souls. i wonder if, like me, the idea of love is completely bizarre to the general public. what the fuck is it? right? intermittently, you can see glimpses of it within day to day life; a friend provides a kindly service, a relative expresses themselves. a tear falling, and other such things. dearest reader, have you loved before? and how often? and how deeply? and how?

perhaps the poets have had it right. perhaps the women who have seen the rot have only seen it because of it's boundless temperament. perhaps the men who have poeticised it have not seen enough of it, or too much. perhaps the musicians understand it better, perhaps they do not. perhaps we common folk are the ones to feel it. perhaps we all are.

tell me dear reader. will you please tell me if you have had any proclivity towards somebody. for i am yet to reach any conclusion of it's definitive purpose or features- what is love? and how? and how?

sincerely, the caravan girl.