decuple

I have one

question to ask you

poets.

what's it really like

to fall in love?

does the scales come off

in Mexican lanterns, with movable

fins that control the flow of

bad air or the radiation of light?

Is it a silk, with scorn, fuzzy with

delight; speckled because of it's 

splitting with sacrum or longing?

does it sit in the room of the sick

like a benevolent friend or point

at passing spirits on the train?

is it white flowers

enveloped in finely dissected bracts?

is it flame short or Coup Deville Long?

does it attract spiders with it's red

thorax and fatty bulges

on each side? 

can it be lowered down the well

with a fear or wind it back up with

the crankshaft?

does it luster with distinction or grow dull

like linoleum? does it sink in the ocean

but grab at the shores in the pleasure stream?

is it modernly seductive or mohair warming?

does it hurt the elbow with its stain

or ache when turned  over with a stick?

what I mean is, does it do like the moon does

when you're drunk and your vomit is furtively

sweet smelling..

just asking for a friend.

Reviews

[Einstein Noodle]

ahahahah well dear one! i get this strange sense of jade in reading this :} and in answer to your question to all poets ... that's easy! Love is a many splendored thing of course! :)))))))))
personally speaking tho ... tell your friend that i think this poem hits all the rough spots i bounced, was dragged, went willingly over ... through the fires, pits and crags and rocky mountians ... flooded bombarded befuddled ...................... then found ....with the exception of found ... as the final image is stuck in me throat .. :[
E.
ps. love that last line ... well done says i ..

[h d e rushin]

thank you dearest for this wonderful review...and happy thanksgiving to you and yours.....dana

[Einstein Noodle]

big fat Happy Thanksgiving to you as well hd ... love your stuff you know! :))

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i think the friend is actually the speaker of the poem...
sneaky.
actually it could be all of these things...but i wouldn't know....i think i have loved many times...but i don't know if i ever fell "in love"---not sure i even know what the hell that is.
if someone vomits and his or her vomit smells sweet...that is definitely love...but "loving" or "in love" guess we have to figure out for ourselves.
j.

[h d e rushin]

thanks brother....I fell in love once then it was an emergency. So guess I didn't///lol. Happy holiday to you / just keep on writing/ dana

[Christoph]

Since you posed this as a question, I've taken the unlikely path of trying to answer. Good luck, me.

In my experience, the moment I fall in love is the moment I receive permission.

Not sexual consent or anything like that, but a strong indication that it would be perfectly alright if I turned up the volume on my feelings, and even admitted to having them.

Before that it's friendship or lust or fandom, or some kind of an addiction that I'm not yet sure is good for me. But I keep coming back for more, and she keeps coming back for more.

And I wonder why she's doing it. I know why I'm there: this is my favorite person in the world, the most incredible human being I've ever met, and on and on. But I always assume it's impossible she could feel that way about me.

Until, one day, she says or does something that proves it. Makes it irrefutably true. That's permission. And it's the most surprising, perfect moment I know about.

I think so, anyway. And it's the best answer I've got. Falling in love is almost more about what they feel than what I do.

[h d e rushin]

I love your answer Christoph and by "permission" I assume your talking about the optuse opacity to give in to another persons assumptions. "I love you, so then ergo, you must love me". It's the giving in to all our human naïve notions of logical human interaction, that we name it love in the first place. But because it feels good is reason enough to watch it (be witness to it) getting larger. Such beautiful remarks and happy thanksgiving to you....dana