Divided

By Bud Koenemund

For Lindsay

Lady; passion and intellect divide
Me. While attraction remains true, I know
Your youth, to my age, is rightly denied.
Like Summer’s bright blooms outshine Winter’s snow,
So doth beauty eclipse infirmity.
Nature favors one as others decline:
Fading steadily in obscurity;
The mortality to which all resign.
What can I do if desire’s forbid?
Only a fool would declare affection –
Exposing an emotion best left hid –
When silence affords certain protection.
   Love is safer wrapped in the guise of art,
   For speaking truth will surely break my heart.

Love: 1998 - 2016 (Part VI: Freedom)

By Bud Koenemund

For "Her."

Shall a heart incandescent with love be

Consumed by hate? Must one choke the other –

Torment equaling passion’s quantity –

‘Til embers of desire are smothered;

Expiring sans wisp, ash, smoke, or rack –

Token corporeal to signify

Its extinction? Ignored, fervor turns black,

Eclipsing all that light once beautified.

Respect died in a doppelganger’s eye;

Could I not see myself mirrored in him?

Recalling what might have been magnified

My grief, but catharsis yielded freedom.

   Two decades lost can never be regained,

   Though affection lives again unconstrained.