Love Ends
Paul Whybrow
Love Ends
12 Poems for Those Falling Out Of Love
Paul Whybrow
Copyright 2014 Paul Whybrow
Published by Paul Whybrow
(Originally written and published under the pen-name
Augustus Devilheart)
Cover Art: fotographic1980 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Love Ends
12 Poems for Those Falling Out Of Love
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Love Ends
12 Poems for Those Falling Out Of Love
Disclaimer
This book is a work of fiction. While some of the place names are real, characters are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Love Ends
12 Poems for Those Falling Out Of Love
'We are never so defenceless against suffering
as when we love, never so forlornly unhappy
as when we have lost our love-object or its love.'
Sigmund Freud
(from Civilization and its Discontents)
The Poems
Love Moth
The End of Things
The Lonely Woman
No Rules in Love's Game
What Do You Do When These Things Happen
Passing Through Love
Your World In My Head
Unwanted Love
Love Hyenas
Remember to Forget
Spark Tinder Fuel Flame
Out Of Ashes
Love Ends
12 Poems for Those Falling Out Of Love
Paul Whybrow
Love Moth
Fluttering in from darkness,
a blameless moth seeks
light and warmth.
Happy, fascinated, captivated
by flickering glow
it hovers near.
Musty wings shake
diamond platelets free
in hesitant stall.
Brightness obliterates
questing vision
to dull perception.
Heat chars fragility
into a crisp carapace
of doom.
Felled by desire
for all beyond it,
moth ashes.
The End of Things
Saying it's alright,
I'm doing OK,
It could be worse.
I'll get over it,
Isn't quite the truth,
Now is it?
You feel like shit.
The pain won't go away.
You'll never be the same again.
Why did you try anyway?
It was sure to fail eventually.
Don't bother in the future.
Things have ended.
It's finally over,
Though you tried
To keep things going.
You don't deserve this,
It's really not fair.
But life never is.
It's the first thing we learn,
But quickly forget, hoping
That hope will be enough
To make things endure.
But they end all the time.
Get used to it.
All things must pass.
Relationships are plants
That have their life-span.
You deserve happiness.
Time to begin again.
The Lonely Woman
Love long gone,
Loneliness her friend,
The woman watches.
Always watches
The shifting past.
Passionate tableaux,
Fraying mood-pieces.
Brief happy threads.
Eternities of loss.
Wracked with regret,
Withered through loss,
The lonely woman
Ties memory strings,
Knotted into memory,
Creating happy patterns
From abandoned twine.
New vistas emerge
Of events unlived.
Invented happiness better
Than sadness known.
She lost forever
Her faithless lover.
Regretting his absence,
She makes oakum,
Fraying his bonds.
Sore stung fretting,
Caulking the gaps.
She binds herself,
Needling ways through
Closed-off hearts.
Casting fresh stitches,
Pulling threads snug.
Making fresh pictures,
Of discarded dreams.
Part of something,
Better than nothing.
The empty frame,
Her hollow life
Echoes with fear.
Nobody sees her
Or holds her dear.
She's barely there.
A dream weaver
Casting pearl memories
Into stranded time.
No Rules in Love's Game
If you wonder why you're hurting.
Why things have turned out so bad.
How it is you've been sorely used,
And abandoned once again.
You were in a game with no rules.
Just expectations of decency, that's all.
Hoping for the best, behaving honourably
Would keep you together with one so true.
Did you think that temptation would disappear,
Be absent from the scene forever, no threat at all?
The gloves come off in love's game, it's talons out.
You'll get ripped-up, torn apart, shredded half to death.
There's no come-back when you get hurt, so suck it up.
You've wounded lovers yourself—isn't that the truth?
No rules means a free-for-all—quite a price to pay.
Keep your wits about you, love's the toughest game in town.
What Do You Do When These Things Happen?
The first night that you sleep together
and you don't make love.
When you call your new partner
by your previous lover's name.
How you don't feel aroused,
simply not in the mood.
When things are banging on a bit,
so you might as well fake orgasm.
How you need to think of other people
to get there—anyone but your lover.
When you're trying to think of more reasons
to stay together than to break-up.
That you're gladder to see them leave you
by yourself, than to welcome them home.
When they're tired and fall asleep fast,
or you pretend to do so….
They call it falling in love.
It takes longer to crawl out.
Passing Through Love
Teasing my way past you,
As you stand and gaze
At what you can't hold,
Our love gutters and dies.
Winnowing on the wind
Of our desire, spent seed
Falls earthwards, scraps
For skulking scavengers.
Harrow
ed by loss for what
Will never be, a future
You can never have, you see
You were only passing through love.
Your World In My Head
My head is full of you,
I think of nothing else.
We parted months ago,
You haunt me constantly.
I'm searching for who I was
Long before we became we.
I catch glimpses of my spirit,
A hapless wandering refugee.
I'll rebuild my soul, batten heart
Against attack from the thud
Of flightless dreams crashing
Lost into what I once held true.
Within the refuge of my sanctuary,
I spring-clean remnants of you
Clinging to the bones of me.
Gouged clean, I'll begin again.
Unwanted Love
What do you do with it?
The greatest power known.
A force to move mountains.
Energy to sustain a happy life.
The thing we all search for.
Where does it go to?
When love is unwanted.
As the words of rejection
Are uttered, does it wither away?
The thing that's so needed.
How is it we contain love
That only lives with approval?
Can we recapture love spoiled,
Freshen it for another heart?
The thing may be immortal.
Love Hyenas
Vulnerable, wounded by love,
forsaken and abandoned,
it's hard to try again.
To throw yourself
back into the arena,
climb into the ring,
rejoin the meat market,
swim in the sea
with all of the other fish.
Easy to bare your throat
and say "don't hurt me".
As if that will protect you.
There's those that hunt
for prey like you.
The weak and needy,
tired and desperate,
your scent draws
such scavengers close.
We've all been victims.
Everybody hurts sometimes.
But if that's how you are,
a walking wound of self-pity,
then all you'll attract
will be love hyenas.
They'll tear you apart.
Heal yourself well
before you try love again.
Remember to Forget
Say you'll remember.
Say it to yourself.
Remind your good self,
That it's time to forget.
No point in holding on
To thorns that prick anew.
Let scabs make good scars,
For it's time to forget.
Distance may change
The thoughts burning
Through your tender soul,
But it's time to forget.
There's no disloyalty
In letting-go memories
Which pain you cruelly.
Remember to forget.
Spark, Tinder, Fuel, Flame
Sparks need friction.
Some abrasion.
Striking flintiness
Against hardness.
Strange to think that.
Do we seek resilience?
Some toughness of soul
That matches our own.
The 'click' which sparks,
Lights tinder laid as trap.
A lure to hold brightness.
A brief flash in our pan.
Tinder as foreplay.
Initial sharing.
A gentle yielding
For furies to come.
It has to catch.
Grip substance,
Or flicker fades,
Unscorched.
Our fuel as fodder.
The life meat risked
For shared warmth,
Light and company.
Heat that roared,
Danced in delight
In a well-made pit.
Subsided to an even glow.
Embers, heat enough
To ignite new passion.
Infernos need feeding.
Are your flames eternal?
Out Of Ashes
Feel their texture.
Rub them between
Your thumb and finger.
Add some water.
Mix a porridge
With your palms.
Flakes on the wind or
Clogged on your life-line.
Which do you prefer?
Your love affair
Became so much smoke
And ash residue.
Ashes make fertiliser.
Dig them deeply
Into your heart.
Memory of them
Provides sustenance
For future love.
The End
About The Author
Paul Whybrow has a young head on old shoulders.
Ex many things, including being a teacher, counsellor,
librarian, dispatch-rider, milk-man, postman, bar man,
house renovator, classic vehicle restorer, courier,
van driver, factory worker, project manager,
live-in carer for the elderly, editor, photographer,
volunteer at a community centre, play-schemes,
homeless campaigns and nature conservation projects.
I wrote non-fiction magazine articles for ages,
but turned to creative writing in the summer of
2013. I've been my own boss for a long time,
which means I'm working for an idiot and the
pay is lousy—but the holidays are great.
Paul Whybrow has a good heart inside a battered chest.
* * *
Also by Paul Whybrow
Novellas
* A Man Out Walking His Dog—A tale of mistaken identity.
* Burpwallow Holler—Loyalty in post Civil War America.
* Quarry—A gangster becomes prey in a lethal reality TV show.
* Ghosting—How a lonely biologist finds peace with the ghosts of her life.
* Is It Her?—A new start is offered to a grieving widower.
* A Blue Tomorrow—Temptation and new beginnings on a farm.
* Hearts On Tour—Small town friends support one another.
* What Would I Do Without You?—A newly-single wife begins life again.
Short Stories
* The Moon Is Out Tonight—Two soul-mates separated by circumstance.
* Due-Date—A soul in limbo is given a new job.
* Jacqui In Space—A 20th century explorer on 22nd century Mars.
* Over And Out—Things come to a head on a 50th wedding anniversary.
* In The Graveyard At Dawn—A boy and his dog among the graves.
* Soul-Swapping—Moving souls, a demon tries to get back to hell.
Song Lyrics
* 12 Country & Western Lyrics—hope, regret and seeing things as they are.
* 13 Kinds of Blue—trouble's your only friend, ain't it?
* A Dozen Pops—love in a bubble always goes pop.
* A Dozen Rocks—head down boogie along the highway.
* Box of Love—songs of love and hope.
* Howling For You—the sadness goes on and on.
Poetry
* Love Stages—Love affairs seen at different phases.
* Love Begins—The thrill of the new, the nervousness and delight.
* Love Ends—What do you do when things go wrong?
* Love Hopes—How would you like love to happen?
* Love Wishes—In an ideal world yo
ur affair would be like this...
* Nature's Ways—Aspects of the natural world, happy and sad.
* Modern Times—What it means to live in the 21st century.
* Old Age Navigation—Ageing stinks, but it beats the alternative.
* Darkness—Written from the endless night of the soul.
* Darkness Darkness—We all have our dark side—how's yours?
* Loneliness—The poverty of the soul, when you're alone.
* Solitariness—The richness of the soul, when you go solo.
* Poems To Ponder—Thoughtful and amusing poems for children.
* Witches' Knickers—Silly and nonsense poems for young readers.
* Hold Onto Yourself—Funny and warm poems for youngsters.
* What Do You Like?—9 Erotic Poems
* Building Story House—10 Poems on creating stories
* Lost Among The Words—10 Poems about Writing
* Friends And Other Confusions—10 Poems on liking others and yourself.
* Chasing Big 'O'—9 Erotic Poems
* Squeeze It—10 Poems on Creativity and Setbacks
* We Stop Ourselves—10 Poems on Creativity, Doubt and Self-Belief
* Love Scenes—10 Poems about love
* Free To Fly—10 poems on getting through
Novels
Coming soon:
* The Perfect Murderer—a novel about a serial killer, who makes no mistakes.
.
* * *
Connect with the author
https://paulwhybrowblog.wordpress.com
