Survivors

Survivors

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Labors of Love


by Steve King
© 2010
All rights reserved


I have been reminded
many and enough ways,
that love alone will ever serve
to rectify our days.

Love is a hardening prison:
we toil in passion’s chains;
and when our term at last is spent
we seek that cell again.

Tangled in these fetters
I struggle not so much;
my torture is to languish here,
glad for my jailer’s touch.

I shall never weary
of love’s most shackling songs,
nor wonder, as you’re singing them,
to whom they next belong.

9 comments:

  1. That's the kind of jail
    For which I wouldn't want bail
    A wonderful write
    Seeing love's light

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  2. I never thought of equating it with the jail but I do see your points. I specially like:

    Love is a hardening prison:
    we toil in passion’s chains;
    and when our term at last is spent
    we seek that cell again.

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  3. I loved the prison metaphor; great poem. These are my favorite lines:

    "Love is a hardening prison"
    "glad for my jailer’s touch"

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  4. This is so personally applicable its hard for me to see it as the excellent product of the craft it is--it reminds me of all my favorite dead poets, I suppose because of the reflective prison of rhyme and meter followed like a prisoner on a chain gang follows the man he's chained to--reinforcing the metaphor. the worst part, I find, is how much harder the jail breaks get over time--must be that Maximum Security thing.

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  5. there is some comfort in bondage you know...in that jail, in which there is a lot of freedom within the confines of that love....glad for the jailers touch...yeah i like that...

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  6. Love certainly is a surrender...to entanglements, sometimes bondage, and certainly that last stanza resonates. I like this piece, Steve :))

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  7. Good poem, love does have a way of shackling us!

    Wander

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  8. I love the rhythm and rhyme throughout and the metaphor-

    Love is a hardening prison

    ReplyDelete