Love And Snake Oil

Maybe love didn't die. Maybe it just up and left. Could be it's hanging its head out of a Buick on a winding Kentucky road, kneeling unseen at the feet of a motherless child in Africa, or sitting alone in the back of a bus in Cleveland saying:

NOW WHAT?!

I've come to believe that faith healers don't heal. They just hold angry snakes by their tails. As night falls they pitch canvas tents, setting up shop in backwoods towns where hope runs out around the 20th of the month. They light gas torches, turn them up high- blinding white. "I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT" they shout through eyes shut tight; blind to the sanctity of truth, the humanity in a hard day's work, or the pure light that hides just above the spectrum.

Am I to believe that a message of love from God himself can be delivered by osmosis directly by a preacher's hand laid on the top of my bowed head?

Sometimes I think love is sandwiched between 2 pieces of rye bread and 3 inches of pastrami somewhere in a deli in Brooklyn. Or that maybe love is a content man with four inconsiderate stepkids and a minimun wage job strapped on his back. Could be that love is a Vietnam vet with his legs blown off who stands on his stumps and cries everytime he hears God Bless America.

Right now I feel like the only thing I know about love is what it isn't.

Love isn't a diamond ring on an outstretched finger. If it's a feeling. I know where I can buy that in a bottle, a bag, and a vial. It's not a basket of puppies because puppies grow into old limping dogs who have somehow outgrown their usefulness.
If love is a puzzle maybe it's the missing piece, left out of the box during packaging by a factory worker whose arms ache from being empty.

Maybe love is trapped between the crumbling pages of that old photo album that got lost in the move. Or maybe it dwells in the interpretation of your next meaningful glance...

The one I'll miss searching for that photo album.

Reviews

[roarke]

It's me again.... I read this again, and you can tell a great piece when it holds up time and time again. This one does. "Now what?" I thought only I asked that question against any circumstance. Kind of like a western version of the Zen "Is that so?" question. But there's so much more in your piece, imagery, sensations, emotions, it's all here, yep and LOVE too.

[LJW]

Thank you so much. Means a lot.

[K. Louis]

so many beautiful metaphors in this for what love is or might be.."If love is a puzzle maybe it's the missing piece, left out of the box during packaging by a factory worker whose arms ache from being empty." -- just one of my favorite lines, this was great to read.

[roarke]

All I could do was share. More people should read your fine work LJW. Thanks.

[Thaddius]

This stings with cynicism, and yet a shaky, insuppressible hope. The irony of the 'Africa' line and the funny frankness of the 'pastrami sandwich' line really illustrate the scope of this mercurial mulling. You dare the reader to tear down your prosy wrappings and proclaim that 'No, love isn't dead, and this is why!' Your neediness is tangible under the screens of irony and wit and weariness.

The little tacked on bit about 'a factory worker whose arms ache from being empty' is fascinating. I feel it plays worse to the average reader than your intentions, almost cliche. It's not about his simple 'emptiness'. It's about running through the course of a daily routine forever, so much that you can't function when the monotony hits the hay. There is a space and salvation ought to swoop in and fill it up, but instead the muscles don't even want to work for the space, to keep it open - they've already worked enough. So it's an easier poison to churn out the fractured puzzles and ask less questions, except in moments like the one you had when you decided to write this piece.

[Misery]

A most excellent bit of composing, New England.
Your imagery allowed me to splice into your thoughts and "see" a thing with other eyes. A much prized skill you have. Thank you.

[kmartell]

having read this I see it.

single love out, it is everywhere an illusion? but that only points out where it is.

[LJW]

Cool point. Thanks so much for your read and comment.

[h d e rushin]

"i've come to believe that faith healers don't heal, they just hold angry snakes by their tails".

fantastic metaphor to the promise of marriage, or the sideshow of it, and I don't even know
the percentage of those marriages of convenience contracted for social, political or economic
advantage. All I know for sure is that if you do a thing long enough it becomes a ritual to go fourth,
an eloborate pattern of living. No different than being a wounded veteran or a factory worker.
I wish for a greater knowlege of what love is (or was). But I find myself always wishing,
for greater knowledge.

tremendous poem.
dana

[LJW]

Greater knowledge indeed, my new friend. If you figure out this love thing, let me know.
TY for your always too kind comments.

[Ken Simm.]

Don't know if its got anything to do with anything but all the way through this I could hear Hendrix's version of the Stars and Stripes. This is a rich fruit cake slice of life and witty wisdom.

[LJW]

Nice musical accompaniment, Ken.

This was a menopausal rant, little else.

[Robert L. Franklin]

"Right now I feel like the only thing I know about love it what it isn't."

Great words. Keep it up!

[Emily B]

I told somebody the other day that I had learned what love is and then declined to enlighten them. I didn't feel like defending my philosophy or sharing.

Besides as long as I loved that somebody, he never did get it. I think maybe he needs a better teacher.

I love your words. Especially these about love.