Introducing a new series of poems by Julian Matthews. Julian is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet published in The American Journal of Poetry, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Borderless Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dream Catcher Magazine, Live Encounters Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The New Verse News, among others. He is a mixed-race minority from Malaysia and lived in Ipoh for seven years. Currently based in Petaling Jaya, he is a media trainer and consultant for senior management of multinationals on Effective Media Relations, Social Media and Crisis Communications. He was formerly a journalist with The Star and Nikkei Business Publications Inc
Link: https://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
By Julian Matthews
Breaking news: Love isn’t a window, they’re the pain
Love isn’t an open door, they’re the slam and echo after
Love isn’t the courting, the ring, the threshold lift
Love, if anything, is the threshing
Love is the winnowing for the granary
Love is the chafing of places indiscreet
Love is friction; love blisters; love burns
Love is the scar, there-in lies the rub
You can’t wait around for love to be patient,
or kind, or be hopeful of their return
Reciprocation is a short, two-way street
Love is the long drive, passing streetlight after streetlight
Darkness, then another, darkness, then another
Love claims the toll down windy, unpaved roads
Love doesn’t care of your comings or their leaving
Love is not blind but plays dumb to needy pleading
Love nevertheless is ‘evermore’, the call of nevermore
unheeded in never-never land
Love is the laceration, the bleeding, the scab after
Love is the cleaver and the cleaving
Love isn’t prejudiced on who they hurt,
who they band-aid, or who they unravel
In love’s wake, you only hear, out in the distance,
their familiar cackle
First published in Men Matters Online Journal.
