Love in Other Words,free poem by Gale Chester Whittington, gay pioneer, writer, humorist

Love in Other Words
By Gale Chester Whittington
==Copyright 2004-2009==

The pain returns in droves.
Rewinding, she reinstalls,
Regaining her killer hold,
Like wind in persimmon groves
Unchaining a bitter cold.

Blind shame in Niagara Falls:
Disrobing with no protective wall.
Vile fame when Viagra stalls.
Revolting, the world’s wretched crawl.

Betrayed love invites disdain,
Push comes to shove, then defrays
Dreams of sweeter ways:    Unfed,
Battered amid the maze,
Scattered in the haze:    Meaning lost.
Tired, tattered, tossed:    Code red!
Mired, shattered, crossed,
Wired for better daze:    obscene cost.

The pain, she comes but never goes,
Indicts memories, the highs, the lows,
Muddles sense, reviles the few . . . the rebel few,
Shuts the fence, defiles the view . . . the level view.
Love, Satan’s secretly beveled tool,
Revives incense, reveals true you . . . the Devil-You.

Lousy lie, lonely fool;
Torch a heart, unhinge the glue.

Rail to believe,
Fail to conceive
Love less bitter.
In the end:
Flailed ’n’ frittered,
Nailed down, outwitted.
Bend to mend;
Sin to blend.

Too late to grow;
Few hate to know whole
Truth.
Please pay said toll,
Feng Shui the Dead Soul
Booth.

Post final inning,
Toasted, unwinning:
Gross primal ending.
Pieces de heart, un-singing,
Broken apart, non-clinging.

Thanks for renting my heart,
Debased, spent, and charred,
Fate's tormented discard.
Love: outpaced, displaced, and barred.
Shoved, defaced, disgraced, and scarred.

Superstars, born of pain,
Like Life, are torn and drained,
Strife-spiked, shorn, then slain.
Strike thrice, transformed in vain.
Strike five, forlorn and lame,
Life-like, adored, then mourned.
Insane!

Some say you pulled me down.
Someday, you'll come back 'round
To prey. But you’ll have found
To stay, you’ll have to drown
Your fate on diabolic ground.
You’ll pray, then hear dark sounds
From Cabaret de Hell, the wail
Of my heart, now pale, a shell.
No sale,
This time!

Wicked winds of pain they blow
Private sins of shame, of woe.
Hope itself, the savage lie,
Shrouds souls that cannot die.

Hearts ripped off and maimed,
Parched, stripped of tricks and blame,
Gyp Soul's last flickering flame.
Dull hell:
Full whine.

Dreams never bought
Bleed through a sieve:
Seems they only rot,
Steam and depart,
Naught to live.

The soul, abused, unsought,
Stricken cold, used, calls not.

Violets are purple;
Never have they been blue.
I hate word usurpers
Who can’t say, “I love you.”

The pain she grows,
Never slows,
Or ever goes . . . away.
Pain. She haunts our dreams.
Love is what it seems:
A sad state,
Half past hate.