Romantic inertia.

[jaydee]

Wasn't planning on sharing this one, when I wrote it. I was planning, instead, to write a new poem (perhaps a sestina?) on the same theme, but using various references to Doctor Who instead of the references used loosely here. But on re-reading it four months after writing, I'm fairly happy with the way this flows.



He spies her from across the room and all else seems to fade
as far as he's concerned the crowded room might not exist.
And now, what luck!, she glances up and eye contact is made.

He drowns. Though better he should know, he can't at all resist.
Love beckons, and he crawls again. No learning from the past,
from other lovers much the same. The patterns still persist.

From looks to love in seconds flat, for sure he moves too fast.
Where some prefer to fall in love, this one just dives in deep,
and lets it take him over, quite complete, 'til it is passed.

For pass it will, in time, again, and leave him in a heap,
worn out, all spent, no longer will he have the means to care.
The last girl that he fancied so still haunts him in his sleep:

Her hair, of course, was black as jet; her smile ever rare.
But, like the fullest moon, shines bright and dominates the sky.
Her eyes light up as well, as though the smile has need to share

its beauty, radiating out across the face, the eye -
being the window to the soul - is where it shines straight out.
To be the one that beam falls on! A man could gladly die

once he had been the subject of that smile. He was devout
in worship of that girl, no thought of favour or reward.
For none of course would come. This from the start was not in doubt,

He has a knack of choosing loves for sure to be ignored.
Eventually infatuation fades, and once it's gone
it's never long until to old habits he is returned.

Before her with the smile was a girl, shy as a fawn,
more shy than him, whose laugh (though rarely heard) burst like a song,
just like the trill of some most holy bird that greets the dawn.

Some circumstance convinces them together they belong
so for a while they are. For long enough at least that they
got up to things that lovers do. And did each other wrong,

before the end. Some things that still he thinks upon, dismay
writ large across his face. Until the day it happens you
believe some things you'll never do. You never could betray

the one you love. Until some circumstances twist the screw
and render the impossible a choice. That's over now,
and she is gone. "Good riddance," he might think "she wasn't true"

although he wept for her for years. He never will allow
events to play out thus again, even as his sights
are set on future love and loss, he stands and takes a vow

To love, and be loved in return, for love to fill his nights.
but yet to wait for one so perfect as he has the rights.