i am unloved

©2010  Peter Manda

i am unloved

It is the violence of contempt

That condescends on me …

it freezes my senses in its harshness:

like the frozen waters of Lake Michigan

eating at the hardest shell of those streams

that descend through depths darker

than their soul that entangles me

It is the insecurity of the moment

The fear of scrutiny, the irony of •

Arrogance that ignorance cries

as it dangles its hope on dissimulation.

No moments live here

than those in our hands that have been

held.

and yet that violence grasps ;  it

clings, it surrounds, it compels, it consumes

it devours, it challenges, it engages

and then … it defeats.

It. is the defeat of that moment,

when an attempt has been made

at conciliation and togetherness and

-       that moment – shatters.

-       Shatters against the glass of wind-sweeping

frozen waves; ice lieing on ice;

snow heaped on snow and a

frozen loneliness of outside ; a waiting

for a snowman, for a clause, for

a pumpkin, for an image of how it should be and

have been.

It is the wondering – the awe – the

perspicuous imagination – the depth

of the realization that sitting here at two

in the morning in the freezing rain …

i am unloved.