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I loved you for your body,
This cannot be denied.
As I do with everybody,
Both open and implied.
There cannot be another way,
But to forsake transcendent love.
A body is, what a body may,
This I'm certain of.
Trust me, love, this is no game,
Of hifalutin minds.
Love yearns not for any name,
But for one whose body shines—
The glory of our very being,
For love is love exchanged.
Desire is a psalm we sing,
In bodies not the same.
Love, my love, is to transact,
Believe not in love transcendent.
I loved you once then held it back,
Then grieved for love that went.
I often think, perhaps cynically, about love as a transactional thing. You've captured that cynical feeling nicely here, and I like the rhyme scheme.
ReplyDeleteUsing the word cynical surprises me. I don’t see this poem as cynical as all. Actually quite the opposite. To me it’s joyful. A ode to the physical experience of love.
DeleteThen why use the term "transactional"? That kind of takes an edge off of the joy?!
ReplyDeleteI understand the word more in its original etymological sense. Trans means ‘through’ as in ‘transportation’ which is literally ‘carry through’ ie. movement through space. And ‘action’ which is ‘performance’. So a performance through space, an agreement of connection. That in itself expresses for me something metaphysical in the physical.
DeleteOK. But then are you intentionally dancing around or the "other" meaning of "transactional," particularly when it is coupled with "love"? Are you challenging the more prosaic meaning of "transactional love"? Or, perhaps you are so innocent -- such a gitta neshama -- that the "other" meaning isn't even in your consciousness?
ReplyDeleteNot sure I totally understand. I guess I can ask the question, if not for the physical manifestation, how is love a thing at all, except as a pure abstraction? Abstraction must at some point give way to interaction (transaction, expression). Not to say that you cannot have a sexual interaction without love of course. But love, if it has any reality must be transacted.
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