novelty is clever the way
papier-mache is.
colorful, young
but empty if you pick it up,
filled with hollow
love, always perched at the tip of the pen,
is fragile,
trying to slip away behind a hiccup
and hide inside
pain. dark wells of it.
lapping against walls of lonely quiet.
at once novel and lovely,
and a poet's repast.
i ask
is there poetry beyond pain?
-- love.
beyond love?
-- novelty.
and what is beyond novelty?
--
My, my. Aren't you clever.