28.07.2009 My Passionate Involvement (Rev.) Poem by Margaret Alice

At least you say ‘shut up’
in the nicest way, explaining
you cannot cope with my
stentorian voice droning on, my
interminable descriptions of an
inner life that leaves your neutral
sphinx-like self in confusion

The mercurial fluctuations of my
emotional life, my love of physical
pain, concomitant spiritual ecstasy –
it is too much, you need someone like
yourself to keep the calm, the Eternal
Peace your soul longs for, not my
involving passions

I can see why you need to dam my
songs flowing in a suffocating
stream, you need not explain, I
understand, I’m glad patient paper
can receive my melodramatic
effusions of love and pain, soak
up the excess before it damages

Mine’s an inner world of characters
and tragedies, Baroque horrors that
fascinate, while you’re the root of life,
anchored in reality, on even keel, the
wind under your control; you only
flounder when forces of nature and
destiny escape your management

But your inner fire is proscribed, I am
much obliged that my barbaric
attitude to life has not yet
driven you away…