Sad Faced Clown Poem by Terry Collett

Words are masks,
what lies behind them?
What the real things
they try to convey?

Max sits on the side
of his bed in deep thought.

She has gone
with whom he slept,
but didn't sleep;
just sex and words
and sex, then gone.

Now he feels
as if sleep
has fled and gone
followed the dame
who carries his sperm.

But not love,
not much besides
there resides.

He has known love,
not that kind
of simple fare:
here now gone there,
but a deeper kind
of body, soul and mind.

But rare, rare as pearls
in a sea of shells.

Then a kiss was like
a seal of love
sealing lips together
to keep out words,
words like masks,
words that lie.

That love went
when that lover died
and died twice over
first in mind in death.

He can hear her
last breath.

Eased out slowly,
then stopped,
then nothing
but that silence,
that dreadful silence
that comes after death.

Now he loves
none other.

O yes, he loves
their eyes or hair
or the sway of body
or them just
standing there.

But it isn't love
deep down,
just them made up
and sweet smelling,
and he
the sad faced clown.