Torn Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

He sat out in the afternoon,
the sun was fading, though
he did not notice,
a question had,
in sheer tenacity
breeched borders
normally in place
inside his busy mind.

He knew, of course,
that men think with their heads,
it is what sets them well apart
from those whose tears
and innate fears
make mockery of thought,
whose logic pre-presumes
that all convention
and all etiquette is doomed
before it is conceived
by imbeciles in suits.

His puzzle was,
in simple terms
that he had been besieged
by lust, or so he named it
for her human flesh,
while through the night
and for all hours of each day
his eyes went sanpaku,
retreating well, in part
into the upper reaches of
and underneath the sockets
in a vain attempt to dwell
inside the mind of her,
where all that made her
what he treasured so
resided in platonic peace,
he feared a lack of room,
of plain capacity
to hold both entities,
and he was torn between
and turned salto mortale like
onto his head.

He shook it slowly
and concluded sadly
that it was the one and not
the other that would supersede
opposing force.........
then, a shadow settled on
his hairy face,
it was an image he adored,
and as she sat
upon his knee
he felt her soften
and make room
and so they probed,
until the answer came,
it trickled,
oozed and then
like Mount Vesuvius
it did draw a line,
and there,
in hieroglyphs
the answer stood.
And all was good.