These Are My JOTtings, Part #2

The Platitudes of Love

So many poems are platitudes
in flowery script so fine.
Yet, when the subject, it concludes,
will love be known as kind?

"I'll love you to the moon and back."
"I'll dance upon the sun."
"I'll serve you ever with great tact."
"We'll laugh and have great fun!"

A wag from many years ago,
quite sums it up for me.
"I'd climb the highest mount for you.
I'd swim the deepest ocean, too.
I'd fly across the sky so blue.
To cross the hottest desert I'd do,
just to be with you,
and I'll see you Thursday if it doesn't rain."
It's real, I mean, you see?

A poem of flowers is red and blue,
and sugary sweet, I mean like you.
How easy it is to kiss a cow, too,
before sarcasm's through!

"I love you more than the grains of sand."
"I tingle when I hold your hand."
"Your kisses are the syrupy kind."
"I kissed many toads, before you, I did find."

Now, syrupy sweetness doth have a sure place,
when youthful our hearts of energy and grace.
And nothing is wrong with hyperbole
when chasing a love, that "I want with me!"

But is there no place for honesty spoke
when the love of my life knows I'm quite a joke?
That strapping young buck now works with a paunch,
and the opinions of youth are now not quite as staunch.

There is no less a place for an honesty card,
that admits what we are, whether mucker or bard.
Not as pretty I trow, but a sight more in line
with the man, that I am, and that beauty so fine.

"I'll love you, my dear, when you're ralphing commode
as you're carrying our little one enlarging abode."
"I'll love when our home's overflowing with cats."
I'll love you 'til exercise soon catches my fat."

"I'll ask, 'Who?' when you want to know if the other woman's cute."
"I'll say, 'I'm in your corner, and for you, I'll always root."
"That boy, that you knew, who was handsome and cool
is now older with a body, rearranged as a rule."

All those things, that I said, are still true I admit,
but my "get up and go" needs more "get up and git."
I love you, my dear! That is truly a fact!
But my greatness from "then," in my now's at a lack.

I'm a '69 Ford F100, I know
with original parts, and still rolling I go.
I'd run off of regular if I could find the stuff,
but the love, that I'm hauling for you's quite enough.

by Jay O'Toole
on February 10th, 2020