A Love Poem

By Clyde Always

March 15, 2020

On the Threshold of a Brave New World,
no rivers rose, no fires swirled.
No asteroid careened; no missiles flew.
As the grand finale ever neared,
beyond this Hellish gate I peered
and gazed at everything I feared 
with you

A blackness so engulfed the skies
like Earth, she’d spat in both my eyes,
but still, I searched for any speck of blue.
Then, swooping down from such a height,
all slanting, sloping in their flight—
‘neath scarlet skies, I dodged their bite
with you

They drove us quickly underground
where, endlessly, alarms would sound
and for the workers, one last whistle blew.
Then, stinging like a ruthless lash
the screens would flicker, glow and flash—
in awe I watched this monster thrash
with you

Then specters by the thousands marched
in hospital blankets, freshly starched;
before our eyes, their ranks forever grew.
While stooping dim, in distance cloaked,
dear Libertas, she wheezed and choked—
but helplessly, my cheeks I soaked
with you

Those breathless weeks we laid in wait,
and all the while I faced the gate 
through which I’d glimpsed a world not brave but new.
And, as loathsome seemed my path to start,
the weight most pulling at my heart
was the fear of being forced apart

from you

Clyde Always is an accomplished cartoonist, poet, painter, novelist and vaudevillian entertainer. His writings and/or illustrations have been printed in the Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Light Poetry Magazine, Slackjaw, Scarfff Comics, etc. You can see his storytelling act, live and in-person, any Friday evening, at the Scott Street Labyrinth in San Francisco, CA. Find out more at https://www.clydealways.com/.