Counterfeits of Love
Listen to this articleWords are lovers that never love;
Oblivious to the feelings they relate;
For they may seem real and “tried and true”
Yet only in conveying a counterfeit
In me and in you.
Words are lovers that words hold back,
The gatekeepers of freedom,
Enemy of passion,
Hater of too
Much Lust,
Desire, or
Any thought that is
Questionably undesired.
Words are a constricted construct
That conveys civil discourse
In spite of truth,
It’s no wonder why artists seek love
From an oft-void psychopathic troth.
Whose truth lies in the subjectivity
Of slathered-on lies
No matter how great the artist,
Artistic vision often dies
For meaning is felt in seeing
Because such love, fantasy,
Or whatever we achieve to see
Can never be
A syntax,
A code,
A signifier,
a handbook–
An ill-attempted imitation of me
And Thee,
Of destiny.
Earl Yarington (LMSW) is a social worker and school bus driver. He taught literature and writing for nearly 20 years and spent 3 years working in forensic social work internships with offending populations, including work at Delaware Correctional facilities and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He has a PhD in literature and criticism (feminism/women writers) from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Master of Social Work from Louisiana State University, and an interdisciplinary Master of Liberal Arts from Arizona State University, where he studied the impact of visual image and girlhood in media/social media. He also has an MA and BS in English from SUNY College at Brockport. He is currently in the later stages of his MFA program at Concordia University-St. Paul, where he is studying and writing about Anne Frank. The opinions and analyses that Earl writes are his own and are not necessarily the positions or views of his employers, the agencies he supports, or that of his colleagues.