Written by Jonathan Aryeh Wayne, February 14, 2018

1.

What comes after next week
Once decency is stripped away
Will favors with a guitar
While offering drinks in a bar
Put sexual harrassment at bay

Will a man be allowed to smile
At a woman on the street
Or will a compliment become taboo
As it vanishes from view
Like the Carolina parakeet

Might the government enact a law
Forbidding opposite gender dating
Will heterosexuality become a flaw
Like the wearing of chamois
And passive-aggressive placating

May it matter who one supports
To grant a congenial hello
Or will politics rip us apart
With phones we thought were smart
Creating a hyperbolic afterglow

Will the genders go to war
With armed tampons and bombs
Or may the white rabbits and pigs
Offer us curdled eggs and figs
As peace offerings with songs

Would we become so polarized
That we destroy one another
Like dead trees swaying
In the nuclear wind praying
We find our blood mother

There should be a stillness
That could be heard from the moon
But will our eyes be gouged out
By leathery brown trout
From the silvery fish of the spoon

Will the deafening flavors of the ocean
No longer be bottled in plastic
Floating on the surface
Regurgitating its purpose
Embellished by those sarcastic

Will we be afraid of attachment
Forged by wood at the maple’s knee
And that of the hornet that stung
Insecure was our tongue
Sautéd by the impulsive spree

The utterances of noise and peace
Supinates outward like our pride
Will we jog with the green frog
Ahead of the hellish black hog
As we smirk at the cockeyed

When we no longer wish to hug
As the crying subsides
We may find an old paradigm
As a queen bee commits her crime
To find warmth in bear hides

The antonym of love itself
Is not unanimously defined
Is it suffocating fear or hate
Or those that immigrate
Or are we just truly blind

2.

We can’t weaponize love
Like the rings of the rash
As Lyme disease spreads
While we stand on our beds
Waiting for the fire we trash

We can’t miniaturize love
The energy has no bounds
With crystals we disarm
And the bitcoin we farm
The rivers feed the sounds

We can’t penalize love
We cannot be committed
When we glance at a woman
And giggle at a man
Our fashion is permitted

We can’t incarcerate love
Nature isn’t politically correct
When the pond water dries
And the tree branch cries
It is not willful neglect

We can’t boycott love
We are crooked iron trains
Without a track to roll on
With not a heist to steal
Over the great golden plains

We can’t legislate love
Liking is not enough to please
If we change your heart
If we charge your mind
Don’t ask for a finder’s fee

There are those who say
We can develop policies
But for love to proliferate
We must commiserate
To avoid the future atrocities

We can’t demolish love
This will not work today
For the baker’s pie
And the fisherman’s fry
We must not ever betray

We can’t manufacture love
And we can’t own it either
It’s a donation from the universe
That we often don’t appreciate
Like another brother’s keeper

When humanity doesn’t politicize
With its head in the sand
This volatile state of love
Will rise utterly above
And lead with true command