Love is not love which alters ...

Love is not love which alters .. – a poem by P.K. Odendaal – April 2018

And so it came as a fright to my senses last night
That love is not free as I thought it to be 
Love is not love when we have to defend the feelings we have to pretend
And to know it is there in moments we care

To entertain a notion when we know that emotion
Is an impostor when such feelings we foster.
And should not drive our fate when our love turns to hate

If we say that we love when we are not so sure
Is more than our frail souls can endure

It’s a ruse for all forms of abuse
To say that we care whenever we share
Some form of belief in which we achieve
A life of some peace when hostilities cease

As for me it is clear that it will not endear
The trust of a lover who may one day discover
That love is not free what love wants to be
And love may not fend if it always pretend
That which was never due to some other endeavour.

To say that we love will always come back
And bite us each time when we think it’s sublime
It caused me much pain when I could not refrain
From expressing my care in some moment of flair
And I could not afford the abuse that I scored
Just for the sake of that stupid mistake.

So I say fare thee well to this unwelcome spell
Which hurts me each time when I touch the sublime
I will not be part to this kind of heart
Which snatches my joy in some kind of ploy
To treat me less kind than my own frame of mind.

It is better to flee from this fleshly decree
That states that our lover must never discover
Some flaw in our mind which makes us too blind
To see we shall never be free from the fruit of that tree
That enslaves us for ever in our earnest endeavour
To be true to our calling and keep us from falling
In the hands of our lover without shield or cover.

To say that we care for the feelings we share
Is to trust an emotion which is a love potion
And only finds trust in a state of disgust

It is up to you to prove me untrue
And not to dismiss our hours of bliss
With some kind of notion that destroys our devotion
And makes us to loose the love which we choose

To know what we feel is to make us reveal
The state of our mind in times we are blind
To make us reflect on our own disrespect
For the pain of a season in a moment of reason.

So, be not unkind in the moments you find
When you differ in view and you know it’s untrue
Or suffer the row which you kindled somehow
When you started a tryst which had no real gist.

In the end you will see if with me you'll agree
To say that you love as I mentioned above
is a licence to scold all views that you hold
And turn on you loose all types of abuse

Love is not love which alters when such time it finds
At least we and Shakespeare are of similar minds
But why could he not tell us in short and in plain
Where we could find the true love strain.
The search for that will drive us all mad
when we only end up with the fake one in stead.