Love Dare Not

there is no good news
for the rhapsodised
nor for their lovers nor ourselves
who are also artists and buy love
like cheap concrete
cumbersome stone
to build our phantasms with

nothing lives in these illusions
these hallucinations fabricated
into brick and mortar to bind
and thicken our calcified flesh

      scaramouch scaramouch dance a fandango
      servant and captain slave and master 
      contraindication living in skin 
      for the love of God release me

what should have been a love poem
let rhyme slide inside the need to be
inside the need to know whatever truth
be told about the flesh
inside which the soul is a feckless tenant

he loved him (as she loved him)
and the world made news of a love
that dared not speak its name
but of which they would speak
forever unto death which came
of course because
his real disease was love

© BH, 2019

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A poem for Poetry24's Sunday 'In A Word' slot. I wrote it because we ran Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie, yesterday as the first outing of our community cinema. A great success - but lots also to consider when the successive stimulants wear off. I wrote it, too, as an antidote to the New Zealand atrocity in Christchurch where 50 worshippers died in mosque attacks at the hands of a loveless fanatic.

Prompted by the following article:

'Bohemian Rhapsody: WATCH Mary Austin reveal a major surprise about her love for Freddie'https://www.express.co.uk/…/Bohemian-Rhapsody-DVD-Freddie-M…

Full of celeb-stuff (being the Express, of course). This was merely a nod to Freddie Mercury and the love that dare not…