The Passionate Man

[ellajam]

I love this one. The struggle of the mind and emotions to reconcile with what the body will no longer do is a struggle anyone who lives long enough to decline faces. I aggressively gardened the last few weekends. remembering how I enjoyed every glimpse of plant. soil, insect 20 years ago and now I just couldn't wait to be done with it. Losing sex is that x 1000, maybe second only to actually dementia, although that may be easier, I don't know. Love the last line, an invisible disability is a rough road. I'd love for the N to take the next step and remember that sex is in the mind as much as body but that's another poem.

The Passionate Man*
 
How cruel it is to render
a passionate man impotent,
so that all he does is sit in his room
staring with dulled eyes.
 
Having lived life like a god,
only to have the god desert him;
the energy that once coursed through his body
is now the heaviness of lead instead.
He would weep in self-pity
except he knows the truth of it.
Pity the once passionate man,
for he was blessed and now has fallen.
Hell in life is no different from hell in death,
except in life you are still expected to act…fine.
 
Erthona
 
©2015
 
 
Note bene:
 
*I use man in the generic sense so that it represents both genders. It has been my experience that woman can be just as passionate and just as foolish as men.