Paul Perry
$5
Love is a Decision
I was determined not
to be tricked into
using words.
He hit me:
what do I feel?
I was about to say pain,
but said nothingness.
The days went on.
I avoided the others,
stopped laughing.
At times, it drove me crazy
rattling in my brain
not allowed to think
of anything else.
I jump up and throw it out.
Other times,
I go down.
Down.
Down with it,
down beneath words
where my breath is gentle.
It’s like looking up
through a lake
and the surface is a sentence -
what it reads is nothingness.
What it says is love.
published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2020
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy
Paul Perry is the author of 5 full length collections of poetry including Gunpowder Valentine: New and Selected Poems. A recent recipient of the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship, he is also a novelist. He directs the Creative Writing Programme at UCD in Dublin, Ireland.
This is Perry’s second above/ground press chapbook, after The Ghosts of Barnacullia (2019).
To order, send cheques (add $1 for postage; in US, add $2; outside North America, add $5) to: rob mclennan, 2423 Alta Vista Drive, Ottawa ON K1H 7M9. E-transfer or PayPal at at rob_mclennan (at) hotmail.com or the PayPal button at www.robmclennan.blogspot.com
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