love poem

Poetry

            Poems have a tendency to seem boring and overly long to people who are not used to reading them.  Some poems seem to make no sense whatsoever, having random words scattered over a page in no particular order.  Some poems are happy, some are sad, some are simple, and some are complex.  Usually a poem will evoke some kind of emotional response in the reader, and this could range from disgust to laughter to fear.  “Love,” by Anonymous, is an example of an interesting poem containing flowery phrases that end in irony and evoking laughter by using rhyme and rhythm in an unexpected way.

            When I started reading this poem, I thought it would be the usual type of love poetry. 

“There’s the wonderful love of a beautiful maid

And the love of a staunch true man

And the love of a baby that’s unafraid”

 The poet used figurative language to prompt the reader into imagining the way a beautiful maid and a true man might fall in love.  The comparison of the beautiful maid and the true man is a simile, because they are similar in the way they are described and in the way they are presumed to be capable of love.  I certainly found myself envisioning a couple embracing and I was thinking about what comes next.  Naturally, a baby would follow a couple who are in love, and so the poem went.  After reading those first three lines I thought the poem was nice and pretty and I had a lovely picture in my head. 

Of course, when I read the last line I understood the irony.  The poet compares “the most wonderful love” to the love of “one dead drunk for another," which is a metaphor because these two things are not usually thought of together.  My mental image of the handsome couple with a baby was replaced by two dirty, stinking men holding each other up at a bar.  Perhaps these two drunks have similar problems in their lives that they are trying to drink away.  Does one drunk have love for another drunk?  Only in the instant they look into each other’s bleary eyes and recognize a kindred spirit. 

“Love” uses rhymes and rhythm to keep the reader hooked to the very last line.

“But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
            Even greater than the love of Mother
            Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love
            Of one dead drunk for another”

The rhymes are obvious, and the rhythm is easily figured out.  This would be a great poem to use as a toast in a bar or at a bachelor party.  I believe the whole thing is meant to be a joke, or a trick for the reader.  If I was not laughing at the last line, I would definitely be disappointed in what was promising to be a great love poem.

            Is the theme of this poem love?  It is true that love can be found everywhere and in everything and everyone.  I suppose love can even be found in a dumpy bar between two lost souls.  Maybe the two drunks are looking for love in the bottom of their bottles.  I can only hope they find it.