Let us improvise true love
As J.S. Bach turned inside-out
Retains a quintessential harmony
Place the root-note randomly
Hear its small circumference expand
To make home of Infinity
Love renews all things at once
It is a Lifeboat careless of dimension
To gather every straggler safe aboard
Ones our history misses
Ones who have side-stepped that juggernaut
Eluding ‘praise’ or ‘blame’ of printed pages
Let us make true love our composition
The world has no further need to exist
Its show business a farce
Shine as melodic night-lights
In the sleep of a crooked nation
Don’t be poets straight from ‘central casting’
Meanwhile love your enemy
As yourself since you may be
Your own worst enemy
Let us improvise true love
Until the heart may play the tune ‘by heart’
The song beyond all formal church or ‘chart’
Though nothing here is new
The notes transpose on cosmic cue
When true love – ‘incognito’ – takes your name
Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer
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