Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Pope is Getting Married (poem)

'They say all poets must have an unrequited love...'- Terence Trent D’arby, Holding on To You

The Pope is getting married.
He must be, or you wouldn’t have come here, girlfriend,
Asking – nay, begging – that we give our love another chance.
You had better believe we have reached a dead end:
The only way I’m taking you back is if the impossible happens,
Like the Pope marries or nuns striptease over the weekend.

How could you do what you did to me?
We were as close as two people could possibly be.
We lay so close that we shared the same air,
Our limbs entangled in an octopus-like snare.
We talked about everything from terrorism to nail care.
And then I find out that you’re having an affair.

When I first saw you walking hand-in-hand with “him”,
I thought it must be your twin sister – I was that dim!
And then I remembered the many “business trips”,
Phone conversations in hushed tones, cold unresponding lips…
And that was when the scales finally fell from my eyes:
Our relationship was a tiny ship floating on a sea of lies.

Why couldn’t you just come clean and tell the truth –
Say that you no longer harboured feelings for me?
What did you think I’d do? Refuse to set you free?
Shoot at you like that sniper from the movie ‘Phone Booth’?
I’m sure Honesty is buried deep in some forgotten graveyard:
Nobody’s truthful anymore – Honesty didn’t even die hard.

By all means, put your mind at ease, girlfriend,
I’ll take you back; the drama has come to an end.
We’ll go back to the way things used to be:
I’ll call you ‘cupcake’ and you’ll call me ‘pooh bear’,
I’ll open doors for you and give you back my house key,
We’ll pillow-talk for hours, the same oxygen we’ll share.

But before re-union, the following events must transpire:
The Pope must get married (The church bells will rock the spire!),
Wolves and sheep must reach a consensus,
Temperatures in Hell must fall below 4 Degrees Celsius,
Politicians everywhere must stop lying to us
And windy pastors become more time-conscious!


(c) Alex N Nderitu
http://www.alexandernderitu.com/


Buy Alexander Nderitu's prose and poetry books at:
http://stores.lulu.com/NewShakespeare

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