Beatitude

Love everything
Love the sky and sea, trees and rivers,
            mountains and abysses.
Love animals, and not just because you are one.
Love your parents and your children,
            even if you have none.
Love your spouse or partner,
            no matter what either word means to you.
Love until you create a cavern in your loving,
            until it seethes like a volcano.
Love everytime.
Love your enemies.
Love the enemies of your enemies.
Love those whose very idea of love is hate.
Love the liars and the fakes.
Love the tattletales and the hypercrits, the hucksters and the traitors.
Love the thieves because everyone has thought
            of stealing something at least once.
Love the rich who live only to empty
            your purse or wallet.
Love the poverty of your empty coin purse or wallet.
Love your piss and sweat and shit.
Love your and others’ chatter and its proof of the expansiveness
            of nothingness.
Love your shadows and their silent censure.
Love your fears, yesterday’s and tomorrow’s.
Love your yesterdays and tomorrows.
Love your beginning and your end.
Love the fact that your end is another beginning,
            or could be, for someone else.
Love yourself, but not too much
            that you cannot love everything and everyone else.
Love everywhere.
Love in the absence of love.
Love the monsters breeding
            in every corner of the city and suburb,
            all throughout the soil of the countryside.
Love the monster breeding inside you and slaughter him
            with love.
Love the shipwreck of your body, your mind’s
            salted garden.
Love love.

From Punks: New & Selected Poems (The Song Cave, 2021) by John Keene. Copyright © 2021 by John Keene. Used with the permission of the publisher.