Searching for what I need, and I don't even know precisely what that is, I was going from a man to a man, and I saw that all of them together have less than me who has nothing, and that I left to each of them a bit of that what I don't have and I've been searching for.

Ivo Andric

A Love Poem

by Alexander Hakman


I've loved you despite myself
Entwined with your being, in a swirl of disquiet and dizziness
I didn't want to say, "I love you"
Out of fear of seeing you disappear like a leaf wrenched from its stem
Nevertheless, I love you until my heart screams
Until I lose my breath each time you distance yourself and leave a void

I have loved you hidden behind the curtains of night
My childish glances followed your every step
My eyes drank the words you would not speak to me
Your words. . . that the light emanating from you wrote on the scrolls of shadows
Your words . . . like fiery stars
Shooting from the dark night to light my way
Your words . . . that you sowed from page to page
In the book of our destinies
And I locked my heart away
So it could not follow your path
But . . . my heart is rebellious
It dances with your words, so soft and so powerful
Clings to its emerging dreams
And today, it wants to speak to you
I love you as one loves a dream hung from moonbeams
I love you as one loves a spring on the rippled slopes of dunes
I love you like the majestic eagle loves to soar and be free
I love you with strength and passion as only tigers know to love

And even if the future is unsure, I want to love you forever
I will love you with all my hope, quivering with impatience
I will love you to the depths of your soul, to the enigma of your silence
I will love you until the desperate need to chant your absence,
Until the fragile confession of an invisible secret

I will love you…..