Some other poems from 'Making Buildings out of Gods and Glue'

If Love is Only

If love is only a box of chocolates

It will be gone before you finish this poem.

If love is only a bunch of flowers

It will be rotting in a wheelie bin inside a month.

If love is a big red heart full of clichés on a card

Then it will mean less and less as it is repeated every year.

If love is only these things then it doesn’t exist.

But if love is a tangible thing

Measured by how we cherish each other

By how we put someone else before ourselves

By how we choose to keep someone in our thoughts

Then perhaps it is more of a long term investment

More of an unconditional thing, a natural human thing.

I will buy you the card, the flowers, the chocolates

The material things that don’t prove a thing.

But say I love you without advertising prompts

And expect your love to be as tangible as mine

And as obvious to the world as a red ribbon

bowed around a manufactured plastic rose.