Poetry has long been a means of emotional confrontation. This poem ‘Faceless Foe’ is an attempt at doing just that: confronting the elusive feeling or instinct which, too often, impedes us from recognising and then expressing or acting on Love itself, and all those courageous and desire-driven impulses which eventually lead us to her warm embrace.
Falling in love sounds easy enough, but it seems that there is some internal, malign, and frustratingly indescribable force which drains her of her vibrancy and can make this act of surrender and letting go so bloody difficult.
This poem was written to recognise and challenge its dangerous obscurity and then, rather more ambitiously, champion its unsuspecting victim, Love, as something real that should be fought for, and saved from, the slow but steadily tightening grasp of this Faceless Foe, who is and always has been just as empty in substance as obscure in form.
Tasteless malaise,
Empty absence,
Banal tumult of nothingness,
That which consumes latently
in its noxious and devious ways.
Whilst Love, Loss, Anguish and Time
have been poured over and wrung out,
you have escaped the gaze of man.
Love reveals herself
Provoked in fierce passions,
Tears she draws and trauma left in her wake.
You, conversely, operate in the dark
corners of our souls, sowing seeds
of doubt and quiet discontent
which fester and strangle from within.
You don’t stir commotion
or anguish,
but leave behind cavities
and silence,
suffocating life of its charm, so calmly.
I find myself alone in a shallow
shadow ocean so ardently ablaze;
with no real absence
of lust or love-driven craze.
However, the warm glow
of affection and want,
the innocent noise of nascent,
fleeting love in spring
are all drowned out by the
ceaseless and unforgiving pain
of sightless and bloodless
wounds; inflicted from
without and from within.
You do not compare with Love,
As flawed and deceitful she may be.
So, what emboldens you to deprive me of her?
Her bitter-sweet pearls have pounded my tongue.
Her fiery scarlet tint has hued my cheeks
and filled them with honest warmth.
Her resilient spirit has enlivened my resolve.
How then can this Faceless Foe,
so bereft and illusory, seek to beguile
the very beguiler of souls herself?
Poem written by Adam Eshkeri and edited by Livia Bull.
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