DESPITE
Poems by Gideon Sinke      DespiteI had a string of lovers
under whose covers
I thought I could hide.
I condemned myself
to romance and love
hard and soft places
long and smiley faces
and in you I could confide.
With you I was different
there was no respite
I had a killer heart
so vast and so wide
but I didn’t love you
for my own love
but rather despite.   Floatinga few years will go by
slowly growing
like trees in a line
and you will be passing by
floating, monumentally.
I paid you back in kind
for taking away
my heart and my mind
but inevitably,
I was going downstream.
I questioned all
cut down the trees
planted new ones
amongst the stumps
it was all so seemingly
progressive.
and years went by
my trees growing,
slowly
the stumps overgrown
the line fully in bloom
and you just passed by
floating, monumentally   ***I write poetry
Not because I am happy or for my lamentations of life
My soul’s voice drowns those out
Leaving them like dried or withered fruit.
Why compose prose about the vine
When the tree’s rotten at the root?
No, I author verse
for each word
reminds me of who I once was
and will never be again.   Solitary manIt’s not who you are
It is what you do
The blanket your mother put over you
And the touch of salty edge you got from your father.
Me,
I’ve always been a solitary man
of the lonely kind
no better than the solitude from which I ran
and the saltiness from whom I tried to hide.
don’t you see, that is why we must argue
it’s why we must fight
it’s why you will depart
and leave me behind.
 Gideon Sinke (1991) is a theoretical sociologist and poet from the Netherlands. He writes non-fiction political commentary for his blog, short stories and poems. He is currently working on his first novel. His poems are often of personal nature and therapeutic in purpose. Like many in this day and age he battles a profound notion of alienation and perceived purposelessness in a world that supposedly is his oyster.