Unrequited Love Cliches At Valentine

I came not with clenched fists

I came with open palms

I came wearing my heart on my sleeves

I came with floodgates to my heart wide open

But you closed the spillways to your mind

You built a dam across the autobahn

Indeed a roadblock was mounted

On your chest at the gate to your heart

I banged on the stone door to your hardened heart

My deluge of love entreaties failed to wow you

And seep through your impregnable façade

You developed butterflies in your tummy

And suddenly developed cold feet

You kept me at bay on tenterhooks

Giving me a wide berth as if I was a suicide bomber

Your ears were enormously plugged with wax

You looked at me in askance through tainted glasses

And your skin developed goose pimples at my approach

Your nostrils smelt a rat and kept running

Yet I came with my heart wide open and

Grinning from ear to ear, awash with pregnant love,

To seek unalloyed friendship

Yet you gave me the cold shoulder and a cold treat

My heart missed a beat in the cold heat

Should I beat a retreat

Indeed, while I rode a lowly ass

You perched your arse on a high horse

Or was it a gangling giraffe or cameleopard

I guess my gesticulations and articulations were infra dig

We were all talking through our hats

On different wavelengths and frequencies

At different vibes and altitudes

Even then, with the right attitudes

The communication gap wouldn’t have been that amplitude

Or have I been gaffing

Did I hear a sneer or a guffaw

Ride out the storm and descend from

Your high perch

We can be at par as old pals to spar

Our friendship has come this far

From days yawning into the past

Into the precincts of the very present

Relax, we have in deed travelled far

My Ghanaian fair and comely lady

Don’t be adamantine, seeing you are my Valentine,

A season seasoned for love calisthenics

And unbundling tangled hearts filled with love agony

By Kwesi Sakyi 8th February 2011