Love Poem: Anyone Who Wants To Fight Me All the Time
Robert Ronnow Avatar
Written by: Robert Ronnow

Anyone Who Wants To Fight Me All the Time

Anyone who wants to fight me all the time
committee meetings, board meetings.
Facing death was how they knew they were alive
or was it more about allocating resources
like yr Dad said.
It's hard to step outside what yr DNA tells you to do.
Nice tits.
Family farm, fight club. It's all one yet distinctions are
what separates the librarian, reflective man, from the road and bridge
      crew.
That's a class statement. Us guys love
our children and will, circumstances dictating, fight for you.

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Anyone who wants to fight me all the time
is more important to me than my wife. But there is no one left to fight
and no one knows me and I know no one well. That's good,
there is more space between people than I'd ever dared to hope.
I'm confused.
Meditator or gunfighter. Either could come to know himself,
flat abs, clear sight
with patience and discipline.
What's this:
know yourself?
Once yr knee or neck is smashed there's no getting up to fight.

                       *                             *                             *

Anyone who wants to fight me all the time
will grow old alone once I'm in the ground. He will live
with the question what was our purpose? He was managed by
the molecules we're made of, proteins, enzymes, amino acids, DNA.
**** DNA.
I'd rather be a rock.
But the rock is subject to
its elements. Thus, the periodic table and particle physics,
meiosis and mitosis and yes, democracy and self-governance,
all the colors of anthropology and ecology, windmills and sundials,
fission and fusion for evil and light
and the devil who exists to carry the load when we misbehave and fight
among ourselves.

                       *                             *                             *

Anyone who wants to fight me all the time
is how I know who I am.
Because the truth is always changing, depending on the meeting.
What's good.
Service to others is a safe bet. That service
may take many forms: fighting, meeting, teaching, making.
The fighting may be part of holding community together. Limited scope,
      defensive posture.
How broadly we define community says everything. So,
we come to Mexico, a violent border and an unhappy history.
Or Gaza and Israel. Or Russia and just about everybody.
How can a people become a nation without resorting to violence or
      incurring violent reaction?
Does it matter? Accept violence like any EMT and devote yourself to
what, beauty?
Why do I write about violence, I've almost never
had to fight.

                       *                             *                             *

Anyone who wants to fight me all the time
is nothing compared to the ocean which can take your children any time.
The Nazis or janjaweed.
In peace we have our meetings.
When violence comes to the neighborhood the hierarchy of
      communicants will hold or fold
it is then the peace work proves relevant.
Hold your clod of land.
Give way to the waves.
All I do not know.
I admire the writer who penetrates the unknown by describing that which
is not himself.
His enemy,
anyone who wants to fight him all the time
helps him live outside himself.