Love Drunk

"Love," by anonymous

There's the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,
And the love of a staunch true man,
And the love of a baby that's unafraid--
All have existed since time began.
But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
Even greater than the love for Mother,
Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love
Of one dead drunk for another.

     I don't like to think that I'd have to be drunk and dead in order to love completely, but this poem makes it sound like I need to be. But that's the 'wonderful' irony in the poem, created by a tonal phenomenon that we, as the reader, can sense by cold, Times New Roman text; we can feel its subtle, sadist message, the teasing and almost condescending nature that the poet uses regarding the concept of love in the human condition. He (or she) gives me the impression of a failed explanation of what love is, as if the reader were a complacent 5 year-old that he could influence and convince that love is not what the little girl thinks it is. Almost like reading a children's story to a group of kindergarteners, except you have the Grimm Brothers; edition. Something along those lines.

     But on to the tone itself. the rhyme scheme is what really sets the mood as childish and playful. It isn't until the very last line that we're hit with preliminary confusion, realization, and final discomfort at the message that this poet is trying to convey. There isn't really a shift in tone, per se--I read it with that same happy bouncing inflection that most rhyming poems deserve to have when read. But the meaning and implication of that tone changes drastically when the dead drunk is involved. Suddenly, the chipper voice of love transforms into a dry, sarcastic, and flat retrospection as to the meaning of love. Not of a love that is defined by coherent and acceptable people of society, but of a pure love borne out of drunkenness, confusion, and pain. The grating connotation of a dead drunk dissonates the tone that is used to read it, leaving the reader a bit disarmed in the process.

     So love must not have the greatest implications for the sad, sorry guy that wrote this. The concept of love is ripped apart as he not-so-subtly contrasts the allusion of true love in virtuous people (beautiful maids, stauncy men, and unafraid babies) with the realistic, passionate love that drunkards have of each other. Depressing to think about, really. the drunkard's love give rise to many implications; maybe of an unrestricted love? Of a proliferating love? The common assumption of drunks is that they have a looser tongue and less inhibition with each other, so it only makes sense that the love that they may share for one another appears to be unrestrained. Does this translate to true love, to pure love? Depends on the reader and what she thinks of drunk people, I guess. but gonig under the assumption that drunks are more free-spirited, the implication of love from the three 'virtuous' people  therefore seem rehearsed, taught, and controlled.

     And let's not forget that these drunkards are dead. The poet presents the stages of life backwards from the beginning to the end, starting with man and women, leading to a baby, and ending in death. What's up with that? He seems to suggest that in order to experience the "infinite, tenderest, passionate love," we have to have experienced its oppositve first: death. It sounds very similar to what my mother says about affluence and appreciation; one cannot appreciate the value of money unless he was poor first at some point in time. Is the true passion that comes with love only available to those who have experienced its opposite (death) to appreciate it more than face value, and be 'drunk' off societal pressure, without inhibition, in the process?

     I can only imagine what must have happened in his life to make him write something like this, so universally unacceptable to believe in, but realistically rings truer than any optimistic notion we have about true love and caring. Love might just be yet another human ideal that we all strive for, but never achieve. The existential me asks "What's the point?" though the ideal, optimistic me says "Let's change that notion." Maybe I should get drunk and see what happens. But knowing me, I'd be the type to fall asleep if I really lost all that inhibition.