Pain - ghazal

Let me start by making the case plain:

life is full of constant pain.

An invisible tapestry stitched like rain

you feel its cool presence, the hand of pain:

we must go buy food again,

pay the bills and appease this pain.

And yet our masks paint us sane,

no other way to deal with pain;

turned away from ardour’s grain,

stork to stork, friends in pain:

secretly longing, mouthing consummation’s name,

barriers to body inflict their pain.

Wolves and sheep in a smoke haze

under scrutiny of spyglass pain,

consumed, consuming; dead and slain,

the world births us, we feel its pain.

But why should we hold this chain,

enchained in self-flagellating pain?

Its bonds are cool and it makes us lame.

O! how I long for the happy death of pain!

Yet often have I wondered of its self-shame.

Does it pity itself, agonise itself – pain?

If not through love then through bright fame –

can that give restful peace to this wearied pain?