What Do We Do With Love?

What do we do with love, sweet love What do we do with love? We put it on a plinth and pray to it as if it were a god We tell our children it's the finest thing upon this gasping sod We dress it up in jewelled clothes and strip it down to naked flesh We make it sacred, make it powerful, destructive, pure and fresh What do we do with love, sweet love What do we do with love? Me melt it down and pour it into moulds of lust and sin and shame We terrify our kids with foul abuse committed in its name We glorify its use to tame the ravaged psyche of the beast We make it slowly, make it rough, we make it twice a week at least What do we do with love, sweet love What do we do with love? We put it on TV, on T-shirts, wanted ads and movie screens We make it jealous, make it tragic, make it sordid and obscene We pump it up till it is bigger than titanic on the waves And watch in disbelief as it explodes and fills a thousand graves What do we do with love, sweet love What do we do with love? We use it, we lose it, we screw it up What do we do with love, sweet love What do we do with love? We shove it down the throats of anyone who feels a bit morose We wield it to break down the walls That hide the things we want the most We use it to gain access to the flesh that makes us ache with lust We use it to convince ourselves we're more than skin and bone and dust What do we do with love, sweet love What do we do with love? We paint it, rhyme it, put it in a sing and hope it hits the charts We make it into crosses, angels, Breasts and dicks and interlocking hearts We wound and maim it with attention, kill it dead with our demands Revive it skilfully, to do cool tricks at our beck and command What do we do with love, sweet love What do we do with love? We make it, we fake it, we waste it all