Category Archives: teen age love

Sex Education

IMG_2034

Sex Education

It’s a rite of passage. At the beginning of the chase,
we make do with kisses all about the face
with our mother’s staunchest warnings that we should wage a war
to maintain our chastity as in days of yore.

But TV is an oasis of fleshy predilections,
a veritable manual of “how to” sex directions.
Add to that the internet and to our folks’ remorse,

we can view every possible form of intercourse.

No more that gentle manual slipped into our hand
by an embarrassed mother whose speech is neatly canned—
birds and bees and butterflies, instructions prettified—
that certain code of etiquette that could not be defied.

So the twenty-first century deals with acts of love,
presented not with gentle push, but with a mighty shove.
Leave the loving out of it. The act is what we’re after.
Forget the gentle wooings, the tenderness and laughter.

It seems the world is doing its best to turn our teens
into walking, selfie-taking, loveless sex machines—
taking what they want so fast that they do not perceive
that love is also giving—not just what you receive.

Love techniques are fine so long as learners also see
that dealing with their feelings requires maturity.
Take care in your choosing. Make sure that you both love,
so when passion finally finds you, it fits you like a glove.

Prompt words today are passage, wage, oasis, staunch and chase.

Cold Weather and the Subtle Art of Wooing

 

Cold Weather and the Subtle Art of Wooing

A frozen little nose and frigid little toes
plague my teeny-bopper everywhere she goes,
for she does not cover tender little parts
when the winter comes and when the snowing starts.

Flip-flops on her feet, face naked to the air—
she seems to need to show us everything that’s there.
Little mini-skirts and a tiny cotton blouse
with nary a parka as she journeys house-to-house.

She says the weather’s nothing. She says she isn’t cold,
and she will not listen. She simply won’t be told
by her mother or her father that she should bundle up.
We try to give her mittens, hot cocoa in a cup.

Now once again she’s out of here with a new boyfriend
but without a coat or sweater to protect against the wind.
But then I see her logic. for when she subtly sneezes,
he drapes an arm around her to shield her from the breezes. 

So even though my daughter might seem naive and daft
not taking due precautions against the cold and draft,
there’s a method to her madness. She knows what she is doing.
Instead of dressing for the weather she is dressing for the wooing.

 

The WordPress prompt today is frigid.

First Lust

 

 jdbphotos (Click on any photo to enlarge all)

First Lust

When we were young, before love rusted,
how we pined and how we lusted.
We lived on love. So sure. Nonplussed.
As though we held a deed of trust
on those we kissed. We arched, they thrust,
our hearts pounding as though percussed.

We came home rumpled, dizzy, mussed—
our heads swirling, slightly concussed.
Our mothers warned. Our fathers fussed,
seeking to turn our dreams to dust.
Our hearts reeling in shamed disgust,
our faces flamed as they discussed.

And although we thought we must
pretend to listen, inside we cussed,
knowing their words to be unjust.
Within each throbbing teenage bust
beat a heart free of distrust,
bursting with love’s wanderlust.

Back there at our very starts,
as we were learning to use our hearts,
back when we thought they might combust,
our hearts were tender, without crust.
We gave them fully with no mistrust.
We thought the world of love was just.

 

 

The prompt word today was lust.

Shooting Stars

p1190256

 

Shooting Stars

We were both so young and nimble
on those nights the world would tremble
with a touch, much less a kiss.
You a farm boy, me a miss
unaccustomed to such things
that woke my heart and gave it wings.
Some part of me knew even then
it was just what might have been—
that though you made my body sing,
it was not an ever-after thing.
Still, oh those nights, remembered still,
parked somewhere on a prairie hill,
I knew for then I was your world,
enraptured and securely curled
In the nest of puppy love.
The very stars trembled above.

The prompt today was tremble.

First Love and the School Reunion

Then and Now

First Love

Zing! went our heartstrings. Zang! went our souls.
Eyes filled with wonder, hearts cupped like bowls
ready to fill  with passion and love.
Putting each other on like a glove.

First kisses miracles we’d never known.
No longer single all on our own.
Someone to cuddle, someone to spoon.
Hand holds and lip locks over too soon.

Misunderstandings, squabbles and fights.
Heartbreak and lonely Saturday nights.
Then a new glance from cars “U”ing  main.
Flirting and wooing all over again.

More hugs and kisses parked on a hill.
How to forget them? We never will.
At school reunions, we relive those lives,
husbands beside us, or boyfriends or wives.

Talking of other things: study halls, games,
but always remembering carving those names
in desktops and memory—first loves forever—
tendrils that bind us that we cannot sever.

We’ll soar ahead to the rest of our lives,
collecting new memories—bees in our hives.
But no honey finer than that we made first.
No sweeter lips and no stronger thirst.

Stored in our hearts, remembered but hidden,
hoarded like treasures sealed in a midden,
our lives are made richer by both now and then.
Past memories opening over again

spill out old secrets, then seal them away
to be unwrapped on some future day
when old schoolmates meet for two days’ reminiscing
of school pranks and ballgames and homework. And kissing.

img_5741

The prompt word today was “Zing.”

Anger (Anagram Poem)

With my Open Studio to set up today, I don’t have time to wait for the Daily prompt, so instead I’m using a prompt suggested by Sam Rappaz. The Prompt: ‘Anagram poem‘. These poems are adopted from the word games that we find in newspapers. The rules are: End words must be derived from four or more letters in the title. Words which acquire four letters by the addition of “s” are not used. Only one form of a verb is used. (Thanks, Sam Rappaz. You can see her Anagram poem here.)

Just for the fun of it, I’m going to try to use the words Anagram Poem for the challenge, but instead of using those words as the title of my poem, I’m using a word derived from them:

Anger

All through our lives it lingers near.
It hovers close over her infant’s pram,
where his mother’s soothing words manage
to calm his cries of distressed rage.
Yet what he sows is left to her to reap.
His distress squelched may turn in her to anger
as at midnight, with the seventh remop
of the day, the angst supressed all day is allowed to range
unfettered, growing from a silent pang
to a depression best escaped from with a rope.

Who imagined this, that wild night after prom
when he first held her breast, a glowing pear,
and she, at last, met his questing grope
not with a “No” expressed clean off the page
of the pamphlet given by her gram;
but rather by a passion that rang,
on that one night, truer with every groan.
His muscled back, her throat, her golden mane.
Her naked thigh pressed to the gear.
For once, her lover given no cause to mope.

And for a day, a week, a month, that golden night remained a poem.
Until the time-worn ending added one stanza more.
Telling her grandma and her gramp.
That long journey up the nuptial ramp.
That fast trip from teenager to ma’am.
With lightning speed, from car seat to manger
and the clock watched, and his absence, and this overpowering midnight rage.