Tag Archives: Love poem

NaPoWriMo 2015, Day 4: Internet Appetizers

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DSC02137 - Version 2

Internet Appetizers

Casting our nets wider,
we gather matching minds and hearts
like small silver fish–
just a tiny bite, each one,
trying to fill a big appetite.
No big fish
to struggle to land.
Just nibbles,
one after another,
taking the edge off our hungers.

The Prompt: Write a “loveless” love poem. Don’t use the word love! And avoid the flowers and rainbows. Try to write a poem that expresses the feeling of love or lovelorn-ness without the traditional trappings you associate with the subject matter.

This subject seemed to grow when it came time to do my Daily Post on WordPress.  To see more of what I’ve said, at greater length, go HERE.

The War of the Words (Love and War)

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 The War of the Words

The words packed tight within my mind
seek the empty page.
They fly like hummingbirds and hawks
escaping from their cage.
But when all my empty places
I seek to fill again,
too many words rush in at once,
creating such a din
that nothing can be made of them.
I cannot restore order
in these alien syllables
that flood across my border.

I did not think these previous lines.
They just crept up on me.
I place them here upon the page
and thereby set them free.
They have no place within my head
where I had plans to write
a valentine or love poem.
Instead, they spar and fight.
One trying to beat the others
to the front line of my mind.
Love words elbowing their way
through “sensitive” and “kind.”

So shyness steps on anger’s toes
and sloth runs out of steam
trying to reclaim the place
where words like it must dream.
I no longer know the purpose
that I set out upon
I fear the mood is broken–
my concentration gone.
The thought that any love poem
will come is now absurd.
Ten minutes ago I was in love,
but now I have been cured!!

The Prompt: Write an Ode to something or someone you love. Bonus points for poetry.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!!!

Wallpaper

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This is an old poem I found in the bowels of my external hard drive. Reading it stirred up the squelched emotions of eight years ago; and although they are no longer felt so keenly, if at all, they still felt authentic. So here it is, rewritten and exposed to the eyes of the world for the first time:

Wallpaper

Clinging to the wall
like an old wallpaper scrap
are the words
I want you, I want you, I want you, I want you.

Their refrain slides up and down
the musical scale—
an old country tune,
plaintive and clear.

Why do I want you?

The first time I met you,
there was something about the curl of your hair.
Your eyes, so familiar­—puzzled, as though
you, too, were trying to remember.

After that, it was
the set of your shoulders—
the arm stretched between your seat and mine
with your hand on the back of my seat.

All of your restraint an aphrodesiac.

The truth is
that I pined
for two days after I left,
then went on with my life.

Still, that scrap
of wanting
comes up early in the morning
as I waken

and my mind walks,
looking for someone to pin it to,
and every time
it stops at you.

NaPoWriMo Day 23: The Separation Continues

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Today’s prompt was to find a poem in a foreign language that we do not understand and to write a poem based on what we imagine that poem might mean. I’ve placed my “translation” first. The Croatian poem I translated is below it.

THE SEPARATION CONTINUES

Pry back the blackness spread over the flattened
world, using the voice of poetry for your rake—
poetry no traveler can understand or translate.
Poetry no one knows the cost of—neither
posted propaganda nor cheap
joke, but rather words to soothe bad
kisses or portraits of topless women,
naked out of necessity
for a piece of bread or for a
drink: cheap vodka or blackberry wine. Yes,
this afternoon, crossing the tavern where love died,
and, coincidentally, where he first knew he loved me,
I tasted the rich baklava I used to serve him,
and we raised a glass to him
who will never write poetry again.

2014, Judy Dykstra-Brown
USA/Mexico

 

VRT FINCI CONTINIJEVIH

prije nego li sjednem za ovaj
stol, oprat ću ruke, poezija
ne trpi traktate o sebi, za-
gristi svježu kost, ona ne
dopušta da propadne u barutu
jezika, prahu i bromu to malo
kiše, potražit ću toplu ženu,
jer nijednu riječ nikada nećeš
dodirnuti da te ona ne pita o
sebi, zatvoriti oči, zaroniti, i,
tada, kreću s tavana svi mrtvi,
iz začuđenih usta isplove crni
ozbiljni barkaroli i širokim
zamasima pjevaju glasno
nad otvorima neba

© 1998, Miroslav Mićanović
Croatia

NaPoWriMo Day 7: Fidelity

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Our prompt today was to write a love poem.

Fidelity

Each morning when I wake
to shrill alarm or sweet bird song,
depending upon the requirements of my day,
you are the first to greet my opening eyes.
You rest there on the pillow next to me
in the bed where first I, then you,
have fallen to sleep the night before
too soon, too soon,
before half our words were said.

After a quick trip to the john,
it is the first stroke of my fingers
that bring you finally to life.
Your countenance lights up
and the same love words
I revealed to you last night
are returned to me.

My hands caress
and new words come easily
first to me, then to you.
I touch gently all
your fine smoothness,
getting back
everything that I give
equal measure,
continuing our long love story
of give and take
as I shift your light frame onto my lap
to stroke your separate parts
from question mark to exclamation point.

Could a PC ever rouse this passion in me?
No way, MacBook Air. Thou art my love!

(I forgot to mention before that this love poem was to be written to an inanimate object. My love affair with Macs has extended over 30 years—from my very first floppy disk table model to my new love…the ultralight MacBook air.)