Tag Archives: Love poem

Forest Shadows, for dVerse Poets, Aug 5, 2025

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Forest Shadows

A man is bending his wife—
melding their shadows with the green forest.
They do not listen
to the nearby cannon’s roar––
will not imagine
that their life together,
so new,
might
not
stretch
into
the
future.

When he looks at his pocket watch,
someday children
ringing a well-stocked table
vanish in
her imagination.

He lifts his musket to his shoulder,
trying to believe
in a future
and in it,
this memory:
two shadows
joined as one,
invisible against
the forest wall.

For dVerse Poets, the prompt is “Forest”. If you’d like to participate, go HERE.

Still the Universe for dVerse Poets Ekphrastic Prompt, June 19, 2025

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Still The Universe

Bleach all the colors from the flowers. Cancel out the sun.
Stay the music. Still the dance. Tell laughter it is done.
She will not walk this way again so all must cease to walk.
Her conversation’s over. The whole world must not talk.
Earth upon its axis should stop its ceaseless motion.
The cook must quiet his cooking pots, the chemist trash his potion.
The universe must cease to be now that my true love’s dead,
and I’ll lay myself beside her on our wedding bed.

 

For dVerse Poets

To see poems, go to link above. To see the prompt, go HERE.  image from Pixabay.com

I Took a Picture of Your Name for dVerse Poets, Feb 14, 2025

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I Took A Picture Of Your Name.

After so many years, seeing it again on the screen,
I took a picture of your name.
Not written by your hand,
it had a strangeness––
featureless, revealing nothing.
It had no voice,
no breath.

Out there sharing itself with the world,
it has formed a wall around
that intimacy it birthed when you took my hand in yours,
using your name to pull me closer,
powerless against its strength on your tongue.

Everyone wanted to share a part of what made you you,
but I only wanted to be with you, back when,
scrawled in your careless hand,
you were written on my soul.

Wanting to be perfect for you,
remembering that tattoo you traced across my back.
Your name and mine.
“Always,” you wrote.

For the dVerse Poet’s Pub, Feb 14, 2025

To see other poems written to this prompt, go HERE.

Rich Harvest, for dVerse Poets, Oct 2, 2024

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Rich Harvest

The night that we brought in the wheat,
our weeks of labor now complete,
we raised our voices, beat our feet,
and in that stifling prairie heat,
weary and arm-sore, yet replete
with satisfaction for jobs well-done
earned in the dust and chaff and sun,
we ceased our labors and had some fun.

Hank gave the prim schoolteacher a treat
by lifting her from her safe seat
to move her to the fiddler’s beat.
Soon, her hairpins met defeat,
her wild hair anything but neat,
and Hank was heard to woo the miss
and then to plant a tender kiss.
She remembers all of this

now that their family’s complete
with Rita, Sarah, and little Pete.
Now every harvest, when you greet
each townsperson you chance to meet,
chances are they will repeat
how Hank brought in the wheat that year
and afterwards, conquered his fear
and dared to call the school marm, “dear.”

The dVerse Poets prompts today are harvest and haunting–to use one or both as our theme in a poem. It is a bit early in the month for “haunting,” so I’m sticking to the harvest theme. To read other poems written to these themes go HERE.

Double Reversal, For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 665

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Double Reversal

The silhouettes of leafless branches of the jacaranda tree
sketched by the sun upon the surface of the wall
recall the windswept tangle of your hair.

Call back the edges of memories long buried in a deep back room.
Stolen kisses made illicit by your ex’s change of mind.
Senseless posturings and  unsuccessful reversals.

Finally coming back to what we were before.
You were the prize hard fought for,
and I, the inevitable ending.

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 665, the prompt words are:  tangle surface call back deep room kisses edge sense sketches silhouette windswept

Painted Poetry

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An ekphrastic poem is one that describes a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning. For this exhibition, however, an artist was given a poem and asked to create a painting that reflected the themes of the poem. (To my knowledge, there is no term for this reversal of the ekphrastic process.) My poem about forbidden love is given below and above is the painting it inspired. Painting by Leonardo de Dios Jerónimoque, poem by me.

The show was the  ExpoColoquio Internacional PreTextos del Solsticio held in Tabasco, Mexico, on June 20. I was honored to be a part of it. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend, but a friend took the photo of the painting that was based on my poem.  Below is its Spanish translation.

Pen & Ink, for the Weekend Writing Prompt, Jan 6, 2024

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Pen & Ink

Guided by a hand like yours,
pens can open many doors.
Unclip it. Uncap its point.
Let paper that pen anoint.
As words somersault and caper,
flowing from your heart to paper,
a simple point, an ink-trailed line
could link your lonely heart with mine.

 

For Weekend Writing Prompt: Guide

The assignment is to write a piece of exactly 45 words making use of the word “guide.” I snapped this photo in Guanajuato. Never hurts to have a pen handy!

routes laid out by heavenly bodies for dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge, Nov 13, 2023

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routes laid out by heavenly bodies

the moon
at its birth
and
the sun
at its death
create
just the
suggestion
of a
road
that is
why
I rise early
for the
sunrise
why I
ask you
to join me
for the
sunset
to howl howl
at the
open moon

This is a rewrite of a poem written 8 years ago transformed into a quadrille for the dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Moon.  Go HERE to read other poems written for this prompt. I think I like the quadrille version better. Thanks, De at Whimsygizmo, for the incentive.

Back-fence Whispers: For Wordle 619

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Back-fence Whispers

Since I heard the rumors that my love is leaving,
unproven fears extend their claws and set my heart to grieving.
Still fluid memories of our love rush in to calm my mind,
shoring up belief that he’s not the roaming kind.

Still, those hurtful whispers breathed behind cupped hands
warn me that he’ll soon be off to foreign lands.
Thus, I sit and worry about what the truth may be.
Which love has he chosen? Is it the world or me?

 

The words today are hurt heard whispers since roams clawing rush still fluid grieving shore breathe  : for the Sunday Whirl  Wordle 619  Image by Ben White on Unsplash.

Number 9 Blues

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Number 9 Blues

Those eyes,
that song,
A bird the color
of the moon
we met under.

The wind
a ribbon of sadness.
Cold hands,
broken heart—
all the hue
of a trumpet’s lonely staccato.

For Stream of Consciousness Saturday: Pick a Number.