Tag Archives: Love poem

The Cure: NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 5

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The Cure

That sadness in your heart?
You told me once that she had
kissed it all away.

But still I could detect,
once she was gone, the echo of
that sadness in your heart.

We took your sad past to the ocean
where I hoped the waves had
kissed it all away.

Yet, like a bitter tide, it returned
and I could see again
that sadness in your heart.

I took your sad past to the mountain,
where once again I hoped the wind and sun had
kissed it all away,

and when, on our descent,
I feared the reappearance of
that sadness in your heart? I
kissed it all away.

 

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write a villanelle that contained at least two of three other components.  Here is the vital information concerning that prompt:

the villanelle. The classic villanelle has five three-line stanzas followed by a final, four-line stanza. The first and third lines of the first stanza alternately repeat as the last lines of the following three-line stanzas, before being used as the last two lines of the final quatrain. And to make it an even more virtuoso performance, Dargan’s alternating lines, besides being taken from songs, express “opposing” ideas, with one being about sleeping, and the other waking.

Following Dargan’s lead, today we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates at least one of the following: (1) the villanelle form, (2) lines taken from an outside text, and/or (3) phrases that oppose each other in some way. If you can use two elements, great – and if you can do all three, wow! (I did all three. The opposing line “There’s a sadness in my heart” is the title of a song recorded by Legs and “kissed it all away” is a song title from the album “The Distance Between Two Truths” recorded by Mark Sholtez.)

dVerse Poets Open Link: If I Were Water and You Were Air

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If I Were Water and You Were Air

I used to be restless water—
only the froth and currents
of a moving life.

Now I am still water,
sinking down to where
I can be found
by anyone willing to stand quietly
and look.

Is it true that moving water never freezes?
Is it true that still waters run deep?
Is it true that we are wed in steam?

“What if, caught by air,
it never lets me go?” I ask.

“But even water
turned to air
must fall at last,” you say.

“And what if I fall farther from you?”
I say. “Or what if I never again find banks
that open to contain me?”

I used to be swift flowing water.
Now I am a pool that sinks me deeper every year.
So deep, so deep I sink
that on its way to find me,
even air may lose its way.

 

This is a poem written 5 years ago.

For dVerse Poets.  See other poems from dVerse  HERE.

Long Story

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Long Story

Your makeshift fidelity is now a laughable matter.
I have grown bold in my approaching old age
as my own life story now seems more fable than reality.

Every good tale needs its falling action—
its climaxes mainly based on comparison,
and, ironically, you were also its denouement.

But, we are the authors of our own drama,
and, much as I would have chosen otherwise,
you were just the coda of the second act.

 

Prompt words today are bold, makeshift, fidelity and laugh. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/rdp-monday-bold/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/18/fowc-with-fandango-makeshift/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/your-daily-word-prompt-fidelity-march-18-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/laugh/

Love Charm

Love Charm

You can put away your broadsword. Swashbuckling’s not in style.
You need not kill a dragon to bring about my smile.
Chivalry is so passé. It’s gone right out of fashion.
It does not raise my temperature nor bring about my passion.

If you wish to start a love affair where we will never part,
if you would win my empathy, my ardor and my heart
and bring a love light to my eyes—that certain telling glisten,
then when I talk, just do one thing.  Really, really listen!!!

Prompt words are temperature, empathy,  broadsword and passion. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/07/rdp-thursday-temperature/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/07/fowc-with-fandango-empath/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/07/your-daily-word-prompt-broadsword-march-7-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/07/passion/

 

Dashed Hopes

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Dashing the Hopes of a First-time Suitor

She finds your fawning chivalry to be rather monotonous,
your brain quite adolescent and your physique quite neotonous.
Your compulsion to be healthy to her seems dull and boring,
which prompts my speculation that you likely won’t be scoring.

 

jdb Photo: Photo is for illustration only.  In no way is the poem intended to represent the two lovely young people it depicts.  The prompts today are speculate, health, chivalry and monotonous. The links are:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/rdp-monday-speculate/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/04/fowc-with-fandango-health/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/your-daily-word-prompt-chivalry-march-4-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/monotonous/

Made Over

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Made Over

Back when we were fragile and our love was first on trial,
I was seeking to enchant you with trickery and guile.
I feared that final reckoning when one day you’d wake up
before I had the chance to do my hair and my makeup.

My mental alarm clock never seemed to fail.
I’d haul me to the bathroom, looking snarled and pale—
smooth my hair and draw the me you knew upon my face,
until the real me was obscured—vanished without a trace.

How many years did I go on with that sad charade,

trying to restore in me what nature chose to fade?

Now that all I am is finally written on my face

with lines and wrinkles scored so deep that you can easily trace
all of my imperfections, what a wonder that you see
what you describe as beauty in this face that’s only me!

 

Prompt words today are trial, reckoning, enchant and fragile. Links below.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/03/03/rdp-sunday-trial/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/03/03/fowc-with-fandango-reckoning/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/03/03/your-daily-word-prompt-enchant-march-3-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/03/03/fragile/

Phases of the Moon

Phases of the Moon

When you whispered you’d be leaving with the waning gibbous moon,
I let your words escape behind the music of the loon.
I let the truth go bankrupt in the lapping of the wave.
Underneath the full moon, it was easy to be brave.

Beneath the waxing gibbous and the first quarter moon,
I seldom thought about the truth that you’d be leaving soon.
I turned my back to moonlight to ward off future pain.
My joy could not be sabotaged by its wax and wane.

Under the first quarter, I stifled my duress
lest memory of your leaving undermine your fond caress.
And though the new moon brought again reminders you’d be leaving,
I sealed my eyes against the truth to circumvent my grieving.

Under the waning crescent, resolution slipped away.
I pleaded for our meeting to be done in light of day.
I was wan beneath the moonlight as our time as one grew shorter.
How I dreaded what was coming as we viewed the moon’s last quarter.

Tonight I greet the moon again, standing all alone,
listening to your whispers over the telephone.
In spite of my avoidance, your leaving came too soon.
I finally face its truth beneath a waning gibbous moon.

 

The prompt words were wan, undermine,bankruptcy and seldomly. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/rdp-thursday-wan/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/21/fowc-with-fandango-undermine/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/your-daily-word-prompt-bankruptcy-february-21-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/seldomly/

Valentine Grafitti: 3 Line Tales 159, Feb 14, 2019

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Wallfollower

I’ll hang my hopes on that heart
you scribbled on my heart, graffiti lover.
Pleased to be your canvas.

For Three Line Tales 159

Fidelity

The prompt word on this Valentine’s Day is, fittingly, “passion.” 

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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.

It is the first stroke of my fingers
that brings 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!

 

 The above is a rewrite of a poem written 5 years ago, and my passion for its subject continues to this day.
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/14/your-daily-word-prompt-passion-february-14-2019/

February 13

February 13

This morning, upon waking,
I kissed my pillow and imagined it was you.
There was no sadness in the act.
It was a simple act of adulation.

If there had been a real person here,
I would wish that it were you,
but I’m content here in my solitude—
writing tributes to past lovers—

a bit puffier (me, not you)
than even that last time we met,
when I waken, joints are stiffer.
The cat more crabby in demands for food.

I wouldn’t say time marches on.
It turns its pages, shifts its screens.
The world, more innovative since the Internet,
spins us a new tale second by second.

Vicariously, we speed through life.
Other people’s lives become our own.
We feed ourselves and perform daily functions,
our minds in one world and our bodies in another.

In that manner,
one thing substitutes for the other.
Over and over, like shuffled cards.

This reality and that one.

Tomorrow the busy street outside my bedroom window
will be full of vendors: hearts and flowers
marking half the world’s celebration
of romantic love.

Upon awakening, I kiss my pillow—
not a conscious act. Not one I will repeat.
A simpler act and one unplanned
to remind myself, perhaps, what’s in my heart.

 

Click on photos to enlarge.

 

The prompt words today are innovative, tribute, adulation and puffy.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/rdp-wednesday-innovative/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/13/fowc-with-fandango-tribute/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/your-daily-word-prompt-adulation-february-13-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/puffy/