Tag Archives: Love Story

Empty Hearted, for dVerse Poets, June 10, 2025

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Another lost heart and someone in the background who looks like she could have been its model. SCULPTURE BY ISIDRO XILONZÓCHITL.

EMPTY HEARTED

All those long years ago, it was you who begged me to give you a chance to prove how much you loved me. In the end, I did, opening my heart against the advice of everyone we knew. And when I surrendered that very last part of it, opening myself fully, you proved them right and left. For fifty long years, I have been feeling the lack of your love. “Find someone else to give your heart to–someone worthier than him,” my family and friends have been insisting all that time. But I have no heart to give. When you took back your heart, you took my heart with it. To hurt is to steal.

The dVerse Poets prompt was to write a piece of flash fiction or other prose up of up to or exactly 144 words, including the line “to hurt is to steal” from the song “Mysterious Ways” on U2’s studio album Achtung Baby.

Go HERE to see flash prosery written by others to this prompt.

Reptile Romance, for Cellpic Sunday, Jun 8, 2025

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For Cellpic Sunday

Elastic, for RDP Wednesday

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dsc08669

Elastic
(Cyber Romance)

Our affection is elastic, stretching from here to there.
My nightly kisses reach you through a thousand miles of air.
We have a date at 2 p.m., another at eleven
or twelve or one. It matters not. This freedom is just heaven.
No scrambling for a lipstick. No reaching for our combs.
No need to leave the comforts of our cozy homes.
No reservations must be made, no flowers to be bought.
No rashes to be suffered and no colds to be caught.
We are so safe here sheltered each in our favorite place
without expending energy meeting face-to-face.
It is a cyber romance—the newest thing to do.
And instead of having babies—one, perhaps, or two,
emojis I will give thee—as many as you please.
Life is so much simpler  lived out via screens and keys.

 

 

RDPFor RDP Wednesday: Elastic

“Liberty” for The Sunday Whirl Wordle 659

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Liberty

Birds find an opening in clouds to cross a languid sky,
their shadows sparking hope as I trace them with an eye
searching for some method, be it holy or black magic,
to dispel the shadows of an outcome I find tragic.

One waiting in the shadows by the font of holy water,
advances, clear in his intent to wed my father’s daughter.
Clear in my resolution that I will not have it so,
I ‘m resolute my troth to him would birth a life of woe.

As he greets me at the altar, I turn my foot to run
down that selfsame aisle, out into the streaming sun.
Let my father wed him if he’s so set in his plan
to bring into his family this workhorse of a man

so like himself that I well know that he would likely smother
all my dreams, just like my father did to my sweet mother.
In the woods there waits for me one other who can see
all those other selves I have it in my dreams to be.

Fleet of foot, I shed my heels and speed in my advance
ahead of those pursuers who would choose to foil my chance
of living my own life in the manner I would choose.
Thus fueled by my determination that I will not lose,

I speed into the forest where my lover waits,
my final summation to a lifetime of debates
about who rules my life expressed in action as I reach
to mount my waiting stallion and make off toward the beach

where his boat is waiting for my true love and me
to set out for our lives across a welcoming sea—
a new land for us both where we can come to be
whatever we might choose in a land of liberty.

Note: I’ve been waiting for 6 years to find an opportunity to use this photo I took from my porch at the beach in La Manzanilla.  Finally!

Words for The Sunday Whirl  Wordle 659 are: spark languid opening magic hope cross clear cloud holy birds 

@notebookmusical

no thoughts, just @Joy 🌞 performing #mydays from NotebookMusical. you’re welcome 💙 #joywoods #TheNotebook #notebookbroadway #ingridmichaelson #mydayscover

♬ original sound – The Notebook Tour

Locked and Unlocked for FOWC

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Is it kosher to reblog this poem, “Locked and Unlocked” from four years ago? Here it is. Please click on the link:  https://judydykstrabrown.com/2016/04/21/locked-and-unlocked/
Ironic that I just had my hair-grown long all cut off today. This is a poem in honor of both that and the prompt!

For FOWC: Locked

Reblog of Linda Lee Lyberg’s Story of her Marriage Proposal

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I signed on to dVerse Poets Open Link Night post to find the prompt, but in addition, I found this wonderful post by Linda Lee Lyberg which I have to share with you…both her story of her husband’s proposal and a wonderful poem by Neruda.  I hope you enjoy both.  HERE is the link.

Surprise Ending

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Surprise Ending

When friendship flares to romance with a speed that is flammiferous,,
what’s thought to be just kinship might turn out to be splendiferous.

. . . . and you must find it ironic
that regard you thought platonic
(more a brother or a cousin)
now brings roses by the dozen
as a symbol of affection
that somehow escaped detection
all those years you were “just” friends,
and that is how your story ends.

Loves that come about from friendings
are the happiest of endings!!!

 

Prompts today are ironic, symbol, romance, kinship, dozen, flammiferous. Image by Nick Karvounis on Unsplash.

Nativity

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Nativity

He met her in a tavern and invited her to stroll
with him in the garden to escape the clack and roll
of the dice on gaming tables that made conversation hard,
so they went to view flamingos in the verdant tavern yard.

Their talk was convoluted, far above the usual yawn
of “polite” conversation as they strolled across the lawn.
She had been to Bali and he had been to Nome,
and so they toured these foreign places, going there to roam

beyond the borders of this garden and this tavern and this town,
and when they reached the meadow, this was where he laid her down,
thus beginning a long story that ended here with me,
of how my father met my mother and how I came to be.

Prompt words today are volute, happenstance, yawn, flamingo, tavern, roll.  Image by Kristine Zanate on Unsplash

Love’s Highway

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Love’s Highway

A pilgrim on this long highway of love, he quickly learned how to forsake what was lucrative in favor of what was genuine. He learned how to first cover-up his pain from love’s last skirmish and finally, how to heal.

“Faint heart never won fair lady” and “Hope springs eternal!” became his slogans and in the end, persistence won out. He celebrated his fiftieth wedding anniversary  today, and their celebratory cake read, “Still Companions on Love’s Highway.”

Prompts today are heal, lucrative, pilgrim, genuine, springs and cover-up.

Romantic Fling

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Romantic Fling

It takes tremendous willpower to duck a louche rogue’s charm,
for something deep within us believes he means no harm.
His appeal is so humongous and his influence so great
that although we know at heart that he’d make a lousy mate,
still we can’t resist him. He piques romantic hopes
that make swashbuckling heroes out of misanthropes.

We bundle up our doubts and cast them overhead,
our fond expectations cancelling out our dread.
We jump into a love story we hope is never-ending,
knowing deep within ourselves its probable sad ending.
But nonetheless, we fall in love, in spite of our friends’ censure,
plunging into a fabulous romance-filled adventure!

Prompt words for today are louche, willpower, pique, humongous,
our  and influences.Image by jdb

louche: disreputable or sordid in a rakish or appealing way.
“the louche world of the theater”