Tag Archives: poem about lost love

White Owl (Sijo for NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 20)

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White Owl

All these years I ‘ve done without your heavy breath and gentle touch.
My mind turned to other things. Sounds in the night, the call of birds.
But it’s time. The owl asks “Who? Who?” Leaves me to find the answer.

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a sijo.

The sijo (Korean 시조, pronounced SHEE-jo) is a traditional three-line Korean poetic form typically exploring cosmological, metaphysical, or pastoral themes. Organized both technically and thematically by line and syllable count, sijo are expected to be phrasal and lyrical, as they are first and foremost meant to be songs.

Sijo are written in three lines, each averaging 14-16 syllables for a total of 44-46 syllables. Each line is written in four groups of syllables that should be clearly differentiated from the other groups, yet still flow together as a single line. The first line is usually written in a 3-4-4-4 grouping pattern and states the theme of the poem, where a situation is generally introduced.The second line is usually written in a 3-4-4-4 pattern (similar to the first) and is an elaboration of the first line’s theme or situation (development).The third line is divided into two sections. The first section, the counter-theme, is grouped as 3-5, while the second part, considered the conclusion of the poem, is written as 4-3. The counter-theme is called the ‘twist,’ which is usually a surprise in meaning, sound, or other device.

The sijo may tell a story (as the ballad does), examine an idea (as the sonnet does), or express an emotion (as the lyric does). Whatever the purpose may be, the structure is the same: line 1 of the 3-line pattern introduces a situation or problem; line 2 develops or “turns” the idea in a different direction; and line 3 provides climax and closure. Think of the traditional 3-part structure of a narrative (conflict, complication, climax) or the 3-part division of the sonnet, and you’ll see the same thing happening.

 

More Than His Memory, dVerse Poets

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More Than His Memory

More than his memory, it was his scent that awakened me to the full moon scrimmed by clouds. I moved to the sliding doors and out to the jacuzzi. Who else in this world would float on the surface of the water under this remarkable moon? The curious cat came to bear company, and the dogs. One hummingbird whirred incongruous over blooms in the night. This pulse in my ear of hummingbird and blood drew one mosquito into its chorus, annoying and persistent, to drive me into the water as easily as his scent had pulled me out of my shell of troubling dreams into the glowing night. A hand smoothed a path in the water, as if to welcome me. “If you are a dreamer, come in,” he said.

 

 

The prompt was to use the line “If you are a dreamer, come in,” in a story with a beginning, middle and end that was under 144 words. For dVerse Poets.

Time and Space

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I hear it from afar—
across the street
or down the mountain—
unoccupied laughter
that carries with it
memories
of long-ago encounters.

Lessons learned,
idiosyncrasies shared
with a place and a love
on a mountain
thousands of miles distant
from any previous experience.

These encounters,
long dead,
resurrected
by anonymous merriment
that, unknowing,
carries messages
linked to memory
by some truth
of quantum physics.

Two beings, once connected,
maintain that connection
over time and space.

 Your laugh.

Prompt words today are lesson, Idiosyncrasy, Encounter, Laughter and Unoccupied. 

Divergence

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Divergence

It’s the untold exposition 
of most love stories–
that split in the path ahead
that was hinted at, perhaps,
from the beginning.

Overlooked but inevitable,
it makes this story
as regular as most of the others.
It is the flourishes
that make the romance
that nudges us
to try again.

 

Today’s word prompts are: the path ahead, split, (starting to sound like a Robert Frost poem in the making, here,) untold, exposition and regular.

Couple-ets: April 1, 2020

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“Couple-ets”

The path I thought was straight and easy has developed swerves.
This trick-or-treat relationship is getting on my nerves.

One day you bring me sweets and roses—all my fond heart seeks.
The next you end up ghosting me and disappear for weeks.

Our bond I once thought perfect is showing signs of wear.
Too often I’m a single whereas once we were a pair.

That love once thought infrangible now sports a widening crack.
Don’t show up as who you’ve become. I want the old you back!

Where once I published love poems, now I tell how my heart aches.
Where once I wrote of how love grows, now I tell how it breaks.

 

Prompt words today are infrangible, publish, ghosting, trick and sweet. The jar pictured is a wedding jar I purchased in Chiapas. The idea is for the bride and groom to each drink out of their own spout of the communal cup. Lovely imagery. I put black beans in it to hold the plants upright as they developed roots and filled it full of water. A few weeks later I came out to find that the beans had soaked up the water, expanded, and burst the cup. What a metaphor!!! Perfect for this poem…

 

High and Dry

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High and Dry

Who wouldn’t feel dejected being jilted by their lover?
It’s normal to be feeling that you might never recover.
Yet when it comes to  loving, let me give you this advice.
Too often love’s determined by the rolling of the dice.
It may come up all sevens or it may come up a bust,
but no matter what your luck is, it simply is a must
that every time you meet the jerk who hung you up to dry,
you have to act as though he is just another guy.
Exercise some sangfroid. Act happy and aloof.
I can guarantee it will send him through the roof.

 

Prompt words today are sangfroid, jilted, advice, aloof and recover.

Of course no one would ever jilt any of these irresistible women. This was a photo for a joint art show I did with three friends years ago. The show was titled, “Now Hanging,” thus the photo of the four of us hung up to dry…

Secrets of a Warm Climate

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Secrets of a Warm Climate

After a hot afternoon,
a sudden rising chill wind
blows his canvas from the wall.

The pool, filled with the blood of the volcano,
is still hot soup warm after twelve hours of cooling. I slide into it,
all others in the house and neighborhood asleep or abed.
Strings of papyrus blown into the water
catch at me like cobwebs as I swim through viscous water.
I comb them from the water with my fingers
and launch them poolside.

Gentle music floats up from the town,
backup to the repetitious trilling of the nightingale
and the far-off Who? Who? Of an owl.
The crack of the house settling into night.
The wind singing in a different voice from every palm tree
under a clear sky filled with stars.
Air cool on my face,
water hot around my body— its currents like silken whips,
I try to remember sensuality with someone else attached to it.

Moving forward and back, then in circles around the kidney-shaped edge,
I am drunk on the night, making my own romance,
knowing that what matters, now that past loves are over,
is not sharp words or all the craziness of love’s endings,
but instead—the first yearning wishes met impossibly
by the answer in another’s eyes and voice, then mouth and hands.
What is important is that sweet pain of wanting—
the answering pain of wanting back.

All the fairytales of new love:
tropical sand or mountain canyons echoing the call
of goats and the answer of goatherds,
a first sight across a smoky room,
hearing a poet’s words about a past love
and, knowing that power could be directed towards me,
dizzy in love before I even met him.

His death or love dying first is not what it is important to remember—
just those days where love was everything that mattered.
And in this life gained after those first vanished loves,
”Send me a sign,” I say, looking to the stars.
And there is a flash, immediate.
Not a falling star,
but one shooting upward in a quick bursting flash of light.

 

Here is the prompt. And here is what others wrote for the prompt: dVerse Poets: Secret.

Lover’s Spat

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Lover’s Spat.

When I said I didn’t miss you, I admit that I lied.
I didn’t get enough of you. I left unsatisfied.
If you, too, detect a movement in your stone cold heart,
perhaps you could begin with a phone call as a start.

I didn’t mean to say it. You didn’t mean to scream.
I’m willing to atone for it by any means you deem.
Breaking up is hard to do but staying mad is harder.
I spend way too much time in bed, too much time in my larder.

I’m gaining weight and losing hair, burst into tears repeatedly.
I fly off the handle and insult my friends most heatedly.
So I propose our meeting via taxi, boat or plane.
Our last tryst was insufficient. It didn’t heal the pain.

If you’ll come out of hiding, then I will do the same.
If you’ll agree to meet with me, I’ll even take the blame.
You’ll be right and I’ll be wrong. I’ll take the higher road.
The digs that I once took at you will produce the motherlode.

Prompt words for today were taxi, movement, propose and hide.

First Love

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First Love

That frisson of excitement that I once knew so well—
that doubling of my pulse rate that rang me like a bell.
Back when there was no contest over which would win
when impulse clashed with custom. Back when passion was no sin.
The sum of all that feeling sent us crashing into life—
before you were a husband, before I was a wife.

Remember how exciting those first love wanderings were?
Those first stirrings of passion that made us stretch and purr
like felines on that blanket stretched out on the grass?
Our love was a religion and each touch a holy mass.
Our loving was eternal up until the time we parted
and each became a memory of when loving first started.

Prompts today are sum, double, frisson and contest.

The Reappearance

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The Reappearance

A luscious former lover that I haven’t seen in years
takes my quiet life by storm when he reappears.
He showers me with flowers he says are in arrears
for all those times he should have stayed to dry my tears.

Of course it’s an unsuitable last-minute love affair
that simply manifested like magic from pure air.
For well nigh on a dozen years, he wasn’t even there—
this Lochinvar who now insists we are the perfect pair.

Dare we try settle accounts so long overdue?
Dare we stir those embers to kindle love anew?
Or might our purple passion have assumed a lighter hue?
At this late date how can I know the proper thing to do?

Why so wan and pale, dear lover? Are you drained by worry?
Why such a push to reconnect? Why such frenetic hurry?
Why suddenly are you intent my favors to thus curry?
Why all this sudden passion? This trial without jury?

Who put me in this role of judge, called to adjudicate
what might be our future–our destiny and fate?
Once I would have loved the task, but now it is too late.
Why would you wait until the eve of my wedding date?

The wedding cake is stacked and iced, the flowers hung in bowers.
The time until my union is measured now in hours.
In a backroom with his friends, my groom paces and cowers.
Bridesmaids fuss and bother and rearrange their flowers.
Now is not the time, my dear, to reassert your powers.

All of us have daydreams of lovers of the past,
intent in our belief that they were not meant to last.
The sea of love, once entered, is so wide and deep and vast
that we lose connection with lines formerly cast.

I see you now sequestered in the far back row
beside the aisle I’ll walk down, my troth to here bestow.
You should have spoken sooner. You should have let me know.
For now it is too late to reverse the status quo.

Your flowers were so lovely that you sent today.
As  in the past, most exquisite—their colors bright and gay.
It would have been a dreadful waste to throw them all away,
so here they are,  tucked into my nuptial bouquet.

 

Prompt words today are suitable, arrears, anew and luscious. Links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/02/rdp-thursday-suitable/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/02/fowc-with-fandango-arrears/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/02/your-daily-word-prompt-anew-may-2-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/02/luscious/