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Crosses and Losses

I tried to write a poem to acclaim
The passion flashing like a lightning strike
Between a man and woman, though the same
Return to normal from a single spike.

It’s hard to say true love is like those hearts
Of valentines and candies from the store
When sugar hearts will mush and crush to parts
And passion pledges turn to total war.

Not so the lifelong love that doesn’t end;
The sacrifice preserves it from decay.
It knows a life commitment must transcend
The fleeting feelings from a heart at play.

I’d rather write of love that lasts through losses—
For you alone, I’ve borne a thousand crosses.

First published in New English Review

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Colorblind

I know a poet dealing with derision
For writing of a woman’s supple skin
Whose hue he hopes will fill his field of vision—
To say what color’s now a racist sin!

For when he praised her cherry-blossom pink,
They cried white privilege, said it’s lacking grace,
Yet when it’s skin of maple or black ink,
They censure him for fetishizing race!

Alas, a man can’t wax poetic when
Her skin tone is the trait he dare not name.
I miss the golden, olden days when men
Wrote brazen praise of women, free of shame!

At least the man who loves a girl with freckles
Can rave about her pretty little speckles.

First published in New English Review

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Joshua C. Frank works in the field of statistics and lives in the American Heartland.  His poetry has been published in Snakeskin, The Lyric, Sparks of Calliope, Westward Quarterly, Atop the Cliffs, Our Day’s Encounter, The Creativity Webzine, Verse Virtual, and The Asahi Haikuist Network, and his short fiction has been published in Nanoism and The Creativity Webzine.

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20 Responses

  1. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Josh, I love love poems that view love from different perspectives, and yours have delighted me. The agape love versus human love message in the well composed sonnet is well worth reading on a day that veers towards the materialistic cliches of romance that fill the shelves of the local superstore. And “Colorblind” highlights perfectly the pitfalls any smitten man faces when trying to wax lyrical about his sweetheart. I believe when true love strikes, political ideologies fly straight out of the window. Thank you, Josh – Valentine’s Day needs poetry like this.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Susan. I also love the same kind of poems; I grew up learning the Disney view of love from the movies, and when I first heard “Guitar” by Victor Hugo set to music in French, it was a huge relief to hear something more realistic. After becoming serious about my faith, I learned that, as the saying goes, love is not shaped like a heart (why do they call it a heart when it isn’t shaped like the human heart?), but like a cross.

      I wrote these two poems for an anthology that was canceled. “Crosses and Losses” came from realizing I don’t believe in our culture’s concept of romantic love enough to write a poem about it. “Colorblind” came from remembering a French poem (“Mai” (“May”) by Guillaume Apollinaire):

      The blooming orchards all stood still behind.
      May’s fallen cherry petals down below
      Are fingernails of her whom I’ve loved so;
      The faded petals are her eyelids’ kind.
      (My translation)

      Even if we didn’t know they were French, this would indicate a white woman, and I could imagine the woke screaming about it if someone wrote it today.

      Then someone in an online writing group linked to a website telling writers not to use food to describe skin color: https://www.ylva-publishing.com/2018/05/29/avoiding-racism-writing-coffee-honey-colors/ It’s the usual woke nonsense; the few times I have to describe my coloring, I say it’s the color of strawberry-banana.

      With those two things together, I realized that there was no way a man could write about a woman’s beauty without being called a racist somehow. Not that feminists are at all okay with writing that reflects “the male gaze.”

      I’m not sure love wins over ideology, because leftist ideology doesn’t believe in real, sacrificial love, or the complementarity and non-interchangeability of male and female roles, so they can’t have any kind of true man-woman love, just as they can’t be convinced by the truth that Scripture corresponds to reality because they don’t believe in an unchangeable reality.

      Reply
  2. Joseph S. Salemi

    Well done, Joshua. The final couplet of the first sonnet might be misread as depressing or complaining, but that would mean the reader has not grasped the clear-sighted perception of the rest of the poem. Every total commitment between two loving persons is one of sorrow as well as joy, and there is no guarantee that one of those will outweigh the other.

    The comedy of “Colorblind” cuts right through the disguised racism of our woke ideology of “anti-racism.” Condemning a poet for mentioning the skin tone of the girl he is praising is merely a covert device for forbidding a white male poet from writing at all about the opposite sex. Shakespeare can’t say “If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun…” and the old drinking song about women can’t have the words “Here’s to the maid with a bosom of snow, now to her ’tis brown as a berry…”

    There’s only one thing to do with the liberal-left. Just spit in their faces, and write whatever the bloody hell we please.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Joe. I agree more and more that this is the only thing we can do with the left. If they think the closing couplet of “Crosses and Losses” is off the mark, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise when they marry and have children!

      I agree that the posturing about color is really a way of silencing white male poets. If I wrote a poem describing a woman’s beauty in great detail, it couldn’t get published except in places like this, thanks to people’s fear of racism and sexism. In fact, one of my detractors accused me of being obsessed with female parts, presumably because I’ve written pro-life poems, some of which he’s still fuming about after more than a year. (To his accusation, I would say: “Well, yes, but not because I’m far-right!”) Far from being offended, it makes me want to write poems about female beauty and procreative functions (a subset of the first category, really) that will really stick in his craw!

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Joshua, I don’t know if you have heard, but that stupid philistine bitch, Robin DiAngelo, has now proclaimed that Michelangelo’s fresco of God creating Adam in the Sistine Chapel is a hateful example of “patriarchy,” “white supremacy,” and whatever else angers and upsets her.

        People like DiAngelo would be funny if they weren’t so dangerous.

        You’re quite correct. We have to write things that stick in the craws of the left. And we have to laugh when they choke.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        No, I hadn’t heard about that. But these days, the only thing that surprises me is good news.

  3. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Joshua, Your two completely different subjects have the ring of authenticity to them. Sometimes we are thankful to have borne those crosses and recognize we were all the better for them and not having to bear other more harsh ones. Your poem, “Colorblind,” cuts to the quick of the lib-woke situation that I both despise and ignore! Thank you for the spotlights.

    Reply
  4. Norma Pain

    Thank you Joshua. I enjoyed both of these poems. It is difficult to comprehend that, here we are in 2024 and the color of people’s skin is still an issue with many. This “Colorblind” poem highlights the ridiculousness of the ‘color’ obsession. Will we never grow up I wonder.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Norma. It’s true: the left claims that we’re obsessed with skin color and they aren’t, but more and more, I’ve learned that the reverse is true. I recently read an article on the subject: https://commonman.substack.com/p/the-meaning-of-anti-whiteness

      Here’s the paragraph that says it all:

      “If you ask a Critical Race Theorist, he’ll deny that white people are able to help in the struggle against racism. Of course they can’t—not if their very whiteness is the cause of racism. For white people, being “antiracist” isn’t helping. It’s getting out of the way so that black folks can come into the equity they naturally possess, but which our whiteness naturally tends to suppress.”

      If white people have to “get out of the way,” where are we supposed to go?

      Reply
  5. Gigi Ryan

    Joshua,
    “Crosses and Losses” well tells the realities of agape love. I especially love the line, “The sacrifice preserves it from decay.”
    Thank you.
    Gigi

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Gigi. It’s something I had to learn over the years. Hopefully the poem will help my readers learn it more quickly than I did.

      Reply
  6. Margaret Coats

    The graph in the first stanza of “Crosses and Losses” is a nice visual and emotional touch. “Mush and crush to parts” creates a definitely distasteful display, but the couplet elevates love complaint in a sober statement of sincerity that really sounds like you, Josh.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Margaret. I’m honored that this “sober statement of sincerity” “really sounds like” me to you.

      Reply
  7. Brian A. Yapko

    Both very fine poems, Josh — I especially like “Colorblind” because it puts a glaring spotlight on woke nonsense in which identifying the color of skin is somehow racist. I’ve noticed that on the news now if there is a criminal suspect at large they will not identify the person’s race. In fact, the purveyors of news will so studiously avoid stating skin color that the “warning” become too vague to have any value. So much for acually giving the public useful information about a potential threat.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Brian. You have to wonder what they’re hiding from us if they don’t want us to know anyone’s race. Probably the fact that they’re discriminating against white people.

      Reply
  8. Mia

    I like both your poems Joshua, but what a wonderfully mature and honourable poem Crosses and Losses is. It really encapsulates all that has gone out of fashion and what it has been replaced with. And how poignant is the last line! It really is very well done. I am sure you don’t need me to say it but
    Keep doing what you are doing, your poetry seems to be going from strength to strength.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Mia, this is one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever had on my poetry. Thank you very much. I’m honored.

      Reply
  9. Adam Sedia

    These two sonnets epitomize Horace’s maxim of teaching and delighting. On a surface level, they were fun to read, and quite humorous. Yet each sheds light on a deeper truth — indeed a painful truth in both instances. I particularly like how “Colorblind” engages both present postmodern wokeness and love poetry of the past. Great job on both.

    Reply

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