Love Poems

. When? I’ll love you when the bee has lost its buzz, When wolf and bear have quit their howl and growl, When lambs don’t sport a snow-spun fleece of fuzz And hoots don’t float from barns that house an owl. I’ll love you when the spin of earth is stilled, When moons...

. . February 14, 2024 A heart of burning love, an ashen cross Converge today: the marriage of two kinds Of love. The feast day is St. Valentine’s--- Which, this year, intersects Ash Wednesday: Eros United with Agape.  This brave martyr’s Strong love enabled him to bear great tortures. He...

. Ash Wednesday Valentines by Charles d’Orléans (1394-1465), translated by Margaret Coats . I. Who’s there? Who comes so early, who? “It’s I myself.” Saint Valentine, you! Why turn up now at Carnival To keep Lent’s boozy vesperal? What booty at this rendezvous? At present, let’s not have your sweets,...

. Love Sonnet The glint of summer’s evening leaves a glow upon her cheek, so soft and plain and fair— the glister of the twilight hours show the rosebuds, luminescent in her hair. And all the earth now sings a lovely song— and all her creatures praises do employ as...

. My Beatrice III Affording still these glimpses like the first, those moments you were yet without a name; between us was the distance untraversed: the bringing into being what you became. Four times I glance into the rearview mirror, each time a Kurosawa axial cut: you’re here, then there,...

. The Fall of Time A Haiku Sonnet . Thinning coat of frost Whitening the ground with grief— Love forever lost Wrinkles on the leaf Yellowing a lawn undone— Beauty all too brief Spots upon the sun Reddening a field gone dry— Present on the run Cracks along the sky...

. Had I held you in the fields of Hay beside The Wye and on an afternoon that cleared To brilliance, although the sun soon would Sink to an evening in which darkness neared, Nothing so near as never---we could not--- Distracted us from purposes of each Other. We said...

. On Cats and Love My cat does not explain himself. He knows his reasons. Why must I? He needs to bathe while on a shelf Or hunt some trash? I don’t care why. I do not need to understand. I love him since he’s loyal, kind, And brings me...

. Failing at History She always argued when I used to say We were like the great lovers of the past. That was just woolly thinking, she’d insist: Each separate period of history Was quite different from us in the way They defined romance. So my exotic list--- Caesar and...

. New Year's Eve So swiftly tick the minutes to the close Of these twelve months, this day, and life itself! Which jars of clay will stay upon the shelf Another year, and which will break? God knows. For only He who gave us life has power To take us...

. Christmas 2010 "Love isn't something you find.  Love is something that finds you." ---Loretta Young I hadn't given up on love. I simply thought it couldn't be. I wouldn't buy the concept of A oneness for eternity But musings passing back and forth For moons across five thousand miles,...

. Love Nibbles and Bites He saw she was sad; deep inside, he was glad. He smiled, quite mild, and said, “My dear child, you once were beguiled by a love that seemed wild and yet, you’re no fool, so please let me step in to those places where someone...

. It Was Only a Winter’s Tale based on David Essex's classic 1982 Christmas song The nights are ever short and growing cold; the front door lies ajar from when you left one evening, though your reasons were untold, and in the time between I’ve been bereft. Your footprints have...

. . Music by Jeff Eardley . . The Return to Ithaca by Brian Yapko This shall not be forever, This life spent on the sea. __I’m going to find my one true love And joined again we’ll be. I’ll risk the howling tempest With sails high on the mast,...

. Remembrance I When I, a boy whom youth made bold, Had bid my land of birth one last adieu, To search for glory, fame and gold On distant shores, as seamen do, Drowning old worries in the waves of blue, Exchanging comfort for the cold, The land for sea,...

. Hero, Leander and Marlowe Setting: Christopher Marlowe’s flat in London. Date: May 29, 1593. At last I see the tyrant in the Muse--- She captivates, but those she loves she kills. Like Mephistopheles, adept at ruse, She forces me to plot out what she wills. Now trapped within my...

. . Love Songs for Malcolm . I. Quickly you approach, King Malcolm, Firm and steady is your tread, Predetermined on defeating Faint reluctance in the greeting Made by one you mean to wed. . English words surprise me, Malcolm, Asking questions delicate; Comfort for us you’ve promoted, Courtly words...

. What Do You Do When You No Longer Drink What do you do when you no longer drink, no tossing out the empties in a bag as one by one you hear that cautious clink then wipe end tables with a beer-soaked rag? Face reality? No, not right away....

. The Navy by Paul Fort (1872-1960) translated by Joshua C. Frank We find them all again in brief In little loves that last one day, Every joy and care and grief Of loves that shall forever stay— The sailor’s fate and our distress, And that of all our little...

. The Stream of Love Like swollen streams in Spring, young love will roarThrough every obstacle that checks its flow,Though not so fast that winter cannot slowIts great vitality, ‘til frozen o’er;But even as the Spring returns once more,To melt away the coldest of the snow,So Time unthaws the tears...

. Paths —Inspired by “Is Mod Se Jaate Hain” (see below) by Gulzar from the film: Aandhi, 1975 Sheer multitudes of paths diverge from here— Some are jet setters, some meander slowly— Which one among these paths should I draw near? Promising fame and fortune, some paths steer Me towards...

. Icarus Sings I’ve tempted fate, And sought the sun, I’m Icarus, I’ve come undone. My wings have failed, For what it’s worth, My long descent, Shall end on earth. I tempted fate, I, fate did shun, I’m Icarus, The fallen one. I tempted fate, I sought the light, But...

. The Great Sonnet I set myself to write a sonnet. I labored hard and long upon it. Sweet verse some maid might shed a tear at, More ere's than one could shake a spear at. I spoke of luv, both hers and his's With lots of thee's and thou's and tis's. "My...

. Mrs. Cyclops Ain’t really gonna leave. I’ll just pretend, Brontesa. Cy and I are bound. I simply Can’t bear to turn a blind eye to my mate--- Not even if our love-life’s off of late; Not even if his skin is coarse and pimply. At least not till his...

. Ode to the Strings of My Guitar I How still you sleep, oh strings of my guitar, As if you did not feel the faint caress Of my soft finger, shaped to form a bar; I wish to wake you with a gentle press, So as to hear the...

. The Thief He stole my song, my music;He stole my poetry.He broke my holy vesselsAnd felled my sacred tree.He climbed my garden’s rampartAnd stole amongst the leavesAnd stole away the applesof my Hesperides.Then I was left to witherWithin my walls of stone.A winter overtook meWith loneliness unknown.All my fragrant...

. Meditation on the Myth of Sisyphus Like Sisyphus, whose fate it is to bear A boulder on his back, and up the mound, Only to watch it roll towards the ground, As if it mocks his strain to climb the stair; So I, long burdened by the weight of...

. Younger Selves I have you leaning up against my side, Our boys and girls around us on the couch. Below the window, watching from outside, Our younger selves, age twelve, crawl up and crouch. The boy and girl each took a time machine, The dial set to travel here...

. The Pilgrimage The lover takes leave of his mistress's mouth And starts on his pilgrimage, travelling south. Each stop on his journey he marks with a kiss, And lingers a moment, prolonging their bliss. He murmurs a gentle farewell to her ears As each from the landscape in turn...

. Gordon’s Soup One day old Arthur Vincent Knowling, Quit the couch to take up bowling, Grasped the fact at fifty-three, The time he’d wasted on TV. He’d been a hermit all these years And suddenly was filled with fears That if he didn’t make a plan, He’d die a...

. I Have Loved You All Along for Linda I have loved you all along; No matter what was error, Or what was done imperfectly Through weakness, worry, plainly wrong: I have loved you all along. I have loved you all along, As birds sing every day, Or suns arc...

. Ghost in This House "I don’t mind staying in, there’s another ghost here. He sits down in your chair, and he shines with your light, And he lays down his head on your pillow at night.“ —lyrics from “Ghost in This House” by Hugh Prestwood A cherished lover doesn’t...

. Mighty Oak Spread thy boughs, oh mighty oak, __Let fall thy wine-red leaves, Which, when the rains around thee soak, __Shall pile up high as sheaves. Some leaves are scorched in summer sun, __Or lost in violent gale; Some leaves don autumn’s raiment dun, __Till they, too, finally fail:...

. Two Kites Ascending a Spenserian sonnet Two kites ascending, carried on the wind, Each in its way, a most delightful thing. So unalike yet wonderfully twinned, Defying gravity in taking wing. The feathered kite, from aeried crags will spring Into the air and in the heavens, soar. The silken...

. The Number 53: To His Coy Transport Had we but world enough and time, My coy and tardy 53, This hesitancy were no crime And I’d be waiting patiently. When other buses came along I’d not obstruct or block the queue. If someone barged me in the throng, Without...

. Back to Sleep In very early years, now far behind, When I returned to earth at midnight deep From nightmare scares within my frightened mind, My mother rocked and sang me back to sleep. I hid in bed from monster and from man As blackened shadows seemed to slowly...

. Sonnet I Our arms are leaves stretched out; our thoughts can bloom The grandest only when we crowd out those Who have been planted in a place of doom— Perhaps for something only Heaven knows. While growing up and finding our own way In life, each cannot help but...

. Melodious Curlew Melodious curlew mottled brown and bister, No longer raise your crescent-shapen beak Towards the waning moon, to which you shriek That harmony which haunts the twilight’s glister; Your love, though flown afar since last you kissed her Beneath the heathy hills along the creek, Has parted on...

. Via Appia Beneath the pines of Rome, the wrinkled sibyl will croak your future for eleven cents, and with her finger in the dust will scribble predictions of uncertain consequence. But go near, fix your eyes on her immense eyes, clear blue like the Roman sky but colder: you’ll...

. Better with Love I thought I was a pleasant sort __When we first met. Not perfect but near sweet and kind __As one could get. ____I knew I had rough edges ____And for fixes I made pledges ____But there seemed no need for hedges __In a nice safe bet....