Tag Archives: love

Personifying Beauty – NOT a post about one of my pieces of poetry, but about poetry nonetheless …

Was given a card today by a wonderful woman who has been personifying beauty for me my whole life – & while she sometimes strikes out when it comes to hideously chosen shirts I am too unmotivated to shop for myself or grace under pressure when it comes to her beloved Crows … for the majority of the time she is the most generous warm loving supportive overprotective gloriously kooky woman I know … 

So. Here’s the card & the piece of poetry which I think would tingleamaze most of us, if it were possible …

 

I only wish
you could see
what I see
when I look at you

Love n light

Day 29 – from the depths of his sick bed, he clambers forth

Headaches, hot & cold flushes, sore throat. Not particularly inspired, so this is all I could muster. Sorry to be finishing with a whimper rather than a bang, but my body has spoken.

*****

yesterday

yesterday the leaves were still golden
yesterday was your smile

yesterday we sat on the steps, talking
— trying to talk

yesterday there were poppies all around us
— poppies everywhere

yesterday night came & your hair became a halo
yesterday you

_

yesterday i knew where i was going
yesterday i did not fear tomorrow

yesterday was only yesterday
— but today it feels a forever ago

*****

Season's End by Neighya

Day 28 – Stars on Speed

Been feeling very sick all day. 55 minutes ago, I dragged myself from the warmth of my bed to meet today’s obligations. Tried to keep it simple. Choose a favourite topic/common theme. 15 minutes to write (took less, just to capture these sketches). 15 minutes to edit. 15 minutes to find image (it took a fraction longer, though one image I saw, provoked poem pt vii). 15 minutes to update blog. As of writing I have 8 minutes to complete part IV (then back to warmth). So given those constraints, please understand this is a rough draft …

*****

the stars, though hidden by clouds, are still shooting

i.
once we were
the night sky
& every egg
of light was ours

now i wander
through vast
black vacuums
lost, alone

ii.
even stars would crack
if they looked too long
into your dark matter eyes

iii.
love floats
time breaks
— & all the stars
fall so quietly
no one notices

iv.
alone in a lighthouse
under the sea of stars
waiting for your return

v.
wild mind  cobweb memories
misty flowers  narrow window

a love that was  never as good
as i want to  remember it

the stars  shatter

vi.
you reminded
me of my heart
as it once was
no wonder i fell
shooting star fast
in love with you

vii.
when we reunite
the whole of heaven will glow
stars will fall like rain
till the sky is pure white

*****

starry_shooting_stars_by_kuross-d7t7o9t

Day 27 – a love poem (we haven’t had one for a while)

Just whipped this bad boy off. Today is gonna be crazy busy, so thought I should get a poem out the way, in case I run out of time later. I like love poems. Now if only I could find topics from today, instead of dredging them out of the past.

*****

night breathing

after telling each other our stories
till it was too late for me
to stop myself tumbling
you said: let’s lie beneath the stars
of course, how could i say no

you lay a blanket on the lawn

your face so fierce, so beautiful
with skin burnt by the sun
i was out in the middle of somewhere
not knowing where
not wanting to come back

i forgot to exhale

even curled up against you
i was cold but could not move
when the rain became too heavy
to endure we went inside
& lay on your bed, still talking

i am inundated

i wish to stay lost
in this place forever
want you to kiss me
but you don’t know that
or if you do, you don’t care

to love is to breathe

instead
i put your breath in my pocket
to keep for another day
because i could tell
— you were already elsewhere

*****

life_breath__by_m0thyyku

Day 16 – some music for you, as we start on the downhill run home

Not the poem I was planning to work on today (though it was on the NaPoWriMoToDoList), but a line which has been substantially altered, barrelled into my book-reading this morning insisting to be heard. So I got up, & 2 hours later …

*****

ingrained

we assemble in a darkened
room, which we proceed to fill
with the singing of hollow wood.
we prefer the hallowed. & we prefer
the new. for centuries they’ve carried
their bias beneath the veneer,
mixed with years of sweat, love
& complicated accumulated hubris.
we can’t quantify a subjective quality
like sound cry the one-eyed critics
clamouring to be heard over the still
reverberating air — nevertheless
ranking was what we are
in the dark room to do.

we understand, you don’t
always get what you pay for
but know this also love is blind
so, the Italians momentarily
lost their glamour, the hum
of their hubris, briefly dulled
but the mystique, the mythos,
the belief in the brand name,
remain, without, in any way,
diminishing the price tag.

*****

violin_by_soozn

Day 9 – this is for you David Jones, word

If only we were able to make all our decisions based on hindsight …

*****

change

i can change
i can change
i can change

the desperate lover’s litany
when they finally
realise

& all the things
they’ve been
promising

but haven’t
have built up
to the point of

too late
this really is
the end

we probably can
even if it’s usually
years too late

*****

caterpillar_by_optimalprotocol-d1cppvm

Day 4 – the theme of loss continues

I wasn’t planning to write about this topic again. However, things often bubble to the top unasked — especially when you’re distracted working on other things.

*****

we are all haunted by the presence of absence

my umbrella is too small
— to keep off the storm
my suitcase too small
—to hold all my sadness
when the crows come pecking
—i can’t scare them off

up to my eyes in water
—up to my ears in salt
wings try growing from my back
—but i refuse to let them
so i am always surrounded
—by the sound of falling feathers

*****

image

 NB- updating on the iPhone — NOT as easy as on a desktop grrr

Day 2 – the first thing crossed off the list

On Day 1’s entry, I mentioned how organised I am this year. I have files, lists, titles etc. The title for today’s poem (along with the whole ‘vibe of the thing’) has been floating round nagging me to do something about it for probably two years.

Today − boom! − it got dealt with …

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7 ways of saying the same thing

the ocean dissolves every piece of salt thrown into it
the moon washes all things the same way
a stone can outlast the silence
all clouds are cousins
my heart pumps the blood that shoots my eyes
get lost enough & eventually you’ll find your way home
i keep folding colours into each other until they become white

in the centre of all emptiness, there is always you

*****

salt moon

Valentine’s Day presence

So, the pay off for some hard work over the past week or so is here — I’ve been exploring/researching the world of epublishing.

love: a test run is my first foray into ebooks. I still seek publication via the literary journals & poetry publication websites & competitions, etc … but the reality is, I have already written more poems than I’m ever likely to see published via traditional methods. & I’m certainly not writing poetry for the $$$$. Not to mention, much of what I write probably doesn’t fit the criteria for online journals …

So be it…

I want people to read my stuff. Or at least have the opportunity to. To connect with it. To be moved by it. Even to disagree with it. Which is why epublishing is so amazing. & why I’ve taken this first Test Run step … & why there are more planned.

& so to love: a test run

Love - a test run

This collection of poems came out of an experiment for a project a fellow poet & I are working on (giving rise to one of the multiple meanings of “test run” which makes up the book’s subtitle).

The task was simple, to write a poem a day, every day for a month.

24 hours to conceive, plan, write & edit a new poem every day & email it to each other before midnight. Well, the midnight deadline didn’t always quite get met, but the poem a day did. This was not for the famously challenging event NaPoWrMo (National Poetry Writing Month) but shared similar draining/exhilarating characteristics. Oddly enough, once you got over the hump, it became easier the further on it went. Some days several poems came out of the exercise – but we only shared one per day.

The catch: every poem was to explore love in some form.

I haven’t edited them overly much, just a tweak or two here & there for clarity. I wanted to keep it close to what I churned out, I mean, produced in that furiouso month. I have altered the order of several poems to make the whole have a better flow; & a couple of the poems I sent through, I have replaced with others written in that month because they felt like they fitted the collection better. I would have liked to have shuffled the order more, but I really went with the “snap shot” notion of the test run here.

What pleases me is their diversity: there’s a wide range of styles evident; there are several different voices; the tone varies; some are more experimental than others; some are profoundly personal, others wholly imagined; even just simple things like the variety in their length (both of lines & overall poem); & of course, some succeed better than others. Naturally there are certain topics, images, phrases that echo themselves – but overall, I hope they make for an eclectic, interesting read.

What remains constant is the theme: there’s poems about true love, soul mate love, infidelity, whale love, first love, lost love, unrequited love, undeclared love, dark love, abandoned love, arrogant love, ghost love, broken love, eternal love, love-at-first-sight love, literary love, 10-second love, pure perfect impossible love, painful love, imagined love, fantasy love, universe-ending love … & more besides I’m sure.

I hope you seek out & enjoy love: a test run …

it’s available at these addresses:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/519315 (sample & full download available)

http://www.wattpad.com/myworks/32748708-love-a-test-run (sample only)

& via your ereading devices shortly (i hope, once it gets approval) ((if i understand how it all works 🙂 ))

if you read & like, leave a comment.

but as a taste test of the test run …

here are two poems i particularly enjoy

Day 10. explaining the universe, using the physics of love

here’s what happened
put into the simplest
language i can muster
as best as i understand
20 years on

i gave you more of my heart
than i could reasonably
be expected to lose
then you died
gone — none know where

that part of my heart so gifted
went with you

& that … is how
black holes are made

Day 16. love poem to my plump lover

how do i love thee
let me not count the weighs

Later skaters. May you survive Valentine’s Day — whether it is a day of joy or pain for you …

thinking of a friend on their birthday

This is a bit unusual.  Two updates in 2 days (& it’s not even NaPoWrMo!).  But thinking of a friend on their birthday led to this.  It’s not the sort of thing I usually write, but I guess always writing the same thing can get boring.

Two verses came easily standing at the sink. Two were tougher (if I’d known how tough, I might not have persevered.)  Thanks to Aristotle for letting me pinch his phrase for my title.

NB despite my best tweaking I can’t get the display image (below) to stop appearing slightly pixelated. If you click on it though, it will be crystal clear.

*****

slow ripening fruit