Silly Love Songs

[Tiger the Lion]

Hello members. As promised, we would like to continue with our themed monthly prompts. This February, will be a month dedicated to "Love Poetry." Often called the most difficult poetry to write, it's well worth the exercise. 

Write a poem inspired by Romantic love. 

Comments, crits and kudos are all welcome. 

Posts poems as new replies to this thread.

[Wjames]

Drinking tea from tin mugs
under a tarp set up in the rain
after a hard paddle, you're smiling at an ant
struggling to move a berry twice its size.

Our sleeping bag is damp
and the tent shakes in the wind.

[Tiger the Lion]

Babe,

yes, the creases
around your eyes
have deepened

all those heart-stopping
squinting smiles
take their toll
once the fireworks fade

we flirt with memories now

we flirt out of habit
and make love
with ghosts

we flirt with contentment

[TranquillityBase]

At the dogpark today
a lithe tanned demimonde
with a diamond in her nose
looked at me,
as you first looked at me, 
the challenge to come hither.
Now you’re a school teacher in Queens,
then, a princess who appeared after dark,
to carry me off to adventures in heartbreak.

Not so much a vision, but not excluded
by the countdown:

Liebe dauert oder dauert nicht,
an dem oder jedem Ort.

But I am marooned by old age
and this poem is my musket 
with powder and ball for a single shot 
and a choice.

An earthly goddess chose me,
dare I choose the shot?
Much better to wait for a goddess
than to interrupt a countdown.

This is actually a repost of a section of a long poem I wrote and posted about 3 years ago.  The long poem is frankly tedious, but at the time it was my Great Project.  Anyway, I've been in a dry spell, this section was far into the poem, so I suspect few read it, and I felt like it deserved a reprise.

http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-23403.html

[busker]

Drinking tea from tin mugs
under a tarp set up in the rain
after a hard paddle, you're smiling at an ant
struggling to move a berry twice its size.

Our sleeping bag is damp
and the tent shakes in the wind.

Beautiful 
Loved the “our sleeping bag” - a line that conveys so much

[Tiger the Lion]

One of my faves...

[brynmawr1]

What Rhymes with You?

It begins with the usual February glaze.
 
But today the Sun finally staggers in at dawn
like a tomcat pretending he hasn’t been gone
 
for days; all bright smiles and promises of warmth
even the frost can’t resist.
 
I catch that rascal peering through the venetian blinds
casting
his shadow puppets across our bed.
 
She’s next to me
having a rhetorical argument
with her laptop, an endless work thing.
 
The dog between us buried
in the folds of the down
comforter stretches
snoring; languid
 
I’m reading Charles Wright, 1980-1990.
While he's busy wrestling with the dead I get caught
staring-
 
my own rhetorical argument about the useless nature
of the heart
                  of a poet. 
 
With the snap of her laptop
                                        my wife’s smile
 
is in my face pushing my book down.
                                                      She whispers, “You keep telling
me poems are all about showing.”
                                                  A glint of Sun in her eyes.

[Tiger the Lion]

What Rhymes with You?

It begins with the usual February glaze.
 
But today the Sun finally staggers in at dawn
like a tomcat pretending he hasn’t been gone
 
for days; all bright smiles and promises of warmth
even the frost can’t resist.
 
I catch that rascal peering through the venetian blinds
casting
his shadow puppets across our bed.
 
She’s next to me
having a rhetorical argument
with her laptop, an endless work thing.
 
The dog between us buried
in the folds of the down
comforter stretches
snoring; languid
 
I’m reading Charles Wright, 1980-1990.
While he's busy wrestling with the dead I get caught
staring-
 
my own rhetorical argument about the useless nature
of the heart
                  of a poet. 
 
With the snap of her laptop
                                        my wife’s smile
 
is in my face pushing my book down.
                                                      She whispers, “You keep telling
me poems are all about showing.”
                                                  A glint of Sun in her eyes.

Love it. Still sparks.

[Mark A Becker]

fog of breath,
smudge of nose
on glass door-

tail wagging

moon’s out full
take my hand
put out the cat
put on the dog

we’re steppin out
tonight

[TranquillityBase]

it was never love
but a curious kind of lust
a guess and the straight arrow
of an embrace

spurned thereafter
i became the asphalt between us
a fossil river Lethe
rarely crossed

the one thing
i carried as a sure thing
was that there’d never be 
someone else

now i watch you build
a love nest,  i see the other
i never thought there’d be
casually enter

a betrayal known only 
in my shrinking universe
a breaking mirror
emitting a cold only i feel

[Tiger the Lion]

fog of breath,
smudge of nose
on glass door-

tail wagging

moon’s out full
take my hand
put out the cat
put on the dog

we’re steppin out
tonight

Good to see you, Mark. Keep that tail wagging.

[busker]

Also sprach Homer’s ghost

I have loved you
and always will love you
till the end of days.
Moment on moment
fadeth away
on Lethe the river,
but on you, old lover,
the light of the old life
stays.

And I have loved
like an ancient tragic
feeling the whip of
despair. With lips
breathed air into ship
sails puffed for you,
praising Poseidon,
goading the deep blue
sea.

[Wjames]

Drinking tea from tin mugs
under a tarp set up in the rain
after a hard paddle, you're smiling at an ant
struggling to move a berry twice its size.

Our sleeping bag is damp
and the tent shakes in the wind.

Beautiful 
Loved the “our sleeping bag” - a line that conveys so much

Thanks Busker, appreciate it.

Lots of good stuff here, I might try and make another one before the month is out.

[Tiger the Lion]

Drinking tea from tin mugs
under a tarp set up in the rain
after a hard paddle, you're smiling at an ant
struggling to move a berry twice its size.

Our sleeping bag is damp
and the tent shakes in the wind.

Beautiful 
Loved the “our sleeping bag” - a line that conveys so much

Thanks Busker, appreciate it.

Lots of good stuff here, I might try and make another one before the month is out. Yes, please. 

[Tiger the Lion]

Shhh!
         
your mother is snoring
like a Pug and drooling
like a Saint Bernard

we gotta get it on video

Epic footage kids, but
Shhh!
Let her sleep now

let her sleep

[busker]

1707776594[/url]']
Shhh!
         
your mother is snoring
like a Pug and drooling
like a Saint Bernard

we gotta get it on video

Epic footage kids, but
Shhh!
Let her sleep now

let her sleep

One of the best poems posted on the Pen…ever
The light and dark colours speak in different voices
I can see the home video footage
The last two lines are quietly brilliant

[rowens]

Merlin's Cave


Love-cursed is right;
you didn't do it;
least not the cursed part.

No, you are no gorgon,
not even close.

I always wonder how anyone ever made it through
your walls.

And how many defeated their head on the out-
side

I feel I am walled up
inside your wall.
I can't go forward and I can't go backward.
And every direction I turn, I'm surrounded by your absence.

Does Anteros with his inverted arrows
satisfy, being turned to stone?

All I see beyond a scorched forest of the Impossible,
my drive and goal,
Love, even more impossible.

I might as well believe in God.




I See the Rainbows in Her Eyelashes


Things she says
remind me of characters from stories
I wish I knew in real life,

someone in a movie
with scenes 
I'd love to emulate.

Screens enchant with her words,
a room changes colors
with each line

and between 
as with visible stars in the
sunset.

With her, everything is new;
memories, minty discovered 
secrets 

of the universe. 
Vibrant as a film that never gets old,
a book that never wrinkles. 

I'd call her vivid, and she'd understand,
though I've never seen her:
Her mind is like that.

---

You can do a whole thread on the trope of lashes of eyes.

[TranquillityBase]

Merlin's Cave


Love-cursed is right;
you didn't do it;
least not the cursed part.

No, you are no gorgon,
not even close.

I always wonder how anyone ever made it through
your walls.

And how many defeated their head on the out-
side

I feel I am walled up
inside your wall.
I can't go forward and I can't go backward.
And every direction I turn, I'm surrounded by your absence.

Does Anteros with his inverted arrows
satisfy, being turned to stone?

All I see beyond a scorched forest of the Impossible,
my drive and goal,
Love, even more impossible.

I might as well believe in God.

Rowens,

Really enjoy this one.  Last line clinches it.

TqB

[Tiger the Lion]

blessed El Nino
though you may be villainized--
You saved so many