Challenge: Write a Valentine-themed poem

[Tzara]

Things seem a little slow around the PF&D lately, in part, I suspect, because we haven't had any challenges to prompt the old poetry muse to spark back into life. If it wasn't for laureate professor annaswirls stirring up the all of a sudden passion suddenly thread, the place would be as dead as a '57 Fairlane with a busted choke cable.

So hey. We've all (mostly) had a month off to watch football, fret about impeachment (USA), Brexit (UK), and insanely bad fires (Oz), or just eat leftover holiday cookies and play Words with Friends.

It's time for a new challenge, people.

We've got Valentine's Day coming up in two weeks, so the challenge is to write a poem about some aspect of love—erotic, romantic, actual, fantasized, remembered, or currently experienced. Happy or not so happy, as love variously is. You get the idea.

Any form/number of lines/format etc. is acceptable, but I'll think especially kindly of you if you attempt a haibun. What's a haibun? Wikidepia describes it as "a prosimetric literary form originating in Japan, combining prose and haiku." I'm going to loosen that up considerably and simply request (again, not a requirement) that you include a brief prose introduction to your poem, your poem being in whatever form you wish.

Anyway, geez, write something.



Edited to add: This challenge runs through midnight, your local time, February 14, 2020.

 

[Tzara]

From My Notebook, January 31

It is raining. I am in Seattle, so it has been raining for weeks, with only brief periods of damp overcast where the sun slants out between ink-blot clouds that I would describe to a psychiatrist as God, beginning to swallow humanity or Death smiling at a private joke. I have not seen L. for almost a month, and even the rhododendrons have begun to close in on themselves, their leaves curling like tobacco being cured for cigars.

I am hoping she will come to me tonight. There have been strikes of lightning in the foothills of the Cascades, close enough to shock the sky with their weirdly white light. Half the city is without power. I've put an extra blanket on my bed.

patter of raindrops—
........alone in the dark, waiting
.....her tap on the door​

Not a true haiku, of course. You could make the poem free verse, a sonnet, whatever. Anyway, give it a try. (Though, as I said, not a requirement for the challenge.)

 

[UnderYourSpell]

They've heard all the stories. About how long distance love never lasts. About how love can't take the strain. Yet ... their hearts still tell them differently. The craziness, the heartbreak, if anything draws them closer. She writes erotic love songs, pouring out desires.
Yes, they are you and I, and I love you.
.
Invisible Cords
.
He placed her just so,
laid back, knees to nipples.
No silken cords,
only his will,
for his good girl.
Even the first time
he coaxed, caressed
yet took her last virginity.

Now I beg
my mouth around your cock
for anal,
to please my Master.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

A shape arouses attention

sinuosity

the
soft,
tender
but lonely
organ inside
the cottony jail
shook its shackles
pushing up, beyond
the garment‘s horizon
stirred by a barely clad
silhouette, cubic curves
walking down the hall
like on a desire path
of great sinuosity
My Valentine‘s
Day is like
this


29*

 

[Tzara]

Café de Flore

Her legs are fine, and so her walk
Affects me like electroshock.
Her limbs are lithe and occupy
My thoughts, libido, and my eye.
Empirical, might say John Locke.

Her stride is like a fugue by Bach,
And post hoc, ergo propter hoc,
I've found a god I deify—
........Her legs are fine.

But I am old, and though I gawk,
I'm not so base to want to stalk
Her down the street to glimpse her thigh.
(I hope I'm not that kind of guy.)
So let me toast with fine Medoc,
........Her legs so fine.

 

[Tzara]

The Rapids

She undressed
looking into my eyes
like someone about to go swimming at dawn alone
—Franz Wright

I have always hated open water, the need to swim

through the suck of tidal undertow,
the drag of river current,
the struggle to keep my mouth

open to breathable air.
But, you know, your unclothed body
makes me want to hold my breath,
underwater,

because your nakedness flashes and shines
like a salmon finning
upstream

desperate to avoid the slash of my bear's claws
that hunger for your flesh.

I do not want to eat you. But consume?
Oh my God, yes.

 

[Piscator]

I'm still working on this year's V poem but here is last year's.

A too Late for Valentines Villanelle

Words like diamonds glitter in line
fixed in place by rhyme and measure
with these words will you be mine?

Hidden in each newfound rhyme
assonance revealing treasure
words like diamonds glitter in line.

The sudden rush as words align
gives the reader subtle pleasure
with these words will you be mine?

From sequence of repeated lines
can form emerge like EtchASketchure
and words like diamonds glitter and shine?

Softly slip past dark night line
always withhold undue pressure
with these words will you be mine?

Thus I present for Valentine
this verse for you to read at leisure.
Words like diamonds glitter in line
with these words will you be mine?

 

[Tzara]

After Reading a Poem Sent to Me by a Younger Poet,
I Drink a Glass of White Wine

It was like getting a love letter from a tree
—Franz Wright

Green, of course. The color of life,

so much more lively than the black and gray
of my landscape

both the physical and
the other.
The lines of her poem seem sturdy, rooted
in a world as real as rainstorms and leafrot,
coffeehouse conversations

and broken marriages. I wish
she had sent me her poem written on paper,

because I want to grasp it in my failing fingertips.

Instead, I drink some wine,
crisp and overcold, and think about how trees endure.
A bristlecone pine, high in the mountains,
twisted by winds,

perhaps the oldest thing on Earth.
This poem, however dear to me, won't live even that long.

 

[Piscator]

It’s going on thirty-seven years, forty if you want to count the years before we married, and yes, they should be counted. At times, it felt like eternity, other times a fleeting flash and yes, we definitely had our flashes. Yet somehow, we made it through and now find ourselves alone together again, with decades of memories and the need to find a special wine and some northern snow for our Valentines cross country ski weekend.

forty sun cycles
we’ve shared together and still
every day is new​

 

[29wordsforsnow]

I remember some ASCII art shaping meaningless letters into the outlines of a Tiger which I saw as a kid. The following is an adult experiment, more meaning, but also a more abstract shape, and a very uncommon understanding of rhyme schemes.

A moment in the day of Valentine

 the                                      with
  day                                     you,
   has                                   here
   come                                 alone
 We’ve had a date              late in the night
    On unseen lands            hands struggle
     She gave a gasp         clasp one open
      Now, I am so close  those wonderful
      lands to be entered centered on you





        Here                       down
           low                  near
              your innermost core
               lays what I praise
                our upcoming hour
                 on Valentine’s
                       Days

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I remember some ASCII art shaping meaningless letters into the outlines of a Tiger which I saw as a kid. The following is an adult experiment, more meaning, but also a more abstract shape, and a very uncommon understanding of rhyme schemes.

A moment in the day of Valentine

 the                                      with
  day                                     you,
   has                                   here
   come                                 alone
 We’ve had a date              late in the night
    On unseen lands            hands struggle
     She gave a gasp         clasp one open
      Now, I am so close  those wonderful
      lands to be entered centered on you





        Here                       down
           low                  near
              your innermost core
               lays what I praise
                our upcoming hour
                 on Valentine’s
                       Days

We've had some of these on here before and had to write 'Concrete poetry' for Survivor.

 

[Ashesh9]

valentine's is round the corner
he waits for her getting
hornier'n hornier....
she ignores his missed calls
becoz as she knows:
he jus' doth Not have balls!?

 

[Piscator]

Northbound river and southbound train

A northbound river and a southbound train
for I’m moving to a more clement clime
and swear I’m never coming back again.

An endless horizon on the Great West Plain
you always felt sunset was so sublime
on a northbound river by a southbound train.

Together we shared both pleasure and pain
which fused as one with the passing of time
and I swore I’d never come back again.

There’s a sense of union that’s hard to explain
a descant reaching for a long lost rhyme
by a northbound river on a southbound train.

With nothing to loose, everything to gain
we gave our all, down to the last dime
and both swore we’d never go back again.

We may have done wrong, but there was no crime
our young dreams faded to a sad refrain
yet you knew I’d always come back again.
to your northbound river by a northbound train.

 

[Angeline]

Lost
in the williwags of Maine,
sunlight slanting through green,
and autumn sifting leaves
past the car, occasionally
pattering the windshield. We stop,
we must stop for a line of turkeys,
wild and arguing, taking their time
gobbling and gabbling across the road.

We are singing Amy whatchu
wanna do?
We are laughing
at the absurdity until we forget
we're lost and might never
find Milbank, let alone Wade
or Paula.

Sometimes it doesn't seem real
but it was. You were there.
You were mine.

There were no foil wrapped chocolates,
no stupid Cupids, no lace edged hearts,
but I was enfolded in your love, more
cherished than the pinkest most
gauzy holiday.

 

[Tzara]

Siege

The thing about love
is how it sprouts
where it may be unwanted

as in, unrequited,
or even oppressive.
So let me tell you

although you're not aware
of how much you touch me
with your spare and elegant words,

I weed each row
where your innocent lines
have landed, even if

they were never meant
to germinate anything in me. Still,
I manage to coax

quite a crop
of subtle and, yes, overwrought emotions
from your cast-off weeds.

Beware, my hallucinatory darling,
of geeks bearing gifts.
Our flowers are as subtle

as hollow wooden horses,
a means to allow us/them/some unknown enemy
access straight into

the busy, throbbing chambers of your heart.

 

[Piscator]

Geometry of love

Two lines intersect
an inherently
unstable situation.

Parallel lines
are better
each proceeding
separately in
the same direction
balanced by forces
of attraction/repulsion.
But if these change
the lines diverge
or intersect (see above).

Sometimes two
intersecting lines
may align
with a third
forming a
triangle.
Which is stable
but generally
disapproved of.

Very occasionally
two lines may meet
end to end
and curve
to form
a circle
which is
One.​

I'm playing with an old poem posted on another site where it received over 5 K views. It's even been included, although not acknowledged in a couple of online collections

 

[butters]

my happy valentine

we swapped hearts
some years back
entrusted ourselves
to the keeping of the other

adjusting our grip
so as not to impede the flow
of love running through them—
softened palms, steady fingers

rain washed away the stains
old scars grew less tight
cupid's candy arrow
still bright—still surprising


a little happy valentine
Harry

 

[29wordsforsnow]

The Last

The fourteenth of Feb
passed by like honey
flung and sticky
in no sense runny

the last word typed
the report sent
time to leave
this abandoned land

the night, a storm of
palm on palm
his home instead
a dead calm

in his eyes’ corner
a glimpse of red
in a flower shop
turned his head

a moment before
doors were locked
so close to the last bunch
that was stocked

but wrinkled hands
closed around first
V-Day’s sudden death
his luck accursed

then a raspy voice
raised his mood
take this as a gift
for I am not rude

out of the middle
he extracted the roses’ best
and kept to himself
the well advanced rest

those will lie and rest
next to my late wife
with yours bring back
the love to life.

 

[Tzara]

Oh, hey. Pretty good job, people, answering the call to post some poems for V-day. I count sixteen poems to date (there still is time left to post before midnight, poets!), though five of them are by me, which probably only count as boosting the response.

But

1. There's a really raunchy poem by UYS. (I mean I have a whole different picture of our Annie now, just saying. )
   
2. 29wordsforsnow posted a couple of fine shape poems (I especially appreciated how his "sinuousity" plotted a slightly asymmetrical curve for a woman's breast) as well as a late poem in, I think abcb rhymed dimeter.
   
3. Piscator gave us a couple of villanelles (my favorite rhyme of the, admittedly new, year is "EtchASketchure.") and a haibun (thanks for attempting it), which basically captures my own marital relationship--the love and the years (almost exactly), though not that athletic skiing thing. And (and) a discussion of non-Euclidean geometry )).
   
4. Ashesh9's poem tells us he is horny. I think we all knew that, but it's always good to have him tell us again.
   
5. Angeline reminds us how fleeting human relationships can be. And how enduring they can be.
   
6. Oh, and butters. It is always cheering to read about people in love. Happiness just seems to cheer me up. (Cherish her, Harry, which I know you do.)

Thank you for your contributions. May you all, in your own way, appreciate Valentine's Day.

And, oh yeah--there's still a couple of hours left to post something. Don't let this stop you from writing your ideel Valentine poem.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Thanks Tzara for hosting this challenge, would you care to pass on the baton to someone else to host?

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Now that Valentine's end flies over the west coast, and a future of eleven months without this lovely challenge to be reborn, I turn around to see what was real, in my head, in my hand, sixty hours ago

The creativity corner is overcast with pencils, pens and brushes that have fallen from clouds of delivery vans feed by accelerating climate of one-click-order. My back is bent by the late hours that have brought colors to the paper and words on the screen, but not for You, for the anonymous lovers and loners to enjoy for a moment. But what would be special to You? No flowers or candies like this week's forecast tells. I know, my Love, that all the drops of colors have been brought here by your rain dance. Let me feed a rose with your favorite. Not a red one will turn your head, warm your heart and have your fingers close around again, and again...

Blackness pours in my room​

Screeching pencil fills the petals​

Blue awaits You, on your pillow​

sorry, Tzara, no idea whether my first time comes close to the definition of haibun

 

[Piscator]

Thanks Tzara for contest and analysis.

 

[Tzara]

Now that Valentine's end flies over the west coast, and a future of eleven months without this lovely challenge to be reborn, I turn around to see what was real, in my head, in my hand, sixty hours ago

The creativity corner is overcast with pencils, pens and brushes that have fallen from clouds of delivery vans feed by accelerating climate of one-click-order. My back is bent by the late hours that have brought colors to the paper and words on the screen, but not for You, for the anonymous lovers and loners to enjoy for a moment. But what would be special to You? No flowers or candies like this week's forecast tells. I know, my Love, that all the drops of colors have been brought here by your rain dance. Let me feed a rose with your favorite. Not a red one will turn your head, warm your heart and have your fingers close around again, and again...

Blackness pours in my room​

Screeching pencil fills the petals​

Blue awaits You, on your pillow​

sorry, Tzara, no idea whether my first time comes close to the definition of haibun

Well, 29, I was only asking for a pretty basic definition of haibun, which was some kind of prose intro to a poem. Your example certainly satisfies that criterion. Your poem component, while it somewhat resembles a haiku in its brevity, is pretty strident in its language. That's OK, but not at all what haiku is, if that is what you were trying to do.

I wanted to link in here jthserra's essay on haiku, which was a really good introduction to the form, but he has removed all of his submissions from Literotica, so I guess I'll leave it at that.

The Wikipedia article on haiku isn't a bad introduction. If you're interested you might want to look at it.

 

[Tzara]

Thanks Tzara for contest and analysis.

You're welcome, Piscator. I did especially like your haibun as I personally related to it. As I said, the years are almost exactly the same, but that athletic skiing thing?

That's just not right.




Though it implies you and your love might be maintaining more and better flexibility/strength/etc. than my sitting at a desk and writing furious comments about
how the deductive-nomological model of science fails to account for the sociological aspects of how scientists actually behave.

 

[Tzara]

Thanks Tzara for hosting this challenge, would you care to pass on the baton to someone else to host?

Anyone who wants to can post a challenge. If no one else does, I'll post another, eventually. (Rhymed double sestinas, anyone?)

Well, probably not. But it's all open for whomever wants to start the next challenge, for my part.