Love Poems
Poems Loosely about Love
by Douglas Gilbert
It’s been some time since somebody told boys that girls like poems. But they hate them except as a gesture from someone they already like, and like a classic line, and classic manipulation, those boys are like stinging insects hiding on a flower.
What about the “birds and the bees and other clichés”? There’s shocking news: bees who sting are not charming; about the prettiness of birds: Great Horned Owls break the spine of a fox and eat it alive. About charming “Nature” and ecology: Once in a while(once upon a time): Sharks, wolves, lions, and other creatures who have publicists extolling their virtues, actually do attack or eat people.
“ ‘ove’ ”
There don’t seem to be good synonyms for “love” in English and it’s been diluted. “I love ice cream and you too,” doesn’t really work. Single words for “romantic love,” or “empathic love,” or “hot passionate love,” infatuation, etc. are not to be found. No word for “I want the best for you… what makes you happy makes me happy etc.” Is it a canard that Eskimos have 200 words for snow, and the French 200 for duck? Well, a little hyperbole, but the word must be somewhere between the brain and the private parts, and certainly doesn’t seem located in the heart though it is a long-lasting and pervasive metaphor. After all, fear is “heart felt” too but it’s not the approved metaphor
Coin a Word for Me
Once a gem,
the word’s been scrubbed
like a pejorative stone
in a teary creek, an
old river gone shallow
Oh let us coin, my lucidove,
our ever word, because
we’ve a tender ‘ove of us effusive
an edgyove, a ludelove
a kissove missive:
folded paper plane that soars
but gems can be dreamed of again.
In the journeyove dream
I awoke happy, enveloped in you
under’ove covers
Enraptured in the blankets
of home
with you
of you
Our embrace is
the brightness
of us
with us
We are
the morning together
together lovidove
An awakening
is here to be
for real
at home
peaceful passion
satisfaction day
not dreaming
but being
in the lightness
of us
with us
we are warm
being the morning sun,
like banners waving
playfully above
the river of ‘ove
extremely rippling,
our streaming
child to the river
Ripples of the day
we stream
like banners waving
playfully above
a gentle brook
child to the stream
The child’s babble
joyful enough
to be a gurgle
in a float-along morning
We splash along
embraced
by immersion
and the kiss of the day
fantastic
better than a dream,
my lucidove
Poet Laureate of the Primitive Planets 