love poems

October 27, 2014

“Free-Form Bolero” by Mather SchneiderPosted by

Mather Schneider

FREE-FORM BOLERO

We eat nopalitos
for lunch
pruned from our hard yard

and we love the afternoon away
both of us hunter
both of us prey

then sleep.

I dream about pueblos
with names of women
and a smoky cantina with flowered curtains
and ironwood tables
polished by a million brown elbows.

The floor fan blows the hair on my legs
whispers chicken skin goodbyes
to my sweat
and as the heat rises with the finale of April
I am at peace with what will come:

wormy compost of May
foul-smelling hat
sunburned deeds
mesquite syrup and cactus jelly
sealed in jars like preserved lust

the throat-burning flames of bacanora June
sour stains of July
lime and onion tears
of August

the desert stretched out like an endless
mockery of self-importance.

Funneled into the triumph
of now

the sun floats down
into the other
a popped balloon at a gala ball

and as I wake up
it’s like I’m face to face
with the prettiest girl
at the last dance of the world

and she’s looking at me
like she just woke up too.

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
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__________

Mather Schneider: “Well, I tried growing broccoli in our desert yard and that didn’t work, then realized that we could eat the prickly pear cactus that grew naturally right there in front. You prune the soft young pads, skin off the spines, boil them or fry them with salt and chili sauce or whatever you want, and there you go. This, combined with a nice siesta on a day off from work with the woman you love, is more than enough for me.” (web)

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October 21, 2014

“Speaking in Code” by Christine RheinPosted by

Christine Rhein

SPEAKING IN CODE

For fun and to try to mix this up a little, you two might develop a verbal or visual cue that is more subtle than simply asking for sex. For instance, when one of you mentions Vice President Richard Cheney, that’s your code.
—Amy Dickinson, Chicago Tribune

Imagine the possibilities! I could whisper
Rush Limbaugh in your ear and, if it happens
to sound good to you, you could counter
with a breathy Ralph Nader, and go on
to, well, the Better Business Bureau,
nudging us toward Liberty Mutual
and Full Fire Insurance. Of course,
we might want to try something more
scientific, like perhaps Mr. Gizmo
or Miss Motion Engineer, a sigh
of reciprocating oscillation. I guess
we could go a bit wild too, daring to speak
aardvark or walrus, the kinky tangles
of kudzu or cabbage. We could even practice
our French, Soupe du jour, oh là là!
or Italian, Pronto! There’ll be no asking
for sugar, honey, what’s cookin’? in this house.
None of that old hocus pocus, hokey
pokey, hula hula for us. I mean, why dance
around on tiptoe when we can Do the
funky gibbon! The resurrection shuffle!
The tikkabilla jive! And seriously,
since it’s only you and me here,
we might as well scream a little
climate change, stressing the need
for renewable energy or, at least, See me
turn off the TV. We shouldn’t waste time,
dear, wishing to ignite something new
when there are so many hot buttons
already at hand. I say, what the hell—
Let’s build a bridge to tomorrow! Or to Finland!
Because it seems anything is better than oh,
nothing. Not worth the candle. Don’t be silly.

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
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__________

Christine Rhein: “My background as an auto engineer seems to play a part in my writing. Each poem presents a puzzle, with its components and features needing to fit and operate together just so in order to give the reader the best possible ride down the page. Of course, tinkering with poems is boundless, while cars come with constraints. When I write, I want a ride that’s not safe, smooth, or even steerable, but rather one that’s full of unexpected lunges, turns, and spins.” (website)

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October 16, 2014

“The Difference at Cafe D’Arthe” by John PochPosted by

John Poch

THE DIFFERENCE AT CAFE D’ARTHE

Seville, Spain

Except for coffee, light never forgives the dark.
Here, at the bar, even a driver of dangerous liquids
can find a robust, fertile rest so river deep,
his gaze darkens like the old air between two lenses
in a telescope. He has time to smoke, to talk
to the milk and carbon, to think without thinking how
an olive oil spill can make a napkin into
some private window, the most temporary stained glass
in the world, a window made
not to see through, but to.
It is not odd when from his mouth
comes the muffled sound of steel
in a mattress, or is it a guitar?
Sparrows flutter in the date palm pollen and dust.
What a bath!
The professional young hurry by outside thin-soled
toward the engine block of downtown.
They are faceless as umbrellas. That important.
This one’s lover must be rough, her hair the scent
of a midnight sea-port, her love-talk
a dirty old story of graffiti on graffiti.
When she dances for him some nights, she must look like
the aftermath of math. The answer, naked
and not wanting. Now, the driver has words:
That’s the ground, that’s the sidewalk, and that’s the love.

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
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__________

John Poch: “I was studying nuclear engineering. I found myself writing poems rather than studying my formulas. The phrase ‘word problems’ took on a different meaning for me, a positive meaning. I transferred schools and began this path of poetry, and I rarely have looked back.”

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October 15, 2014

“Why I Like Marriage” by George OvittPosted by

George Ovitt

WHY I LIKE MARRIAGE

At breakfast I tell my wife
To bury me in my new suit.
“The gray one?” she asks,
“Yes, with the pinstripes,”
“Fine,” and she sips her tea.

This is what I like about marriage—
The not-being-surprised part of it,
As in how I can decide on my
Funeral attire, then read aloud
A Times review of a restaurant
In Paris that we will never visit,
And a moment later suggest a
Walk in the snow—why not?

By lunchtime I will have decided
Against the gray suit and burial
Altogether, having seen a billboard
For cremations—$850, complete;
“On second thought,” I begin,
And my wife will nod, and sip her tea,
And say, “I know,” and mean it.

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
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__________

George Ovitt: “The immediate inspiration for ‘Why I Like Marriage’—aside, of course, from my wife—is a billboard for the American Cremation Society that I bike past on my way to work each morning. I liked the line ‘$850, Complete!’ so well that I knew I had to get it into a poem. I write poetry so I can put the bits and pieces of my odd-ball perceptions in some kind of order at the end of each day. My notebooks are full of such scraps, some of which, through a process I don’t understand, join other scraps of my attention to make a poem.” (web)

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October 14, 2014

“Optimist” by Leonard OrrPosted by

Leonard Orr

OPTIMIST

Each time I vote, I pretend that this time
everything I hope for will take place, that
not only will everyone I vote for win,
but they will turn out more liberal than anyone
expected, that the evil half of the Supreme Court
will take a powder, wars will end, oil will die.
Every night, I visit your side of the bed
to pretend that you are just away for a moment,
it is warm from you and you will rush back to
place your head back on the pillow beside mine,
my nose nuzzling into your hair, to breathe you in,
my arms around you while you push sleepily
back into me, surrounded by my heat,
not fully waking by your brief absence,
and for some minutes I am whole again.

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
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__________

Leonard Orr: “Around 2000, I assessed the poetry I had written up to that point and decided I needed to change direction completely, turning from the typical and impersonal. I resolved to write poetry about which I was passionate, and with a particular reader in my mind. I have kept this focus, and the device of direct address, ever since. My models in following this path include Sharon Olds and Pablo Neruda.”

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October 7, 2014

“The Lovers” by Timothy LiuPosted by

Timothy Liu

THE LOVERS

I was always afraid
of what might get

revealed in a psychic’s
spread—
Forgive me
for not knowing
how we were

every card in the deck.

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
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__________

Timothy Liu: “When I was a freshman at UCLA in 1983, I checked out Sylvia Plath’s Ariel from the library and settled down by the pool at the Sunset Rec Center. By the time I got up, I knew I wanted to be a poet. Or as Robert Lowell famously put it in his introduction: ‘To play Russian Roulette with all six cartridges loaded.’” (web)

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October 6, 2014

“Aftermath” by Nathan LandauPosted by

Nathan Landau

AFTERMATH

Some days I am a machine gun
of apologies and gratitude,

an automatic weapon of regret
and sincerity and when the smoke

clears in the firing range
of our kitchen, your ears

ringing with vows
that it will never happen

again, I am the sound
of a hammer chattering

against the hollow
chamber of my promise.

I am every calibered casing
marked I’m sorry, forgive me,

I didn’t mean it.
Every brass thimble

of thank you and thank you
and thank you, scattered

on the tile floor where we hold
each other, swear nothing

has changed, and kiss
cartridges into the empty

magazines of our mouths.

—from Rattle #43, Spring 2014
Tribute to Love Poems

[download audio]

__________

Nathan Landau: “There’s this interview with Ira Glass that’s been going around the last couple years, and the gem of it is this monologue about taste. Essentially, your taste is what makes you love what you read, hate what you used to write, and endlessly work to lessen the disparity between the two. I love that—not just that taste drives creative output, but that you could also become someone else’s good taste.” (website)

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