Shall I compare thee to a foggy day
Thou art not a forecaster’s point
You were ambiguous and I inchoate
Rough boys asked to light their joint
Heaven neither had eyes for us
The floor of his gaze too hot to strut
But barefoot kids we built our truss
While blue nuns in unison sang tut-tut
So random freely did you move in
With me your sworn enmity
And together we lived in green sin
In the hollow of the forbidden tree
And there we drew first breaths
Deaf to our own noisy passing.
Author: Joe Linker
-
Twenty Love Poems: 16
-
Twenty Love Poems: 15
Now the East Wind in the dark
pools the sadness of fish firs
following one another in trills
nature an opaque amber
lamppost in the old town
lighting the tavern door.The Tangerine Tiki Lounge
filled with refinery workers
stained men hearing whistles
without comment or pokes
they understand the lack
of likes and mean teases.They are silent and still
the wives kneeling pewed
palm readers in crushed
pork pie hats or doily
napkins held in place
with black bobby pins.But not hatted enough
to protect against love
awake the night long
moonlight floods back
yards creeping across
the neighbor walls.Into the pearl surf foam
of salt and fat kitchen
back doors garbage cans
neon fog noir cigarette
smoke pile of alley puke
seagulls peck and lap.A tiny tinny radio plays
oldies the men no longer
hear the women tap
their feet to the beat
the smells of rubbers
oils gases tubes smokes.Over the steam plant a jet
cruises up Vista del Mar
an Olds convertible
sirens stop at Local Liquor
red lights from a balcony
above Vapor Trails.Near railroad tracks and water
trains no longer carried people
truth made poor copy goods
confused sounds operas oranges
sugar beets in open cars north
to the old cold country. -
Twenty Love Poems: 14
In the garden of love they’ll find
two hearts in the compost pile
yours and mine entwined in trust
tattered threads of truce
and an ancient calloused shell
from which slip cynical slugs
of smug self-satisfaction.Good tho to hear from you
proud of your retirement
package that left you free to
travel world round and round
dressed in tutu and tulle
we can’t stop for death here
the corrosive calls of lifecloned days drown even your
braggart arguments snobbish
burlesque lycanthropy under
the moon’s smog we must
move on ahead of the wolf
not of metaphor but the one
in our own backyard garden. -
Twenty Love Poems: 13
Love so embarrassing
so cliche so cornball
until we learn to wear
circus clown makeup
to weather the stares.One happier skips wow
the other sad trips ough
one now the other trade
places slouched hopped
funny honey and lonely.Only the sophisticated
survive the scour of war
hot and cold sweets
sweat and sour clowns
look back give and take.The fool fools around
plays the fool joins
the idiomatic circus
come to town edge
to collect the shunned.Under the big top
in love’s pitched tent
fools dress in windbags
ride wobbly surfboards
hang ten on highwiresaddress the audience
the folly of a crowd
give the schmucks
their head amid
claps and laughs. -
Twenty Love Poems: 12
at sunset suddenly dawns on us
we might toss our favorite images
into moon river and lucky old sun
is so lonesome he could crypeacocks strut round the curves
of Sunset Strip up on iridescent
displays of monolithic cardboard
billboards crackling in summer1968 and I’m late to the summer
of love on the Peace Truck radio
from the beach cities up to your
place in Los Feliz not to makelove or blow a number and go see
2001: A Space Odyssey at Pacific
or to protest a war or hear Johnny
Rivers at the Whiskey but to visitthe Children’s Hospital on Sunset
at sunset the shifts changing
the night coming on like a drug
a dire psychedelic experiencebut nothing expands in fact
we shrink into a dim distant
past when our own singularities
merge to form a celestial duoof one we don’t know what
happened before that nor
what comes next we have
one memory and each othershivering great balls of grief
we drive up to the park
walk around the observatory
the city of wilderness belowostrich features of orange
gold drift across the basin
and I whisper I will turn
stones into bread for you -
Twenty Love Poems: 11
Let’s form this simple
poke a dimple or two
in the smile of love.
Too little time for fun
with rhyme on the run.
The poet cries foul
with love on trial.
There is no mystery here
insignificant our dress
when we walk we dance.
This is an old message
we often forget all the good
tales tell it in song and rhyme.
We can hum it to ourselves
anytime we wish happiness. -
Twenty Love Poems: 10
Love is a game of chess breast
to breast breathlessly waiting
but let none dare the first move.Love loathes nothing
the abominable one
amorously insatiable.No score on the board
Eros wants more
Dear if you please.I am love sick ill from
love’s lovelornnesses
I’m sick of love.The love handles worn
patina cracked I fall
stutter and stumble.Love is cancelled same
as sadness we make
mad mistakes.Opposing love is not
hate but hopelessness
a soul without a home.The hidden crawl
of the creeping snake
whose cynical mistrustcalls our love padded
under a green cloth
of jealousy and meanness.Love that hides fear
looks askance occupied
with its own beloved soul.Our 50 year love affair
love in a moat nest
seasonal lights o’ love.The individual soul’s
chi-chi outlandish
dress and mess.In the muddle of the night
the Bishop rides his Stallion
to the Castle to warn the Kingthe Queen has run off
with a Pawn en passant
we saw it on social media.The King blows his top
between the legs of his
own marble statue.Love wants less and less
outlasts the selfishnesses
of its landlord Charity.The soul is a piece
of a whole love able
to forgive as we fallfall to a winter of love across
from one another each to each
loath to make the first move. -
Twenty Love Poems: 9
“Simplicity, simplicity,
simplicity!” with Henry
is my cup of tea
no sugar or cream for me
and I’ll take my coffee
black in a plain cup.And neither shaken nor stirred
let me out of here I want
my drink of water clear
from the mountain stream
of melting snow rushing
to the river to the sea.My love too must be simple
when cold we burn the yard sale
knickknacks of romance
and in silence with animals
and plants pray for our children
that they too may find simplicity.This prayer of which we speak
must be simple, needs no words
is nothing, asks for nothing
the morning sun frees the dew
the evening moon replaces
the poem unsaved in a notebook. -
Twenty Love Poems: 8
Confessional
Bless us Father for we have sinned
it’s been 10,000 years since our last
confession and we’ve broken all
Your commandments and more.Not only did we eat of the fruit
of the tree of knowledge
of Good and Evil but we learned
to grow and manufacture our own.And what’s worse we’re not
finished won’t stop until
we put even You Your Highness
out of business.Those who still pray and light
votive candles sacrifice for each
other fools believe what can’t
be seen or measured.We form our own light and matter
obliterate sin and forgiveness
bless us Father hate trumps love
this is Your last confession.Freedom
What now my love our world
spirals and we no longer yearn
for a piece of the action.In the distance combines
thresh across yellow fields
robotic orbit in rounds.The wind twists and coils
mocks levees and docks
boats shivering in fear.Animals huddle in harbors
pray they won’t be prey
to their own.Coil your legs around
my middle and let us
find Earth is still play.Put away the rum and hum
of cells and let the blue
screens fall into deep space.I am true to you as true
as the well curled screw
secures its disposition.When you say we don’t get
along that is our way each
to each to the end of days.We are here in this sun
lit basin walking waltzes
hand in hand wind in hair. -
Twenty Love Poems: 7
Fall love ebbs and lovers return home to winter
surf flat rushing frothing foam recedes diminished
bubbly dolphins dive for dark sandy bottoms
we walk through gnarly tide pools bare barnacles
erupt across grotesque faces of ancient basalt hay
mounds covered with bluegrass and blackberry
below seacliff meadows seastars and fat green
sea anemones and great creatures sealions
and seals puffins and oystercatchers bright
orange-red long thin beaks breaking muscles
open overview here filled with salt and spray.The cold comes down from the north blows
inside out squirts Poseidon pisses across
the pure cliffs driving down a tiny south
sun now the winter of our simple desires
harvest leftovers frozen our autumn awes
prayers of gratitude and sad recognition
summer satisfactions spring blossomed
hopes all fall down and hunkered down
in an autumn of changing times fears
attempts to control nature fell failed
wristwatches wasted where we now go.August of our agues fall of our days
night comes a dark ship of told tales
our doctors are not the gods we wish
for but like the ancient gods they make
mistakes hang out with humans create
want miss appointments leave us
naked in cold rooms under glaring
false light where we wait promises
unfulfilled and we recall patience
the wealthiest of all the virtues
waiting out season ail expectations.Oh Lord please don’t must under
stand us thankful for our lives
fearful of returning to non-being
so nice the gold heaven reward
where punctuation is perfect
and there are no cotton fields
no salt mines no automobiles
we tango through the night
which is also day in Barcelona
nights and Hollywood evenings
and festivals in faraway places.Our love grows no shortages
of humid night streets filled
with strings of lights blocking
the moon the stars in Cairo
Rio Bagdad Los Angeles Paris
no stars in heaven no moons
no clouds heaven is outside
the universe the other side
no clowns no poets no sound
no sad faces your love grand
estoppel of all love forgotten.In fall falling we long for folk song
foot tap slap of bucket string bass
all you need is love times three
Father Son and Holy Ghost
the sorrowful mother who may
only watch given only love
lonely downcast face fallen
from grace woebegone night
after night blue dolorous
mourn full of futile love
at times like these end times. -
Twenty Love Poems: 6
I’m asked how I’ve spent all these years
with only one woman and wasn’t I ever
lonely for a switch. No, you’ve had one
you’ve had them all: all the crushes
and hushes, bugs and kisses, dinners
of ruin and dirty dishes, cracked glass
ambulance ride amusements, hospital
breathless nights of stares, leaking
bouncing breasts, slurpy sinking ships,
burps duns and dues, and whose is this.One simply can’t abandon only one
for another, but if you can’t love but
one, or if you can’t stay put, doomed
to love them all, love them one by one,
one in Kansas City, one in Timbuktu,
one on television, another in a sleek
magazine, she will all come to hate
you and rue the day she met you,
handsome and funny and smart
as the whip hidden in your suitcase.And this one, she walks on waters,
performs a single miracle. In touch
with the animals, she know altruistic
days and short selfish nights, prefers
skin to skin oils to rubber protection.
She wraps her legs around the void
universe and pulls it in to her body,
her coif dew, it would have been cold
and premature to leave her any day
now for the others, all the others.And are you so naive to think, I’m
asked again, your sweet queen lass
hasn’t known others, succumbed
to seductions of perfume and lotion,
raw muscle of the still wet oyster
that makes you gag for the thrill,
to swallow it whole in cars in bars,
the agoraphilia of getting caught
her perfect beauty ever the target
of all that glitters and is not gold.Yes, the camouflage of clothes,
the wearinesses of one’s wrongs,
one’s imperfections, peccadilloes,
the fantasy of a superman, pull
of the moon on full ocean swells,
and the sorrows of sin desired
again and again. Love is letting
her loose to do what she wants,
if we ever know what we want
ever beyond reach and school.We must be aware, awake awed
to the far consequences of our
actions and inactions, of fear
of loss and aversion of boredom,
fear of sleeping alone in a buffet
bed, or of having to push and say
move over, pulling the covers back
to our side of the bed, fear of her
ironic mistrust. Beauty can sleep,
too, and she never annoys you?She does not sleep, her baggy
nightgown a novel of despair.
She wears no jewelry, no wed
band, puts on no false airs,
dislikes the smell and feel
of fresh fish, is stubborn
and alone, always alone.
In her face shows the fear
and courage all have known:
hate of evil, love of good.There can be any woman
for every child and any teat
will do in a pinch you can’t
draw milk or make honey
on your own, while she bears
the scars of wars and tomcat
attacks, mourning regrets
of getting into his car. Poet
child, you never asked why
beauty, why you and not him.She doesn’t hear the sounds
I hear, sing the same songs.
In any case we are past age
of tit for tat, give and take,
love or hate, blind dates,
petty jealousies and jolly
rides in convertible jeeps,
elusive memories, name
calling. We are reduced
to prayer and solitude.I didn’t start out to live this way.
It happened with no master plan,
no 5 year plan one after another,
and it’s no big deal, lots of people
live it, in fact it’s what people do,
humans monogamous creatures,
mates for life, and when they don’t,
that’s no big deal either, both ways
involve untold sorrows and pain,
abuse and misuse, loyalty livingin trees, and to say some other
way would be better misses
the point of no point, no return.
We live on the edge, always
turning, always falling, failing
in love. Love is the overview
that makes astronauts cry
and birds fly, a view of only one
Earth, one Sun, one Moon, one
woman, one man, one love.
The Coming of the Toads 