Love – The Coming of the Toads

Heart-Shaped

A dust of snow this Valentine’s Day
not much just a sprinkle of sugar
on roofs and grass of sweetmeats
the street’s clear to come and go
social love miserly virtual treats
turns sour at the corner ignored
relics of one’s love in framed pics.

Lost love seems now the sweetest
tooth in the mouth of memory when
to bite yearningly brings back pain
without which tho there is nothing
for the heart in its card to hark back
to not words nor images nor nights
at sea dressed in red sky vapor trails.

Words last not last night’s telling
as we amble toward a late spring
watching the squirrels and crows
from icy windows and Scamble and
Cramble the cats come to smell
and scratch in the familiar places
looking for a facial comfort zone.

But in safe and ease we may feel
nothing better to go in the cold
grab a nip and feel the wet bit
scrunch of the lips in the dark
alley tongue out the back door
of your ground floor apartment
upstairs we would not gambol.

Love’s crisis longs for a headline
an ocean in which to clown one’s
cartoon visions under a laughing
audience of unidentified balloons
aloft the shape and size of hearts
made of flour and sugar and red
paint and salt water taffy.

Oh to have & hold a heart a late
night very red strawberry fruit
hugs with no words drawings
seen from our wintry limbs
high up in our trees we climb
to enjoy one another’s going
easy and around and around.

La Dolce Vita

Jesus returns to Earth in his space soot
lands near a vineyard swarming with on-scene
reporters and a poet drinking wine
with a comely girl like in an old dream.

Bright lights big city and the poet cuts
out pieces of his heart installs plumbing
pipes in and out his body for his loves
to and fro rich and poor pub and nightclub.

Paparazzi poets loiter about
and caricatures party at a news
conference where Jesus is forgotten
dawn the city emerges beautiful.

From a cathedral altar the poet
lectures on gypsy jazz guitar grammar
and Jimmy Smith plays the Hammond B-3
while nine nuns discuss floral arrangements.

Visions of the Madonna go viral
but she disappears into a crazed crowd
crying out for miracles and passing
deep probes by the church and city fathers.

The poet visits a custom made home
paid for from funds of the company store
views of the city lights from the dark hills
and children run and play games safely.

The poet paints through the day en plein air
ocean views from the El Porto sand dunes
while Lily waits tables at House of Pies
with Marcella both flirting with the cooks.

Lily’s father visits dropped by a cab
and teaches the poet how to handle
a steering wheel on the San Diego
freeway to Long Beach everyone silent.

Lost feelings of forlorn hope and lovelorn
forgetfulness as the poet cruises
up Highway 1 past Malibu beaches
away from the ruins of the city.

An explosion rocks the morning beach town
an El Segundo Blue butterfly lifts
away from its warm studio setting
eriogonum parvifolium.

Endangered by human cravings the poet
absconds but returns sometime later
to a marketing and sales derived party
fueled by money libido and ego.

In the morning the poet washes up
on the beach caught up in sad fisher nets
Lily from the Strand smiles falling waves crash
the poet untangles and follows her.

And a Song of Despair

And despair is to separate to break up
to stop falling in love and hit bottom
down from to hope and to be the despair
of another now absent and in a state
of disrepair collapse and abandonment
like the house on a dead moon unplugged
in the mist of space dust floating falling.

To disengage throw away toss out fall
back without limbs to swim or fins to flap
the earnest muscles sore as a dam morn
train slowly pulling out of a foggy station
leaving your sad waves to platform alone
waiting for the next train hands waving
from disappearing windows brakes off.

Dissed and pool pissed despondent one
the heart crestfallen full of sorrow sick
as a parrot unable to breathe or repeat
how hap hap happy we were when we
happily eschewed commas and went non
stop without regard for clarity to others
or any kind of on time railroad timetable.

From pillow to pillow I missed you
but love is on the dot not wanting
a life of one’s own but a share
of the Earth a clear spot to bed
down without fear of knowing
what can never be fully known
or understood the random odds

and ends the noise some call music
others say poppycock and applesauce
I wash my eyes out with vinegar
and oil my hair for the dark night
of the soul is here drumming door
rhythms untuned sonic booms
as I fall through the night gloom

destined to wreck on the jetty pokes
into the ocean waves oh Lord please
let me be misunderstood disregarded
by anyone but with her I cannot be
seen this drowning in words won’t
work then or now what silence wanted
was for me to go up into love the altar

boy who understood but a few words
of Latin and even then daydreamed
through the mass of the sea and waves
fell asleep on the altar but awoke quick
and jangled the bells upsetting sisters
yes an old story now how then he met
the girl of not dreams but awakening.

What is sundered cannot be surrendered
alone now at the end of the voyage one
sees coming through the morning ocean
fog your bright sun of yellow hair your sky
of blue eyes your cotton candy cheeks
of dunes freckled with tiny sad flowers
your strong legs soft hands your sand

highs and little lows your kisses full
of compassion your fall frowns your
annoying finger in my yawns your grab
pulling the rear view mirror off its mount
laughing tussled hair your silence in my
despair your stubborn insistence we
make a life together out of despair.

Twenty Love Poems: 20

Mornings stolen cold dirty socks on damp
feet slushed street Bathsheba and the kids
sleep past the cryptic graffiti on the corner
phone booth an annunciation to be glad
to rejoice as we once recess Angelus rings
asked joy in backyard bestowed with sun.

Between no yes we stopped and I touched
the fruit of your wamb womb cherry bomb
compassionately swallowed your freckled
cheeks whole like the great horned owl
absorbs the snouty mouse grace flavored
rain blurred eyes wiper smeared drive.

Byssus threaded hand in hand hip to hip
we survived ice storms attached to rocks
blessed grace full I kissed your salt but
now thin and weak bland unpalatable
the beach is closed to surfers who pray
for waves gone by sucked into sand.

Our songs drift into space beyond sound
what cannot be seen or measured is love
yeah we rocked and rolled and jazzed it
up but in the end we are just a folk duo
doomed to sing our same old love song
oldie of oldies on infinite scratched repeat.

Soma of couple submerged together sing
a sleeping song awake these hundreds
of years adoring each breast to breast
and now my heart before need of repair
asks to roll up what sweetness remains
into one last rollicking bollocking ball.

Twenty Love Poems: 18

The hot toddy, hip bits and bobs, the rot bow
for your wrench on a whet night the power out.
Isso cold bed down against the outside of you
without your very verbs and nautical nouns.
I am bicker to discuss my loss: what you lose
on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.
Lute the highty-tighty bowl shaped body out
its floor length flannel down nighty be plucked
and ducked sucked and mucked for the rose
puddles open comes morning and sun’s river
of bees and wasps and grounding of coffee
and cake eggs and rashers for we’ll be hungry
a gain after snatch a madcap night of be hinds
spur of the moment tis issues what it hisses.

Twenty Love Poems: 17

How do I love thee? Let’s not count the ways and days.
To the bottom of the blue ocean where the octopus lies
in purple wait to perpetuate the mythical form below.
The soul’s something to do with it – what I don’t know.
Actually, now I think about it, things don’t divide evenly,
and days after days pass like the beach tides loose over
the rocky pools, sandbars now seen now drowned deep.
That’s how love is: under water, how the starfish spreads
wings, and how the sea anemones attach and attract
moist quiet almost silent prey. Not to be flippant, but
to lie in wait seems unengaged in this era of existential
pandering, but I don’t know of what use passion when
the tide goes out and all my bugs exposed. Men strive
for one thing, and that’s not right while you go for free
or broke time after time, for romance beats the mundane.
Consider the saints who crazy with love sacrifice all even
their love for something abstract we can never count on.
Carry on, my love, blitz me with your supine indifference.

Twenty Love Poems: 16

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.

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 mistrust

calls 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 King

the 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 fall

fall 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.