Limited

Blank spaces count as characters. It’s true.
I wasn’t sure. And then I thought of you.

Sophie Hannah

[SH was commissioned to write this - a text message valentine's day poem.  It had to be fewer than 150 characters.]

No Wonder

This love looks set to grow extremely tall.
I chart its weekly progress on the wall

the way my mum made pencil marks above
my sister’s head and mine. I’ve called it love

since it began, but now I have some proof -
infatuation stops before the roof

while love climbs bravely up to bash its head.
The bleeding starts. No wonder hearts are red.

Sophie Hannah

A Letter to Elise - The Cure

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

Valentine's Day Is Coming!

And with it, a truckload of delightfully shallow love poems!

Obsessive, adolescent schmultz is just good fun.  It's worth having this hallmark celebration, if only for an excuse to read and write frothy nonsense.  So I intend to.  In the next few days I'll be posting a pile of romantic poems.  All light, all fun, some bitter, some nasty.  My favourite is a brilliantly cutting sms valentine's day verse by Sophie Hannah.  Look out for it and others.

For Andrew, I tried writing something a bit more real.  Alas, married love is much trickier to capture.  There are so many more layers of complexity.  I posted my attempt (click here or just scroll down about 2cm to the next post).

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you.  Whatever that means.

Satellite (for Andrew)

I spin faster than you.

My movements hectic to

your slow turn.

I dart while you plod, yearn

while you wait, run

while you tread the steps

of your yearly pilgrimage.

Everything plotted,

nothing to chance.

I'm with you, but

I have my own dance.

It's clockwork regular

and calm for the most part.

But monthly my belly swells,

my temper frays

and I rage

against your shores.

Your hands on mine,

gentle as I assault, revolt

against the forces that bind.

But I am yours.

I will not go.

Cannot.

Didn't you know?

Couldn't you tell

that it's always been about you?

Every turn. Every changing spell

has had to be.

You the earth.

I the moon.

And love, it holds

as gravity.

sar 2010