This is the true story of my personal journey of love in poetry.
Before There Was Love - 1989 – From the last relationship before my husband
I dreamed a dream…
A life where I was happy.
I loved and was loved.
A gentle lover held my hand
And showed me the way to joy.
Our love gave us precious treasure,
The gift of sweet laughter,
The patter of tiny feet…
Myself, a mother looking on…
My lover, a father smiling gently…
Our children dancing joyfully about him.
I dreamed a dream…
A broken dream I couldn’t make true.
In waking truth I am alone.
The lover who held my hand
Led me only to pain.
My love returned no treasure…
Only pain and regret,
Bewilderment and betrayal…
Only the sound of retreating steps…
Myself, a woman alone, looking on…
My lover, a fading shadow, deeping pain…
Our children a broken dream,
Cutting deep as a knife in the night.
© 20 August 2014
That lonely lost feeling when a relationship doesn't work.
I am alone…
always and always alone…
On the street they pass me by…
Hand in hand, their love carries them on…
Past pain, past desire, blind to my lonely way.
I am alone…
Always and always alone…
With friends in a café…
Their chatter and laughter I share…
And note in my heart the lovers nearby.
I am alone…
always and always alone…
A show to watch and entertain…
Two lovers all obstacles o’ercome…
To end in life or death, united by love’s embrace.
I am alone…
Always and always alone…
With him, holding hands…
Time spent together and shared…
Yet still, alone and lonely he makes me.
I am alone…
Always and always alone…
He moves on, leaves me behind…
Betrayal and heartache again my portion…
Still life moves on, rolls over, grinds on.
I am alone…
always and always alone…
© 20 August 2014
A poem about a time from well before my husband, about the sense of loss after a breakup
Rain, rain, fall today.
Hide the tears that wash away my joy.
Thunder roll and mask my sobs.
Lightening strike and blind them to my pain.
Death, sweet death…
My heart lies in your dark bosom.
Why must you have taken my joy away,
So little I have known lost to your jealous embrace.
© 20 August 2014
Without her, the sister of my heart, I'd never have become the person my husband fell in love… I'd never have this now.
When others saw what they wanted me to be…
My true friend saw who I desired to see.
My true friend held up a mirror…
Showed the deeper me did endure.
When love seemed far beyond my reach…
My true friend did stop to teach
How love would grow from love within,
Not outward signs nor raucous din.
When love within seemed hard to find…
My true friend always was kind,
Loyal and true, a guide undaunted…
Though by doubt t’was I haunted.
With oft gentle reflection…
And sometimes annoyed intercession…
My true friend taught me to grow,
Refused to let me be laid low.
My decisions tho’ oft confusing,
Never turned my friend’s inducing…
Led me ever to deeper understanding…
The seeds of worth t’was planting.
Much frolic and laughter shared…
My true friend always cared
To make me whole and complete.
T’was the first I knew without deceit.
A bond and spiritual kinship…
Taught to me true friendship.
My true friend, the sister of my heart…
Even distance cannot part.
A beacon’s light I ever see…
My true friend will always be
She who taught me myself to love,
And opened my life to blessings above.
© 23 August 2014
More about recovering from that last relationship…
A blackening heart…
In a darkening soul…
A love given in joy…
Wasted in loathsome betrayal
Of an honest heart,
Offered up in sacrifice
On the alter of your conceit.
In the gloaming of your soul,
Cry tonight for the times we had.
Try… try to whisper me a kiss…
And a new dark will rise…
Seething all consuming pain…
Thirst that never may be quenched…
Lost and wonton in sepulchre seduction.
© 27 August 2014
A poem written when my heart finally found the light beyond the sorrow and pain… Published in the NEW ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN POETRY, back in the 1990s.
Distant thunder brings the promise of rain,
Wild wind tears through the air again,
Whispers of the past on harsh winds blow,
Thunder rumbles where the future will go.
Roaring thunder shatters the night,
The sky is rent by violent light,
In each drop of rain broken dreams fall,
And shatter on the ground of a new dream's call.
Distant thunder fades with the dawn,
Gentle winds murmur of the storm that has gone,
Souls sing out for the love come home,
Heart embraces heart never more to roam.
© c. 1996, and 07 January 2015
Closing my eyes on that past relationship and learning to trust my future through True Love's eyes…
I’ve been through fire… left alone to dance…
Been pulled from the ash heap of romance…
At last set free in joy, a gift from above…
To share the soul mates’ journey of true love…
For him and me, a promise… not of ease,
But, we’ll not go alone through life’s unease.
And here you come, thinking that hope to dash,
But, I see true… your words are blackest ash…
With smiles struggling through my tears…
From new eyes I see your barren fears.
You dole out handfuls of mediocrity…
While true love is lost in your superiority.
Your every cause only kindling trauma…
Your Shanghaied pain is naught but drama…
You are nothing…raping stealing voices of pain
From some other heart’s regret. Your pleas I disdain.
© 31 August 2014
Composed for Hamid on Valentine’s Day in 2014, expressing our journey to find each other…
Soul and soul alone, divided by ocean’s brine…
Looked up and wondered on one shining star…
A wish, a hope made for love to find…
Two faces do lonely sadness mar.
Years wend on, without love’s rhyme…
Heart and heart from each other so far…
No song they find in rhythm and time…
Another’s heart beat can only jar.
Earth turns, on marches time…
Life’s tragedies both hearts scar…
Hope fades as love shows no sign…
Forgotten -- the wish upon that star.
Two souls untied across all time…
Drawn together from places far…
Through many obstacles, yours and mine…
The miracle of us written ‘pon a star.
Soul to soul for each other we shine…
We found each other and made a start…
Before God our union we made divine…
Two souls embraced one united heart.
© 20 August 2014
A place I left behind when "Hope was born anew…
Bad old, dark places…
Places where my life no longer dwells…
Looking back upon the past…
That wasting, dark, drear past…
Come words from a long ago
Where my soul no longer cowers.
A place of wrenching loneliness
always on the edge of light,
waiting to drag me back…
back into it's embrace….
I just kept trying to hold on,
trying to hold out for love;
But, every day that passed without it,
Loneliness lurked to overwhelm.
And, darker still, monsters lurked…
Monsters lurked at every… every turn…
Soul shattering dramas spun out
in relentless perversions of hope.
Until that pivotal moment…
that time when change began…
Change began and Hope was born…
Hope born anew within my breast.
In that Hope, on angel’s breath…
An angel-friend led me forward.
She led me through the dark
and back to light and Faith.
I learned the true Me…
the truest Me I was meant to be
And learning Me, I learned Love.
Learning Love, I learned to love.
It's a truly blessed state…
In brilliant shining sunlight…
A place of laughter and love and joy…
Such have I found for myself…
After the long, dark road through tortured,
shadowed forests of the past.
© 19 September 2014
This is a poem about a particular way my husband has when kissing me. It was that first, perfect kiss with him that proved to me how different he was, how his kindness and gentle soul were true to his core.
Whisper me a kiss…
Softly… softly brushing my cheek
As an - Oh! - so delicate caress…
A gentle kiss upon my fingertips,
So healing in its tenderness…
Breathing your kiss upon my mouth,
You softly whisper me a kiss…
Oh! Whisper me a kiss…
In your sweet breath is the promise
Wafting me gently to a healing space
This oft tossed ship carried ‘pon your breath
Oh! Let me harbor in your embrace!
Oh love… again… whisper me a kiss…
Set us free to sail ‘cross time and space.
Oh! Again… Whisper me a kiss…
In your arms, the promise of forever…
Shining as stars in your ebony eyes
Come my love, tomorrow’s our dawn…
Floating free as the star flies
Our love, the vessel… you, my tether…
On whispered kisses, together we’ll rise.
Softly… Softly… Whisper me a kiss…
© 30 August 2014
An expression of our passion
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Drum beat of sorrow
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Rapine devouring of tomorrow
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Heaving sighs of heartache
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Overflowing heartbreak
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Beating heart enflamed
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Waiting to be tamed
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
You gaze into my eyes
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
And make my heart rise
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
That look… my mouth stutters
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Your gaze… my heart flutters
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
The curling of my toes
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
A kiss in passion’s throes
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Your scent… so strong and warm
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
My every sense you swarm
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Bodies tangle… rush and fumble
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Hearts and limbs together tumble
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Sated, lying face to face
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Held tight in your embrace
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Your embrace is my safe harbor
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
My world’s become your ardor
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
On this path which we’ve begun
Thump-thump… thump-thump…
Our hearts now beat as one
© 01 September 2014
Reveling in the depth of our passion
Two souls united in beat of hearts…
When Moon rises high among the stars…
A torrid swelling under velvet midnight skies.
Heat surging, mounting with our sighs…
Our bodies writhing twixt and twain…
Where oft and oft our love hath lain.
When life too frigid grasps and holds…
These secret moments our hunger enfolds
A midnight oasis… for us alone…
A space in which the world may atone…
For all the darkness and abandonment.
From the rush of heated cohabitants…
Again, again, our hearts full… pledging…
To the warm glow of intimacy after coupling…
The wellspring of urgency spent in symbiosis…
Of our languid midnight in the oasis.
© 25 August 2014
In your ebony eyes
I see a friend and a lover
a husband and a father
In your ebony eyes
every day is new with hope
fulfilled in a new day of love
In your ebony eyes
I learned a love so pure
to wake each day and know
In your ebony eyes
I know devotion unparalleled
and found love forever at my side
© 18 October 2018
The magic of forever…
Silhouettes cast in backyard sunsets
Of angel painted skies in fairy light.
Everywhere softened edges glow
In the backyard sunset’s blaze.
Ordinary, hard, chore-laden land
Now transformed by light and color…
Immersed in hues of fiery warmth
Across the sky and here below…
Just a step outside my own door,
Walk into a world fired by magic.
Hear the chirping insect music,
Be bathed in pure tranquility…
With every never mundane…
Always magical backyard sunset…
There we always will be found…
Where home waits for me.
© 18 September 2014
What is Love? I have learned…
It’s not an emotion…
just a feeling of the hour…
Is it our privilege?
Is this why our souls cower
in the dark all alone
in absence of its light?
We are all lost without
this word’s four letter might.
Life seems dim and lonely.
Lost, it feels most like a curse.
Crushed by low betrayal…
Sentiment born in a hearse…
But… what might we be
when we turn from the cold?
What might be our new fate
if our path may be so bold?
Between two lonely hearts…
a bond forged in loyalty…
a gift to birth our hope…
we find strength in honesty.
In it’s throes we revel…
an assured companion ours.
The heart of warmth and light
On our future dream flowers
This pledge is an embrace
all the gift that is True Love
Love’s not an emotion
It’s much more than we dreamed of
Love is more than passion…
always more than honest…
Love’s not an emotion.
My heart, Love is a promise.
© 09 November 2014
These vows as a testament to our marriage for our 25th wedding anniversary.
When I learned that I couldn’t create
A love of my own
Out of the ash of human conceit…
When I’d convinced myself
Even God couldn’t love me,
I had to learn to show Him love by loving me
And learn how to give love unselfishly
Then He sent a miraculous gift…
He sent the gift of you …
My Pashmaloo e kachal…
To show the Truth of love only He could create.
His Word teaches from the very beginning
We were meant for each other always
Always and always to find myself in you
Soul to Soul… complete… made whole.
It’s the truth of our human experience
We must ever be seeking each other
Even from across the wide ocean
Pressed down and shaken together
God blessed me with you,
And blessed me again with the miracle of our son.
I thank God for every breath I’ve taken,
Every breath I will ever take as your wife.
I thank you for all the respect…
All the love you’ve always shown me,
Your one and only Khonom mushé…
And again dedicate myself for only you
I will honor you for all the time God gives me.
Always and always to find myself in you
Soul to Soul… complete… made whole.
© 20 August 2014
