Love Is
Sometimes a most important truth is hidden, like a small flower in an overgrown field; but when some new thought comes along unbidden and gives a different slant, that truth’s revealed.
I’ve thought that a supreme power moves or holds each thing that is - by a resistless force that, by precise, measurable rules, molds its form and determines its exact course.
And so that power directs the force to make all being – that which is from nothingness – and so to strike the spark of genesis, to form the human mind and forge and break ionic bonds to light the consciousness, where love comes into being and then is.
Robert Pelgrift
World Map
Hands smooth over different continents Levelling out the creased paper of the map Leaving every blemish untouched And every word unsaid. We reached to hold each other, an instinct, muscle memory. As if it were where we were always supposed to be.
You made a disclaimer. You told me, tentatively: "I am worn by the weather, I am littered with imperfections"
To which I thought, this is the most beauty I have ever seen in one place. These eyes have never seen such humanity, such realness. The night sky is laced into your skin. Everything that is nature has been embodied in you, compacted into something tangible. The flood of your hair, all the ebbs and flows of your soul, corroding any doubts of my affections for you. I have travelled the entire world in our intimacy, and I know I will go astray without you.
Tallulah Howarth
I see you in bright colors
Eating red ripe watermelon while searching verdant trees for bluebirds flitting pass us.
Remembering how fields of brilliant wildflowers beguiled us as we inhaled fresh mowed grasses.
You would smile fingering purple passion leaves.
Your favorite hour when wide awake you listened to the sounds of dawn calling all colors out to play.
We shared the calligraphy of oceans watching orange sunsets splash through waves.
No one else has ever evoked such a shining palate as you.
Joan McNerney
Latitude
The crease between your brows runs north to south, ends at the bridge of turbulent waters, emotions churning high & low, whirlpools of excitement: the last- minute pack of camping gear to paper checklist, desire to hit the open road, frenzied, edgy; eddies of calm: long Saturday sleeps, lazy morning books, hot coffee, the length of your warm back.
Kersten Christianson
Suburban development
The house of one married couple was broken into and many mementos stolen.
Another had nothing more than a leaky roof but that was enough to ruin some very precious things.
There was a fire in a third. The couple escaped but a room full of keepsakes went up in flames.
A fourth merely divorced. The spoils were evenly divided.
Robbed, water-logged, burned and hacked in two - some days they seem like the only options.
We live in home number five. We'd best make a go of it. It’s either that or stampeding elephants.
John Grey
Thank you
I set Grandma's TV to Channel Seven. It makes no difference what program is on. It's the channel she always asks for. I give her one more cup of coffee. The knobs of the stove have all been taken off so she can't make another. I hope she remembers to put her pajamas on. She's forgotten the difference between morning, noon and night. Times no longer change, and every day is the same day. We sit together on the well-worn couch.
"I have to leave for the concert now. If I get to talk to Max, I'll tell him you said 'hello.'"
"Who's Max?" Grandma asks wide-eyed, crinkling her eyebrows.
"You know, Max and Trina, your friends from Brooklyn. They used to drop in unannounced all the time when we lived in our old house."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she says. It's the way she answers most questions. Friends often comment how hard it must be for Grandma, needing everything done for her. But honestly, I don't think she really minds. Even when she was healthy, when my grandfather was alive, he was the one who did all the shopping, paid all the bills, and made all the decisions.
Max drinks wine and plays his saxophone. His fans wear buttons on their jackets with his face on them. He plays the craziest melodies I've ever heard, and his pieces never seem to end. He tells a story after each one. He tells his audience he's thankful to God to still be doing this. He thanks us for coming tonight and for liking his music.
When the concert is over, I introduce myself. "I'm Dina, Lillian Strata's granddaughter."
Max scratches his shaved head. He must be seventy now, but he still shaves his head like a young man. "Oh, Dina, yes. It's been many years. How's Grandma?"
"She's fine." I lie.
"Let me tell you something. Your grandmother changed my life."
"Changed your life? My grandmother? How?"
Max pauses a moment and smiles warmly. "It was when we lived in Brooklyn. Your mother must have been just a baby. Your grandmother was the leader of our prayer group. I was new at the parish. I'd been horribly depressed. All sorts of problems. I walked in and sat down with the rest of the group. She gave a quick look around the room at all of us and said, 'Now we are going to pray.' I got ready to do the sign of the cross, but all she said was 'thank you.'" Max smiles again and stops.
"Thank you?" I ask.
He suddenly looks at me as if snapping out of a dream. "Yes. She said, 'Thank you, God, for this sunny day.' So all of us, we said, 'thank you,' – changed my life. For me, it had always been, 'God, can you do this for me?' or 'God, can you make them do that?' It never occurred to me that I should be thankful just to feel the sun on my face." Max pauses again, the dreamlike expression on his face. He turns to me and looks deeply into my eyes. "She was right, you know. Because all we really have is just this day."
"You were great, Max." One of Max's fans cuts in, shaking Max's hand. "Can I get you to sign my CD?"
"Sure," Max answers. He gently takes the CD from the man, looks at me and says, "Dina, please write down your grandmother's phone number. I haven't spoken to her in years, and I'd love to say, 'hello.'"
I say goodbye to Max and wonder how I'll ever prepare Grandma for this phone call.
Back home, my grandmother has fallen asleep on the couch. I picture her as the strong leader of a prayer group who inspired Max. That's who she was, and that's who she is. I watch her sleeping soundly and comfortably. I look up from the couch, skyward, and smile. 'Thank you,' I say.
Chrissi Sepe
Your love –
your love is pure romance. It makes me want to sing – and dance. It's the descant to my melody the elastic in my pants. Your love is just a dead cert bet, as safe as maiden aunts.
Your love's the top banana. It is guaranteed to float my boat; It's the letters wrapped in in tissue, and the speech that was keynote. In the winter when it's pissing down your love is my raincoat; and, when life bites me on the arse, your love's my antidote.
Your love, your love's the acrobat that catches my trapeze the itch that I just have to scratch, a veritable circus full of fleas. It's the salt with my tequila and the Branston on my cheese; and, if I were writing dialogue, you'd be my Socrates.
You're my fish & chips on a Friday night with buttered bread and mushy peas; my takeaway, my home-to-stay; my king-size seafood special served with extra anchovies; when I'm happy you're my music; you're my hankie when I sneeze; and if I were a tragedy then you'd be Sophocles.
I could go on and on and on to fuller, sweeter praise. Compared to you the men I've known were painted popinjays. You're my comfy clothes for every day; you're heels and my Little Black Dress. You're a star, you are. I paraphrase - you're simply my Valentine Sunday best.
Abigail Elizabeth Ottley
Heart Line
is broken a highway stretch of hyphens
telephone poles no connections busy signal
faint, curved it searches for yours
Kersten Christianson
All That Colour and Me
Blau: Learned at aged eleven, tastes of chalk even though they have projectors now... Germanic sensibilities of childhood paved a way for that Celtic blood to shine through.
Blue: Veins that couldn't face the grey waters of teenage dares, turn those see-through limbs to jellied eels. Wishing for more freckles, for more sunshine...
Azul: Softens the tongue, rounds long days of solo voyaging through the Caribbean, Pacific coasts, where heat melts away preconceptions blinds, so no one is really looking past their own reflection.
As I do with you, gazing into a set of irises worlds apart from mine, seeing only my own history reflected.
It is a selfish role the mirror plays, holding myself to account in all the flickering fragility of that Anglo Saxon blue.
A hue of teams that you hold dear, of close proximity to relations, of a gene pool, the gaze of a well-chlorinated swimming pool. Shine through tears that I can cause, then remove, then cause, then remove...
It is a selfish role the mirror plays, holding myself to a different account, slipping up in the gaze of your icy, winter blue.
Elspeth Vischer
Lying around
In our love nest watching snow gather.
You say it's not as pretty as I am though.
Unloosening my clothes throwing them and everything
else from the bed.
Warmer warmer we want our time together.
When the moon is full faces of frost cover our window.
We will nestle asleep while storms drift past the night.
Joan McNerney
Love Letter
I tear a piece of paper from my notepad, scrunch it up. Enjoy the crackle of its demise. I think of words, images, places… I hear his breathing.
I cough, but he does not wake. I run my hand down his side, touch his face, gently kiss his cheek. He shifts, but barely. So I take up my pen.
I place it on his chest, run it through the thick dark hair, across his soft skin. At first, I am cautious, shy; he would kill me if he knew what I was about to do. I trace a small heart in bright blue, near his collar bone. I fill it with ink. Around it, I begin with tiny flowers and progress with swirls of leaves and buds, which I run across the length of the bone, down under his arm, and right down his side.
I take out my pens and add colour—red and black—adding deep red roses and longer pretty twisted stems. I write words to him, the words of love I have not been able to give him face-to-face. I love you, I confess. I have never loved anyone like I have loved you.
My cursive is round, pregnant with love. My blood, my heart, my soul in every letter. The words flow down his smooth side and across his belly, curving around hair too thick to write upon. I write for an hour as he sleeps, and the hour after that.
He becomes a mural of my love, a tattooed effigy, who will wake later, to find that I am gone.