Somehow, I've always expected a love poem to be about longing. Maybe it's because that's my experience with love: a wish in the abstract, a shot in the dark at something wonderful, a fantasy that, like all fantasies, is never turned into a reality. Only when it's all over, the show lights turned off and the cardboard set wheeled somewhere else, do I realize how wonderfully flawed, awesomely illogical, and human those I've claimed to love truly are.
But I digress.
My image of the love poem hasn't evolved much from the days of physical odes. Your eyes, your face, the flash of your hair and the whiff of your neck as the light flashes on your breasts, soft like your lips. You you you. Damn, all that shit is too generic.
My image of a love poem, like my image of love itself, is too outdated for my current perception it.
In the Box Called Pleasure by Kim Addnizio seems to call for me. As disillusioned as I am illusioned, the piece is harsh. It hits me in the face and doesn't wait for me to turn the other cheek before sending a second fist flying in the air. It then caresses me softly for a second before kneeing me where it hurts the most. A hodgepodge of reality and legend, of the physical and almost (though never admitting to it) spiritual, it strings me on to the end though I hurt to read at every turn.
I'm always amused by poets and authors who use the word “fuck” excessively. It makes them sound like they're trying to sound gritty — even when it works.
Maybe having an image for what love poetry should be is the wrong way to go about it all.

This was a rather delicate poem, and then I read the above node, and I knew what I had to do.


Hearts are not commodities;
They are a delicacy
Meant to be treasured,
Respected, and thrusting love.

A heart is in my dripping hands,
And it is one that I've wanted to caress
for quite some time.
And now that I have it,

I am fucking burning.

I know I will treasure it,
I know I will respect it,
And I know it is dripping with love,
And I desire so to penetrate through;

But something grips me firmly around the hilt.
My existence flashes before my eyes!
This is huge, this is it;
I am able to feel inside,
This milking that I haven't felt
In such a long time.

I can feel the explosive release,
I can feel the deafening joy,
I can feel the earth-shattering passion.
Like a child who finally gets the ball,
I want to run wildly with it.

It's that feeling you get
When you speed down a wet water slide;
The exhilarating wind and speed
And the shooting spash,
And even though the world is exploding beneath you,
You know that everything is ok.

I'm here in the pool,
And you're already there to meet me.
I always let you slide down first.
Now I'm finally here with you,
And I'm glad I have your heart
and you have mine.

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