Member Poem

Love has a Southern flavor: honeydew,
ripe cantaloupe, the honeysuckle’s spout
we tilt to basking faces to breathe out
the ordinary, and inhale perfume ...

Love’s Dixieland-rambunctious: tangled vines,
wild clematis, the gold-brocaded leaves
that will not keep their order in the trees,
unmentionables that peek from dancing lines ...

Love cannot be contained, like Southern nights:
the constellations’ dying mysteries,
the fireflies that hum to light, each tree’s
resplendent autumn cape, a genteel sight ...

Love also is as wild, as sprawling-sweet,
as decadent as the wet leaves at our feet.

Published by The Lyric, Contemporary Sonnet, The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Better Than Starbucks, The Chained Muse, Setu (India), Victorian Violet Press, A Long Story Short, Glass Facets of Poetry, Docster, Trinacria, PS: It’s Poetry (anthology), Borderless Journal (Singapore), and in a Czech translation by Vaclav ZJ Pinkava

Amusingly, this poem got me banned from the poetry forum Eratosphere, which I now call Erratic Sphere. When I posted the poem, I was instructed by various poetry experts not to use the word “love” in love poem, and to avoid abstract language and the very mild personification. When I pointed out that Erato was the abstract personification of love poetry, I was banned for life with no trial and no explanation!

Published by The Lyric, Contemporary Sonnet, The Eclectic Muse, Better Than Starbucks, The Chained Muse, Setu (India), Victorian Violet Press, A Long Story Short, Glass Facets of Poetry, Docster, Trinacria, PS: It’s Poetry (anthology), Borderless Journal, and in a Czech translation by Vaclav ZJ Pinkava

Keywords/Tags: love, south, southern, Dixie, Dixieland, wild, sweet, decadent, decadence

***

The Shrinking Season
by Michael R. Burch

With every wearying year
the weight of the winter grows
and while the schoolgirl outgrows
her clothes,
the widow disappears
in hers.

Published by Angle, Poem Today (featured poem), Heartfelt Death Poems, Girls and Goblins and Madly Jane

***

Almost
by Michael R. Burch

We had—almost—an affair.
You almost ran your fingers through my hair.
I almost kissed the almonds of your toes.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

You almost contemplated using Nair
and adding henna highlights to your hair,
while I considered plucking you a Rose.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

I almost found the words to say, “I care.”
We almost kissed, and yet you didn’t dare.
I heard coarse stubble grate against your hose.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

You almost called me suave and debonair
(perhaps because my chest is pale and bare?).
I almost bought you edible underclothes.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

I almost asked you where you kept your lair
and if by chance I might seduce you there.
You almost tweezed the redwoods from my nose.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

We almost danced like Rogers and Astaire
on gliding feet; we almost waltzed on air ...
until I mashed your plain, unpolished toes.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.

I almost was strange Sonny to your Cher.
We almost sat in love’s electric chair
to be enlightninged, till our hearts unfroze.
We almost loved,
                            that’s always how love goes.