Introduction

This poetry collection of romantic love poems shares a history as far back as Mesopotamia with The Love Song of Shu-Sin and The Song of Solomon in the Old Testament of the Bible. In Classical Greece and Rome where traces of it are found in Greek Tragedies or Ovid’s Metamorphoses and his love poems. And even into the early Renaissance of Dante Alighieri’s secret love for Beatrice and his epic poem The Divine Comedy; and later with William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, and then onto Romanticism featuring Lord Byron with his Byronic hero and magnum opus Don Juan; the notion of love still permeates to this day. When the inception of love and romanticism was a primitive yet lingering force in my earlier years and with the passage of time, I’ve grown a fondness and comprehension of it—yet it still eludes me; and one where commonfolk, artists, poets, authors, psychologists, and philosophers surmise the concept of love never changes, but how we talk about it does. With that said, I want to provide context and intention behind this collection. You will recognize several things about it: the length of poems, section themes, and narrative arc of both arrangement and individual poems. Most of these poems align themselves as narratives but not tread too much as prose; where the story is at the heart and it’s in our nature to sprinkle enough commitment to wander in these landscapes. Each section is organized by their primary theme: pining, being in love, heartbreak, love of life, and power of love; in addition, the prologue and epilogue poems opens and close the collection with a romanticized cosmic sensibility of love that isn’t just a concept but a universal one we can explore and in between are varied perspectives that hits close to home. Although poetry is the art of compression in saying a few chosen words; I believe the balance of telling a story about love while respecting the varied forms, style, rhythm, and musicality of language in these poems—pays homage to the harmony in a poetry collection that will offer some solace in your dealings with love. This collection is an inspiration—not just my experiences, but also those I observed secondhand or mulled over philosophically. As you read these verses of sense and sentiment that encompass the complex beauty of human nature with its contention to love; I hope you can find a piece in here that shares your compassion with it.

The Cool and Warmth of Hearts

Paradise, once a lush haven of flora and fauna

and the sin of human,

met in midsummer;

then, a winter breeze blew into next summer

to hide the sin and shame

in death that followed and once held

the love of life its fame.

Entrapped in an iceberg,

astonished to find frozen hearts

pacified and alone,

and with time will atone;

desolate frigid barrens

persisted for eons, then

a gentle warm breeze

blew a kiss against the frosty ice-sheet lips

and melted the ice-rock,

where it laid a piece of entity,

not quite understood in the chasm of history.

The moment stood in a gaze

and simmered for days;

volcanic plumes shone

altered landscapes,

bursting from a body

enmeshed in a confetti of light.

It blotted the end of stilled nights,

strewn across the vast space where it did not delay.

Many cultures ascribed a deity

depicting a hearth where it mildly shone

a cool warmth as two figures cast a dance

in their own shadows,

gifting humanity fire to grant life its chance.

A Constant Remedy I

When in sight, utterance in her words is constant;

in its language, it petrifies and entangles a weary heart,

preemptive of the radiance in her smile.

I wander off in an amative thought—is love

legitimate and concrete as proclaimed by the Greats?

Or am I foolish to characterize her unusually unique traits?

I don’t know where to start and search in my soul

to unearth a desire that burns to know—

have I transcended the gates of heaven?

But I lament in cold trembles, labeled fornicator;

to be seen upon by my Creator as a malefactor.

Thus, I delve deep into my emotions,

strew across several oceans

and seek counsel from the Greats:

Donne,

what have I done to deserve this reverie for this fair maiden?

Shakespeare,

what iambic pentameter verse would offer relief?

Byron,

is there a way we may find to cast away the skeleton’s plea?

Dante,

why is it we endure in silence in our forte

and wish she understand the aim of our court,

as our consort?

Perhaps, I must subdue and sacrifice my intentions

and give rein to love’s admiration—

where I bid her farewell and adore from my keep,

while I ruminate over past transgressions

and occasion the glow felt in her lofty ascension.

I shudder to think with a smirk as I lay

and cast a creeping fog

that fills the background to chant–

blood for blood,

element with element;

etched in these death throes

I hope to discover a remedy.

A Constandy Remedy II

Lily had returned, an aura constant as light,

an aroma petrifying an unruly knight

whose rusted armor once struck

and scattered light in a dream

that wandered off in an amative thought

and sought counsel from heroes of pastime I hold in esteem:

Odysseus,

I fear Lily will honor suitors’ attempts unlike Penelope;

Aeneas,

I wish not by the intervention of forces to sway me away

from Lily, as she may inflict a misery as Dido upon a pyre;

King Arthur,

torn between the affair of Kingdom

and Guinevere’s waning affection,

your duty led to the downfall between all dominions.

Uncertainty persists in the remote hero’s pastime

and from this wisdom I’ll scale

heaven to save me one last time.

A bond that once aired with prestige,

but could not hold insincerely

for a soul, burning an undying yearn

that rattled the gates of heaven to give Word

of a cursed sinner stood before his Creator,

a swelling void in his weary heart,

who saw the glimmer in those threads ripping him apart

while chained to rock until a dreadful flood does impart

and lay his promises in tainted blood—departing

Hope from his shackles, he blossoms

from his rosebud to undo him from Lily’s bosom.

A Renewed Feeling

A moment of despair I did not face
when a love so rare has such grace.
I scan daydreams unlike what my eyes
have seen of what belies
before the Athenian goddess
unfolds, before Adonis’s modest
fate pines for his lady’s divine tears.
Had we not enough time to fear?
How long have we gone to deprive
ourselves of a fruitful gift? Alive
by the prospect, a wedge in my rift
was spared a worse fate than guilt,
forgiving with a kiss that’s swift.
Was our love not born and built
by melody sung to spawn forth
the sunrise? I witness its birth
pass the cracks of my window blinds;
awash in warm, vibrant light that finds
both ends of cheeks raised in delight.
Let spoils be given from a heartfelt place;
let the enticements not spare the space
of bonds shrouded before the onset.
Nature makes us agonize,
a longing that burdens us in debt.
But open arms, they hold what spies
and unfold the charms that tie
and cherish our memories bound
to immortal spirits that never perish.
Whispers fill her ear with devious dreams
not meant to devalue what seem
the quality of her worth. Found,
a rejected child who stood dejected,
only to shrink and shirk in his
former shadow and
Heaven divine him lady grace,
eager to share this very place;
a life devoid of displeasure and strife;
how much praise must I implore?
To hold steady hands and amble
through the vineyard and preamble—
a tale when the devil’s tempt did bore
to express fated consequence,
bestow me with your presence;
did it ever prepare me, my dear?
The torture much grander, I fear,
did indulge what was near
of heart; frozen, did veer.
The light of dawn has spoken;
why I have fallen by love’s token,
and fallen by the sins of this bind
did conscript a benign nature, only to find
the mercy you have shown did mind
to help atone for my sins to prove I have grown in kind.

A New Form of Being

A visage unseen in two years prior,

something swells and alights the fire;

enclosed in this classroom,

I can’t help but embrace

every thought that lately looms

through my mind to retrace.

What has changed in our junior year?

Concerned by the proximity,

stirs a restless anxiety,

and this day enamored

by a cat-eye glance confined in this room;

the equanimity of this epiphany.

In this passage of time,

conveyed: plump lips covered in gloss,

adjacent to my right—

it was evident in your actions;

the slow fall lashes carried

by the weight of a smile,

adjacent to my right—

I bravely took the leap to encroach

upon where this may lead

as you instilled this feeling in me.

From this event,

a change of heart

over changing seasons;

two years before,

passing busy shadows,

and here I am dreaming.

Yet, you have been dreaming

many times before—

is that not treason?

Let it be known

that I wonder in a fantasy

what it’s like to run my palms down your shoulders

and watch the invisible hairs perk up in response;

am I exceeding my capacity

for a fine lady I barely know?

I need closure to know

if I descend to the reach of your hands,

would I spark another renaissance?

I curl over your hands

and a sudden gasp of breath

pulls to resist until

you grasp it was me

and anchor your mind at ease.

An inborn stormy pleasure fills a well of desire

and claims my prize and calms the incessant fire.

Fine lady, you have awakened a nostalgic mystery:

Once thought lost in history,

I mused with a gaze adjacent to my right,

a lovestruck daze flushed me to do what’s right,

and you sit there in solemn patience

while I’m wrapped by the imagination—

perched on the hilltop tree

over the grand pasture,

who could have foreseen

the love of this rapture?

I’m meticulously plotting to enrapture

you with unyielding passion to impress upon you

an overwhelming degree of enchantments,

a spectacle the gods of Athens have not seen the likes of

bear witness a soul who fashions a lover’s request,

a refreshment that evokes sensations belligerent to the sense

and implodes a welt of desires,

foolish enough to be felt by troubled admirers.