love poems

A Love Poem Written for Sterling Brown

Posted on by A. Long

(after reading a New York Times article about
a mummy kept preserved for about 300 years)

I’m gonna get me some mummy tape for your love
preserve it for 3000 years or more
I’m gonna let the world see you
tapping a blue shell dance of love
I’m gonna ride your love bareback
on totem poles
bear your image on mountains
turning in ocean sleep
string your sighs thru the rainbow
of old age.
In the midst of desert people and times
I’m gonna fly your red/eagle/laughter ‘cross the sky.

–Sonia Sanchez

Sometimes

Posted on by A. Long

Sometimes my pillows

capture a piece of your scent

and I can’t sleep

I dream up cheap

imitations of my own imagination

I gather up the bits

place them into my necklace

and hit replay

to get through the day.

Orchids

Posted on by A. Long

Orchids are ugly Orchids1 (3)

in the way that i bare me 

under pustules before blisters

is beauty

wilting

is any of this getting through clearly

i know that he knows that I’m pretty

doesn’t mean i feel it

i know i am naked as a peeled back onion

thousand hungry eyes

but only he sees me 

a sunflower in a field of roses 

i don’t want the recognition 

attention

adoration 

just want him to look at me 

Cuernavaca

Posted on by A. Long

There’s a deep murmur unravelled,

the air is a song of feather,

a soft babble of grass.

There’s a memory of heaven revived,

hum of life and plea.

There’s this need, like a baby’s, to be loved.

–Aline Patterson

Mornings

Posted on by A. Long

Spoiled sick by your curdled fingers

your memory lingers

like milk slipping off the back of my mind

like kids and swings in the summertime

Hold fast, your eyes are far away

Listen close, the sounds darkness makes

When the sun slurps sleep from my cheeks

your eyes and mine meet

again

like chocolate red ribbons beckon

pupils open wide to drink your presence

then escape

as day breaks knuckles on night’s secrets.

If You Didn’t…

Posted on by A. Long

…If you didn’t love me

I’d still love you

Still watch you cross the sands of eternal deserts just

to ponder your walk

Still play the sea’s waves so I can better feel the vibrations

in your voice when you talk

I’d pick up a fiddle and teach the devil

how to play the blues

…if you didn’t love me

Even if your salacious kiss lost its solace

I’d reach out for your warm embrace

And love you

…but why wouldn’t you love me?

Who Is Not A Stranger Still

Posted on by A. Long

Who is not a stranger still

even after making love,

or the even the morning after?

The interlude of sleep again divides

it is clear again where one body

ends and the next begins,

Think to think at each encounter,

we will be strangers still

even after making love

and long conversation,

even after meals and showers

together

and years of touching.

(excerpt from Nikki Giovanni)

My Poetry, Poems

I Saw You

Aside | Posted on by A. Long

I saw you

In a lilac grove of streets

Catacomb of buses

Comings and goings

Heres and theres

I thought about you as I paid my fare

Fairly certain of the where I was

And had been

Since you happened

I bare more of

Myself than I care to bear

I saw you

Sitting with kings

In my dreams

Spitting gold, telling them all there is to know

I saw your shadow

Old and gray

Bask in the presence of a thousand laughs

Surrounded by family

I saw you

Seeing me

That shit was deep

Deeper than anything I can conceive

Of accurately without explicative

Nervous, you know

I curse the day I discovered language was not enough

 

I knew

How to say whatever I wanted in poetry

Then I saw you