Ami Lovelace's Blog, page 4

New Poem: Hyacinths

Hyacinths

Down by the rambling river and the thick ivy
where I went to kiss boys after school
-and did a bit more than that-
there were hyacinths as vibrant and beautiful
as any sunset you have ever seen
whose fragrance brought even the most oblivious boy
to pluck them and caress their petals along my neck
Later, when the necessary strip mall was built
and its parking lot lapped at the edge of the river's bank
they were gone, and who would note 
their absence?
who would yearn for their colors?
Oh, but hyacinths, you were noticed!
You did matter, and what now
will ever grow in your place?


© 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

Content Copyright 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

Meditation #26: Partnership - a poem for my brother & his new wife

Meditation #26: Partnership

For my kid brother Robert Howard and his beautiful new bride Melissa Stahlmann
9/24/2011

It's easy to love

through the grip

of a frigid winter

when its icy fingers

tease the skin

and we shiver

under the heaviness

of a snowflake quilt

when the soul craves

long-lasting comfort

and warmth

generously given

under the throws

of passion.

It's easy to love

thriving

in the noise

of the first Spring

when life reinvigorates

dancing

to the serenades

of possibility and excitement

and the scent

of rain and grass

freshens the air

and lightens the heart.

But,

to love for a lifetime takes talent.

You must wake

each morning

to the same face

the same flesh

20,000 mornings

together

so bound in breath

locked and tangled

it is impossible

to distinguish

limbs

and life.

You have to find

Forgiveness—

search for it

even in the gritty spite

of cookie crumbs

and spilled milk…
and wine stains.

You have to be athletes

champions,

distance runners

in the 3200m relay

when every muscle burns

when tears

clog your eyes

and your breath

rakes at your lungs

you must be
Champions, for each other.

You must be

grateful

rolling please and thank you

from your tongue

As though

they were

fervent kisses

passionately given

After a love's long

absence.

You must be willing

to move through life

together

the same as long kelp

grows

in an ocean forest

resolutely anchored

yet swaying blindly

with the ever-changing
current.

All the paths

you have to walk

will wind,

nothing

will be straightforward

or predictable

except

the uneven ground

and the occasional

stumble.

You just go on
walking for years
fingers laced
palm to palm
your bodies
braced and
slightly bent
forward
like two question marks
against
an unknown wind
as you turn the next bend
on your road

and all the while

the compass
never falters

the needle stays

faithfully rigid

and

you each

are the endpoint

of the other's journey.


©2011. All Rights Reserved

Content Copyright 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

New Poem: Flight Path

Flight Path

On the dark wings of a ragged dove

Hope rides weary

through menacing night skies

filtered with murky clouds and

haunted by the shrieks of hungry hawks

diving, attacking, living just to tear her down

strip her apart, to devour her in pieces

Still, she rides

gripping, the slippery oils of the feathers' plumes

Intent to survive,

to break through the barrier of

daybreak's shadow

and again see the pastel palette of

Morning's promise.

©2011. Ami Lovelace.
All Rights Reserved

Content Copyright 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

New Poem - The Fair Girl

The Fair Girl

The fair girl looks down,

through flinched

and drowning eyes,

she sees

the blood drip,

and the pus

ooze in rhythm

to her pulse.

She used to dance to that beat.

Now,

gaping mouths

rabid and salivating,

Hungry,

their minuscule tendrils stalk,

slithering out

from her spine

as the dormant beast below

Awakens,

gnawing ceaselessly

on the delicacies

of her flesh.

Gluttonous bastard!

It stretches out,

tears and ravages,

with its microscopic claws

scraping

at the walls of

thin membranous confines,

devouring through

to its own release.

And the scream catches

in her throat,

its warning muffled

into nonexistence

and she sobs silently

as it takes another

victim.

And it hurts.

The pain—

ravenous flames licking

across a tender field,

a scorching inferno devastates

her Paradise.

Slash and burn

 til there is nothing

worthy left to harvest.

She is bound still,

harnessed

in the futility

of a muted casualty

and the fury

of a passive culprit .

The betrayal

indelibly marked

upon her skin,

thousands of tattoo needles

all inked with her own blood,

designing yawning

Venus fly traps,

their throats lined

with soaked cotton,

each chomping

at all soft flesh

daring to venture

near.

And

the fair girl looks down

through flinched

and drowning eyes

she sees

love,

washed away in blood, pus and

tears.

 

©2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

Content Copyright 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

New Poem: I Love You Not

I Love You Not

I love you.
                Not for the smile that engulfs your face
                like a gouging canyon in the crust of your corporeal surface
                when your body quakes in rolling laughter.

I love you.
                Not for the perilous depths in the oceans of your eyes,
                threatening to drown me under the crushing pressure
                of yet discovered life.

I love you.
                Not for how your touch ripples across my skin,
                an electric butterfly effect leaving permanent evidence
                of its shockwaves on my soul.

I love you.
                Not for your look,
                the obscure body of an ancient Olympian god
                whose matted chest enfolds me in the warmth of its blanket

I love you.

                Not for the honeyed tone in your voice,
                sweetening each delectable word
                as it pours over your lips

I love you.

                Not for your learned wisdom,
                drawing me in, losing ourselves for hours
                in the dense fog of swirling conversation.

I love you.
                Not for the sweeping kindness of your heart,
                carelessly bleeding generosity through each abrasion
               nicked across your skin.

I love you.
               Not for whom you want to be,
               pretend to be, will be,
               but for who you are.

I love you.               
               Simply, just to love you.

Content Copyright 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

New Poem: Like a Bee, buzzing.

Like a Bee, Buzzing.

Like a bee,
           a beautiful creature,
           so small, so insignificant,
           and yet,
           you carry the world on your wings—
           buzzing and humming,
           not aware of your impact,
           rarely cognizant of those around you,
           until disturbed, angered,
           provoked.

Like a bee,
           always moving,
           occasionally migrating,
           sweeping in, fluttering
           from one blossoming flower to the next—
           thousands,
           all feeding from your honeyed touch,
           descending to pollinate in the brief stopovers
           of your endless flight.

Like a bee,
           You never catch,
           never hold,
           to the flowers' sticky nectar—
           rarely returning to the already bred stem
           fascinating and necessary,
           sustaining life in each delicate hair of your body.
           you soar,
           taking the sweetness of one flower
           only to leave it
           on the petals of the next.

Like a bee,
           dangerous, capable of harming,
           of damaging
           buzzing, you sing your warning
           and you sting, painfully vivid—
           visceral
           temporary and passing to most
           but to some,
           a prolonged agony,
           an allergy,
           that swells the skin

Like a bee,
           a beautiful creature,
           buzzing
           to the beat of your own wings,
           And I...
           I am allergic to you.

 

© 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

Content Copyright 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

The Prodigal - a new poem

The Prodigal.

God,
                Take me back.
Wrap me in the warming arms of your love.
I am cold.
Swathe me in the guiding vestments of faith.
I am lost.
Shelter me under the vaulted ceilings of your House.
I am destitute.
                Take me back.
So that I may glow beneath your light once again,
for I am dull and fading still.
So that I may heal in the sanctuary of your caring hands,
for I am bruised and scarred.
               Take me back.
my eyes drown in tears,
Catch them in the blessed waters of your font.
my soul withers in starvation,
Fill me with your sustenance,
      until my belly swells with your spirit,
         and bears no more.

Comfort me with a love that no man will sour
For I am but human, and
     without you,
I am a shadow ghosting through life.

 

© 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

Content Copyright 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

New Poem: Francis' Darkness

Francis' Darkness

He stumbles around the room,
his hand stretching out, searching for her
He counts the steps to the cocktail table,
his path around the living room furniture, as invisible to him
as the fading purples polka-dotting his shins and knees.
And she slips her hand into his,
guiding him to the table, as she had
when they'd bathe in the soft glow of candles.
He sighs heavily, recognizing her.
He knows it's his wife by the rough ridges
of her aging, gnarled hands.
He can no longer see the flames, but she lights them anyway.
The pungency wafting from the bouquet of matches,
passes for romance now.
Seated, she glides his left fingers to his fork,
closing her fist over his to clasp the tarnishing silver.
She moves his right hand to the china plate.
And, circling his hand clockwise, she dabs the utensil at each hour,
and he hears what he wants to eat:
12 o'clock- broccoli, 3 o'clock-peas, 6 o'clock- pre-cut pork chop, 9 o'clock- applesauce
And when dinner is done, with a damp hand towel
she whisks the crumbs from his crotch,
as he strains against his trousers.
And he eagerly tics away the chimes
of the old grandfather clock,
rejoicing when his fingers spread ten--
when she, too, plunges into his darkness
and he can embrace her within it.


Content Copyright 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

The Peace Lily and the Wasp

The Peace Lily & The Wasp

Under the stillness
of sunbeams:
Adolescence.
Erect in a garden
of buds and agèd browns,
the Peace Lily stretches herself
towards the wasp,
vibrant
in the brilliance of her purity,
blinding
in the milkiness of her skin,
her lips spread, inviting,
intoxicating,
the honeyed aroma of her ripeness
permeates the air,
wafting out
an invisible flight plan,
a landing strip
lit with pheromones.
And the wasp comes,
it comes to the softness of her
to her juicy lips of love,
yawning to receive it.
Delectable.
The velvet silkiness
of her maiden flesh,
supple and supine for it,
just now starting to wrinkle,
rippling in controlled expectation,
in anticipation.
The peace lily shivers
in pre-coital release,
and the wasp enters her,
the gentle thrum of its life,
undulating inside her,
fluttering waves against her.
It extends even further,
and she responds,
a moment's quaking from
her moistening cup,
and the unbridled nectar oozes,
flows,
binding the wasp to her,
brevity to eternity,
she sways
in the sighs of orgasm,
and the breeze nestles
to cool her heat,
and it suckles her,
feeds from her.
Leaving only a
sticky trace of itself,
the wasp is gone,
buzzing to the next blossom,
and the peace lily is left
to wilt with the rest,
as the sun cradles its head,
its sorrow sheathed in earth's bosom.

Content Copyright 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

New Poem: Saturday Nights in Teenage Heaven

Saturday Nights in Teenage Heaven

Grease born,
I collides with sweaty bodies,
bathed in the stench of burning oil,
there is no release from the heat,
       from the fire
permeating into my skin, from my skin.
I am nauseated, but my fingers still arch,
gliding a spider web of weaving motions,
smearing edible lotions on
        barely recognizable meat--
or what might pass for it.
No moment to breathe.
No moment to sigh.
No moment to wipe the salty pearls adorning my neck,
        adorning my forehead.
Shawled in latex,
drone-driven--
to swathe,
I lose myself in aluminum blankets
and bury individuality in the to-go wraps of mass production
   and the putrid clouds of drive-thru exhaust.

© 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.

Content Copyright 2011. Ami Lovelace. All Rights Reserved.