Tag Archives: Love

A Sort of Homecoming

Uncle was bad at everything
Cape Cod cares about.

He excelled in one way only:
he loved my fault-finding aunt without reason.

He was blessed in one way only:
his indulgent family loved him without reason.

Today we buried him next to my waiting aunt
in the only home he has wanted for seven years.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

Facebook Friends

If a waning moon
is still a moon
then we were children.

We were also wet
and nearly naked,
half-hidden in the dark,
hoping our drunk parents
would remain dumb.

Our probing tongues
made easy promises
that tasted like truth
with a dash of delusion.

But now the moon is new
and we are Facebook friends.
We share our virtual lives;
celebrate our virtual victories
while still hiding in the dark.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief 

first published in Artemis

A Prayer for Less Love – MasticadoresUSA

We are thrilled that MasticadoresUSA has published our poem A Prayer for Less Love. We really appreciate their kind support.

A Prayer for Less Love

I’ve heard what you say in the name of love
and your favorite word is no.

I’ve seen what you do in the name of love
because the purple bruises still show.


Please go here https://masticadoresusa.wordpress.com/2022/04/05/a-prayer-for-less-love-by-luvgood-carp/ if you would like to read the rest of the poem.

Thanks very much.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

A Best Man Before the Toast

Love did not win today.
It's only one for three.
So what should I say
as everyone stares at me?
And him.

Can we both be best?
Should not I
(or he - more likely)
be a wedding guest?

What an oxymoronic surprise!
A lovely wedding jest -
best becomes a pity prize
awarded at an inquest.

So what do you do
when the woman you crave
doesn't crave you?
She will love no boy
yet she is loved by two.

Put us Don Quixote's employ - 
two donkeys on an impossible quest.
Dress us in tuxedos of corduroy
and tell everyone we are best.

Kindness is the best
way to condescend.
You are the best
but you're just a friend.
A best friend - just like him.

So what do I say
as you stare at me?
A slack-jawed caveman
in a glass display.

Love acts with wicked glee -
in pursuit of its own perverse fun.
To one, Love gives three.
To two, Love gives none.

Love doesn't give a crap
about love, who's best,
or what I need.
So when will I stop
shaking salt into the sea?

Lovegood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

The Poet Taster

Why does Homer's Muse disdain me?
Why won't nymphs touch my flute?
When heroes sail the wine-dark sea
why stay at my desk and salute?

When will I know love from lust?
Why is it both cause a stomachache?
Why are lies all that I trust?
Why is drool all that I make?

My muse is a mouse in a cage
who refuses to obey my command,
and when I touch the cold chaste page
it slaps the dry pen from my hand.

Wicked muse, eat your stale cheese,
blow your foul breath on another fake -
allow my feeble tongue to unfreeze
because I've forms to fill, calls to make,
and I'm near the end of my coffee break.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

A Daughter Leaves for College

For eons or mere minutes on the clock
among marble mansions on a cliffside walk
or sewage-filled streets in a shantytown,
if you shimmer in silk or wear a paper crown -
110 degrees or snow sideways blowing -
should you be lost or know where you're going,
whether friends are plenty or few,
I will walk with you.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

Love is a Many Splendored Thing – Sometimes

So what’s Louise Erdrich’s The Plague of Doves about? Love. Ahh, that sounds really warm and cozy. It is – until it isn’t. This novel is no Hallmark card or cheesy pop song. Its major theme is love in its many forms (splendored or not): young love, mature love, obsessive love, self-love (our favorite), destructive love (which may not be love at all), forbidden love (sweet!), and familial love (whatever).

The novel is primarily set in North Dakota’s Badlands (major metaphor alert) on and near an Ojibwe reservation. However, it opens with the murder of a White family on a farm. The sole survivor is a baby in a crib (the murderer finds her when she starts crying). So now he has a decision to make.

The story then jumps ahead decades to the 1960s. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that shortly after the murders 4 Native Americans came across the scene. When several White men learn about the Native Americans’ presence at the farmhouse, they deputize themselves and (not being too concerned about guilt or innocence) lynch the 4 Native Americans. The murders and the subsequent lynchings permeate the community as if an icy phantom walks through it, even as the descendants from all sides interact and mix. There is no way to “unravel” the rope. “Nothing that happens, nothing, is not connected here by blood.”

The novel is narrated by 4 characters and follows several inter-related families for about 40 years. The proximity of the White and Native communities may breed trouble, but it also creates desire. “We can’t seem to keep our hands off one another, it is true, and every attempt to foil our lusts though laws and religious dictums seems bound instead to excite transgression.” This is not new. But Ms. Erdrich is a skilled writer, and her wonderfully-drawn characters keep the story interesting and the reader engaged. Ultimately, we learn what happened to the baby and who murdered the family. There is a resolution of sorts. But, still, questions linger.

While the murders and lynchings are ever present, this story is about finding, maintaining, and losing love – even the most fulfilled are not exempt. “I have loved intensely. I have lived an ordinary and a satisfying life, and I have been privileged to be of service to people. Most people. There is no one I mourn to the point of madness and nothing I would really do over again.” That sounds like a full life, but Ms. Erdrich is too honest to leave it at that. Fulfilled or not, questions still linger.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor.

Twins

   Unlike some gentlemen,
   I was never tempted by twins.
   They never captivated me -
   until that pink-driven spring
   when I encountered your proud peaks
   in a downy form-fitting sweater.
   Then I couldn't get twins off my mind.

   I will also confess surprise
   that you pounced upon my timid feeler.
   I expected you three to ignore me.
 
   Even more - 
   I expected you to run
   after that first fumbling night
   of errant probes and prods,
   but you stayed.

   Eventually, winter came,
   but you did not come with it.
   That left me cold and relieved.

   There was a time
   during that fevered summer 
   when I was concerned 
   I should love you less.
   But that would have been impossible.

   Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

Hallmark Cards

   Hallmark has nice sentiments,
   but they meander the gentle slopes
   of meadows laced with buttercups
   pollinated by crisp dollar bills.
   And we are too smart for the platitudes
   of enterprises that print treacle for profit.

   At least that's what William and Mary say.
   Though they annually ask us for money,
   so they would say that anyway.

   There is also no denying the obvious:
   we have been lucky - so far. 

   Though we have stumbled on rocky trails,
   slipped on slick foothills
   and blundered over blue ridges,
   we've never had to scale the Himalayas.

   So while there have been obstacles,
   we have overcome them hand in hand.

   But perhaps that is simply 
   the Hallmark card in me speaking -
   the one that blithely assumes
   our journey has been one and the same.

   Maybe your path has been different.  

   Maybe you climb Himalayan peaks everyday.

   Maybe I am being foolish and insecure.

   But that exhausted look on your face
   suggests you ran uphill for miles today
   while I walked meters on smooth linoleum.

   Then there are these scattered scraps of paper -
   fuzzy phrases that spawn insipid poems
   parading my mostly muddled thoughts on everything.
   You can find them everywhere.

   And then there's you.
   Furtively writing in a diary
   I can never find.
   And I have looked everywhere.

   Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief

   First published in Blue Lake Review

Crows

   I like how you describe that poem
   more than the poem itself.
   You see things I don't,
   and the things you see have deep meanings -
   deeper perhaps than the poet intended.

   You see birds symbolizing change.
   The young leave the old
   and neither knows the impact of the parting.
   Shockingly this lack of comprehension is of no consequence
   because there is love in the leaving.

   Even after reading the poem several times,
   I see crows.



   I am not sure you are right,
   but I know you are not wrong.




   I would like to see that poem as you see it.
   But whenever I see you and me in a mirror,
   I am reminded:
   you have poor eyesight and a temperament that is too tender.
   They are your most egregious shortcomings,
   and I have benefitted from both.

   Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief 

   First published in The Oddville Press