Bittersweet Is My Favorite Flavor (Day 2 Prompt: Sweet)

Human love
in its powerful 
and life-changing
force
is ultimately
finite:

the familiar taste of 
ripe strawberries
dissolves,
a melody 
that recalls a memory
of kindness
fades,
the breathless
post-coital 
heart-racing 
skin-on-skin warmth
cools.

To forget 
the fleeting beauty
and venerate the loss
is to miss 
the necessity 
of their interconnectedness:

the bitter
only exists
because 
the sweet
also exists.

Popsicle

We had 

a simple popsicle
between us.

I asked her
“do you want 
to split it?”

“No, but 
I’ll share it.”

She knew 
I’d eventually
understand.

This is the difference
between 
mine and ours,

and I pray 
it informs 
my every interaction,

and this was how
she used 
a simple popsicle
to teach me
a profound lesson 
in loving. 

Disinhibition

 In the turbulence
of passion,
moistened skin, 
400 thread sheet count, 
I am happily,
wondrously lost, 
my imagination
and lustfulness 
trying to keep pace
with my heart rate.

After all these 
years, days collected
and stacked
high and haphazardly
as fall leaves 
in November,

this intensity,
this raw disinhibition,

saying things,
moving in ways
that can only 
be earned
through time,

to a climax 
of orgiastic,
timeless ecstasy.

Ascend

Those old love poems
worked hard
but failed to fly;

these poems, for you,
ascend, never looking back.

[Posted for https://dversepoets.com/2020/05/21/mtb-5-line-japanese-poetic-forms/]

Ultimatum

She sat in
the beanbag chair

guilty but not
contrite,
a child caught
in a lie.

“You gotta decide
whether you want
to stay married to me.”

She just stared into space
not taking any
responsibility,
just wanting it all
to be over.

Then I issued
the ultimatum:

“I’m giving you
two weeks to decide:
it’s either him or me.”

The Lesson In Retrospect:

if your beloved
takes more than

three seconds

to decide
if they want to
be with you,

RUN!

I Let Her Sleep

In the chilly
pre-dawn February,
I hear her
gentle, soft breathing;

not quite a snore,
but a rumble
of blissful narcosis.

I curl up
with her,
our bodies
warm and soft
under a light
spread
of blankets.

This is intentional
so snuggling
and cuddling
is inevitable.

I hold her close
and let her sleep,
taking care
not to poke her,
prod her
with my insistent,
implacable
erection.

I let her sleep
because
that is more urgent,
more needed
and I love her
that much.

Phoenix, Arizona

We snuck away
on a business trip
and she really wanted
to be with me
as she had a fear of flying
and we met at the airport.

That evening
safely in another state,
we went straight
to the hotel
unpacked only desire
and made love
with all the lights on
as the tv flickered
it’s muted blue witness.

She let me eat
the ice cream sundae
we ordered from room service
right off her bare bottom.

She was my kind of girl.

The next morning we walked
and chanced upon
a tribal pow wow drumming festival.

It was strangest, most beautiful
music I ever heard,
and I knew it was no coincidence
she was there.

Providence smiled further
as we saw the Norman Rockwell
retrospective was also within
walking distance
and we marveled at the original print
of “The Marriage License”.

We stayed up talking
all that night
and somewhere in there
I realized
she was no longer some
causal hit-and-run.

I started thinking
in longer, broader strokes

and it awakened
something fiery
and powerful

that had been
asleep in me
for a thousand years.

For Open Link Night - read others and enjoy!

Anita (November 28, 2017)

So much
has changed;

the obvious:
hairstyles,
waistlines,
selfishness.

Less so:
contentment,
momentary peace,
blissful pleasure,
a security
deep inside
a shaky heart.

Kids are a constant:

with two kids gone,
one still here,
a new generation
starts with Oliver.

What hasn't changed:

she is singularly
the most beautiful,
breathtaking
woman I've ever seen,

and the love,
this mammoth adoration,
never dissipates.

Simply put:
she came into my life
and made everything

better.

Bra Straps Akimbo

The end of a Thursday,
she’s undressing
in the closet, and
I’m in the adjoining
bathroom
vaping, listening to
America Top 40 re-broadcasts
from 1981,
my senior year
in high school.

All Jarreau’s
“We’re in This Love Together”
comes up,
and I remember
wanting
so desperately
to have someone to love
back then.

I wanted to be able
to hear that song
and think of her –
whoever she was.

Instinctively,
I rise and
go to her
her blouse off,
bra straps
akimbo,

she is casually,
authentically
sexy.

I tell her,
“don’t fight me”
as we melt
into each others’ arms,
as we have
countless times
during the previous
decade and a half.

We close our eyes,
hold each other,
sway to the music.

Anita,
thank you for making
this dream come true,

a dream
I never had
before.

Scenes From a Marriage, Part 62

(After the fight.)

Her: Have you seen my wedding ring?

Him: Yes, I put it right here.

Her: Why did you hide it?

Him: Why did you throw it?

(Silence.)

This Wine (for Anita)

Emerging from
the shower,
she wraps herself
in a warm towel.

I revel in
her soft skin,
the smell of
her wet hair,
our comfortable
years.

Before she
demurely
slips between
freshly laundered
sheets,
I kneel,
slowly tugging
the towel
toward me,

exposing
all that is perfect
on this
November night.

Starting at her ankles,
my lips tease
their way up
to her intoxicating
lubricity,

which reminds me
of the first time,

only now,
the years have made
this wine
sweeter
and much more
potent.

Cherubs

We sleep together
face to face,
like the cherubs atop
the Ark of the Covenant.

However,
I lay my head
closer to
her breast,
eyes closed
my sleeping gaze
pointed up
to her placid face,

a telling distillation
of our relationship:

me,
ever worshipful,
her,
ever deserving.

First Poem Published, Fullerton Daily Tribune, 1972

I was eight years old
and my local newspaper
solicited
a variety of
student submissions.

Here is what I sent in,
inspired by
an late night sermonette
on KTTV channel 11:

"God made
people to love
and things to use.

Some chefs
use people
and love
beef stews.

But God
made us to love,
with the love
from Above,

So, remember,
God made
people to love
and things to use."

Not bad
for a third-grader.

I forgot about it,
until it was found
in my Grandmother's purse
after she died in 1994.

Two Promises (for Oliver)

I was gifted
with two grandfathers.

One I saw regularly
but never spoke with
because he spoke
only Spanish
and I didn't.

The other grandfather,
because he
divorced my grandmother,
I saw less than
10 times in my life
Including his funeral

Where I gave a eulogy.

Oliver,
I promise these two things:

whatever language
you end up speaking,
I will learn it,

and,

I will never divorce
your grandma.

Welcome to the world, and
welcome to our familia, mijo.

and Suddenly, it was Clear (for Anita)

A little before midnight
on my way back
to my bachelor apartment

her perfume still in my nose
her heat still on my skin

my mind replayed
the evening:
we sat with the kids
laughing at
“Spongebob Squarepants”

and after they fell asleep,
we did likewise
in each other’s embrace.

It felt like home,

but there I was
driving back to a place
I called home.

As I came up
to the intersection of
Alessandro and Moreno Beach

an idea I’d banished
long ago

floated in

like a leaf
through an open window

and suddenly,
it was clear,

and I said it aloud:

“I’m going to marry that girl.”

My First Love

My first love
was music,
comforting, exciting
and mysterious.

As I grew,
I put myself into
the lyrics of the song,
as though they were
a script for my heart
to follow.

Years lumbered by
and as I fell into
what resembled love,
I would hear the music,
look at the women,
and knew
they were disconnected.

Then I met Anita,
and all the songs
were new.

I couldn’t sing them
anymore
without my voice
cracking
with joyful tears.

She was the one
to make all the lyrics
true for me,

all the melodies
poetry for me,

and because of her
true love,
she was able
to improve upon
my first love.

[Go to https://dversepoets.com/ - it won't hurt much.]

Micropucker

Her moist,
yielding lips,

twitch and
micropucker,

waiting to be
answered,

filled
and fulfilled,

by this warm,
and slippery friend,

so firm,
uninhibited
and ecstatic.

Her Greatest Gift

Through the smoke
and patches of blaze
still smoldering,
I see her
and I cannot help
my movement toward her:

I must be
by her side.

That is where I belong,
where I thrive.

Christmas after Christmas
we collect memories,
all our own,
that no one can touch.

Every year,
I gratefully remember
her greatest gift
to me:

I have never
wished to be
anywhere else,

never envied
another’s coupling,

since I found my place
beside her.

How to Live Forever

“Well,
not every experiment works.

We try and learn from the stuff
that doesn’t work as well.

Not everyone can discover penicillin,
you know.

So,
even though you still
have not unlocked
the mystery of mortality
perhaps,
you amused  yourself,
and that’s something.

The captain said
“the reward is in the doing,

and if that’s not the truth,
then you
better find something else
to do.”

Whatever you’ve got
in front of you,
lowly and modest
though it be,

experience it,
live it,
inhale it,
jump in it
and splash about
and from that

make something
that will outlast you:

the best would be
if you made
your life
a glorious gift,

freely given
to everyone.

It would be
so beautiful,

that your love would
outlast you,
outlive you,

and that’s’ how
you live
forever.”

The Day After Thanksgiving

"Thank you
for coming and
helping out.

Well,
you probably can
help out
in the kitchen,
but honestly...

at the moment
we've actually got
more volunteers
than we need...

yeah,
but that won't be
for long.

There'll be another
wave soon,
but I'll give you
this tip about
volunteering:

on the big holidays,
especially like Easter
and Thanksgiving,
people always come
out big to help...

but do you know
when we
really need help?

The day after Thanksgiving,
the week before Christmas,
the month preceding Easter...
you get it?

No,
we don't need your help
just on the days
when you remember
the poor,
the hungry,
and the homeless,

they need your help
on ordinary days when
they're forgotten.

OK, I see some folks
just came in,

you, find them a place
to sit
and you,
follow me
to the kitchen."