Pockets of My Heart

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Elaine Stirling, love poems, new romance, poetry, the Slipstream Series

The pockets of my heart
admit no coin, the silent folds
wherein I keep love’s promissory
notes are not for prying fingers
sewn nor bribe, long after purchase
sought and turned away.

Whate’er I thought and did
when love had seemed to turn
his back is of no consequence
to what I hold and trade and
credit well today. My heart
no ledger keeps, but neither will
she stand, a little match girl
shivering, in cold and wind
when open arms and crackling
fire wait at home to kiss these
hands and warm the bottled
ink I bought in Christwell’s
High Street shop and
carry in my pocket
just for you.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

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I Barely Escaped with my Misery

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Elaine Stirling, love poems with a twist, new romance, poetry and parody, self-pity, the Slipstream Series, the tedium of tedium

Last night under cover of
a starlit sky, I barely escaped
with my misery. I had hardly
any time to pack my treacle tears
in rows of feathered carton nests
for future recollection, watched
in horror while the pot lights
strung across the Dresden, oh
so precious figurines of every
hurtful thing was ever done
to me (I never save the hurts
I do—no hoarder, me!) exploded,
sending shards and powdered
yodels cross the atmosphere
into my weary eyes. Oh, how
they stung! To look at me, you’d
think, poor thing, all she’s been
through…I peep through slitted lid
to see if, yes, indeed, you’ve taken
up my cause, are willing on my
lazy ass behalf to bang the
drums and cymbals that I haul
around of not enough and woe,
sweet woe, and fall into a moment’s
hopefulness that maybe misery
and I have executed well our
great escape—the wake of
desolation that I like to call
enlightenment gives off a
hoary glow and gathers
pop-eyed crowds, but no—
un-try as I might, I see the dots
between the spaces of the Pleiades
are connected and they lead
from me to you and me to you
and me to you and nothing
I can say or do will stop
the waves of bliss and ever-
lasting happy trysts we
mapped now lapping
at my toes.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

In Love to Stay

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Elaine Stirling, falling in love, free verse, light erotica, love poetry, new romance

A photograph of you
and me fell between
my knees on a beach
dropped by a waiter
with a piña colada
and a growl in his voice:
I was told to give you this.

I lifted the straw hat
off my face. I don’t
like sweet drinks.

Not this. That.
He pointed to
a place strangers
shouldn’t point.
I sat up.

The picture
was taken in
twenty-o-three
on the side of
a mountain,
Kelowna, B.C.

You were wearing
the smile that always
got you a second piece
of pie and not much else,
stretched across the
timothy, knee dropped
in front of majestic details
I used to love to sketch.

Me, I knelt behind you
with the slightly glazed
look of an auto-timed shot,
my bare arms spread:
Look what I caught!

A shadow fell
across me just as
I was starting to
compare my boobs
of then to now.

They’re perfect.
Always will be.

And I looked into
the face of you, ten
years on, the aqua crystal
ocean and your eyes
conspired from the same
divine, insoluble palette.

Your legs apart,
steeple-tall and lean,
I moved my gaze to
your belly hair that curls
when wet and tastes
of things to come.

I came by jet,
you said, soon
as I heard.

I knew then as
I’ve always known
I am in love to stay
in love with you.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

Autumnal Renaissance

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a love poem, cycles, Elaine Stirling, new romance, renewal, seasonal verse

Talk runs high
these days of fall
a trend that apprehends
what-all I view as missed
or ill-begotten, half sung
not quite tragedy but dull
from over-chiming of
regret at how our time
was spent, and yet it seems
to me that every hue upon
the colour wheel, every
quarter turn of life invigorates
the leaf through pages that
reveal a beauty never seen
until the likes of you and I
first meet again and touch
and wander, eye to eye.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013