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Surrender.  
Lose. Give in.

chance it all.
throw caution
against the wall,
watch its greasy
sliding downwards,
at first resisting gravity,
and then submitting to
the power, the Overwhelming
hopefulness
of love

yes, winning is a dangerous feeling.

Sometimes you gotta go all-in,
slide those chips, slow across
the green felt poker table.


Prefer thoughtful consideration,
a preponderance of favorable yeses,
longer than the maybes and the last list
of occasional, dangerously
self defeating mmmms,
and the exciting  unknowns
needy of unlocking
places you’ve never been,
lairs of dark uncovered by
fresh first time daylight

when the smile criss crossing
the body entire, a chilled fire,
when sensibility strives to
overcome the senses,
it is a checkered flag of yellow
cards to floor fallen,
let them be

slow breathing, check your
heart rate, blood pressure,
do not give the results to
a sympathetic cardiologist,
if results are higher than
normal
because you are,
good.

you know the rest,
all in, all in,
surrender to
beat of I am
am in,
all in

and sprite~write an only true love poem
send to but one,
yourself,
signed

yours truly*

P. S.  And never forget,
that you learn best,
you learn the most
from all your failures.
Sun 11/26 am
1/26/25
in the b.t
nyc
onlylovepoetry Aug 2024
she doesn’t read my poetry anymore;

sent every script, faithfully, always honored & acknowledged with a pithy comment, then came the occasional emojis,  then too often silences, longer and longer, made me realize
it was an imposition, created excuses,
finally ceased sending…

so now there is no doubt,
my muse is
disused, and I feel,
forlornly bitter and
use-less lessened

look for excuses to provide her a dance,
no poem
too similar, overly familiar,
not reflective
of our true reality, still,7&

she doesn’t read my poetry anymore;*

cannot muster up the bitter mustard I feel,
and see the little, minor, signals all is not
perfect, select edit, make disappear, tiny
grimaces, misperceived caustics asides,
and the reality is such, that wince internally,
but the love poetry has been put aside…
and
may 26
onlylovepoetry Mar 2020
the crying want of you (first of the everlasting)

so many ways this loving emotion manifests,
for each, a salutation, unique, some sleek,
some solutions jagged, but when I cry out for the
inexplicable but perfectly understood want of you

an all encompassing recipe,
a gasp, a shriek, a celebration, a loss illimitable deepening,
a need perceived with a crucial cruelty, inexhaustible
noise barely human, but quintessentially exactly that

you who have needy for fearsomely loved, and been
fearsomely loved with equal measuring cups which
have no delimiting notion of linear boundaries of cup and quart,
only precise calculations of defined unlimited overflowing

even silence totality of crying out loudly screams of desperation,
noiseless, crept for the unadulterated, unadjusted purity of want,
a state well dreamt, but so rarely hail fellow well met, the
startling exertion of meeting yourself in another over the borderline

forgive the paucity of my word~children in expressing what
was designed and created to be inexhaustibly rare,
the crying want of you, the missing final jigsaw puzzle piece
of want and being wanted, to touch the immortal soul, the first of the

everlasting, united, unending and unendurable undefined want



8:10am 2-20-2020

from within the confessional
216 · Aug 2024
Really?
onlylovepoetry Aug 2024
she espied
my prone body
mostly unclenched
mostly unclothed
comes standing beside,

she,
a human eclipse
blocking half-a-sun

and
i without
surreption

slide my hand slowly,
languorously
up her inner thigh,
she laughs with a
chuckled giggle

asking

Really?

and the poet replies:

oh yes indeedy
200 · Dec 2024
love love love
onlylovepoetry Dec 2024
somehow we all like, enjoy saying  
that word thrice, somehow nice,
when you follow the
rhythm of the tonguing of it:

time, time and add~pray-it
one more time again

seems eminently successfully sensible
in a trinity unity

so stop here and now
and give me a

love love love

permission granted to say it
as needed on this day
without embarrassment
and when they inquire
what?
just smile and say it one
mirror one more time
inexplicably explicable
onlylovepoetry Dec 2024
a level of compatibility that is
distinguished and ascertainablw,
it is so so more than
finishing each other’s sentences,

it is answering them, before
they are next to be spoken,
inducting a wondrous expression
that is a potpourri of amaze,
a beloving of how, never why,
a growling tender from back of
the throat, that speaks of come
hither, and a challenge, tell me
what I’m thinking, whispering
come ever closer,

all par for the early moments of
just awoken eye rubbing confusion,
we skip the hello’s and proceed
direct to my beloved, that never
grows yellowing just mellowing
after nearly two
decades

she offers me breakfast choices
well advertised, in a different
order, thinking I won’t notice,
which I pretend they are  entirely
nouveau, weighing the merits of
each before, of approving

a ritualistic only love poem of her
composing, though she reminds
lunch will be five ounces of onion
coated, cream cheese whipped,
and an assortment of fish from
the North Atlantic,
ergo, she is saying

go my
darling within your constraints,
for she knows the side to side
head shakes
my evaluation  and stil
agress agrees,
that I will bring but, another ember
long last heating and she rewards
my decision with knotted nods of

a certifying agreement, that my right
role of agreer-in-chief, has made a
wiser kinder correct(ed) contribution
onlylovepoetry Mar 2023
Too much sanity may be madness…


“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams this may be madness. Too - much sanity may be madness and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"

DON QUIXOTE by MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA

<

who among us does not wonder daily,
admit it!
am I mad, where does this malady madness lie within me?

wandering along the raggedy meandering linear ledge,
a tempting rock strewn divide of a tempestuous world unbidden,
a me-version struggling to keep a kind sanity
that is ugly, undesirable, undeserving and just “und”

I drown;
suffocated by a realized spring rainfall showering,
there is no thing as sanity,
we are all mad,
gone from, on the way to,
the epicenter
of where north meets south,
east greets west,
all differences are sublimated
the glint in our eyes confesses:

mutually cognizant
there is no division
not to be mad
is in-sane…
150 · Oct 2024
What am I made for?
onlylovepoetry Oct 2024
went to the doc for
my birthday suit check up,
usual barrage of tests,
withdrew 8 vials of blood red, and
pronounced me to be
officially
in his win column,
all good ‘cept for my

general deterioration
that is an unscheduled, indeterminate
process of time's steady determination,
for which there are tests
but no cure,
so he says,
don’t bother

after the routine is completed,
he asks with a twinkle,
for he knows this man
too X two
well,
“son, what really ails ya?”

Doc -
don’t know whatI I am made for

have not tasted the
excitations
of
falling in love in so long,
I’m purposeless

it’s the falling
that is
the inttiation intricate
that makes my
HR skyrocket to
130, even 150,
where the stress
is an exertion that
benefits and strengthens
heart muscles?

at a higher level
of stress
for intense but brief,
a necessity for long term
heart health


the diagnosis was simplified,
dear boy
( he is younger than me)
you have
ED

nope doc not the issue in hand,
he smiled at my savvy,


it is of
emotional disability
that I speak of

your life devoted
to loving the loving process,

This is your red engine
that can and could,
and would still,
but at your stature and age,
it is not as easy as
back in the day
when you smiled at the pretty girls,
and they un hesitatingly,
smiled back,
and you were on the road to
the inflation of infatuation,
highs and lows of an
incumbent incurable
you~humanist,
a valuation expert
of the human connection

there isn’t a cure
but to try
and fail fairly
repeatedly,

never give in,
never give up,


for the paths to
where you seek,
everywhere,
and I await happily
you next report
why you
stand before me,
with heart palpitations
for the very best
of reasons,
for my human friend,


**that is what you are made for!”
150 · Dec 2024
Thanatosis
onlylovepoetry Dec 2024
Thanatosis
(noun)

pretending to be dead

a state that in some respects resembles shock, is characterized by cessation of all voluntary activity and usually by assumption of a posture suggestive of death, and occurs in various insects (as beetles) when disturbed
<>
thus a new word
joins the tongue,
a new bud solely
to express the state of two
when love has died,
and the energizer doesn’t
want to bandage~rip,
make entities separate,
face the uncertainty
of no mercy

so two humans
play dead
but inside
there is a long loud
agonizing screaming
******* your fading courage,
well hid but going to
the land of the unheard,

and the state of
Thanatosis
is the Grecian Isle
where you will be
buried
though
you but
*half~ dead
though we have yet to meet,
lay on the physicality of eyes,
a glancing, a throughly examining
scanning of nose to toes, a torso
previewing b e c a u s e

for this not a line or boundary
to be crossed but a fission
fusion that requires completion,
a rhyming sequence that needs
a thumbs up certification, a kiss
to make us smile, then laugh out
so loudly, we  she'ded tears  at our
mutual foolishness of being worried
we might ruin a fabulous confection,
our mutuality of insight like, when you
open an unread novel that came highly
recommended and not only did it not
disappoint, we agree thst it should be
commemorated as a poem extraordinaire,
by Appointment by Her Majesty, the
Queen, the arbiter of quality and good taste,
a woman of common sense and what tastes
good, like we do, and each of us whispers,
a silently unspoken Hallelujah, sealed with
a impassioned kissing of each others
fingers
and an
Amen
onlylovepoetry Jan 2024
She Went Straight for My Cookies by Jeanne Bonner

For weeks, I debated which Christmas event to attend with my sister. I finally chose a choir concert in my town. Before the performance, my sister entered my house without knocking and headed straight for the tin of homemade cookies she knew I kept in the dining room. She crammed one in her mouth before saying, “Hello.” I thought I needed the concert’s good cheer after the deaths, three weeks apart, of our 54-year-old sister and 85-year-old mother. What I really needed was someone so close to me that my house is her house, and my cookies, her cookies. — Jeanne Bonner


published in the New YorkTimes Tiny Love Stories column on
Jan 23, 2024
onlylovepoetry Jul 2020
she tips the pool boy!

who arranges the deck chairs, opening the blue umbrellas,
and the kitchen dishwasher, who arranges them Ach so!
for the fussy, **** German-born dishwasher,
the man-who-takes-refuse-to-the-town-dump,
the bed maker, fluffer upper of pillows when up-awakened,
the driver who always has car tissues, and a disposal system,
the exterminator-in-residence, for the necessary cohabitating pests,
the guy who buys the groceries so she may live to see her grandchildren,
but that guy,
who writes her
only love poetry,

he just gets the finger,
yes, all ten, a 2X five bonus,
and their associated tips,
whenever
he,
presses SEND,
a new poem,
just for her,
created.


she calls it an even bargain, what she don’t know, I’d do it all for free,
for just a single eyelash winking.
130 · Apr 2020
May 15
onlylovepoetry Apr 2020
“May 15, he [the Governor] announced Monday...that the  lifting of stay at home restrictions will take place in regions which were not badly hit by the new coronavirus, mainly in upstate New York.

The restrictions will not be lifted in New York City.”

<|>

no sight in end,
no vibration of the tine of routine,
soundless, as in endless.

we unmark the calendar,
May 15 requalifed,
just another day, as in,
the search for Clorox wipes and Purell sanitizer,
will continue unceasingly

as in endless, as in
no sound no sight no vibrancy,
plenty wailing silence

we redefine social distancing.

measured not in feet,
but in months,
March, April, May

that have somehow disappeared
from our calendars
permanently.
onlylovepoetry Dec 2024
/\/\
can/cant
write a true love poem
without free falling tears
welling before the before
i.e.
the first word is laid down

just the way it is with love,
lost or found,
forgotten or-newly uncovered,
either/neither way,
the ducts working overtime,
distorting visibility, and
realistic truths,
so no chance their
accompaniment is not
present,

it’s as if it is
de rigeur,
a precursor-cursor!

the non-cursory
liquidity summoned
to protect and provide to
that place where love
thoughts, hopes, all
memorials
are stored,
needy for wet
to be released

not a love poem
above and about
or
finding it or losing it -

more about remembering
when either came
without an or within it,
always was
a two sides, one coin,
two identical equalities
but separated
by
direction

weeeping means
meandering memories
congealing, needy for reliving,
a retelling forgiving,
sinning and reexamining,
an easy gliding
when the path
is eased by a
slippery slide
of
damp
can/can’t (write a love poem). olp  nml
118 · Jun 22
You Again?
~you again?  a love poem indeed!

she stood by me even when
most of my disasters
were of mine own creative actions,
but in the crises that always
unexpectedly
rose up dramatically
when driving off road,
where there were
no guardrail guarantees

so when the doc says
“sir, needed surgery right away,”
She unashamedly inquires
“ok, what about tomorrow”
making us all chuckle,
and doc a smile/responder,
“how about 6:00am the day after?”
and you accept (me observing)
with
a stern smile of pretending concession

so when recovery consists of
three ++ walks a day through
the corridors of the Unit
which morphed from an endless huge
to a
small prison courtyard,
where in a day everyone,
patients doctors and
rotating shifts of nurses
are greeted by me,
idiot extrovert,
with an intitial
giant hello and a wink,
which after first three
“shuffles around the block”
has become a
saluting exultation,
a look of surprise
with a
“You Again!”

that gets the inevitable
twinkle from everyone

somehow
this greeting came home with us
and thereafter when,
she stirred awake
to see me shuffling in with
coffee and a quarter cup
of crunchy Kashi & banana
mixed in with Yoga~urt,
(a/k/a nana & banana smoothie)
and a too loud
“You Again!”
which infallible makes
an AM grumpy disappear
and
soon becomes
a time honored
ritual

now that I’ve honored the oath
which was promised jokingly
by me to She,
that I be the last to depart,
cause doing it twice,
was an unbearable job,
and long enough gone
and I am back in my
own private recovery
honeyed (yellow) painted
single room,
The Enpty Pillow
with imaginary smiley face,
hears a mourning yellowing phrase
once-a-day,
a vitamin supplement necessary

and when the grandchildren
make
their obligatory dragged along
monthly visitation they be greeted
by old friends
a firm hug and an
emboldened
“You Again”
and their smile says
“you’re embarrassing us”
+++ childlike acceptance

and the rivulets ridiculousness

that accompany this scripting,
+ any accidental overhearing,
or get even getting a read,

is fresh brought out of
tears storage
and each teary one with
a Hey!
meant to be cheery
greet & repeat:

😉us again!😉
59 · Sep 2024
You Again?
onlylovepoetry Sep 2024
she stood by me even when
most of my disasters
were of mine own creative actions,
but in the crises that always
unexpectedly
rose up dramatically
when driving off road,
where there were
no guardrail guarantees

so when the doc says
“sir, needed surgery right away,”
She unashamedly inquires
“ok, what about tomorrow”
making us all chuckle,
and doc a smile/responder,
“how about 6:00am the day after?”
and you accept (me observing)
with
a stern smile of pretending concession

so when recovery consists of
three ++ walks a day through
the corridors of the Unit
which morphed from an endless huge
to a
small prison courtyard,
where in a day everyone,
patients doctors and
rotating shifts of nurses
are greeted by me,
idiot extrovert,
with an intitial
giant hello and a wink,
which after first three
“shuffles around the block”
has become a
saluting exultation,
a look of surprise
with a
“You Again!”

that gets the inevitable
twinkle from everyone

somehow
this greeting came home with us
and thereafter when,
she stirred awake
to see me shuffling in with
coffee and a quarter cup
of crunchy Kashi & banana
mixed in with Yoga~urt,
(a/k/a nana & banana smoothie)
and a too loud
“You Again!”
which infallible makes
an AM grumpy disappear
and
soon becomes
a time honored
ritual

now that I’ve honored the oath
which was promised jokingly
by me to She,
that I be the last to depart,
cause doing it twice,
was an unbearable job,
and long enough gone
and I am back in my
own private recovery
honeyed (yellow) painted
single room,
The Enpty Pillow
with imaginary smiley face,
hears a mourning yellowing phrase
once-a-day,
a vitamin supplement necessary

and when the grandchildren
make
their obligatory dragged along
monthly visitation they be greeted
by old friends
a firm hug and an
emboldened
“You Again”
and their smile says
“you’re embarrassing us”
+++ childlike acceptance

and the rivulets ridiculousness

that accompany this scripting,
+ any accidental overhearing,
or get even getting a read,

is fresh brought out of
tears storage
and each teary one with
a Hey!
meant to be cheery
greet & repeat:

😉us again!😉
"wish everyone was loved tonight
And somehow stop this endless fight
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days"

Better Days by the Goo Goo Dolls
<>
Yeah yeah. Dating myself.
Some reason find myself listening to the GGD,
(A less embarrassing initialization)
Heard it a thousand times,
Classic easy listening rock.
A sweet wish, everybody knows, ain't gonna happen>
But, In my hand, a -perfecta summer day,
Steady sun, genteel sea breeze, low humidity,
The insects tolerate a shooing away, go easy and disappear,
House empty, everyone doing something and
You know where I am, tip~tapping on my iPad,
Yup, in that room, where poems are fan circulated,
And fall, freely, from the wood ceiling directly
Onto screen, my only job, to screen
The screen for typoes and other such minor inconveniences

There is no time to calculate,
No time to measure, no errors to complete that can't be undone,
And To mourn,
And the Angels have come in silently,
The day so fine, their human side,
Returns for a sun tan and the heat that heals
Burns, wounds, fissures, and even stalling
Out the growth of the bad cells our bodies
Con~tain;
They do not run nor hide,,
whispering I am too pessimistic,
And the Day will bleed into sunfall,
With colors sublime and god designed,
And if ever there was an evening
That the possibility greatest that
tonight
Everyone could be loved,
Even me,
Even you,
Even us,
The air has harmonies in the air flow,
And tonight, will be the time
When we all remember with a sly grin.
that we commence by loving oneself,
And then cell splitting,
and saliva sharing,
following tears and sweat,
and cradling arms
will entwine
Only Love Poems
Res

— The End —