Category: Romance

Pigeon Season

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Pigeon Season

The crossbills start their laying
While the New Year snows remain,
And the pigeons too are playing
At the family game again.

Then come the February frost,
And come the raven chicks,
While pigeons think it worth the cost
To gather-in the sticks.

Buzzards wait the Winter out,
And hold till March has shone,
And pigeons likewise have no doubt
On when to get it on.

The starlings flock at Eastertide
With Spring in paradise,
While pigeons think an April bride
Is ev’ry bit as nice.

The cuckoos drop their eggs in May
In other people’s nests,
Yet pigeons have no fear to lay
From unexpected guests.

The seagulls spend the Solstice broody
While the days are long,
And pigeons keep their Summers moody,
Purring out their song.

The mallards stretch their mating-season
Through the long July,
While pigeons also see no reason
Not to bat the eye.

There’s yellowhammers indiscreet
Through August, still not done,
While pigeons love to raise some heat
Beneath the Summer sun.

September – all the birds have fledged,
And some have flown away,
Yet pigeons lay on, it’s alleged,
Through Autumn, come what may !

October, keeping on the job,
There’s always some around,
Still popping out the latest squab
To peck the frozen ground.

The pigeons even hatch them
Through the long and gloomy nights,
When only chickens match them
(Under artificial lights).

Till last, the Christmas fable,
Which has surely missed a trick,
With some cooing in the stable
At the birth of this month’s chick.

Floriography

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Choosing by George Watts

Floriography

I wanted to speak the language of flowers,
Just like my heroines of old.
But how can the secrets of petals be ours
When meeting in Winter’s cold ?
I guess there’s holly and mistletoe,
And snowdrops still to come, perhaps ?
But love, I fear, has yet to grow,
And plenty of time to lapse…

I wanted to win you with floral wooing,
Now that Spring has raised his head –
But tulips are for financial ruin,
And lilies are for the dead.
I guess there’s always the dandelion,
Though who sees the beauty beneath the weed ?
Our love, I fear, is swiftly dying,
Like daffodils gone to seed.

I wanted to cast such blossoming spells,
With Summer so rampant and velveteen –
But buttonhole-sunflowers smother lapels,
And roses come purple and green.
I guess there’s just too much to choose –
Exotic, or native ?  We cannot be both.
So love, I fear, is swamped for a muse,
And trapped in the undergrowth.

I wanted to breathe the tongue of the blooms,
But who remembers the code these days ?
And now that Autumn is blowing our rooms,
It feels too late for bouquets.
I guess, though, dahlias could be for darlings ?
And conkers for fun, and pumpkins for screams ?
For love, I feel, will still find it charming,
Whatever it thinks it all means.

Leaving Inktober behind, there is just time for a seasonal bouquet before things get spook-ay...

Russian Rush

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Peasant Girl in Kokoshnik by anonski

Russian Rush

Is it just my ears,
Or are all these Slavic women baritones ?
Does the need to wrap their tongues
Round angular Cyrillics
Thus somehow feed into their very bones ?
Is it from the years
Of calling for Ivanovic, not Jones,
That ups capacity in lungs
Into those sexy and idyllic moans
They use to answer telephones ?
They always speak their English with a purr,
In a lower register.

Perhaps it’s their careers
As nurses or baristas, or tennis pros,
Or spies in paperbacks,
That slows their speech and drops it down a semitone or two ?
Or maybe it’s my ears,
And not some deep and cunning pose
To sigh like honeytraps ?
Of course, it’s just my vodka fantasy,
And even if it’s true –
The way they talk, their chosen key,
Is not in any way for me –
But nonetheless, I love the way they sound the way they do.

I have always thought that printed Cyrillic looks like it is written in all-caps even when lower case letters are used – perhaps it is the reduced use of risers and descenders, giving them less-indented coastlines.

I had originally called this poem as Deep Throat.  It almost worked, but ultimately the leaker in All The President’s Men was very male and very American.

What do you mean, there’s another film which uses that title…

Musical AI version generated by Suno.com – find more of them over here.

Those Two Impostors

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Out of the Square by Cesar Santos

Those Two Impostors

So there I was, a Son of Martha,
Making my way in the world.
I knew that I could keep my head
’Gainst any Brown Bess girl.

But that was ere I met my match
With Triumph and Disaster –
A pair of Ladies of Many Dreams
As clever as Aggie de Castrer.

They played my heart for pitch & toss,
With a swish of skirt in the dew –
With broken dinner knives, they dug,
To plant their roses blue.

Why did I go with the grey widow-maker
Upon my young-man’s feet ?
Oh, how I wish I’d walked by myself,
Where never the twain shall meet.

But I shall hang from the highest hill
On the road to Mandalay.
How far is St Helena now
From a lonely shilling-a-day ?

But no – don’t deal in lies –
For if a dog has torn my heart,
As it’s moving up and down again,
It’s just because I gladly played my part.

Don’t let cold iron be my master
While the gentlemen go by –
For the female of the species
Is a better man than I.

Nothing below the Wrist, Nothing above the Clavicle

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The Grand Odalisque by Jean Ingres, remixed by Nicolas Amiard

Nothing below the Wrist, Nothing above the Clavicle

She had about her four tattoos, as I recall,
Each one of which set within a sea of un-inked skin –
So ringed around her bicep was a Celtic braid,
And a seeing-eye was watching from her shoulder blade,
While her backbone bore a butterfly, tucked in the small,
And finally, a blood-red Moon where her ankle met her shin.
She always seemed so prim, and with her bashful eyes,
That her even having any came as some surprise.

Then one day, after we’d moved-in together,
I noticed something odd upon her breast, above her heart –
A kitten’s paw-print, still a little red with new.
She shyly fingered it and murmured “this one’s you”.
Unlike her bodywork, we didn’t last forever,
But I saw her yesterday as if we’d never been apart –
So easily we talked, it was quite a trip,
Till I saw a rose was peeking-out upon her hip.

Plagiarised Love

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Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

Plagiarised Love

All my honeyed words, I stole,
From radio and Hollywood –
They showed me how to play my role,
And made me think I really could.
I practised in the bathroom mirror,
Studied glossy magazines –
And ev’ry night was one night nearer
To my moment on the screen.

All my heartfelt tears, I bought,
From sellers with expressive eyes –
I took on ev’rything they taught,
To help me tell more honest lies.
I practised in my dreams each night,
In tailored suits and sexy cars –
I’ve surely breached some copyright,
To fall in love just like the stars.

Read by Hereward

Sleight of Heart

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Flirtation at the Well by Eugene de Blaas

Sleight of Heart

I’m far too smart to believe in magic,
But what the heck have you done to me ?
I know what’s what in law and physics,
But why can’t my mind just let you be ?
I used to scoff at the thought of Hell,
Now I’m shaking and sweating under your spell –
I’m far too smart to believe in magic,
But your bewitching is plain to see.

I feel your beauty cast its glamour,
A wave of the hand, and you lead me on.
I can’t think straight through all this clamour,
I’m a helpless mark for your brazen con.
But worst of all, it’s magic by stealth –
I’ve set my own spell, and upon myself.
I let your beauty cast its glamour
And all of my common sense is gone.

Orogeny

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Orogeny

You told me how you loved me,
As deep as the magma beneath our very feet –
Erupting, flowing, building, forever,
Melting the stoniest heart with its heat.
You told me how you loved me
As tall as the Andes, and ev’ry bit as tough –
I thought we were raising mountains together,
But in the end, it was nothing but a bluff.

Qwerty Sonata

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Qwerty Sonata

I can hear her fingers dancing, dancing,
Over the keyboard, rat-a-tat-tat.
The tempo always five-to-a-heartbeat –
I clock her typing, wherever she’s sat.
Her fingernails, a little too long,
Her bangles jangle, an octave higher,
Grounded by the bass of the spacebar,
And leak of her headphones bringing the choir.
  
I can hear our fingers dancing, dancing,
Stretching for shift, then back to home –
The double-letter quavers, the patter of delete,
And the rhythm of return as a metronome.
But not all keyboards are tuned the same,
Staccato or reverb in stroke-length and gauge.
I like it the most when we harmonise together –
An orchestra of typists, filling the page.

Crisp Pages

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Crisp Pages

I borrowed the book from the library, years ago,
From a casual glance.
I fell in love with her title, I had to know
What on Earth she meant.
She promised me adventure, she promised me grit,
And an epic romance.
And over a sleepless week I devoured her wit
Till my lust was spent.

I stroked her crackled spine and embossing,
And tried to read her all again,
But couldn’t concentrate my brain –
Until my mum returned her, unawares.
In later months, whenever I was browsing,
I hoped to chance upon her between the heavyweights,
And see how many readers had stamped her with their dates,
But someone had purloined her, made her theirs.

I sought a copy later, long out of print,
For a foolhardy sum –
She sits on my bookcase still, and perfectly mint,
If gone a little brown.
But it’s good to know that she’s always there, close by,
For a time yet to come.
Though to tell the truth, I’m terrified to try –
For what if she lets me down ?

Is she quite as good as I remember ?
I just recall her basic plot,
And ev’ry year there’s more forgot –
But that, I always say, just makes her better…
Can she be as thrilling and as tender ?
Can all of her details make a striking whole ?
For that’s where the Devil lurks, and so does her soul.
I think I’d rather lose her all than regret her…