I've been seduced by the siren song of possible future income, to dive back into the web design stuff I was pursuing just before my husband's untimely death. Staying up much too long and tearing my hair out over my failure to make technology sing, I failed to make words sing either.
So, searching out a book of poems in Spanish with English tranlations my mother gave me years ago, and failing to find it, I happened instead on a little book entitled One Hundred and One Classic Love Poems, a 1988 collection compiled by Sara Whittier. Someone had noted four page numbers on the first page of the book and I looked at all four, out of curiousity, and chose the third of them to share here. It was the only one of the four that wasn't horribly traditional, and made me chuckle. The poet is Judith Viorst, and the poem follows below the orange squiggly dingbat.
Kalliope
Means "beautiful voice" from Greek καλλος (kallos) "beauty" and οψ (ops) "voice". In Greek mythology she was a goddess of epic poetry and eloquence, one of the nine Muses.
Join us every Tuesday afternoon at the Daily Kos community political poetry club.
Your own poetry is always welcome in the comments.
Bongos, berets & turtle neck sweaters optional.
The keyboard is mightier than the sword.
True Love
It is true love because
I put on eyeliner and a concerto and make pungent
observations about the great issues of the day
Even when there's no one here but him,
And because
I do not resent watching the Green Bay Packers
Even though I am philosophically opposed to
football,
And because
When he is late for dinner and I know he must be
either having an affair or lying dead in the
middle of the street,
I always hope he's dead.
It's true love because
If he said quit drinking martinis but I kept drinking
them and the next morning I couldn't get out of
bed,
He wouldn't tell me he told me,
And because
He is willing to wear unironed undershorts
Out of respect for the fact that I am philosophically
opposed to ironing,
And because
If his mother was drowning and I was drowning and
he had to choose one of us to save,
He says he'd save me.
It's true love because
When he went to San Francisco on business while I
had to stay home with the painters and the
exterminator and the baby who was getting the
chicken pox,
He understood why I hated him,
And because
When I said that playing the stock market was
juvenile and irresponsible and then the stock I
wouldn't let him buy went up twenty-six points,
I understood why he hated me,
And because
Despite cigarette cough, tooth decay, acid
indigestion, dandruff, and other features of
married life that tend to dampen the fires of
passion,
We still feel something
We can call
True love.
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