First Love

Inspired by Nessa O'Mahony's "First Love" and Keats' "La Belle Dame sans Merci."

My first love? Since you ask-

was Maverick, gambler and gunslinger.

His poker hand could set Mississippi ablaze

and his wrist speed to holster was slick.

I sent him a pic of myself, aged nine

sitting on a rock at Portrush.

He didn’t write back.

My next love was hell bent

on Holy Orders.

I attended his ordination.

Enough said.

Then there was the bow-legged

Gilbert O’Sullivan look-a-like minus piano

Whose every stride I shadowed around the town.

My mother said I’d wear myself thin with unrequited lust.

I did. 

Until a hairy-faced biker

whisked me off on his Honda 50

and meteors struck and I saw shooting stars.

I came to on a cold hillside

alone and palely loitering.

I was a slow learner...

Copyright with Cathy leonard 2018

Beached

Where was my head

when I fell for you

Through marram grass

pinching like sand crabs

down the slip face

of a sand dune

Landing on drift line of

Spring, full-moon tide

Ensnared in flotsam

and jetsam and items sundry

Caught and enmeshed

in bladderwrack

Entangled at uppermost limit

of wave swash

Swallowed and beached

and marooned on your shore

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018

Kisses

Your kisses unfold me
Stretch me beyond myself
Like a butterfly
Extended for flight
Or a tablecloth tossed
For better falling
Like a shirt stretched out
For better smoothing
Or a waistband, hairband, elastic band
Expanded for better holding
From flight to fall to smooth holding
Your kisses unfold me

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017

Marriage of Opposites

I posted this poem before but here is the sculpture that inspired it. Fidelma Massey's Marriage of the Sun and Moon.

Bring it on

They say it won’t last.

Him with his webbed feet and shaggy mane.

The heat alone of him will melt me, they say,

erase my quarter, half and full phases,

my gibbous, crescent, waxing and waning moods.

Hang the consequences, I say, holding the apple between us,

me, like Eve, tempting him-

A kiss about to weld us into a near perfect O.

Expulsion from Eden, tree of knowledge, forbidden fruit,

Bring it on, I say, bring it on.

 Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2017

Based on The Marriage between the Sun and Moon By Fidelma Massey

Ask a Florist

Ask a Florist
about true love

All the red roses returned
every Valentine's

All the Aislings
uncollected

All the posies binned
or the single stems pinned

On lapels
'til they wither

Ask a florist
about the unsteadiness of the human heart

Its blossom as fickle
as a freshly cut bouquet

How ardour
gift wrapped

So quickly becomes
an order cancelled

Ask a florist
about true love

Making choices

On Parting

"Protect the garden," you say,
"from the wild that might err there."
You hold yourself tight in parting
I give you Brigid's Cross
to help you find your way.

And you show me this painting
Given you once in lovemaking -
A Medieval Maiden on a white horse
its nose close to the canvas, shirking-
The future blank, you say.

You will have to choose
between a Crone's prayer.
and Maiden's aspiration.
You may have to let in the wild, lover.
You may have to let in the wild.

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Love lost

Here's another love poem, but this time with more than a tinge of regret rather than the usual bitter tirade...

Now

Do you prefer it now

or the memory of it later

you asked me

I didn’t answer

I didn’t know

I couldn’t remember from before

I can tell you now

I prefer now

as it was then

But I didn’t know

and so

I forgot to finger all of you

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Love Lost-Freedom Gained

Given that we are in the month of February a few love poems, or even lost-love poems seem appropriate. I'm better at the lost- love ones as I said, so here goes with another sour grape poem.


Walking on eggshells

I tried hard not to step on your muse

who was so frail that even

my breath might break her shell-

Your shell -Your heart encased

in an eggshell.

And all the time I wanted to stomp.

If egg shells broke so be it!

Let birds hatch out of them!

I am cantering bareback now

Solid hoof across dense plain.

Your eggshells all lie scattered-

Nothing ever did hatch out of them.

No fledgling ever spread its wing to fly.

But I fly now -wind in my horse’s mane

horse-flank at my heel-

No need to stifle breath now

Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2016

Seasonal Love

The perennial source of inspiration for poetry has to be love. 

• Lost love
• Unrequited love
• Requited love
• Platonic love.....

I write best on a wave of either longing or loss

Satisfied with love I must be too busy enjoying it.

So here is one of my loss- love poems published in Women’s Works Vol 8

Seasonal Love

It was the fire in you that held me

until I got my fingers burnt.

What else did I expect?

I expected love

Winter-long

Spring seeding

Summer glowing

Autumn gathering

Winter hoarding.

You liked spring

But when we last met

It was a winter’s day.