What is a Love Poem?

The most basic rhymes learned as a child still ring true:

Roses are red
  Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet
  And so are you.

This gradually led to love poems I would write as a teenager – unrequited but then requited and then unrequited again. The beauty of a love poem is that it can take the shape of whatever you are feeling about love at a particular time, including: 

Declared – The embodiment of which, to me, is William Shakespeare, with this line being the epitome: “But Soft, What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the Sun” – Romeo. 

Committed – Leonard Cohen met Marianne Ihlen while visiting the Greek Island of Hydra at the age of 20, they ended up living together, with her infant son, on the island for seven years. She was influential in his life and inspired songs like “Bird on a Wire” and “So Long, Marianne” and although they each went their own way, they remained in touch and in many ways connected to each other. However, it wasn’t until the end of Leonard’s life that the true extent of his love for Marianne was revealed. As Marianne lay dying, in her eighties, he sent her a note which was made public after his own death only three months later, in it he wrote, “This old body has given up, just as yours has, and the eviction notice is on its way. I’ve never forgotten your love and your beauty. But you know that. Safe travels old friend. See you down the road.”

Renounced – Not to say that either wasn’t romantic, or had beautiful love poems, but if you are ever in the mood for a cynical view of love and need some reinforcement, I would recommend Irving Layton and Charles Bukowski…

“is it possible to love a human being?
of course, especially if you don’t know them too well.

― Charles Bukowski, Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Man and Woman
By Irving Layton

Put this down, my sons, as a guiding rule:
In a woman’s eyes every man’s a fool;
He hankers after glory and the tomb,
She hears his deathknell tolling in her womb. 

Self – The one I had heard about and started practicing only recently. Perhaps the one that alludes us but should be the first love – agape love. Is it possible to love yourself unconditionally? It’s certainly worth a try…

First Love, Last Love
By Ramiro Mora 

Once a week
If you wake up
Even before the birds
And put your ear
Almost touching
Over the breast
Of the one you love
You will hear
The steady beat
Of the greatest sound
Ever created
And that sound will sustain you
And will drown out
All the other sounds
Of pain and suffering
And if there is no one to love
Listen to your own heartbeat
In your ears
While walking down the street
And learn to love yourself