"straightforwardly" poems
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
827.3k
I have been staring at this blank space for awhile now.
It pains me to see myself struggling to express myself.
I wanted to compare you to the sun, the moon, and the stars.
But I do not want to sound passé nor cliché.
I have been looking for the right words to say,
but it seems that I am drowning in an ocean of words.
I am at a loss for words
but still I keep trying,
I keep looking,
I keep searching…
I have no choice but to say this straightforwardly—
without twists and turns.
Words will never be enough to express how much affection I have for you.
I love you, with all that I am.
And I thank you for giving me a reason to carry on with my life…
to continue going,
to continue fighting,
and to continue loving.
You mean all the world to me.
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 9:37 PM UTC
Sometimes I feel like those who
Aren’t overwhelmed
Aren’t tired and broken down
Aren’t hunched and encumbered
Those who can breathe without
Feeling a tightness that strangles
An immensity that fills the heart
With shadowy, sorrowful tangles
They must not be listening
Must have sheathed their eyes
Within the blackest, sight-denying blinders
Or else resigned to a myopic gaze
Yes, they must have made
Some unconscious decision to don
The enduring armor of ignorance
Deftly designed to repel the obvious
Forged in the fires of whimsied romance
Of furtive fairy tales in which
The protagonist, hero, heroine, the revered
The beautiful, the admired,
And all their supporting characters
Are agents of nothing
Sometimes I feel that in the stories of the free
In the mythology of respiting privilege
There is only one antagonist
Against which said armor does protect
He is truth
He is compassion
She is courage and love
She is feeling and thought
He is meaning and substance and matter itself
So, take heart, my armored many
For, it seems to me, your villain
Is nearly dead
I have the utmost faith
That each of you will do your parts
Will walk with your heads down
To your dramatic destinations
Will ignore the journey, the repercussions,
And every longing bystander
Yes, you will merrily spend, and sell,
And buy, and sell and sell
You will straightforwardly tread
Over the downtrodden with your feeling-less feet
Your blind eyes will roll about
Inside their numbing sockets
Your deafened ears will placidly bypass
The rhythms of opportunity and intuition
Your made-up mouths and raised noses
Will vivaciously avoid
The fruits of feeling, the pains of principle,
And the arduous trials of belief
In one’s fellow man
Upon the hour of final victory
I will write of epitaph and eulogy.
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 7:04 PM UTC
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Apr 27, 2017
Apr 27, 2017 at 2:27 AM UTC
“There’s a cow at the table,” I whispered, not wanting to be rude.
It’s horns curled like question marks, which seemed quite Apropos
Now that I’ve been to college, I can tell you, there’s a lot that I don’t know.
But a cow at the table, no matter how well dressed, left me, well, confused.
“How do you Dooooo?” I offered, friendships should begin straightforwardly.
When it didn’t answer, I thought, “Well this friendship’s starting off awkwardly.”
Was it hard of hearing? I wondered. “Have you mooooved here recently?” I asked, loudly.
Again, nothing, it just sat there proudly. Did it take my attempt at dialect, as a sign of disrespect?
“Would you like some fooood? I asked, “Some hay maybe?” I was guessing, but it was a guest.
Some friendships start out slowly, but holy-moley, was this livestock trying to troll me?
After some aggravation, and impatience, it turned out to be an elaborate, fraternity initiation.
.
.
*Based on Leonora Carrington’s painting “Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur.”
https://www.moma.org/artists/993-leonora-carrington*
Apr 17, 2025
Apr 17, 2025 at 11:04 PM UTC
Days flash past my shadow
Unable to distinguish your face.
Missing someone is overestimated
An individual can't be missed
But how you felt in his presence
Will subsist.
Love conquers as endless matter
Thus exposing your heart is key,
For a new world to perceive.
An unknown yet
familiar ardor rushes through my veins,
I thence forsee you're present but somehow
Gone away.
Humankind around neglected you
Trust is reasonably locked into your gut
Disowning is no option,
Neither patronizing you;
Been there myself.
Dark nights
Dark thoughts;
Disoriented your head,
But reincarneted who you are today.
Don't contemplate there is no better.
Stand high on your feet,
Drown yourself on memories
That once made you
Complete.
Perhaps I'll never be your future,
Perhaps my existence to you is nonsense.
Straightforwardly;
Merely knowing you're no longer lost,
Will be my cue for moving on.
Sep 14, 2016
Sep 14, 2016 at 11:38 PM UTC
Straightforwardly.
This pressure on my chest,
I cannot quite describe.
Just a pressure, nothing more
of something missing
There before?
Without complexities.
Not the same pain like the rest,
Getting this strange vibe.
What have I lost, misplaced,
Something forgotten
Cross-stricken face.
May 15, 2012
May 15, 2012 at 10:25 PM UTC
There was a woman; with a heart as big as the world. And she wished for love, oh, how she needed love. She wished for poems, and music, and art. For nature, and stargazing, and wilderness. For long nights and even longer drives. She wished for a wanderer like herself. Someone who understands. But most of all - someone who loves her the same way she loves him.
Then, there was a man. A man who put his life on hold, to wait for her. A man who straightforwardly told her that she is the thought that gets him through each day. But they were different. Polar opposites. He knew of her wishes and desires and of the things that made her heartstrings flutter; but he didn't understand them. Because he didn't feel them too. And he was sweet, and warm, and safe, and comfortable, and he tried so hard. She adored him - just not in the way he wanted her to.
And then, there was another man. This man was not like the previous man. No, this man made every broken bone inside her body come alive again. This man had an inexplicable thirst for life and everything it had to offer and he cherished every moment of it. He lived in a way that he never feared death. This man made her see colors and showed her the world she used to know in a different light. He held her hand in a matter that no man ever could and no man ever will again. He opened her eyes and brought her back to life. He made her believe again. And the way he said he loves her brought her to tears each time because, for the first time, there were no lies behind those words.
But she knew. Deep down in the pit of her stomach, she knew from the start. If she were ever to leave him, the colors would fade, her hands would grow cold and she would forget what laughter tasted like. And him? He would be fine. He had a thirst for life, not for her. He would move on, possibly without looking back. And that was the problem. Because he was the voice inside her mind, and she was just a thought that crossed his from time to time. And he understood her, by god, he knew her right down to her core, better than anyone else ever has. But he didn't need her in the way she needed him.
Now any logical person would come to the same conclusion: it's always better to be with the man who loves you more than life itself; than with the man who could easily go on as if you had never been a part of his life to begin with.
But love doesn't run on logic, does it?
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 2:07 PM UTC
I need you like I need my own heart.
I love you without even knowing why or how or when
I love you straightforwardly without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way than this
I know of a world where "I" does not exist
But neither does "you"
A world where only "we" exist.
So close that your arm around my waist feels like a part of me
Where your eyes begin to close as I fall asleep
So in sync.
You are like stardust in the summer
Or a massive burst of colors
And I want to inhale every tiny particle
And choke on the splendor of just you
Even if my lungs suffocate from drowning in the flecks that make up all of you
Even if the church caught fire and burned to the ground,
I would still have faith..
In you.
In us.
Call me a safe bet, but I'm really not.
I am terrified of all the things I feel, but cannot see.
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 2:48 PM UTC
Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 1:26 PM UTC
"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way" -Pablo Neruda
Just as the final dispute had concluded, the forbidden phrase
was spoken. It was mutual, however, for it was known that
disfunction and chaos only led to destruction and confusion. It
was a misfortune, that the joy and laughter that at one point
could shake walls had deteriorated. Although, through the eyes
of fellows, the parting of ways was viewed as a kindness.
*excerpt from Sonnet XVII
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 5:22 PM UTC
I appear in my truest form.
Never tainted by the hands
of what others want to
craft me to be.
Never forged into a byproduct
from the assembly line of life.
I face this world head on
and straightforwardly.
Planting all of myself into
the foundation of the Earth
I stand upon.
And I never falter
with the cowering of
impressionable minds.
I hold steady.
I remain pure.
I appear in my truest form
for all those to see.
Refusing to repair parts
of myself
that are not damaged.
Allowing my soul to be
the graceful hands of an artist
who paints the canvas
of my world
through my eyes.
Jan 28, 2021
Jan 28, 2021 at 8:25 PM UTC
real is the form.
here now is a colony of words,
or an empire of assault from the
many truths that smite us.
our hearts gallop altogether
past the prairie of imaginations:
this movement, this locutionary,
this waltz adagios its way
to a pace that knows no sojourn.
let us raise our clenched fists
always angelward.
we are young in this agronomy.
our hands remind us of their increasing responsibilities.
our inner light realizes the throng of our shadows - away from the dark
we go pursuant to all effulgence.
let us unpin our juvenile wings
from the clasp of what startles
us back to our flawed origins.
a flumine of flawlessness awaits
the steep end of our possibilities.
let us not neglect this.
let us, hand in hand, straightforwardly, break from our nascent states and unfurl in a craze of the so many things that capture our potentials.
outside my home, the streets are vacuous, famished from the twirling laughter of children.
once, the grass is giddy from the lightsome meanderings of our superfluous feet! where did all the days crawl to? these limbless serpents that pillage the fruits of our sageness.
i look outside and the mellow moon
enters with its lithe figure
through the hollow spaces of doors
to lairs where the youth are sleeping, unmindful of what dreams log onto the papers of their souls.
heed the call and do not let
it go, running off into another hapless length of waiting.
real is the form.
there is no lie in our rawness.
the voice inside us is tender
with message, purging our poisons
into detox and preparing with
new energies, our
flesh for our consigned ventures.
the voluminous pages are still
white and new, words besmirched still yearn to be written - there is no getting realer than the realization of our clarion call:
real is the form
and in the blank veranda of green
we sift through wordlessness,
gaping our mouths now,
contributing a verse,
or a song!
Sep 18, 2015
Sep 18, 2015 at 11:26 PM UTC
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; So I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.”
-Pablo Neruda
Though this is beautiful, it is wrong.
I don’t want your chest to be my chest.
I don’t want your hand to be my hand.
I don’t want your breath to be my breath.
I don’t want your eyes to be my eyes.
I don’t want your sleep to be my sleep.
I want to exist apart from you but with you.
If you’re chest were mine, I could never offer it to rest your head upon when they day has been long or listen to your heart beat as we lay together in the soft morning light.
If you’re hand were my hand, I could not hold it on long drives from place to place or adorn it with rings.
If you’re breath were my breath, I would have no breath to be taken away when I wake and see you sleeping, cast in the blue of night, like art. I could not hear you singing softly in other rooms of our home.
If you’re eyes were my eyes, I would have no place to get lost as we chip away the time talking under blankets to the smell of coffee. I could not see them soften as you kiss me on the tips of your toes.
If your sleep were my sleep, I could not dream of you and all of our futures yet to come. I could not hold you to me on cold nights when our shivers match.
I do not want that love.
I want to love you full of knowing. Practiced. Perfected. Artful. You deserve nothing less.
I want to love you full with pride for the complex extraordinary creature that you are and are becoming.
But I do not wish to be one. If you were not you and I were not me, this love could only be half as good.
And no poetry could make that beautiful.
You are beautiful.
You are perfection, separate from me. And we are perfect together.
Jun 9, 2021
Jun 9, 2021 at 5:30 PM UTC
I. The Beginning
In September she gave you a name
That came with weights and burdens
To break into.
Straightforwardly, you marched them.
As if it were the only thing to do.
II. The Middle
Four miles beyond the confines,
You left in the morning to gather the water.
I was told somewhere along the way you
Fell in love with the aftermath of a line,
And began a new life in its crooked symmetry.
III. The End
I don’t know if she hoped for a life of grace,
or love, mercy, or passion.
Regardless, it is all ok somehow.
There is something to knowing that, when it is over, we may go forward
And start afresh in the broken ranks.
Aug 27, 2020
Aug 27, 2020 at 11:01 PM UTC
Sonnet XVII
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Apr 23, 2015
Apr 23, 2015 at 8:16 AM UTC
I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep
- Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 14, 2014 at 2:05 AM UTC
If you don't know
which road to take
then any one of them
will get you there
so choose carefully
or you will get lost
and you will never
know what it is going
to cost.
What will be will be
and sometimes we just
have to wait and see because
happiness is something to love
and sonething to do
and something to hope for
and we don't get
unlimited chances
to have things be the way
we want them
to be.
People say love hurts
but that is not really true
because loneliness hurts
and rejection hurts but love
itself does not
really hurt.
Everybody works so hard
to get their fill
and in the end all everybody
ever really wanted was a thrill
but the boulevard just goes on
and on and on and never
seems to end so
don't pretend because
it will be found out
in the end.
It was by chance
that I saw your smiling face
and you saw mine
and you made the call
and after talking
I was consumed by
flames of love for you
this beautiful Angel
that came to me
for love.
I know that we can
grow together and enrich
our worlds in these later years
with the love that we can share
if we choose to take
that dare.
I will love you
without knowing how or when
or from where and I will love you
straightforwardly
without complexities or pride
because I know
no other way.
Every moment
that we are together will be
the most important moment
of our lives and eventually
you will come to understand
that love heals everything
and love is really
all that there is.
Our journey to each other
took many lifetimes
and we will complete that journey
and our coming together
was was not a question of if
but was only a question
of when so let
us begin. Jon York 2012
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 5:06 PM UTC
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 9:46 AM UTC
Shall I compare thee to
somewhere I have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which I cannot touch because they are too
like the night,
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in
red signals across your absent eyes
that move like the sea near
the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being
without knowing how, or when, or from where.
(i who have died am alive again
the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
I have loved flowers that fade,
Within whose magic
will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
I have loved airs that die
Before their charm is writ
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
.
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:
straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith,
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints - I
breathing from any -- lifted from the no
of all nothing -- human merely being
nothing but I told you so.
I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.
Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
die like a breath
And wither as a bloom;
Fear not a
mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is
unimaginable You
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes
so long lives this and this gives life
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 11:23 AM UTC
Heart, please live sweetly.
Grow and trust. Listen stately.
Straightforwardly love.
Nov 22, 2012
Nov 22, 2012 at 7:47 PM UTC
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Sep 16, 2020
Sep 16, 2020 at 4:38 AM UTC