21 Poems for Love, Weddings, and Anniversaries Read online

21 Poems for Love, Weddings, and Anniversaries

  By Lenny Everson

  rev 3 (minor corrections)

  Copyright Lenny Everson 2011

  For Dianne

  This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.

  Cover design by Lenny Everson

  ****

  Note About the Poems

  Last year I discovered that people were using some of my poems at their weddings, so I've created this little book for such poems. They range from the sweet to the odd to the gothic.

  For a couple of these poems, I offer more than one version.

  Often, if you want to use a poem to read to a couple on their anniversary, you can substitute “you” for “us and “we” in a poem. “I’ve done this in Edge of Our/Your Dream as an example.

  If you print the poem, note somewhere that it was written by Lenny Everson. If you adapt it, say "from a poem by Lenny Everson".

  Lenny

  ***

  List of Poems

  - And in the night

  - Come and spend this night with me

  - Come and Share the World

  - A Wish

  - The Blessing

  - Anniversary

  - Flotsam

  - Edge of our Dream

  - Edge of Your Dream

  - For All the Lovers

  - Anniversary Poem 2

  - Dare

  - Time and Love

  - Morning

  - The Chase

  - I longed for you

  - Bachelor’s Card

  - The Nets of Time

  - Written on the Subway Walls

  - We the damned of Earth grow wild

  - The Rose

  - Unfinished Poem

  ***

  And in the night

  And, in the night

  When two hands meet

  There will be

  Four truths

  One will be love

  One will be dreams

  One will be the end

  Of loneliness

  For the last

  There are no words

  Only a warmth

  Kept by lovers

  Over the years

  In those nights

  When two hands meet.

  ***

  Come and Spend This Night With Me

  Come and spend this night with me

  There’s ashes on the wind

  And in the endless dark we’ll find

  Where love and time begin

  Come and spent the night with me

  We’ll listen to the dark

  Beneath the vault of endless sky

  For you are flame, I am spark

  You are flame, I am spark

  And in the velvet night

  In torch and touch and sudden flame

  To find, then hold on tight.

  ***

  Come and Share the World

  Come and share this world with me

  The night is full of fears

  And on tomorrow’s trails, we’ll place

  Our footprints on the years

  Come and share the night with me

  Warmth on warmth in dark

  And when the wind shakes the skies

  You’ll be fire, I’ll be spark

  You be fire, I’ll be spark

  Against the fears of night

  In reach and touch and sudden flame

  Enfold, then hold on tight.

  ***

  A Wish

  May your days be gentle

  The sunlight on your sleeves;

  May the wind be light enough

  To barely tremble leaves

  May the future find you

  In the places you desire

  May the evenings find you

  Sitting by a fire

  And when the morning sun

  Makes diamonds of the dew

  May your day begin with

  A simple “I love you”

  When those years all take you

  To where you want to be

  May your hearts be singing

  Wild and brave and free

  May there be laughter

  In your life and in your heart;

  Welcome to the turning point

  Where your new lives start.

  ***

  The Blessing

  The days go by

  The highways bend

  God powers a world

  With no known end

  He scans the Earth

  Sees us, smiles

  As we happen on

  His chosen miles.

  ***

  Anniversary

  If someone asks, “Did they truly live?”

  Say they took their lives

  To the edge of their dreams

  Say they knew what the morning was

  The light through the curtain

  A promise shining through the windows.

  Say they came to each of life’s curves

  With anticipation

  Almost greed.

  Someday, if someone asks, “Did they truly live?”

  Say there were some days

  In their time together

  That made their lives a poem.

  ***

  Flotsam

  Ah, love, we are bubbles

  In the flotsam of time

  Part of life’s river

  Part of life’s rhyme

  Yesterday is dust

  The morning is gold

  So many tomorrows

  Before we grow old

  The sunlight is singing

  Some wild hero’s song

  Take my hand while

  The evenings grow long

  Ah, love, we’re a couplet

  In the epic of time

  Let us follow life’s rivers

  To the end of our rhyme

  Life’s dreams and life’s rivers

  To the end of our rhyme.

  ***

  Edge of our Dream

  In the moment of truth

  In the deep shifts of time

  Is a good-bye to yesterday

  Is a hymn to tomorrow

  In the long pull of midnight

  In the slow swing of stars

  Is the wind in the willows

  Singing our song

  In the glass vaults of possibility

  In the fragile winds of memory

  In the rhythm of lovers together

  We stand, transfixed, in the rain

  Don’t blame us for seeing

  Farther than we’ve ever seen

  Love is the precipice of a small eternity

  Marriage is the edge of a dream

  ***

  Edge of Your Dream

  In the moment of truth

  In the deep shifts of time

  Is a good-bye to yesterday

  Is a hymn to tomorrow

  In the long pull of midnight

  In the slow swing of stars

  Is the wind in the willows

  Singing your song

  In the glass vaults of possibility

  In the fragile winds of memory

  In the rhythm of lovers together

  You stand, transfixed, in the rain

  We don’t blame you for seeing

  Farther than you’ve ever seen

  Love is the precipice of a small eternity

  Marriage is the edge of a dream.

  ***

  For All the Lovers

  For all the lovers that ever were

&nbs
p; I read this poem

  For all those who ever saw dreams

  In another’s eyes

  I say these words

  Now it seems I spent my life

  Pretending to be me

  For too many years

  I fooled only those

  Who don’t know me

  When eyes meet eyes

  And hand grips hand

  A world begins to tumble

  And now it’s downstream

  All the way

  All the way to heaven.

  ***

  Anniversary Poem 2

  Ah, love, could we find but one

  Of all the dreams we lost

  Would we pick it up again

  Regardless of the cost?

  Would we trade those younger days

  For what we missed back then

  Would we take a different pathway, Love

  Or do it all again?

  Almost asleep on my arm]

  At the ending of the day

  You touch the question carefully

  And smile, as if to say:

  "It doesn’t matter how rough the route

  When you’ve finally found some peace

  Sometimes the shelter matters most

  And the passage matters least."

  ***

  Dare

  And now I think of distances

  With time enough to share

  Although words make promises

  I would rather take you there

  I’ll show you where the river bends

  Beyond a hill or two

  I’ll bind love’s azure line

  This moment, me, and you

  We can learn the distances

  A lifetime yet to share

  We can search the mystery

  Come – if you dare!

  ***

  Time and Love

  The measured heart

  Of the planet beats

  Time is a tide

  That never retreats

  On burning days

  Or beneath the moon

  This world turns

  Too slow, too soon

  I am a son

  Of the very last day

  For you I threw

  It all away

  You’re a daughter

  Of solid rock

  Immune to time

  And the rule of clock

  May our love be shameless

  In wind and light

  As we ride together

  Against the night.

  ***

  Morning

  In the tearing of the morn

  In the silence by the lake

  In the silvering of clouds

  Are the risks that lovers take

  Give me your hand

  Love is deeper than the sky

  It shares the songs we dare to sing

  For we are lovers, you and I

  Alligators on the shores

  Goldfish in the weeds

  Dark blue the center deeps

  That speak two lovers’ needs

  Oh, we take chances in the thunder

  And laugh beneath that sky

  We mock the cold, the still, the dark

  For we are lovers, you and I.

  ***

  The Chase

  We chased our growing love along

  Roads

  And weekends

  Among friends

  And through

  Warm evenings.

  We chased dreams where

  There were dreams, and the wind

  Where there were none

  As if we cared for anything

  But love.

  We are not the first lovers

  This world has known

  But we have grown smiles

  Like the trees do leaves

  We have laughed in the rain

  And taught the sun

  To sing our song.

  Now, every morning will be

  A new morning, and

  Every day will be

  The start of a new road

  That we will walk

  Together.

  ***

  I longed for you

  I longed for you

  Among pastures turned to gold

  And where the tumbling hours

  Measured summer growing old

  I whispered your name

  In the lengthening of day

  In the heat of afternoons

  With thunder on the way

  But Earth is wise

  And knows the ways

  And those in love find

  That patience sometimes pays

  For the rolling Earth, like me

  Is molten at its heart

  And what is welded with such heat

  Cannot be torn apart.

  ***

  Bachelor’s Card

  I tried to pretend

  It was a great deal

  That I burned my bachelor’s card

  The one with Freedom

  Written on the front

  But I suspect you know

  It had lonely

  Written on the back, and that

  Was next to my heart.

  ***

  The Nets of Time

  The nets of time spin wild and high

  Against the dark, against the sky

  This gold today

  Is dragged away

  And restless sleep my love and I

  The nets of time spin wild, spin free

  The golden fish are captured, we

  Night, night

  Lock tight

  Full of dreams, my love and me

  The midnight laughter of the stars

  Is full of locks, and doors, and bars

  Silently

  Turns the key

  And then to my

  Unspoken plea

  Softly you

  Move close to me.

  ***

  Written on the Subway Walls

  When the sky falls

  and the stars go out

  you’ll find me in the dark

  still singing for you.

  Follow my voice

  the world is nothing to me

  If I have you.

  When the dark comes downtown

  and the neon is cold

  when the very wolves cry for hunger

  that song will remain

  the melody, unweakened

  The world is nothing to me

  If I have you.

  ***

  We the damned of Earth grow wild

  There is no sin like ours

  No payment asked

  For a washing

  No palm held out

  Today, again, the bus goes by

  And we are left

  Between the dogma and the belief

  In the rain

  We, the damned of Earth grow wild

  But all of all, tell

  Where others dream of Saturdays

  We gather stars.

  ***

  The Rose

  Fourteen sages questioned me

  About your inner heart

  I explained the hundred chains

  The thousand rooms apart

  They shook their heads stupidly

  Scratched their bearded chins

  So I tried to draw a detailed map

  With thread and colored pins

  One by one they stumbled out

  Falling down the stair

  And left the garden littered with

  Hanks of twisted hair

  I carefully hid the maps and pins

  Beneath some folded clothes

  And when you came home that day

  You found my gift - a rose.

  ***

  Unfinished Poem

  Afternoon is an old woman

  Shopping for apples

  Morning is a small child

  Spoiled, dropping rattles

  Without you

 
; I am a fish in currents too strong

  And far from the weeds.

  ***

  [email protected]

  ***

  **** END OF POEMS ****

  List of Completed Works by Lenny Everson (to 2011-12-06)

  NOVELS

  NOVELETTES

  - Death on a Foggy Spring Portage. 11,800 words. One member of a paddling group is found dead on a muddy portage. Available on Smashwords

  Screenplays

  - Murder on a Foggy Spring Portage. One member of a paddling group is found dead on a muddy portage.

  Plays

  - Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont. Ghosts of the two Métis leaders meet in today’s world to remember their lives. A short (20-minute) play for two actors. Available on Smashwords

  Full-Length Poetry Books

  - The Minor Odyssey of Lollie Heronfeathers Singer. A middle-aged woman tries to connect with her aboriginal ancestry.

  - In The Tavern of Lost Souls. Four poets meet at a grungy bar once a month to give their poetic answers to random questions.

  - Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont are Dead. Ghosts of the two Métis leaders meet in today’s world to remember their lives

  Poetry Chapbooks and E-Books

  - 22 Love Poems for Love, Weddings, and Anniversaries (compiled from other works) Available on Smashwords

  - Cherish the Day: 16 Canoe Poems for Summer. part of a set of six chapbooks about the love of canoeing. With illustrations.. Available on Smashwords

  - Fierce and Fine and Free: 18 Canoe Poems for Spring. part of a set of six chapbooks about the love of canoeing. With illustrations.. Available on Smashwords

  - Fireplace and Wine: 15 Canoe Poems for Winter. part of a set of six chapbooks about the love of canoeing. With illustrations.. Available on Smashwords

  - No Ordinary Waters: Canoe Poems from a Strange Mind. part of a set of six chapbooks about the love of canoeing. With illustrations.. t Available on Smashwords

  - What Last Golden River Run: 17 Canoe Poems for Autumn. part of a set of six chapbooks about the love of canoeing. With illustrations.. Available on Smashwords

  - Encounter in a Small, Old Cemetery. Autumn. Midnight. Poet visits a small, old private graveyard. Available on Smashwords

  - Fire and Ashes. Poems about life’s flames and regrets.

  - The Empty Tarmac of a Long-Abandoned Airport. Poems about having a midlife crisis. Available on Smashwords

  - Love Poems A compilation

  - Pray for Me: 22 Poems Probably Slandering God and Jesus

  - Ballads from an Unlucky Fisherman: Available on Smashwords

  - Tweetable Limericks: Volume I. 60 limericks small enough to be tweets Available on Smashwords

  - Hiking Poems Available on Smashwords

  - Why Haven't Aliens Contacted Us? Available on Smashwords

  Co-Authored Poetry Chapbooks

  - Who Would Be a God? Susan Ioannou and Lenny debate the merits of being a god.

  - How to Dance Naked in the Moonlight. Katherine L. Gordon (Celtic pagan) and Lenny (skeptic) confront the ceremony Available on Smashwords

  - Cats and Dogs. With I. B. Iskov

  - For Ko Aye Aung: A Plea for His Release from Prison. For Amnesty International, with other poets.

  Non-Fiction Chapbooks and E-Books

  - If You Condemn Gays: The Bible on Homosexuality and Other Items.

  - The Architecture of Suburban West Kitchener. A light look at house styles.

  - The Architecture of The University of Waterloo. A light look at the campus buildings.

  - Making Tourist Attractions for Towns and Small Cities. Advice.

  - Technological Cures for Global Warming. Available on Smashwords

  - Hyphens: A Guide for the Early Twenty-First Century Available on Smashwords

  - Colons and Semicolons: A Guide for the Early Twenty-First Century Available on Smashwords

  - How to Review Draft Technical Writings

  - Rebecca’s Trail (Grand River Trail in Winter) Available on Smashwords

  - 7 Temples to Bill Gates: a modern mystery Available on Smashwords

  - The Great God Pan - Or Not Available on Smashwords