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
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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
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