October Poetry Challenge - Love Gone Awry

Love can be wonderful. Terrifying. Magical. Vulnerable. Exhilarating. Risky. It can result in a long, tender relationship. Or a broken heart. The poems which follow are tales of love gone awry.

Young Love

Sandy’s long red hair flowed down her back,

Martha’s long black hair was coiled up tight.

Sandy’s home like mine was out of sight

Of Martha’s hilltop home that had a pack

Of servants. Martha’s father had a knack

As businessman, his profits a delight.

Farewell to Sandy, once my favorite.

Let Martha’s world provide me what I lack.

At Martha’s birthday party, my hope grew

When cross the room I realized she bid

Me go outdoors with her and with her view

The garden, where she whispered as we hid,

 “Now I am six years old, the same as you. 

So I can beat you up.” And then she did. 

~ Larry Turner

Day in the Park

Spring is not the time

For this kind of love.

The unrequited kind

Is out of fashion now.

            An elderly couple

            Sits on the park bench

            Shading their eyes

            As they watch their grandchildren

            Play in the sun.

            He wears a gray wool cap

            And smokes a pipe.

            A cane

            Rests on the bench

            Next to her knee.

You must be bored

With being worshipped

From afar.

If I really loved you,

I suppose

I would let you go.

Only I keep thinking

Of new ways

To say good-bye:

Just one more phone call

Just one more letter

Just one more poem.

If only you –

But break, my heart,

For I must hold my tongue.

~ Barbara Eaton

First published in Ethos, a publication of the English Graduate Organization of the University of Maryland at College Park (Spring 1987), p. 52.

Cyber Sonnet

At twenty-five I’ve given up on fate,

no god has sent “the one” running to my arms.

I’ll enter a profile, try an online date,

tone down my nerves while I turn up my charm.

A painter looking for honesty. Please

respond. We can chat for hours on end.

The odds of finding someone has increased,

if I don’t like her, I might like her friend.

I’ve fallen deep. I cannot believe she

is everything I want. A love that’s true.

I suggest it’s time we meet. Maybe coffee?

She says we can meet at Café Ballou.

Now, I have to figure out how to ditch her,

cause she looks nothing like her profile picture.

Pamela Larson

First published by Highland Park Poetry (Go to http://www.highlandparkpoetry.org/themusesgallery.html. Find the icon for 2011 Love Poetry toward the bottom right of the page, and click on it.

These poets own rights to their poems. Please do not copy them without permission. See Poet Bios below.

The October Challenge:

The October Challenge is to submit a poem about the dream of love going awry, Cupid’s arrow missing the mark, a “love relationship” not turning out as expected. The poem should be family-friendly—some children read this blog. Your poem may have a light touch, or it may be poignant.

Title your poem unless it is a form that does not use titles. If you use a form, please identify the form when you submit your poem. Single-space and don’t use lines that are overly long (because the blog format doesn’t accommodate long lines).

You may submit a published poem if you retain copyright, but please include publication data. This applies to poems published in books, journals, newspapers, or on the Internet.

The deadline is October 15. Poems submitted after the deadline will not be considered. There is no charge to enter, so there are no monetary rewards; however winners are published on this blog. Please don’t stray too far from “family-friendly” language. No simultaneous submissions, please. You should know by the end of the month whether or not your poem will be published on this blog. Decision of the judge or judges is final.

Copyright on each poem is retained by the poet. If a previously unpublished poem wins and is published elsewhere later, please give credit to this blog.

How to Submit Your Poem:

Send one poem only to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for “dot”). Put “October Poetry Challenge Submission” in the subject line of your email. Include a brief bio that can be printed with your poem if you are a winner this month. Please put your name and bio under the poem in your email.

Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog if it is a winner, so be sure that you put your name (exactly as you would like it to appear if you do win) at the end of the poem.

Poems may be pasted into an email or sent as an attachment (no pdf files, please). Please do not indent the poem or center it on the page. It helps if you submit the poem in the format used on the blog (Title and poem left-justified; title in bold (not all in capital letters); your name at the bottom of the poem). Also, please do not use multiple spaces instead of commas in the middle of lines. I have no problem with poets using that technique (I sometimes do it myself). However I have difficulty getting the blog to accept and maintain extra spaces.

Poems shorter than 40 lines are generally preferred but longer poems will be considered.

Poet Bios:

Barbara Eaton published her first poem at the age of seven. She was known to her late father as "Crazy Horse," and "Figgy Pudding." She teaches part time at Morton College, and serves as a dramaturg for the First Folio Shakespeare Company in Oak Brook, Illinois. Her poetry has been published in a variety of venues.

Pamela Larson has been published in East on Central, bottle rockets haiku journal, the CRAM/JOMP series, both online and in anthologies by Dagda Publishing in the UK and on PoetrySuperHighway.com as well as in other anthologies and blogs. She is a member of the Arlington Poetry Project, Barrington Writers Workshop and the Illinois State Poetry Society.

Larry Turner with his wife Donna moved to the Brandermill Woods retirement community in Midlothian, Virginia early in 2016 after his career in college physics teaching and research in the USA and England. His poetry has appeared repeatedly in The Lyric and in the online journal Voices on the Wind. He has published two books of poetry, Stops on the Way to Eden and Beyond (1992) and Eden and Other Addresses (2005), a collection of poems, stories and dramas, Wanderer (2011), and a memoir, The Magic Years: Tales of the Turners 1957-1970 (2015). He edited four anthologies for the Riverside Writers chapter of the Virginia Writers Club. He served as president of Riverside Writers, and earlier as president of the Illinois State Poetry Society and regional vice-president of the Poetry Society of Virginia. He is currently completing Volume III of Tales of the Turners. At Brandermill Woods he leads the writing group, and with Donna leads the Readers Theatre group.

© Wilda Morris