by the Read Write Poem Staff
Valentine’s Day is long past, says Read Write Poem member Jill Crammond Wickham, but we poets must keep up our reputation as the world’s foremost experts on writing about love!
Today, think of your current love, your current obsession or the one who got away. Now come up with five or more unusual metaphors for the object of your affection/obsession: wool scarf, cough drop, puddle, half-empty bottle of red wine… Choose your favorite of the bunch and write a poem celebrating (or trashing) your love. 
Reminders for everyone
Read the Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Challenge Kickoff post for details on how the challenge works — and how you can engage with Read Write Poem this month, no matter what your personal writing challenge is for the month of April.
Please read this page to find out how Read Write Poem’s prompt posts work. Remember that work linked from any post this month is shared in precisely that spirit: sharing, as opposed to critiquing. If you haven’t done so already, please read all the pages under About in the navigation bar.
I hate love.
Dan Rako replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:07 am
OK, here are Jill’s Eyes
azha irving replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:15 am
I second that[D]emotion!
This should be easy.
I’m with Dan on that! Turning 40 this year and I still haven’t mastered this ‘Love’ thing people seem to have in their lives… I’ll make it up shall I?
Dan Rako replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:09 am
Making it up is good.
Marie replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:27 am
I agree. I think I’ll make up this one. Today’s prompt is my ugggg.
carolee replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:51 am
there are as many metaphors for bad or failed love as there are for real luuuuuvvvv.
Be it love or obsession. I am sure I can think of some methaphors for this.
Pamela
oops! metaphors! Sorry I am tired!
This one is called
Ticking Time Bomb.
redshoeartist replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:30 am
*sigh* that was just beautiful
azha irving replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:08 am
I agree… beautifully written!
Marija Sanderling replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 6:42 am
Wow! Your imagery is palpable. Well done.
barbara_y replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 8:04 am
Neat
Matt Quinn replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:21 am
I love the concept. Boom!
carolee replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:53 am
a great metaphor! and the first line brings us right to the crux of it. immediacy.
kagerrr replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Thank you for all the sweet comments, everyone! They are greatly appreciated and I am so happy you all enjoyed my work!
Jason Riedy replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Wow. I’m saving that one. You pass the breathless feeling wonderfully.
How can I be so right so wrong.
OK Unusual — hmmm…
…rob
rob kistner replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 3:53 am
…here is my NaPoWriMo #8, a free verse poem, a haiku, and a collage — all about that four letter word… LOVE, all for you Jill because you asked for it…
…rob
“Love and Death” That was a pretty unusually funny movie.
Let’s make prompt 9 Love with Leather.
Love is not always associated with happiness for some of us.
‘Love’
http://rallentanda.blogspot.com
Two love prompts twice in a row, really? =/ .
Mark Lysgaard replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
I agree with this sentiment COMPLETELY. Come on people, think of something more original then the same prompt twice in a row. BORING!
Good call, Sarydactl!
~Mark
Holy crap…just back from wed nite poker…shortly after midnite…and Im still behind….but I have got one…
You wait ages, then 2 turn up at once! Try THIS!
http://ingeborgsblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-april-8th-unusual-love.html
LOVERS NEVER GET OLD….at
http://waynepitchko.blogspot.com
http//:poemsotherwise.blogspot.com/2010/04/scramble-board.html
No less striking.
As I drove home today after two poetry gigs last night, these lines, like invisible threads…(For Zoe, my fiancee)
Read ‘Returning over the Arthur’s’ at http://www.gregoconnell.com
Here’s my day 8 poem – a love tanka and I will go to bed and muse on this one for tomorrow.
I’m not writing a daily poem but am here to post one for Thursday. It is in response to Prompt #5: make your poetry personal. First poem I’ve written in years…
Shhhh It
God this is scary!
Here’s my Happily Ever After
coincidentally almost on prompt!
http://travelsinthefloatingelvis.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-8th.html
Here’s mine:
http://ragbone.wordpress.com
“Ludic Love”
http://www.redbubble.com/people/nebsy/writing/4963224-napowrimo-8
Matt Quinn replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Well done!
Gosh this was difficult – metaphor is my nemesis.
Reality Check
Friends re-united
unearthed my teenage crush.
What a let-down!
From super-hero pupa
to balding golf-mad lush:
in sixty years of flying castles
down to anti-hero mush.
redshoeartist replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:26 am
Love it
azha irving replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:11 am
You’re way ahead of me Red… i love this poem Vivienne!
Kayin Wong replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:09 am
“anti-hero mush”, ha ha. But talk about our expectations!
Linda replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:11 am
Great stuff!
Marija Sanderling replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 6:58 am
I love this one! I think I had a crush on the same guy!
Dan Rako replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Happens to the best of us. Good work!
Here’s mine, “missed – ”
http://inthemindswell.blogspot.com/2010/04/missed.html
vivienne Blake replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:49 am
I found this very moving, and the metaphors well thought through.
Marie replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:49 am
This one just about made me cry. Thanks.
Anyone for tennis?
http://melrosemusings.blogspot.com/2010/04/dunlop-maxply-napowrimo-day-8.html
Kayin Wong replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 5:04 am
I am terrible at tennis, but your poem though short is altogether very solid!
Uma Gowrishankar replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 6:01 am
Beautiful the way you’ve worked on the metaphor of tennis.
I have two poems. Today’s new one is from yesterday’s prompt and the one for today’s prompt I wrote last year.
http://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com
vivienne Blake replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 6:52 am
wonderful, Linda – I left a comment on your blog.
22 Hour Love
http://redshoepoet.blogspot.com/2010/04/22-hour-love.html
vivienne Blake replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 6:55 am
The haze of illusion, elusive. Bravo.
Here’s my sticky poem for today…
http://poiesis3.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-day-8.html
Yum: http://poetry.disorderedcosmos.com/2010/04/napowrimo-8a-yum/
You can read or listen to “North Greenbush To Albany” here:
http://jasoncrane.org/2010/04/08/poem-north-greenbush-to-albany/
All the best,
Jason
Found text used in a cut up haiku
http://mothersparrow.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/stirred/
Rose
My love is a rose that extends from a garbage pail
or a half empty bottle of cheap wine, something living
rooted in yesterdays grounds. Her cerise skirt
moves and leaves a gash on the afternoon.
Even in the shower, her lips are painted to a fine gloss,
petals puckered up to the rain. Her mouth is a quiver of flesh, to remind flowers of their pornographic nature, never closes or turns off its neon sign.
Inside, are layers, smaller leaves, paler, I know.
yet she puts on lipstick, a deadly fly paper,
refuses to let the raw of her be exposed.
My love is a loose rose that won’t be pruned,
her arms twine to strangle daisies on her path.
Still, I come closer, place my tongue on the thorns,
look at her lips again like taking a bandage off an open wound
Joanne Johns replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
This is very spicy, well done!
Purple Wisteria
Angeliad of Surazeus
2010 04 08
Purple wisteria on long vines
spiral around southern yellow pines
lovers in lush Carolina sun.
The thaw
The blizzard raged
For three days
And three nights
We snuggled in our cocoon
of down and fur
Your breath thawed my face
My fingers, and my toes
You fed me hot broth
Until my fever rose.
Dan Rako replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:41 am
I really like this – reminds me of Pam Houston’s short story “How to Talk to a Hunter.”
Dan Rako
http://www.dansbait.com
this, as they sometimes say in ads for cars and houses, needs work. in the division of labor around our house, my husband is the cats’ “morning feeder“
vivienne Blake replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:20 am
A gloriously universal theme, sensitively brought to life.
Well, I don’t have any person that I obsess or love right now (and I haven’t any of the past either). But I do have this odd obsession of Film, so I’m taking a different route of the Love topic and using Movies. My take on the prompt is posted below.
http://systematicweasel.blogspot.com/2010/04/night-at-theater-4-8-2010-poem-day.html
rallentanda replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:39 am
Lovely poem.Enjoyed this!
OK, enough with the love! Here’s Dragon Year.
http://rustbloommansions.blogspot.com/2010/04/day-eight-poem8-dragon-year.html
Not TOTALLY off-prompt but: What I Do Not Call Her
http://sadiespoems.blogspot.com/2010/04/leech-obsession.html
Love is full of metaphors. Also
a renegade
Thanks for the prompt, after five or six revisions, I came up with this: Tuesday Moon
Thought Experiment Schrodinger’s
CatLoveThis vaguely makes me think of
http://xkcd.com/55/ too. Probably because of the science/math/geek stuff.
http://dance-of-words.blogspot.com/2010/04/thought-experiment.html
Schrodinger’s
CatLovehttp://xkcd.com/55/
#8 Drifting
http://mmw113.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-8-drifting.html
I am posting early considering I couldn’t sleep.
This is written in lieu of the sad news I just received.
Here’s mine:
http://flaubert-poetrywithme.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-brother-napowrimo-8.html
I didn’t follow the prompt too closely, but it is about love:
http://poemblaze.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/wishing-the-wild/
Matt Quinn replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 9:50 am
I just tweaked it a little more, in case you already read it.
Day 8
I am coming up with some additional writing prompts AND also continuing to use the fine ones suggested by Read Write members.
Keep writing.
Day 8’s writings are on my Facebook and
http://dash30dash.ning.com/profiles/blogs/day-8-napowrimo-with-a-special
I guess I’m feeling cynical today about “this thing called love.”
Here’s mine:
April Fools
They linger over office coffee on the concrete concourse wall
swirling the cold dregs
that stick to their Styrofoam cups
to plan their marriage
where he’s home late five nights a week with lies in his pockets
and she finds solace in the easy compliments
on her boss’s morning breath.
rallentanda replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Liked this a lot.. You have painted a reality picture here with
lies in his pockets
and the easy compliments on the boss’s
morning breath (cringe:)
A dose of cynicism is refreshing.
Irene replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Marie I like how you’ve inverted the thing. I like the styrofoam cups for some weird reason.
This was such a pain to come up with something substantial, because really I’m a hardhearted old rake. And if I called my ex this, he’d probably look at me like I had two heads.
Closet Full of Jackets, Doors Thrown Wide
My love poem … a tribute to 39 years together on May 1
http://herwordsbloomed.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-8-unusual-love-connections.html
geez, I hate love poems.
here’s mine — http://another2doors.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/a-mug-for-my-tea/
nice to have prompt options (celebrate or trash love) but I’m not sure where this one lies:
http://jdmackenzie.blogspot.com/2010/04/cherry-blossoms.html
Uma Gowrishankar replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
JDM, I am not able to leave comments in your blog. Can you activate in your Comment Section Name/URL…
Loved this poem very much, the image of the car draped pink with cherry blossoms still lingers.
well, I did tyry:
http://firmlyrooted.blogspot.com/2010/04/waves-of-oceans-in-my-glass.html
here is mine: http://teapartiesonneptune.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/on-the-shore/
here’s mine: http://dance-of-words.blogspot.com/2010/04/thought-experiment.html
I couldn’t get the right metaphors, but I did get a poem about a current obsession. http://rhiannonproblematising.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/napowrimo-8-once-i-saw/
Mine is also between trashing and celebrating… I guess you call that acceptance?
Double standards
I wrote this for Day 7 but it seems to fit the theme for today so here goes.
Fun prompt, thanks!
http://memali.posterous.com/0830
This was very hard!
http://ow.ly/1w5EK
Here is Dana’s offering: http://mygorgeoussomewhere.org/2010/04/08/transliteration-of-catallus-part-v/
my 8th poem for the month. i’ve mixed up the prompts a little bit, but i’m definitely coming back to this one!
http://caroleesherwood.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/napowrimo-8/
I had fun with this one and the shy Catholic boy.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978160303
hosking replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:41 am
I tagged my poem for mature audience and it does not seem to pull up if you are not a gather member. So here it is in the flesh.
I knew a shy Catholic boy
whose heartstrings I did toy
pulling them like a spinning top
Until he begged me to stop
it was a most devious ploy
I molded him like a doughboy
while he continued to play coy
but in reality he was no sop.
I knew a shy Catholic boy
Who was really a playboy
his act a clever decoy
So panties would drop
putting him on top
He really did enjoy
Being a shy Catholic boy.
Here’s mine: http://disorder1313.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/transliteration-of-catullus-v/
Boo old, burnt out unrequited love. Over it.
{This could use allot of work, but here it is, a mixture of two expreinces}. Nice prompt!!
Bottomless cup of forbidden fruit
My eyes were bigger than my stomach but I could never get enough
I’d get too heavy that I felt at a stand still, I could barely move
but you were my focal point in the chaos surrounding my every move
I ate nothing else but the thing I could not eat that could not satisfy me
It could not nourish, but it could comfort
The glass was always half full and I knew there was no way to fill it. I only needed
to indulge beacause it was never enough
always one more, just one more
You stood still as I chose when to binge
on an unhealthy gluttonous day or
like chocolate to comfort a breaking heart
you were my soothing indulgence
The cup either overflowed and became impossible to control,
or I became so depleted that there was not one more drop to comfort me
even as I tried to add more
tried to find you to distract me and to excite me
comfort me, destroy me, and leave me unsatisfied all at once
every time
Nothing was ever enough…when would it be enough?
The days were numbered
and one cannot live off of something intangible forever
You have to feed yourself those things that bear fruit and keep you alive
Not half empty
Not always left wanting
Facing reality that lying on a sunny day indulging what is bigger than my
actual ability to consume
cannot last and is not real
You are that to me
but you were my hammock and my comfort
breaking the healthy path for just a while
as chaos outside of us would always be there for me
to return to
when I was ready to walk down that path to wholesomeness.
It will never be enough. you cannot fill me nor statsify me,
No amount of sweet kisses or salty lips will fill me, will leave me content
let me walk away knowing it ran its course.
Always and forever will I have a deep wanting
so I must ignore the urges
the plethora of sweet temptations
the cravings that hit me unexpectadely
I am healthy, left wanting for those dangerous days
But I am nourished today
and know nothing is ever enough
even that which is beneficial for my s
You will always be my sweetness when I am craving a warm chocolate
delight on a sad day, but only in my memory.
Sara replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 11:43 am
oops, last line on second to last paragraph was supposed to say “…beneficial for my soul”
Sara replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
edited on my blog:
http://bygraceandfaith.tumblr.com/
A very tortured metaphor:
Stigmatic
About a guy who’s in love with a Paper Doll
#8 (I’m a little dizzy now…):
http://robin-turner.blogspot.com/2010/04/kaleidoscope.html
Island Storm
~ for M
As the lights black out
You rise and fall, a cascade of waves
Crashing around my bedroom.
Those who live on the island
fear storms in a way only a true islander can
knows the destruction that is always possible
one rip tide away.
But I have just traveled here
to feel the wild winds warm my skin, watch the sky melt
from purple to orange to black
and I am too tired now
to turn back.
Robin replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Shannon–Beautiful poem! Love is often like that island storm and also like the warm soothing winds.
Matt Quinn replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
nicely done
Dan Rako replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Great, evocative imagery! Nice alliteration, firing on all 8 cylinders…
Dan Rako
http://www.dansbait.com
gregoconnell replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
“black/back” Subtle, restrained use of rhyme. Salute. =)
Joanne Johns replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Wow, nice work!
A Widow looking beyond the TV set;
You are alone. Picking up the TV
Guide. A & E looks good. You
Want to ask someone. Perhaps
You want to ask him. But you
Remember so many times your
Thoughts were interrupted. His
Questions – how annoying. Your
Answers were short. You weren’t
Looking at him. You wanted to be
Alone. Peace and quiet. As if you
were entitled to your privacy- to
say no, go away. You didn’t say it.
It was on your mind. Maybe it showed on
Your face. You did all the cooking, the cleaning
The laundry. You took care of the house.
The house is still being cared for.
You just don’t know why. It’s like
There’s a part of you that believes if
You keep on doing the same things
He might come back. Maybe you are
Going crazy. The place is so empty.
The people on the TV screen ignore you.
You are not a beautiful person. Once
He called you beautiful. Once you felt
Love and were able to give love in return.
vivienne Blake replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
This is so sad. I am in total empathy with it.
pamela sayers replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Marian,
This just broke my heart. How lonely.
Pamela
rallentanda replied:
April 8th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Beautifully expressed and moving. Also a reminder that time is short and to cherish
the moments together. Thanks.
I wasn’t sure I could pull this off at first – everything that came to mind was so over-used. However, I’m liking the result. You can find “Of Merlin and Butterflies” at http://bridgeanna.blogspot.com
Blessings on your day!
Here is my poem ‘Tarnished Loop Of Memory’ -
http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2010/04/08/tarnished-loop-of-memory/