Valentine On-line Floricanto

1970s, artist & L.A. location unknown

Ten for the Fourteenth
Sharon Elliott, Odilia Galván, Jolaoso Pretty Thunder, Edward Vidaurre, Meg Withers, Ana Chig, Gabriela Sweningsen, Armando Guzmán, Paul Aponte, John Martinez

There cannot be too much Love in the world. If we had time enough and room, La Bloga could share thousands of poems created as expressions of love, lust, passion, derision, caution, sentiment--so long the list the women could come and go all day and never count the ways completely.

So, this year, La Bloga On-line Floricanto shares ten expressions of Love.

These ten poems answered a call by the Moderators of the Facebook community, Poets Responding to SB1070: Poetry of Resistance, for this special La Bloga On-line Floricanto. The Call was an idea whose time had come. Such was the response that instead of the standard complement of five, the Moderators could narrow the nominations to ten poems.

For St. Valentine's Day of 2015, La Bloga affectionately presents ten artists working in English or Spanish or both.

"Hatchling" by Sharon Elliott
"You Say" by Odilia Galván
"Valentine" by Jolaoso Pretty Thunder
"Tú" por Edward Vidaurre
"Love Poem" by Meg Withers
"Conversación con poeta preocupado del tiempo" por Ana Chig
"I Love You" by Gabriela Sweningsen
"Consecuencias" por Armando Guzmán
 “Love” by Paul Aponte
"This Forest" by John Martinez

"Que Movidas," Leo Limón ©1996-05, acrylic on paper

HATCHLING
by Sharon Elliott

I hatched a love
so deep and dark
it shone like rubies
on a Tuesday morning
lapped me up
in mulberry kisses
sang me
low
down
banjo picking

it made my bed
in narrow sheets
walked me to the corner
store
to buy a
green river soda
it picked a stem
of white magnolia
to tuck behind my ear

whispered
I am you
put me in a keepsake box
with broken crayons
baby dolls
and skate keys

close the lid
lock it
in cedar dreams
I’ll come to you
borrow the key
leap into a tree
growl

fading now
my love grows light
transparent
will not talk to me

in another midnight ramble
I will lay me down
in the dark
drunk on words
my love
will breathe me to sleep

Copyright © 2013 Sharon Elliott. All Rights Reserved.

YOU SAY
by Odilia Galván Rodríguez

for TM
⌘
you say
you’re not in love
but you have that love look
in those piercing eyes each time you
see me

that look
that was so hard
for me to take at first
glance. I needed to look away
for shame

that you
could see all the
way to the core of me
that deep place you’ve inhabited
before

when I
was as open
as flowers’ mouths drink rain.
after a long harsh drought without
real love

I wish
you could know how
it feels to be me now
that you've found us, and come back home
my heart
⌘



VALENTINE
by Jolaoso Pretty Thunder

you are
the phosphorescence
my leaf
my wing
lunar moth
are sweet in my mouth
as Doug fir tips
a taste I know well
flood tide combined with ash
i seek you always
in the singed wings of angels

in the moist tongue
furled in dreams
i lay down in the loam
with Michael
with Gabriel
who are assigned
to the cardinal directions
of your astral body

i hear you on the empty sea
immense tide
mouth of the river
i stand on this coastal shore naked
holding Thunderstones
beneath the tyrant sky
my unbraided hair
this temple of birds
hallucination
earth and sky
day and night
calling out
in the other way



TÚ
por Edward Vidaurre

Aroma
Es como las hojas de mi libro favorito
Que se esfuma en la última página
Y regresa cuando menos la espero

Mirada
Es lo que hace dormir mi insomnia
La retira de mi presencia
Entre lágrimas y la almohada
En tus ojos caigo

Voz
Sensual y triste
Mi canción al amanecer
Mi flor y canto
Mi pan de cada día
Mi eco

Piel
Pecas en posiciones
Donde solo mis labios
Pueden besar

Corazón
De madre madura
Mujer que siembra
Amor sin rencor
Al hombre bestia
Que soy
Yo.

© Edward Vidaurre

LOVE POEM
by Meg Withers

Once, a man gave me red roses.
I was besotted for a year.

Once, a man gave me gold dahlias.
We married, then nodded off like the flowers.

Once, a man gave me a flurry of daisies.
Excitement was there a few months.

Once, a man gave me peonies.
I have never been the same.

Ceramic corazón "©Carlos2002"

CONVERSACIÓN CON POETA PREOCUPADO DEL TIEMPO
por Ana Chig

Soy yo, eres tú, la vida.
Es quizá, el cuerpo desnudo en oscuro de tu cuarto.
Es quizá, mi cuerpo desnudo en sigilo de la casa.

¿Qué pides al tiempo?

No habrá un corazón detenido, no lo habrá,
ni ambulancia recogiendo cuerpo, ni aviso a quién dar.

La noche vuelve claros los cabellos, todo lo muestra, todo lo oculta,
confunde edad.

Nada es lo que parece, hay una perspectiva.

Si mis labios en los tuyos y aún percibes el sabor que el lustro ha dejado.
Si la piel desnuda bajo una escalera, tus manos continúan indagando.
Entonces, concede extensión a la hora, el humo, tu trago.

Dame más, la palabra siempre llena; es la música, entiendes.
La música que de ellos, tus dedos que de mí…
El tiempo.




I LOVE YOU
by Gabriela Sweningsen

For my Love, Eric

I love you because your eyes smile when you see me
I love you because your smile can brighten a dark day,
I love you because the way you look at our kids with such love
and pride.
I love you because your hands are strong to protect me
and gentle to love me.
I love you, because when my monsters came to hunt me,
you help me scare them away.
I love you, because when I woke up crying for the bad memories and nightmares,
you were there to wipe my tears and hug me tight.
I love you because you remind me how strong I can be.
I love you because you helped build me back to who I was.
because when you saw me, you didn't see a broken woman.
I love you, because you show me that I deserve to be loved
I love you, because on our wedding day, I saw in your eyes
Hope, happiness and most of all love.
I love you, because when you say I am a beautiful woman, you mean it.
I love you, because I see the way you love your parents,
and most of it I love you, because you bring out the best in me.




CONSECUENCIAS
por Armando Guzmán

Consequencias

Nadie podrá saber las consecuencias
de un instante bajo las luces fluorescentes.
The consequences are unknown.

A thousand miles of desert sand is hearing the story.
Las palmeras no dejan de soñar con tu perfil.
Tu tacto está escrito entre páginas y copas.

I can still smell the sweet tobacco in your hair
as it lingers beneath my breath.
Soulmates weathering the storm inside of a train station.
Fueron las lecturas y tu sonrisa que escondían poesías
y un gran misterio.

I still dream of the early dawn as you slept next to me;
resting through the highways heartbeat.
Tus versos y las palabras en tu mirada
me dieron entender el valor de esa chispa.

Descansa hermosa.
Te buscare entre las estrellas y esperare
el momento adecuado.




LOVE
by Paul Aponte

Love is a continual reverence that does not wane.
Love is the reflection of the "I" in you and the "you" in I.
Love is a deep chocolate covered day long yearning.
Love is hunger pangs for your scent.
Love is dinner for two.
Love folds space when distance separates us.
Love is a subtle wanting churning in the soul as chores whittle the day away.
Love is the chemistry of attraction caught in a celestial fusion reaction.
Love is involuntary smiles.
Love is satiation greater than air and flowing water.
Love is a breath near the nape of the neck.
Love is lips caressing ear.
Love is celestial, fiery embraces while unknowingly still touching Earth.
Love is the growing need to care, repair, and remove all despair.
Love is suffering when your love suffers.
Love is hearing thoughts and saying them first.
Love is giving in to giving all.
Love is planning and gently approaching to whisper the right thing.
Love is touching without thought.
Love is rejuvenation as night turns to sleep.
Love is waking into a dream.
Love is the mutual creation of the new entity that is us.





THIS FOREST
by John Martinez

There is a tear, washed deep inside of us,
Like a distant river, we hear it,
Not knowing where it is,
Or when it will rise,
Not knowing if sadness
Or joy will bring us to its banks

We are swept nicely, without our names,
Into the green and brown trees,
Those witnesses

But far from this forest
We speak in cut shadow,
Crunched between buildings,
Below confused clouds,
Nets of telephone wire,
On cement scores,
Cocooned in steel and plastic,
Warmed in squares of sheet rock,
Electrical filament illuminates our night

But even then, your eyes
Still speak a thousand years
Of snow peaked mountains,
Trails through ancient green,
Your skin, before everything

And this endlessness, this forest,
I am seeing it now in store windows,
A reflection of overgrown fern
And wet blue skies behind me,
Even in the steel roll of my days,
Taken and owned,
This forest, this river,
Rages in the boats of my eyes,
Vibrates in the depths
Of my drums

And I won't wait for my sight to close,
To see this world, this forest.

So I step away, like today,
And point my canoe,
And drift among the words,
Dangling like fireflies in the night,
And float beneath
The glass table of my dreams,
And grind a spark when I dock,
With flint and kindle,
Build a fire under the perfect
Moon of this forest,
And restart my heart;
Finding yours,
In a blooming patch
Of sunflower



Meet the Valentine Poets

1970s, artist & L.A. location unknown

"Hatchling" by Sharon Elliott
"You Say" by Odilia Galván
"Valentine" by Jolaoso Pretty Thunder
"Tú" por Edward Vidaurre
"Love Poem" by Meg Withers
"Conversación con poeta preocupado del tiempo" por Ana Chig
"I Love You" by Gabriela Sweningsen
"Consecuencias" por Armando Guzmán
 “Love” by Paul Aponte
"This Forest" by John Martinez

•

Born and raised in Seattle, Sharon Elliott has written since childhood. Four years in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Ecuador laid the foundation for her activism. As an initiated Lukumi priest, she has learned about her ancestral Scottish history, reinforcing her belief that borders are created by men, enforcing them is simply wrong. She has a book: Jaguar Unfinished, Sharon Elliott, Prickly Pear Publishing 2012, ISBN-13: 978-1-889568-03-4, ISBN-10: 1-889568-03-1 (26 pgs); and has featured in poetry readings at Poetry Express and La Palabra Musical in Berkeley, CA. She was awarded a Best Poem of 2012, The Day of Little Comfort, in La Bloga Online Floricanto Best Poems of 2012, 11/2013, http://labloga.blogspot.com/2013/01/best-poems-of-2012.html.

Odilia Galván Rodríguez, eco-poet, writer, editor, and activist, is the author of four volumes of poetry, her latest, Red Earth Calling: ~cantos for the 21st Century~.

She’s worked as an editor for Matrix Women's News Magazine, Community Mural's Magazine, and most recently at Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba.

She facilitates creative writing workshops nationally and is a moderator of Poets Responding to SB 1070, and Love and Prayers for Fukushima, both Facebook pages dedicated to bringing attention to social justice issues that affect the lives and wellbeing of many people. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, and literary journals on and offline.

Jolaoso Pretty Thunder is an initiated Apetebi and Orisa priestess of Oya in the Lukumi tradition. She lives in the woods of Northern California with her two dogs Rosie Farstar and Ilumina Holydog.

She is a certified practitioner and student of herbal medicine (Western, Vedic, TMC and Lukumi) and  is an ordained minister of First Nations Church.

She is a well traveled poet and  loves southern rock, porch swings, pickup trucks, cooking, camp fires, lightning, steak, long drives, hot cups of coffee, gathering and making medicine and singing with her  friends and family.

Edward Vidaurre has been been published in several anthologies and literary journals among them La Bloga, La Tolteca Zine, Bordersenses, Interstice, La Noria Literary Journal, Boundless Anthology of the Valley International Poetry Festival 2011-2013.

He’s had two books published -'I Took My Barrio On A Road Trip' (Slough Press 2013) and ‘Insomnia’ (El Zarape Press 2014).

He also co-edited TWENTY-Poems in Memoriam and Boundless 2014 the Anthology of the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival.

Meg Withers teaches English at Merced Community College, and is a committed community activist. The author of Must Be Present to Win (2006), A Communion of Saints (Tinfish Press, 2008), her work has been anthologized and appears in journals and literary reviews. The Press at Fresno State recently published, Shadowed: Unheard Voices (November, 2014), an anthology of poems written to black and white photos, celebrating the lives of women.

She is the poetry editor, and her collaborator, Joell Hallowell (bottom foto), is the visual editor. Her current projects involve working in the criminal justice system, with plans to work on the education and decriminalization of those incarcerated for non-violent crimes. She believes firmly that what Alice Walker once said is true: "Activism is my rent for living on the planet." Gratitude is good.

Ana Chig (Los Mochis, Sinaloa 1974) Poeta y promotora cultural radicada en Tijuana.

Funda y dirige la Revista Mensual de Poesía Frontera Esquina y Nódulo Ediciones.
  http://migracionestacional.blogspot.com

MIGRACIÓN ESTACIONAL
migracionestacional.blogspot.com

My name is Gabriela Sweningsen, i have been married for 11 years with the most loving, caring and funny man.

I am a proud mother of five wonderful kids, and like the Beatles I believe that, All we need is Love.

J. Armando Guzman is from the border town of Nogales, Arizona and has one chapbook published. 60 Miles From Heroica was published in 2014.

Armando grew up in between Mexico and Southern Arizona.

He is currently working on more poetry and flash fiction.

Contact www.facebook.com/guzmanarmjoe or sanchomando@gmail.com.

Paul Aponte is a Chicano poet born in San Jose, California USA, and now resides in Sacramento. Paul, was a member of the performance poetry group "Poetas Of The Obsidian Tongue" in the 90's, and currently is a member of "Escritores del Nuevo Sol".

He is the author of the book of poetry "Expression Obsession" published in 1999, and has been published in "La Bloga" and more recently in the book "Un Canto De Amor A Gabriel Garcia Márquez" which was put together by Alfred Asis from the country of Chile to honor Gabriel Garcia Márquez with poems from around the world with 31 countries represented.

John Martinez has published poetry in several journals, including, LA WEEKLY, EL TECOLOTE, Red Trapeze and this will be his 17th poem published in LA BLOGA.

Martinez studied creative writing in the early 80's at Fresno State University under U.S., Poet Laureate Phillip Levine qepd and has attended seminars with several established American poets.

For the last 30 years he has worked as an Administrator for a Los Angeles Law Firm and has recently completed his long awaited Manuscript of 60 poems entitled PLACES, which will be published by IZOTE Press.