Linda K Sienkiewicz

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Unconventional Love Poem

February 14, 2021 By Linda K Sienkiewicz

Art by Joanna Goddard

In Love With You:

For Valentine’s Day I’d like to share one of my favorite love poems, written by the late Kenneth Koch. It captures the exuberance of falling in love with delight, surprise and humor. It’s nearly giddy with magical leaps.

                                           I

O what a physical effect it has on me
To dive forever into the light blue sea
Of your acquaintance! Ah, but dearest friends,
Like forms, are finished, as life has ends! Still,
It is beautiful, when October
Is over, and February is over,
To sit in the starch of my shirt, and to dream of your sweet
Ways! As if the world were a taxi, you enter it, then
Reply (to no one), “Let’s go five or six blocks.”
Isn’t the blue stream that runs past you a translation from the Russian?
Aren’t my eyes bigger than love?
Isn’t this history, and aren’t we a couple of ruins?
Is Carthage Pompeii? is the pillow the bed? is the sun
What glues our heads together? O midnight! O midnight!
Is love what we are,
Or has happiness come to me in a private car
That’s so very small I’m amazed to see it there?

                                           2

We walk through the park in the sun, and you say, “There’s a spider
Of shadow touching the bench, when morning’s begun.” I love you.
I love you fame I love you raining sun I love you cigarettes I love you love
I love you daggers I love smiles daggers and symbolism.

                                           3

Inside the symposium of your sweetest look’s
Sunflower awning by the nurse-faced chrysanthemums childhood
Again represents a summer spent sticking knives into porcelain raspberries, when China’s
Still a country! Oh, King Edward abdicated years later, that’s
Exactly when. If you were seventy thousand years old, and I were a pill,
I know I could cure your headache, like playing baseball in drinking-water, as baskets
Of towels sweetly touch the bathroom floor! O benches of nothing
Appear and reappear—electricity! I’d love to be how
You are, as if
The world were new, and the selves were blue
Which we don
Until it’s dawn,
Until evening puts on
The gray hooded selves and the light brown selves of . . .
Water! your tear-colored nail polish
Kisses me! and the lumberyard seems new
As a calm
On the sea, where, like pigeons,
I feel so mutated, sad, so breezed, so revivified, and still so unabdicated—
Not like an edge of land coming over the sea!



Kenneth Koch, “In Love with You” from The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 2005 by The Kenneth Koch Literary Estate. 

“Let Me Get That For You” by Eugenia Loli

Thank you for visiting Linda’s blog.

Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a writer, poet, and artist.
Learn more about her award winning novel, In the Context of Love.
Learn more about her picture book, Gordy and the Ghost Crab.

Learn more about her poetry chapbook, Security

Filed Under: It's Personal Tagged With: love, poem, valentines day

Kisses, hugs and paper promises

February 12, 2018 By Linda K Sienkiewicz

I'm not at all apologetic. I love St. Valentine's Day for brightening up the dead of winter. I can tolerate January, but by mid February, I'm tired of cold and snow, hats, boots and gloves, and ice on … Continue reading >>

Filed Under: It's Personal Tagged With: family, holidays, love, valentines day

Nickels, Pickles and Chewing Gum

May 9, 2016 By Linda K Sienkiewicz

Getting my 8 year-old granddaughter to memorize something to exercise her brain wasn't my intention, but it sure turned out to be fun for us both. Choo'n Gum As I drove her to my house for a … Continue reading >>

Filed Under: It's Personal Tagged With: family, grandparenting, love, memorization, memory

Happinesss: When Things Don’t Go As Planned

February 8, 2016 By Linda K Sienkiewicz

The husband said he was going to prepare me for our ten-day trip to Singapore (he often travels overseas for work) by mentioning that things never go exactly as planned. I don't think he ever could … Continue reading >>

Filed Under: It's Personal Tagged With: family, happiness, love

I Love “Context of Love” Readers

January 30, 2016 By Linda K Sienkiewicz

Send me your Selfies! If you're reading In the Context of Love, send me your selfie and I'll add it to the gallery! I love my readers and the pictures they send. You guys rock. Big thanks to all of … Continue reading >>

Filed Under: In the Context of Love, It's Personal Tagged With: books, love, readers, selfies

Love and Loss – The only permanence we know

October 26, 2015 By Linda K Sienkiewicz

Each loss evokes all losses. We long for permanence, for our children to remain cute and lovable, for our parents to never leave us, and for our loves to always stand by our sides. Life is constant … Continue reading >>

Filed Under: Grief and Loss, It's Personal Tagged With: books, grief, loss, love, suicide

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About Linda

Award- winning writer, poet & artist. Cynical optimist. Super klutz. Corgi fan. Author of two novels, a children's picture book, and five poetry chapbooks. More here.

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