posted October 01, 2008 02:03 PM            

I read it, and yes it was beautiful...I don't know why, but I always picture Linda being this larger than life character, that knows alot of "the" answers..after reading her love poetry, she seemed to have many of the same hang-ups most of us do...insecurities and confusion with our partners...and unfortunately yes this makes for great writing material, that people can relate, learn, and grow from...

I'm posting the opening poem, which made me cry..

Venus Trines at Midnight

Why do I fight sleep so hard?
You're a fine one to ask, I must say

As if you didn't know
How I toss and turn in my bed each night
Listening to the sheep dog snore
Muffled sounds outside the door
A scream on the street that dies away
Then far-off laughter

The witching hour passes
Leaving the same, old, empty ache
Like a wisdom tooth
With a cavity that needs filling

By two a.m. or so
The shadows seem to take form and shape
But nothing especially familiar

Finally, I sink into sleep
Where you wait

And it happens
again and again and again
Three times

Then suddenly, angrily
I leap out of slumber

To stay up till dawn
reading and eating cinnamon toast

Look, something just has to be done
I refuse to have an affair with a ghost

Now that we're so intimately acquainted in dreams

For old times' sake

Couldn't I run into your arms just once
When we're alone-and awake?

Venus Trines at Midnight Love Poems from Linda Goodman

posted October 08, 2008 07:10 PM            

Sure I have the book for another 2 weeks, before I have to return it..I'll start typing..

posted October 08, 2008 08:07 PM            

I don’t know why I bother to analyze him
This is, there are times you can run out of words
With some people
Except for maybe “Good grief!”

For example:
He says he’s glad that pot and nudism have
Found us
“they provide valuable insight into the world around us”
UNQUOTE(and there’s more)
He walks alone by the ocean, collecting pieces of coral
And thinks Helen Hurley Brown is a reasonably moral
(but he doesn’t go much for drunks
Or people who waste money)

He creates undeniably exquisite photography
Though frequently I’ve heard him defend pornography
He develops naked women
In a dark room
With chemicals
Still,
He did make several very fine prints of an old tree
Back in 1963
He hates the establishment with a violent passion
And he follows his dreams, after a fashion
Sometimes his conversation is esoteric and deep
But he doesn’t believe
People astral travel in their sleep
And speaking of traveling
He takes a slow boat to china, by way of Japan
Painting poetic symbols on an oriental fan
He digs Hopi philosophy--those Indians think he’s great
And I cant deny he knows that “kismet” means “Fate”

Once I thought I saw him
Wearing a strand of love beads
Around his heard

But he can’t even say “Om myoho rengay kiu”
To make a cap appear like magic in the rain
Or make a wish come true, by chanting it slowly
Like any self-respecting flower child can do

He’s a phony, Victorian hippie
Shall I tell him?

posted October 08, 2008 08:08 PM            

I’m sorry I kept you waiting
Look, don’t cry
It was only an hour or two
couldn’t you find something to do?

I would have
If I had been you.

posted October 08, 2008 08:09 PM            

I’m in a panic

The mistletoe and holly
Are tacked where they ought to be

And the wine is chilled

But the ghost of Christmas last
When December turned into a block of solid ice
Between us
Is leering through my shuttered window

You told me it was ghoulish to trim a dead tree
Like hanging jewelry on a corpse in the parlor
(Yours is naked throughout the merry season
Carefully tended in a pot of earth
Later planted outside where it can grow tall)

This year, mine is bare and potted too
And I give it lots of water

Yes, you’ll like the tree

it’s a rug

That huge, spreading warmth
Of the glossy, satin-brown Iceland Pony
On the floor

I never thought . . .
What should I do?
I can’t hide it in the closet
It’s jammed with other things that make you frown
My Frank Sinatra albums, all those ash trays
Strings of colored lights and tinsel
And the poems I wrote last winter

But I cant just leave it there
I don’t think I could stand the look on your face
When you see that fur
And the reflection in your eyes
Of the pony’s pain when he was murdered
(or did he die a natural death?)
Never mind, its still unkind
To have him stretched out on the floor
And walk across his beauty

I hope it didn’t hurt him-I really do
And I hope it didn’t hurt the steer you served me once
At your house
When he was struck in the head with a bloody axe
By a butcher singing Noels
With no ether
Or the gentle, brown-eyed cow
Who gave her life for your shoes
I find I’m crying now
For all of them
And I didn’t want to cry again this Christmas

There’s the lobby buzzer
You’ll be at the door any minute

Oh, will you forgive me for the pony?
I wont walk across him anymore

I guess I know how that is . . .
Like people you love
When they walk across your heart

Back and forth
Every day
Every night
And you think you have no feelings
Just because you lie there so still

posted October 08, 2008 08:10 PM            

Abracadabra rippled water tears
Pickled pumpkin butterfly ears
North winds, blow across his years

I’ll have my madcap moonlight way
No matter how many fiddlers call you
To a dance of wooden marchers

I’ll leave my trace upon you
Like a witch’s hex
Streaked through your hair
Lingering in your silver eyes

I’ll sear your palm with an eternal scar
So all the canny Cassandras will whisper

Ah, there goes one of the lost

He has been visited by a vagrant solitaire
Singing a morning sonata
He has been wheeled by a will-o’-the-wisp
From the midnight moors
He has been kissed by a flickering firefly
Brushed by the touch of a wild gypsy spell
He has heard the cry of a loon

He has been loved

posted October 08, 2008 08:11 PM            

Don’t stand there
Looking at me like that

At least give me time
To put on one of my masks
There were seven false faces
I brought a long to this costume ball
Just to be safe
But I seem to have mislaid them somewhere

Independence was stolen one stormy night last year
While I watched you follow someone
Into a room
And close the door behind you

Anger I haven’t been able to wear
Since the day I hurt you with it
Pride I impulsively tossed out the window
When I called
To tell you I was sorry
Detachment, I guess, is permanently lost
Now that your smile
Brings a lump to my throat
I can’t swallow
Amusement disappeared without warning
The morning I first knew
What your eyes were asking

Frigidity melted forever
The moment you touched me

Now, striped of my protective cloak of poise
I toss my hair too often over my shoulder
Tear napkins to shreds
Order drinks I never finish
Break match sticks into small pieces

What will I do to cover my trembling
When all my disguises are gone?
The only one left is caution
And it almost flew out of my hands, just now
And thought I heard you say
“Please Stay”

posted October 08, 2008 08:12 PM            

Is it you?
Or is it just that I’ve made you wear those love robes
I’ve been saving
Since the days when my sand castles
Were big enough to walk around in
And strong enough to stand against the tides?

I cant remember who first said
That “what you don’t know cant hurt you”
But whastshisname was wrong

Supposing I climb all the way to the top of the tree
And then find out

Its not really you
How do I get back down again
All by myself?
I’ve always been afraid of heights