Lovelorn Poets

From Anchorage to Zebulon: In Search of Missed Connections

Lovelorn Poet in Portland, OR: Peaceful Night

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Hope

Hope

Peaceful Night
Missed Connections in Portland

Sweet dreams.
Kind thoughts.
Hope
in the new year!
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Welcome to 2013! I think the wishes expressed by our Portland poet sum it up quite nicely; dream wonderful dreams, be mindful of the inner world, and maintain the faith that those elements are the alchemist’s ingredients for gold. Who needs a list of resolutions when you have the secret recipe for contentment?

 

Lovelorn Poet in Portland, OR: I Was Stand-Offish To You

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Untitled

Untitled by Logan Campbell

 

I Was Stand-Offish To You
Missed Connections from Portland

Urban poetry.
you said hello and I was on the phone.
you laughed at yourself.
I did too, but I shouldn’t have.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond anymore.
sorry.
I like it because it is bitter;
and because it is my heart.

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Our phones have become a shield against the world. The moment we’re not otherwise engaged, we check our email, check our Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr, play games, randomly surf, send text messages, and occasionally place a call to someone. What did we do during those in-between moments before we had cell phones? Were we all reading newspapers, magazines, and books? Did we strike up conversations? Or maybe we just waited. Patiently, impatiently, with blind acceptance, and maybe, just maybe, with a bit of blissful relaxation.


Lovelorn Poet in Portland, OR: Fall Castles, Willow Trees & Gypsies

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Fall Castles, Willow Trees & Gypsies
Missed Connections from Portland

Wet pre-winter hikes to cobblestone witchy dwellings.
Fall bike rides to green Gothic arches.
Late night raccoons at a fascinating cemetery.
Lonesome Crow on the record player.

Sorry I freaked out and bailed.
Things got crazy and stupid and I went a little insane (or a lot!)
I’d like to get to know you more,
but I’m afraid you think I’m a big dick…
which is totally warranted.

But I’d like an opportunity to make it up to you…
it’s almost perfect weather for picnics and geocaching.

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I had the opportunity to try geocaching this weekend at a local state park and had a blast. If you haven’t tried it, it’s an adventurous blend of mystery,  technology, and the great outdoors – and you’re never really certain just what you’ll discover once you open each hidden treasure box. It seems like the perfect activity for missed connections but surprisingly my search yielded only this one message. Perhaps the geocaching sleuths use their tracking and mapping skills to locate other forms of elusive quarry too…


Lovelorn Poet in Portland, OR: Stunning (Across The Universe)

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summer rose

Summer Rose

Stunning (Across The Universe)
Missed Connections from Portland

Rain drops
adorn rose petals
like sequins
Summer
in her ornate dress
Sunsets
shimmering on threads of light
Dawn
in her bursting regalia

 

 

 

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Today I discovered a summer rose growing in the jungle of my side yard. Roses were never I flower I paid much attention to until I met Margarete Cassalina five years ago. Margarete is beautiful, fun, engaging, and the epitome of positivity. She loves drinking wine, laughing, and reveling in the mysteries of the universe. Margarete’s parties are for the record books and she’s an all-around  wonderful person to be around. When meeting her for the first time you would never guess that her young daughter lost her life to Cystic Fibrosis and that she lives every day with the reality of the same happening to her son. No one would find fault if she chose to be bitter, angry, depressed, negative. But that’s not how she rolls. The first time I saw her license plate, “65 ROSES,” I was puzzled. She told me that it’s often what young children call the disease. They have cystic fibrosis. They have 65 roses. 65 roses sounds like a nice, pretty place and one that little mouths and tongues, ears and eyes, would grasp hold of when trying to make sense of the language of doctors and nurses, moms and dads. I live in the place where Margarete’s young daughter died,  a few short blocks from the cheerful primary colors of the children’s hospital. Like a child’s misconstrued words, it’s designed to provide familiar comfort where confusion and fear abound. These constructs might not always succeed in their mission but sometimes they do. Since meeting Margarete roses have taken on a new meaning, and when a wild one appears I send my easy breath to those children far away and so close by.

Lovelorn Poet in Portland, OR: Swan Mart Boy, I Kind Of Love You

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Over the weekend I volunteered at a local arts festival in my neighborhood. Nine hours of live music, pottery, prints, paintings, books, and esoterica like jewelry made from grape vines or old forks. (And twelve hours of carrying chairs, carrying tables, carrying crates of pottery, and sweeping up cigarette butts.)  When I wasn’t moving items I had time to sit back and people watch – and the crowd did not disappoint! Shapeless little old folks with frizzy white hair walking along-side equally shapeless skinny black jeans and dreadlocks. Past, present, and tomorrow colliding in a two-block span. I’m of an age where I kind of missed tattoos as a fashion statement – you either had to go down to the Navy yard (Hello??!!) or NYC. Not convenient at all. Plus, I worried that I’d start a tattoo and not be able to stand the pain – thus being left with a couple of permanent squiggles on the body part of my choice. So, my body remains a blank canvas.  As I watched the multi-colored sleeves and designs pass by I realized I inhabit an in-between land. Admiring beauty from another place, another time… another girl, another planet. It’s a little unsettling.  ~  Last week while searching for swan poems (see Thursday’s post) I found this funny little self-deprecating gem from Portland. While it wasn’t the right fit for that particular musing, I think it’s perfect for today and is complemented nicely by this unattributed image from Frankie Leone’s Borough of Lost Boys Facebook feed.  We all have different stories about American Beauty.

swan mart boy

From Borough of Lost Boys – Frankie Leone

Swan Mart Boy, I Kind Of Love You
Missed Connections from Portland

Yes, you.
The guy with the boyish good looks and the pretty brown eyes.
Maybe it’s just that you seem so out-of-context in a miscellaneous minute-market that I only frequent for its proximity to my apartment (y’all are totally overpriced!!!). . .but there’s something about you that’s disarmingly attractive.
You look youngish, which could mean you’re my age OR could mean you’re in high school or something, which makes me really super creepy.
I really hope you’re well above the legal age of consent, for my own peace of mind.

Anyways.
You make my sporadic trips to the Swan Mart significantly more fun and also infinitely more stressful.
I get all flustered and awkward whenever I take my selected purchases up to your counter.
This is usually made a lot worse because typically these shopping trips only happen when I look like shit and am buying something really weird that I’m too embarrassed to get from a “normal” grocery store (or I just need it quickly and don’t want to travel further).
The list of bizarre things I have purchased from your store while you were working includes
a) copious amounts of ice cream,
b) various packs of cigarettes (I’m not even a smoker!)
c) Mad Dog 20/20 (I swear I had a good excuse for buying that. . ..actually, no, never in history has there been a good excuse for buying Mad Dog), and
d) Spicy brown mustard. By itself. The only bottle you had, of course, because who buys mustard from a minute market?! . . .Me.

I’m in a committed & happy relationship, so if you figure out who this is and are totally creeped out, or if you have a girlfriend or something, no worries!
I’m not a threat and I’m not trying to mack on you.
I just know how much I appreciate sincere compliments that come from out-of-the-blue, so I thought you might like to know that one of your regular customers thinks you’re totally cute.
Actually, two customers do–my roommate agrees with me.

Sincerely, your secret admirer[s].

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