I
Olive skin
Dark brown honey trap eyes
Black hair wiry as desert weed
II
No beauty
Prickly as cactus
Dangerous as opioid poison
III
Sky blue eyes
Generous with loving
But with an invisible minefield
But yours was
The soil in which I grew
Patiently uncovering each mine
© Andrew Wilson, 2025
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, invites us to write a poem in the Parallelogram de Crystalline form which consists of –
• 12 lines in total (each Capitalised but without punctuation)
• 4 verses
• 3 lines per verse
• syllable count per verse 3,6,9
• unrhymed
And for the theme of the poem: the beauty of a (real or imaginary) lover as compared with and described in images of nature.
some very potent imagery Andrew
Thanks Laura – there is light and dark in most love…
Your poem is so strong and reminds me more of the bards dark lady than his sweet lover…
I’ll take that Bjorn…
Wonder who inspired these lines 🙂
Bful as always
Thanks Afshan – ancient history apart from no. 3…
Your poetry is unique filled with beauty and tinged with a bit of darkness. Well done!
Thanks Truedessa – a bit of light and shade…
Great poem, Andrew! I like the idea of love being the soil in which mines can be uncovered and removed!
Thank you Dwight…
Sounds a bit alarming! 😀
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger Carol…
To begin .. the photo is amazing! I would love to see it somewhere in our home. And the verses that followed, the comment you left for Carol brings the verses you shared into focus.
I would be happy to srnd you a digital copy which you could get printed Helen…
That last stanza is golden!
Thanks Nolcha…
I love the mines that did not defeat you.
Thanks Sara – what else can you do…
I enjoyed your loving natures, Andrew, and the way you numbered them. ‘Black hair wiry as desert weed’ reminded me of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, and I love the lines:
‘…yours was
The soil in which I grew’.
Thanks Kim, she was from a Mediterranean country and I still have the stretch marks from that growing incident…
And a Shakespeare comparison, I’ll take that Kim!
Mediterranean beauty but I ended up with blonde and blue eyes – que? And thanks for the Shakespeare likeness Kim…
That opened so sharply, nice touch and grew into a warmth with wordsI particularly enjoyed.
I still bear the stretch marks from that early growth spurt Ain, but Es la Vida…