Special Garden: Two Valentine's Day Sonnets

                 What Makes You So Special?

What makes you so special? What makes a heart

So big it bursts with joy? What makes a soul

So strong that it can laugh at every dart

Life hurls at it? What makes you whole

If not your separate pieces, each of which

Is like a diamond on the necklace of

Your public self—bright jewels that enrich

Your every move and word? What else but love

Lies behind all you give, and deserves just

As much, if not more, in return? You show

Strangers what caring means, your friends what trust

Can do, and all your lovers that to know

You is like knowing heaven star by star.

What makes you special? Everything you are.

                 The Garden of Your Soul

The garden of your soul is green and cool.

It’s landscaped so the ones you trust can see

Its flower beds of love, the nursery

Where all your wishes blossom, and the pool

Of tranquil peace where you can float at ease.

An ever-greenhouse to support and please you,

It’s why the sere world feels a fragrant breeze

And thinks of roses every time it sees you.

And when you’re in the weeds, and every petal

Cries out for your attention and your care,

Water them one by one, and never settle

For anything that withers you—but dare

To own each blossom like it was your child—

And keep that garden soothing, safe and wild.

Copyright 2017 Matthew J Wells

The Bones of Love

Below, some fragments from unfinished love poems.

I like to think that someday, in the near distant future, literary paleontologists will look at these stray fossils and construct whole poems out of them.

(Yes--that would make me the male Sappho.)


With my last breath, I will exhale your name:
A moth who burns for joy, kissing your flame.

And make a future equal to our dreams

Like sun and rain, we will combine to make
A garden out of what we could alone
Make nothing

A whole in loving greater than its parts

There’s only tension when we never pay
Attention

Love writes a poem filled with perfect rhymes;
Marriage sees all the typos

Light is not light unless it shines in darkness;
Love is not love unless it’s the oasis
In hatred’s desert

I need you like the bullet needs the wound

Happiness is the only mortal wound
That doesn’t need a bandage

There must be some way we can share this bed
Without having to shrink to fit inside
Its narrow confines

I think of you the way fish think of water--
As a world to be lived in

You say “I love you,” but I know you mean
“Te Quiero,” not “Te Amo,” which is why
I die inside each time you whisper it

Love bright and cold like some far distant star

Love is a land mine I keep stepping on
To count how many pieces I have left
After I'm blown apart

Before you, I was happy to be wanting

Love is the fire in winter, and the breeze
In summer, that make livable the cold
And itchy heat of intimacy’s house

You make me weak so you can be my strength--
You cripple me, and then sell me the crutch.

That’s why I’ll always love you: because I
Can never hit your curve ball

A love so strong, together we can dine
On it and never see an empty plate

Of course you wound me.  How else can I bleed?

Let love be what we each in faith profess
And life the space in our togetherness.

My backwards steps all end up in your arms

The wooing clock stops when we say “I do.”
That’s when the clock of marriage starts to tick,
A timepiece that will need ten times more tending
For it, and us, to work

My love letters have just one vowel: you

Oh let us say
“Always” and “Never” like young lovers do,
And not like warring married couples, who
Shoot them like bullets in an argument

You live on drama, so that’s what I feed you.
You’re all that’s wrong with me--that’s why I need you.

Your lips, those succulent dishonest twins

And trade the whole world for a pair of eyes
In which that world’s reflected

If you
Were within reach, I’d never let you go

You are my cross; I am your passion’s toy--
My love for you a crucifix of joy.

Each time I please you or I make you laugh,
My heart salmons a waterfall

I want to leave this life holding your hand

Your soul’s a sword not even God can sheathe.
You are my tree: what you exhale, I breathe.


Copyright 2012 Matthew J Wells

It's Valentine's Day, Charlie Brown!!!!!

Ain't love grand?

Hi! I'm Sarah Michelle Gellar! I'm here in my pretty little Valentine's Day number to guide you through the 11 Commandments of Love and Romance. Do you want to know how to win a man like a sideshow prize? Do you want to become fulfilled, desired, and happier than a heroin addict? Do you want to be so deliriously happy that you throw up in your own mouth whenever "he" touches you?


Then just follow these 11 easy rules!



1. Listen to what men are really saying. When a guy says "Do this, or it's over," what he's really saying is, "The only way I'll ever go out with you is if you do exactly what I say."

The price of love is total obedience.

2. When men get caught cheating, it's always the woman's fault. You just know that ten seconds before Marion turned around, Jack was telling the cab driver to head for the Empire Hotel.

It's all that slut Connie's fault--honest!!

3. Every heart needs a second home.

Because the home it has in my chest

is emptier than my brain.

4. The day youth becomes an obstacle to love is the day alcohol becomes an obstacle to inebriation.

Tell it to Woody Allen.

5. An office romance is its own punishment.

From the memoirs of Condoleeza Rice.

6. Men who say they don't want your pity will still settle for your body.

Men who say they don't want your body? Gay.

7. Every skirt-chasing flirt needs an anchor. Do yourself a favor and tie him to one, okay?

"I love the guy . . . the way

the turkey loves the axe."

8. Save the L Word for the right moment. Nothing ruins an affair more than dropping the word "love" into a romantic evening that reminds your honey of the time her father took her to that lighthouse when she was 12.

Hey look--it's Stephanie Powers!

9. In any group of three people, there is at least one whore. The operative words here being "at least".

Pick out the whore in this picture.

Hint: it's the one with the pallette.

10. Don't become a slave to unreasonable expectations.

Tough luck honey -- that's all that's out there.

11. And whatever you do, never -- NEVER -- go out with Batman. You'll always come in second.

Still the single best comic book panel in history.