Hemali AdhiyaWhile evergreen poems are irreplaceable, sometimes we want to read lines that go more with who we are today. That’s why we wanted to bring you a collection of contemporary love poems that go with today’s day. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that even though intense are real, the poems from the time gone by are a little mystic and surreal. In today’s day, relationships are tougher and beyond wooing a woman and waiting for a man to return from war. Every relationship is a struggle these days, and love simply isn’t easy to find, embrace, and last.
This collection of contemporary love poems comes from the poetic hearts of modern humans who still experience the same feeling of love but with a difference. Let’s face it, we’ve all changed in just a few years. Can you imagine how different we are from our forefathers? Let’s take a look at some such modern rhythmic lines.
A Collection of Contemporary Love Poems
1. Desire by Alice Walker
My desire
is always the same; wherever Life
deposits me:
I want to stick my toe
& soon my whole body
into the water.
I want to shake out a fat broom
& sweep dried leaves
bruised blossoms
dead insects
& dust.
I want to grow
something.
It seems impossible that desire
can sometimes transform into devotion;
but this has happened.
And that is how I’ve survived:
how the hole
I carefully tended
in the garden of my heart
grew a heart
to fill it.
Desire by Alice Walker is the first on our collection of contemporary love poems that talks about how a woman has tended to the garden of heart, where she could grow love and fill it with it. The poetess also talks about “how I’ve survived” probably indicating a heartbreak, which left a void in her heart.
2. Take this as Your Sign by Nikita Gill
When will you stop being afraid
of everything you can be.
I have never seen the sky, nor the earth
wear their flaws like they are apologies,
Instead they defiantly present them as
their truth, take it or leave it, it is up to you.
When will you realise that you can still grow
forests from the scorched earth of your soul
Remind yourself that the moon even with
her scars is still the fairest of them all
It’s the light she gives to the world that
matters in the end, the calm of her heart
When will you understand that
those broken parts of you have learned
How to sing more elegant songs
than the loveliest of songbirds.
Everything around you is asking you
to set yourself free, become everything
that you do not think you can be.
Yet another one to lift the souls of the brokenhearted, is this one by Nikita Gill is surely something that speaks straight from the heart and touches another’s. It simply has to be on EVERY collection of contemporary love poems.
3. Be The One by Lang Leav
You couldn’t be the one – the one to love her.
She dazzled you, but your eyes could never get used to
the light. So you remained clothed in shadow, and you
ignored the hand that reached for you.
You ignored your own heart.
And that is why you couldn’t be the one.
She wasn’t just the moon; she was the whole sky, but
you couldn’t see beyond the stratosphere.
Your souls loved each other as much as any two souls
could possibly love –
but you couldn’t be the one.
Wow! Isn’t it? Every woman who’s lost a man to his ignorance is swaying their heads in “Yes” right now. This poem is so today, that we had to add it to our collection of contemporary love poems.
4. To The Girl Who Works at Starbucks by Rudy Francisco
When I asked you for a chai latte, what I meant to say was, “I was walking past. I saw you in the window. I only came in here because I had to know what your voice sounded like, but instead of saying that, I just got really nervous and ordered the first thing on the menu. I don’t even know what the fuck chai is, or a latte for that matter. When God made you, he cussed for the first time.
He turned to an angel, gave him a high five, and said ‘God damn, I’m good.’ You’re that beautiful. I spent the last five days trying to figure out how I’m gonna introduce myself to you properly and I think I finally figured it out. It’s gonna be something like… ‘hi’. That’s all I got so far. But I think it’s a good start. You see, I want that,
I want that, ‘my friends think I’m crazy’ kind of love.
That ‘reckless’ kind of love.
That ‘wake up early make you breakfast’ kind of love.
That, ‘crack open my life and say look, you gotta see this’ kind of love.Forget the shallow stuff, I want the deepest kind of love.
That ‘I want to stay up late and tell you all my secrets’ kind of love.
That every time I see you walk on pieces kind of love.
I want that ‘stand next to me’ kind of love.
That ‘it’s by destiny’ kind of love.
That ‘no matter what happens to me, you’ll always get the best of me’ kind of love. That ‘you get my heart and my mind, this world gets the rest of me’ kind of love.
That ‘invest in me’ kind of love, because ‘you already know that I’m invested in you’ kind of love.
That ‘you come home upset, and you don’t have to say nothing, I already know what to do’ kind of love.
I want, love.
I want you to bite my lip until I can no longer speak, and then suck my ex-girlfriend’s name out of my mouth just to make sure she never comes up in our conversations. I want you to come to me like an afternoon- Come to me slowly as if you were a broken sunset with a lazy sky on your shoulders. If you let me be sunlight, I promise that I will penetrate your darkness until you speak in angel ways. Pull me close to you, tell me that you love me, then scratch your future into my back, so I can be everything that you live for. I promise that I will die for you daily, and then resurrect in your screams. I promise that I will love you. I promise, that I will love you as if it’s the only thing that I’ve ever done correctly x
To the girl who works at Starbucks by Rudy Francisco is a fresh one on our collection of contemporary love poems because it speaks of today’s day. Out of the many, the one when he says, “I want you to bite my lip until I can no longer speak, and then suck my ex-girlfriend’s name out of my mouth just to make sure she never comes up in our conversations” is one that connects so well with us today. Most of us have those exes who we don’t want to remember, and contemporary love poems like these make it sound so normal.
5. Any Lit By Harryette Mullen
You are a ukulele beyond my microphone
You are a Yukon beyond my Micronesia
You are a union beyond my meiosis
You are a unicycle beyond my migration
You are a universe beyond my mitochondriaYou are a Eucharist beyond my Miles Davis
You are a euphony beyond my myocardiogram
You are a unicorn beyond my Minotaur
You are a eureka beyond my maitai
You are a Yuletide beyond my minesweeper
You are a euphemism beyond my myna bird
Adding to our collection of contemporary love poems is Any Litt by Harryette Mullen. This poem is profound, stylish, and to the point.
6. When A Boy Tells You He Loves You By Edwin Bodney
When a boy tells you he loves you
It’ll be the first time you hear this
It is late and he isn’t even there to tell you this in person but instead from a car ride home from a bar in Chicago he is there on business
And of course you will smile
Because he sounds like he means it
Because you believe him
Because a boy has never handed those words to you like crushed black berries in the palms of his hands
Firm, young, full
Waiting to taste sweet with you, his arms, creeping vines begging to touch the sun, and your face saying; here
Take everything I have ever touched to be closer to you
His breath waiting to be folded into a love note passed in between the nape of your neck and his front teeth
He will remember the time you told him you felt safe in his mouth and he will never grow hungry…
Just distantWhen a boy tells you he loves you
You will hear music
The voice of your past lovers dancing up your throat
Your stomach, in after hours cabaret, still waiting on the last call
That was when you learned that when a boy says “I love you” he means I am getting ready to be inconsistent with you nowThis boy will tell you that he loves you
Not long after he had you waiting for 2 hours in front of a cocktail lounge
Patience is something you are working on
But no, not for him
When he asks you to tell him that you love him back, you will be in a car in the parking lot of a late night diner
You will watch the words fall into your lap like a spilled glass of white wine
You will remember the day your courier pigeon heart got lost in the wind because that was a message it did not know how or where to carry and one by one the boys have fallen as silently as the birds doSo eloquently they used to speak until I asked the questions that broke them into ghosts
That bled me into a corpse with so many questions of my own for the soil but they’re tongues do not know simple
The things I should be hearing, the things that will make us living men in this time of insatiable yet dying lovers
When a boy tells you he loves you
Only to become silent like a folded sheet of tissue paper
Not wanting you to decrease him into the truthDo not crack your face into the fullest crescent moon of the tapered bottom of a blackened sky
He never meant a single word of any of it
He is just a boy, remember?
He is just another silly, sad boy, remember?
Did you just tear up? It all came rushing back, didn’t it? We’ve either been through it or have heard friends speak about how men change! One of the strongest reasons for this poem to be on our collection of contemporary love poems is because it reflects a lot of today’s personalities. We’ve all been through it, right? That men pursue, and the moment women feel safe everything changes! “He never meant a single word of any of it,” sob sob!
7. It Is Here by Harold Pinter
(for A)
What sound was that?
I turn away, into the shaking room.
What was that sound that came in on the dark?
What is this maze of light it leaves us in?
What is this stance we take,
To turn away and then turn back?
What did we hear?It was the breath we took when we first met.
Listen. It is here.
For A? Hmmm! Short, from the heart, and completely new-age, Harold Pinter’s It Is Here is amongst the most beautiful from our collection of contemporary love poems. The lines act as a reminder for his lover of their first time together, which he expresses as “It was the breath we took when we first met.”
8. Echo by Carol Ann Duffy
I think I was searching for treasures or stones
in the clearest of pools
when your face…when your face,
like the moon in a well
where I might wish…might well wish
for the iced fire of your kiss;
only on water my lips, where your face…where your face was reflected, lovely,
not really there when I turned
to look behind at the emptying air…the emptying air.
The last one on our collection of contemporary love poems is “awww” some, isn’t it? It amazed me how people express so much with simplistic, everyday emotions in a manner so fathomable!
It’s not like all of us pick up poems to read every day. But every once in a while, reading some contemporary love poems that relate to our situations and feelings is a whole different feeling. We also love sharing them with others who feel the same and revel in the joys of these rhythms.
Among all these contemporary love poems, which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comment section below. Be sure to hit the like button if you enjoyed reading this collection. Any dedications? Subscribe to us so we can directly send you more “love”ly stuff. We recently published something on how to handle stress in a relationship. If you missed it, read here.
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