posted June 07, 2001 10:08 PM            

What a book! Linda mentions Abe, Howard Hughes, and Marilyn Monroe. Some of the poems are from Venus Trines (which at that time was out of print), but there are many original poems chock-full of secrets and much about Love, heartache, and turning gladness into sadness. I cannot understand how this book can be out of print now. How do we go about getting the publisher to reprint it? Any ideas?

I will be posting a few of my fave poems here, so check back often. Each poem has the following copyright information applied: Copyright: 1980 by Mannu Unlimited, Inc. and published by Harper and Row Publishers, Inc.

May Linda forgive me for not being able to format the poems in the exact way Linda wrote them.

posted June 08, 2001 04:00 AM              

I can't wait! to see/read it... I will scan the jacket for you and send if you like

~katii

posted June 08, 2001 10:31 AM            

I can't say how .. or why .. or when
but since you and I turned into Us
I know our Now .. was also Then

how many times
have we felt this need ?

the Present is but a memory
we're moving through
at a different rate of speed

the beautiful simplicity
of Einstein's relativity is clear

Yesterday will soon return
and Tomorrow has already been here

now I shall not ever fear to draw
my final Earthbound breath

for there is no Life
until you love
and then there is no death

Linda Goodman
Linda Goodman's Love Poems
Page 81

posted June 08, 2001 12:02 PM              

Her words "...beautiful simplicity" says it all - my favorite kind of poetry -

~katii

posted June 08, 2001 06:36 PM            

When I have some "time" (I'm swamped with schoolwork right now) I'll post some of my fav's too!

posted June 09, 2001 01:46 AM            

love is not always
doing what brings pleasure

love is also
doing what is good for someone
whatever the cost
at the moment

sometimes, it's leaving
.. for a while

and the love is shown then
in the pain given

for pain is a lesson
best learned
from the one who loves you the most

Linda Goodman
Linda Goodman's Love Poems
Page 129

posted June 09, 2001 02:02 AM            

when you drove away that grey and ominous day
without a single backward glance
or even a Howard Hughes rain check for tomorrow

you left behind

your size eleven hiking boots
your shadow, exactly six foot two
your Peter Pan clock
your old grey Christmas sock
your Tarzan yell
your red and yellow candles
hanging on chains from the ceiling
of your monk's meditation cell
we used to call the Hopi Indian room
your blue cashmere sweater from Saks
the forms for your income tax
your stuffed jungle-pride beast
with the mane of long, curly hair
your winter coats
your toy dolphin that floats
your fleet of bathtub sailing boats
some forget-me-nots in the back yard
your library card .. good till the end of '73
your electric saw, your vitamin E
a few shattered dreams
an unspoken fear .. your Ivory soap
one unshed tear
the torn shred of rainbow
you wore behind your left ear
your autographed book
.. and our last, long look

though you remembered to take your serpent ring
and my own gold band .. and the front door key

darling, please come back
you forgot something ..... me

Linda Goodman
Linda Goodman's Love Poems
Pages 95-96

posted June 09, 2001 02:21 AM            

I once believed that loneliness and need
were the deepest agonies
Fate could bring to bear upon me
while you were gone ... and your song
was silenced for a time
till your return

I was wrong

you'll never guess what happened
I've met your astral double

or .. perhaps you have a twin brother
your father and mother kept secret from you
over the years

a twin

who was stolen, in infancy, from his cradle
by a wandering band of gypsies
because he was such a beautiful boy

a changeling child

like the one Titania and Oberon adopted
on an enchanted Midsummer's night

it's true-he does exist
he lives and breathes
for I have seen him, spoken with him

his eyes, his hair, his walk
are so very much like yours
his voice ... tormentingly familiar

even I, who know you best
in the beginning could discern no difference
and nearly failed to pass this karmic test

of love's identity

yet, I was blind but for the briefest moment

I soon knew
there was no way
under God's sun
he could be you

for he is not an ancient soul
here on any mission

his soul is very new
untried

nor is it tied
to any other
as is yours to mine

he hardly ever looks at flowers
and he doesn't like to sit in the woods
for hours
his eyes are blue, not ocean green
and empty ... haunted
not silvery-wise

he eats meat ... and drinks Coors

and his cheek smells strange, not like yours at all
I was only close enough to know that .. once

when he turned, unexpectedly

somehow, he doesn't seem quite so tall
as I know you to be
if I ever stood within his arms
my ear would never rest against his heart

as it does with you

oh ! he's at least two inches shorter
than your towering six foot two

almost never gentle, tender or compassionate
he has a way of suddenly growing cold and aloof
behaving as though he believes

he's many heavens above me

but most of all ...

he's completely unaware
of how deeply

you love me

Linda Goodman
Linda Goodman's Love Poems
Pages 102-104

posted June 09, 2001 02:31 AM            

the odd-shaped things I save, that smell and feel of us ...

a crumpled book of matches from the pizza place
some wilted flowers, picked outside the door
you couldn't enter

a bleached and crooked twig
washed ashore at that spot on the sand
where you first said you were lonely

and surprised me into tears

a hotel room key, stuffed inside an airline ticket envelope

a button you lost from your coat
(who sewed a new one on, I wonder ? )

I guess you saved the bird verse
and the memory of my last smile
they take so little room in your scrapbook

Linda Goodman
Linda Goodmnan's Love Poems
Page 9

posted June 09, 2001 02:41 AM            

the very last thing you said
that very last time we spoke on the phone
across the measureless miles
from New York to California
was ..
"thank you for loving me"

and I answered lightly
not too brightly

"you're welcome"

how dense can I be ?
why didn't I say

"thank you for loving me" ?

is that what you silently needed to hear ?
you've always had a secret fear
I didn't value or cherish .. or appreciate enough

your gift of love

but .. don't you remember that gentle December
when I was delivered into the cradle of your arms ?
my very first newborn cry
was "thank you, oh ! thank you for loving me"

no one ever really did
until you

and now you are gone
because I forgot to thank you

for the miracle
of loving me

Linda Goodman
Linda Goodman's Love Poems
Page 128

posted June 10, 2001 08:10 PM            

Now.... I don't have any particular absolute favorites from "Love Poems", but for the sake of people who aren't lucky enough to have it, I'll post a poem that is in it that isn't in "Venus".

"There's a Lion in My Alphabet Soup"

to amuse myself and hang in there, baby
clutching a frazzled piece of rope called hope

to kill time - which I'm beginning to believe
deserves nothing short of murder

...memories have nine lives
and are not so easily killed...

to fill the yawning abyss
you left inside

to still the song of nesting birds
outside my window

I've been playing puzzles with words

did you know that by reversing two letters
you can turn "untied" into "united"?

and - if the Holy Ghost is an "essence" of spirit

when you remove the "c" for Christ
you're left with the word
"Essene"

what does that mean?

I've been thinking a lot about poetry too
these eons since you left me alone
beside a treacherous, monitored telephone

like, why should gladness rhyme with sadness?

does it follow, then, that Far Away
somehow rhymes with Home to Stay?

and if tomb rhymes with womb
then does death rhyme with birth?

what freaky creatures we are
to speak a language
in which rats spelled backwards is star.

(Linda Goodman, page 105-106)

okay, now i MUST get to my paper! Be back later!

posted June 14, 2001 01:45 AM              

Thanks to your post, I now have my very own copy of Linda Goodman's Love Poems!! It arrived in the mail today, right before I left for work. I just got home and am going to sit down and read it. The picture on the back of the jacket is of her sitting by the fire in her home in Cripple Creek.

Oh, I went to Amazon.com to order it and it only took them 3 days to get it here, I was impressed!! And it is in mint condition.

YIVY, I hope you get your copy, it will bring you more of her wonderful words that we all treasure so much!!

posted June 15, 2001 11:18 PM              

I don't have Linda's "Love Poems" but I did get out my "Venus Trines At Midnight" and was re-reading some of my favorites.

I don't know the word to describe how I feel when I read "Underexposed Negative Of Saturn" but it absolutely gives me chills.
Do any of you feel this way about this poem?

Sunjewel-have you read it? (The Welshman and his bride.)

Haunting is the only way to describe it. Where she talks about the 1-2-3 infants that died too soon.

posted June 16, 2001 12:30 AM              

I Love the photo of her by the fireplace on the dust cover ... She is beautiful.

posted June 16, 2001 06:01 AM            

Katii, that is a truly wonderful picture of Linda at the fireplace. My precious copy arrived today.