If there's anytime of year where poets get their due it's undoubtedly the Valentine's season. For years we've turned to our wordsmiths to help articulate the tricky feelings and emotion coursing through us when we meet that special someone. So to kick off your Valentine's Day weekend we asked some of our Oakland Local writers, many who are also talented poets, to submit poems that explore poems that explore love from several angles. 

how to be reborn under your fingertips

-james cagney

what happens between us depends upon

how much fire you can hold in your hands.

there is light enough for both

of us in the dawn of your desires touch.

behind the sheer nightgown of your eyes

two flickering shadows intertwine

seduced by the promise of warm sugars

beneath the peel

they remain poised together --

twin heliotropes drinking light.

i am comforted to know this finding

happens in secret

all the time

A Poet’s Goodbye  

-Ayodele Nzinga

when poetry  

is in the room 

it feels like  

thunder/bright light 

the potent poetry of  

words moving worlds 

moving thought/ 

evolving like the  

cleverness of memory 

poetry evokes/provokes 

poetry calms/inspires 

fires in souls 

standing too long 

in the rain. 

It was Sunday morning /it was raining softly 

I thought of you waiting at the lake 

I turned onto Lakeshore/pulled over 

I sat in the car on the shoulder 

watching the rain dance on the water 

I tried to put the feelings in order 

but you inspire chaos  

and stutter thought.

All there is to do is start the car 

drive half a mile/back to you 

back to love/life after eons of blue 

back to heaven/no more fallen star 

I start the car drive a block and turn 

left/away from the lake 

away/from you/rain on the water 

away from chaos/stutter thought.

Back to poetry/who has 

always stood between us 

back to the logic of lyric  

the truth in a beat 

the heat of the audience 

who only love me/ for  

my last line/ 

not the flaws 

they never 

see. 

Its/ 

not you/ 

it's the empty pages 

it's the crisp mics/  

the beckoning stages 

it's the thunder/the light 

/perfect delivery 

/a crowded house/the

clap of the crowd 

/the roar of my heart 

when it kisses my mouth/ 

my tongue rains prophecy.

It will always have the best of me  

turning me into divine lyrical electricity 

ever promiscuous with my pen a fatal sin/to say  

all you see/feel/the delicious/

that shit that makes em’ reel 

/its true/

I am lost in the future/ looking at the past/ somewhere on  

the page/

a long way/ from the stutter thought/

arranging chaos/

into mouth size bites. 

when poetry is in the room 

it feels like tears and destiny 

and I am rain

Air Traffic Control

-Theo Konrad Auer 

I'd much rather wrestle with you 

than these clumsy words 

made painfully ironic 

by my occupation and station in life, 

the air is ripe and rife, 

thick and sweaty, 

emotion like condesation, 

is greasing my palm, 

it is being liberally applied, 

I am tied up, 

my hands are wet 

and my throat is dry, 

"I only want to know the question, and not the answer," 

is a lie, 

I'm awake and morning, 

is all too "now" 

you pull tufts of fluff, 

and pillows billow, 

softly tumble, 

blankets gently crumble, 

i go limp, 

as you lightly primp, 

for the day's requirements, 

a dab there, 

some lipstick, 

your hair, just so, carefully parted, 

You turn my camera off, 

I turn your "me" record on, 

Several tracks are skipped, 

a ghost begins to sing, 

"Lilac Wine is sweet and heady, 

Listen to me, I cannot see, 

Listen to me, 

Is it just me, or am I just, going, crazzzzy...." 

You smile and it seems to come at 

exactly the right/specific/time/interval/second integral to keeping this moment memory, 

we see oceans of sky in our eyes, 

yours a south atlantic deep, light, blue, 

mine dirty, spectkled, green and brown and hazel all over, 

a northern pacific choppy, wild, 

in practice controlled, 

in play overflow occurs, 

landslides affect property values, 

insurance prices rise, 

new rules must be written, 

because, 

the old ones 

no longer 

apply.

When I Think About the Women in My Life 

-Marvin X Jackmon 

When I think about the women in my life 

there have been no women 

only angels who blessed me with love 

Flowing rivers freely 

no measure to their love 

cannot compare one love to another 

How can one compare the angelic 

This angel did that or that angel did this 

I won’t compare 

mothers of my children 

gifts they gave 

precious and sweet 

I would never compare 

Ithank you for the fruit of your womb 

I have seen the fruit of your womb flower and be great in the land 

And I am humbled 

other angels shared so many years 

My revolutionary sisters 

who battled with me gave me guidance 

When I was in the dark 

Who talked of building cities while I wrote poems 

my love your visions and dreams 

even I couldn’t see 

You the nationalist 

I the poet 

you showed me the way 

kicking and screaming 

To the sex workers who showed me love in the night 

I salute you 

you told me I was too rough to be a pimp 

try a little tenderness 

be more gentle you said 

thank you for serving me in the night

For Marsha who suffered my crack and died before I recovered 

I know you see me now in Cherokee 

where you said I needed to be 

a place proper for a classic black man artist 

An angel can dwell but in heaven 

No sweeter angel ever came on God’s earth 

miz brown eyes and unconditional love 

Berkeley Girl 

Smart and hot as fire 

willing to give beyond all

one of ten, ten in one 

Pamela in the Valley 

like Khadijah financed my come up 

Who worries more than I want to know 

Relax my sister 

few things in life of importance 

Rumi told you it don’t matter 

If you come to the garden 

If you don’t come to the garden 

It don’t matter 

God is all and all is God 

Nothing else matters. 

Your fears are not my fears so I won’t go there with you 

There is no fear in love 

there is only love in love 

something else in love it is not love but fear 

I do not go into the room where fear lives 

If you come from the room of fear you will find love everlasting 

Come from fear and see love 

What you love belongs to you and you alone 

No one can take what God has granted 

Hurriyah 

warrior woman from my youth 

revolutionary days dreams fears 

A million years cannot tare me from your love 

a million men 

I am still yours 

somebody better get a healing 

Up in here.

And Celeste 

angel from Berkeley 

Watch out for those Berkeley girls 

Hot and smart 

So now you know me 

Better act like you know me 

I’m willing if you willing 

If you willing to come to garden 

but it don’t matter 

it don’t matter. 

Let the people say Ache. 

Amen. As-Salaam-Alaikum.