Inspired by well-known 1960's San Francisco poet and lyricist, Rod McKuen, this collection of poems written by Dick Carlsen attempts to capture the essence of McKuen's famous work. The collection employs a broad brush on the wide spectrum of love, loneliness, and romance. The poetry speaks to love's attendant mystique, loneliness, separation, hurt, heartache, anguish, disappointment, longing, and other emotions, including its illusiveness. It embodies a romantic's personal confiict between a relationship and independence.

Poetry is not everyone's favorite reading, but this collection may be an exception, for it offers a snapshot of human emotions and spirit of the moment. Many readers may very well relate to the writings describing the experiential "journey" of the romantic, and it may resonate and induce nostalgia.

Above all, this collection of love poems is for all the romantics, men and women, past and present.