61 Heartbreak poems

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew. It's the same when love comes to an end, or the marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it would never work. That she was old enough to know better. But anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Like being there by that summer ocean on the other side of the island while love was fading out of her, the stars burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last. Every morning she was asleep in my bed like a visitation, the gentleness in her like antelope standing in the dawn mist. Each afternoon I watched her coming back through the hot stony field after swimming, the sea light behind her and the huge sky on the other side of that. Listened to her while we ate lunch. How can they say the marriage failed? Like the people who came back from Provence (when it was Provence) and said it was pretty but the food was greasy. I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Farewell love and all thy laws forever; Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more. Senec and Plato call me from thy lore To perfect wealth, my wit for to endeavour. In blind error when I did persever, Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore, Hath taught me to set in trifles no store And scape forth, since liberty is lever. Therefore farewell; go trouble younger hearts And in me claim no more authority. With idle youth go use thy property And thereon spend thy many brittle darts, For hitherto though I have lost all my time, Me lusteth no lenger rotten boughs to climb.

Farewell, false love, the oracle of lies, A mortal foe and enemy to rest, An envious boy, from whom all cares arise, A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed, A way of error, a temple full of treason, In all effects contrary unto reason. A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers, Mother of sighs, and murderer of repose, A sea of sorrows whence are drawn such showers As moisture lend to every grief that grows; A school of guile, a net of deep deceit, A gilded hook that holds a poisoned bait. A fortress foiled, which reason did defend, A siren song, a fever of the mind, A maze wherein affection finds no end, A raging cloud that runs before the wind, A substance like the shadow of the sun, A goal of grief for which the wisest run. A quenchless fire, a nurse of trembling fear, A path that leads to peril and mishap, A true retreat of sorrow and despair, An idle boy that sleeps in pleasure's lap, A deep mistrust of that which certain seems, A hope of that which reason doubtful deems. Sith then thy trains my younger years betrayed, And for my faith ingratitude I find; And sith repentance hath my wrongs bewrayed, Whose course was ever contrary to kind: False love, desire, and beauty frail, adieu! Dead is the root whence all these fancies grew.

Lord she’s gone done left me done packed / up and split and I with no way to make her come back and everywhere the world is bare bright bone white    crystal sand glistens dope death dead dying and jiving drove her away made her take her laughter and her smiles and her softness and her midnight sighs— Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah and democracy and communism fuck smack and pot and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck god jesus and all the disciples fuck fanon nixon and malcolm fuck the revolution fuck freedom fuck the whole muthafucking thing all i want now is my woman back so my soul can sing

Cut back the stems an inch to keep in bloom. So instructs the florist’s note enclosed inside the flowers. Who knew what was cut could heal again, the green wounds close, stitching themselves together? It doesn’t matter. The flowers, red and white, will bloom awhile, then wither. You sit in an unlit room and watch the vase throw crystal shadows through the dark. The flowers’ colors are so lovely they’re painful. In a week, you’ll have to throw them out. It’s only hope that makes you take out scissors, separate each bloom and cut where you last measured. Did you know Venus was said to turn into a virgin each time she bathed? She did it as a mark of love. She did it so as to please her lovers. Perhaps, overwhelmed by pain, she eventually stopped bathing altogether. It doesn’t matter. It’s a pleasure to feel the green nubs stripped, watch the stems refresh under your blade. They’re here because they’re beautiful. They glow inside your crystal vase. And yet the flowers by themselves are nothing: only a refraction of color that, in a week or two, will be thrown out. Day by day, the water lowers. The red- and-white heads droop, blacken at the stems. It doesn’t matter. Even cut stems heal. But what is the point of pain if it heals? Some things should last forever, instructs the florist’s note.Pleasure, says one god.Shame, says another. Venus heads, they call these flowers. In a week or two, you’ll lose the note, have to call the florist up. With sympathy, you’ll think he says. Perhaps:With love. It doesn’t matter. You’ve stopped bathing. Alone, you sit before the crystal vase refracting you in pieces through the dark. You watch the pale skin bloom inside it, wither. You petal, inch by inch. You turn red and white together.

It ends because the beginning won’t jumpstart again: red smudge of a mouth, lipstick everywhere the afterthought a comet leaves on its way out. What makes this moment unfold like a fine woman raising herself up from the bathroom floor? Honky-tonk in the honeyed brown of an eyeball? Perfume & its circus of heart-shaped introductions? It ends because the needle always winds up in the lead-out, like a man pawing around for broken spectacles after he wakes in the world’s rubble. Hand over hand he paws, through stilted guitar picks & abandoned stilettos, raised skirts & rocks, glasses as chipped & smudged as the topography of a skipping record. He could be Albright himself, foraging the still-life swish of low-rise tutus & skyscrapers cracked in the twisted aftermath of a smile. Even without glasses, he remembers her in high style: magnanimously coming down the blue & violet threads of night, her green dress clashing with the bathroom tile.

When Reuben Pantier ran away and threw me I went to Springfield. There I met a lush, Whose father just deceased left him a fortune. He married me when drunk. My life was wretched. A year passed and one day they found him dead. That made me rich. I moved on to Chicago. After a time met Tyler Rountree, villain. I moved on to New York. A gray-haired magnate Went mad about me i so another fortune. He died one night right in my arms, you know. (I saw his purple face for years thereafter.) There was almost a scandal. I moved on, This time to Paris. I was now a woman, Insidious, subtle, versed in the world and rich. My sweet apartment near the Champs Élysées Became a center for all sorts of people, Musicians, poets, dandies, artists, nobles, Where we spoke French and German, Italian, English. I wed Count Navigato, native of Genoa. We went to Rome. He poisoned me, I think. Now in the Campo Santo overlooking The sea where young Columbus dreamed new worlds, See what they chiseled: "Contessa Navigato Implora eterna quiete."

I know what my heart is like Since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge Holding a little pool Left there by the tide, A little tepid pool, Drying inward from the edge.

And now I have another lad! No longer need you tell How all my nights are slow and sad For loving you too well. His ways are not your wicked ways, He's not the like of you. He treads his path of reckoned days, A sober man, and true. They'll never see him in the town, Another on his knee. He'd cut his laden orchards down, If that would pleasure me. He'd give his blood to paint my lips If I should wish them red. He prays to touch my finger-tips Or stroke my prideful head. He never weaves a glinting lie, Or brags the hearts he'll keep. I have forgotten how to sigh— Remembered how to sleep. He's none to kiss away my mind— A slower way is his. Oh, Lord! On reading this, I find A silly lot he is.

It's little I care what path I take, And where it leads it's little I care, But out of this house, lest my heart break, I must go, and off somewhere! It's little I know what's in my heart, What's in my mind it's little I know, But there's that in me must up and start, And it's little I care where my feet go! I wish I could walk for a day and a night, And find me at dawn in a desolate place, With never the rut of a road in sight, Or the roof of a house, or the eyes of a face. I wish I could walk till my blood should spout, And drop me, never to stir again, On a shore that is wide, for the tide is out, And the weedy rocks are bare to the rain. But dump or dock, where the path I take Brings up, it's little enough I care, And it's little I'd mind the fuss they'll make, Huddled dead in a ditch somewhere. "Is something the matter, dear," she said, "That you sit at your work so silently?" "No, mother, no—'twas a knot in my thread. There goes the kettle—I'll make the tea."