61 Heartbreak poems

I left my heart in the teeth of jumper-cables— black tongue, superfluous nipples . . . By The Time I hit the yellow tape— it was already turning red . . . Of my fair and alabaster love? My redundant chains drawn in chalk? Halfway to the stars I stopped— turned, spat—it’s too late, baby. . .

There is a change—and I am poor; Your love hath been, nor long ago, A fountain at my fond heart's door, Whose only business was to flow; And flow it did; not taking heed Of its own bounty, or my need. What happy moments did I count! Blest was I then all bliss above! Now, for that consecrated fount Of murmuring, sparkling, living love, What have I? shall I dare to tell? A comfortless and hidden well. A well of love—it may be deep— I trust it is,—and never dry: What matter? if the waters sleep In silence and obscurity. —Such change, and at the very door Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.

We walked through some heartache in '62. Gary liked Teresa but Teresa asked Elizabeth to tell Peter that she really wanted to go out with him but Peter had been making out with Jane in the theater, celebrating their one month anniversary, so that was out, and even though Jane broke up with Pete, Peter kept asking Gail to talk with Jane which Gail wouldn't do because she'd told Brenda that she thought that Peter was cute but Brenda wasn't listening to a word, wrapped up in lonely teardrops shed for Greg. The waters of 8th grade were never still.

To my first love, I wept profusely. These tears confused the boy, and he would act. Generally, he took me out to eat. I grew fat, sobbing my way into some of the best restaurants in Richmond. My first husband ignored the initial shattering of tears. But if I went on grovelling, wailing long enough he’d collect me from the floor give me a bit more grocery money, wipe my eyes tell me it would be okay by and by. My second husband despised my tears. He’d seen women crawl and shake enough, said the vipers can enter a trance at will and let their best sobs heave ho to twist a man and bend him into shape. I trouble not this third man with my tears. Have in fact forgotten how to cry and in forgetting have grown steel eyes, a molten core like mad Vesuvius, am held in check by nothing but the weather and the whims of fate.

Something has come between us— It will not sleep. Every night it rises like a fish Out of the deep. It cries with a human voice, It aches to be fed. Every night we heave it weeping Into our bed, With its heavy head lolled back, Its limbs hanging down, Like a mer-creature fetched up From the weeds of the drowned. Damp in the tidal dark, it whimpers, Tossing the cover, Separating husband from wife, Lover from lover. It settles in the interstice, It spreads out its arms, While its cool underwater face Sharpens and warms: This is the third thing that makes Father and mother, The fierce love of our fashioning That will have no brother.

When I take my scissors to your shirts, I am frightened: not that they will whimper But that they won’t understand the violence I mean. That kind of violence is the other side of love, Bright as a light-saber and permanent As the angel’s swords above Eden Barring that couple with a final X, That violence means a love strong as death. Once Sie ist mein leben, you said, meaning me And I took those words personally And knocked upon the door of my heart Until all its birds flooded to you, in a rush— Like the Iroquois, I tugged on our peace-pipe, I wrote your name in smoke. Then went home With my pockets rolling in shining glass beads, My pockets so rich with the coin of your country.

You did not come, And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb,— Yet less for loss of your dear presence there Than that I thus found lacking in your make That high compassion which can overbear Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum, You did not come. You love not me, And love alone can lend you loyalty; –I know and knew it. But, unto the store Of human deeds divine in all but name, Was it not worth a little hour or more To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be You love not me?

I’ll fly off to a fjord in Norway, post “Oh the pain” above my doorway if you insist on going your way, for this is not a duck. That is what cowards say, and realists who run away, shun the appeal its rare white fur holds, although they feel it’s a rabbit full of pluck. Let’s multiply, let’s twitch our noses, let’s walk among the night’s dark roses, though where the oldest story goes is a place where tongues might cluck. I’ve had my share of quacks and hisses; whereof mouth cannot speak, it kisses; hop to it, man, and realize this is a lovely bit of luck.

I, with whose colours Myra dress’d her head, I, that ware posies of her own hand-making, I, that mine own name in the chimneys read By Myra finely wrought ere I was waking: Must I look on, in hope time coming may With change bring back my turn again to play? I, that on Sunday at the church-stile found A garland sweet, with true-love knots in flowers, Which I to wear about mine arm was bound, That each of us might know that all was ours: Must I now lead an idle life in wishes, And follow Cupid for his loaves and fishes? I, that did wear the ring her mother left, I, for whose love she gloried to be blamed, I, with whose eyes her eyes committed theft, I, who did make her blush when I was named: Must I lose ring, flowers, blush, theft, and go naked, Watching with sighs till dead love be awaked? I, that, when drowsy Argus fell asleep, Like jealousy o’erwatched with desire, Was even warned modesty to keep, While her breath, speaking, kindled Nature’s fire: Must I look on a-cold, while others warm them? Do Vulcan’s brothers in such fine nets arm them? Was it for this that I might Myra see Washing the water with her beauties white? Yet would she never write her love to me. Thinks wit of change, while thoughts are in delight? Mad girls must safely love as they may leave; No man can print a kiss: lines may deceive.

We’re through, we’re through, we’re through, we’re through, we’re through and—flanking, now, the edges of our schism— it seems your coldness and my idealism alone for all this time have kept us true. Credulous I and hedonistic you: opposed, refracting angles of a prism who challenged sense with childish skepticism— and every known the bulk of mankind knew.