1247 Love poems

For Fred I could pick anything and think of you— This lamp, the wind-still rain, the glossy blue My pen exudes, drying matte, upon the page. I could choose any hero, any cause or age And, sure as shooting arrows to the heart, Astride a dappled mare, legs braced as far apart As standing in silver stirrups will allow— There you'll be, with furrowed brow And chain mail glinting, to set me free: One eye smiling, the other firm upon the enemy. This post-postmodern age is all business: compact disks And faxes, a do-it-now-and-take-no-risks Event. Today a hurricane is nudging up the coast, Oddly male: Big Bad Floyd, who brings a host Of daydreams: awkward reminiscences Of teenage crushes on worthless boys Whose only talent was to kiss you senseless. They all had sissy names—Marcel, Percy, Dewey; Were thin as licorice and as chewy, Sweet with a dark and hollow center. Floyd's Cussing up a storm. You're bunkered in your Aerie, I'm perched in mine (Twin desks, computers, hardwood floors): We're content, but fall short of the Divine. Still, it's embarrassing, this happiness— Who's satisfied simply with what's good for us, When has the ordinary ever been news? And yet, because nothing else will do To keep me from melancholy (call it blues), I fill this stolen time with you.

Krystle Krystle Cole you're all I thought about sometimes I watched you while our daughter slept your Sissy Spacek ways your laconic demeanor in relaying either ecstasy or trauma & the un-embittered empathy your voice conveyed on YouTube which is our loving cup the solution of butter & DMT you took anally that really made you freak the fuck out & your friends just stood there watching you as you hurtled alone through mirrored tunnels. It's that frictionless feeling the smooth & vacant course that lacks abruption, one wave the clinical mania un- differentiated whiteness contains when cylindrical cloud hard & plastic comes to represent the mind to the mind & thus describe a model of terrible momentum with unity of purpose toward nothing so much as cold, radiant nature stripped of Eros, of becoming, just the mainframe & its withering severity without any predicate of others, save perhaps their gazes, no walls, no nothing, completely white light & your name when your consciousness was splitting time was stopping you were going always into that. I was going always to the mall in those months, the young century's rainiest April & May, to walk the baby & to understand my art. I didn't understand. I would move the stroller through the halogen, over grooved tile & across those smooth marble expanses meant to simulate floating & gliding before that pure frictionless feeling was entire. Sometimes we'd go inside the stores. Sears was still enormous & because of its design implied a bound series of discrete, related worlds linked by passages threatened & precarious to me. The connections felt besieged or like a mask for separation, they felt like connection between us in life but I didn't take my allegory further Krystle Cole, into your lysergic delirium later redeemed by a beautiful discipline of spirit & cosmography developed for praxis. I liked your video on candy flipping hard & developing ESP with friends. It suggested oneness was a leavened mix of random indiscretion, bruising wariness, & bliss obtained by synchronizing chemical encounter. Krystle, there's a made up drug I wonder if you'd do it? Bradley Cooper, in Limitless takes this little pill, which, in its candy dot translucence looks a lot like a tear plucked from the cheek in Man Ray's "Larmes." With it, he can utilize all of his brain, & so he un-riddles the patterning hidden in the ceaseless flow of capital, structuring its chaos in excess of any mortal with a terrible momentum & unity of purpose toward nothing so much as pure profit & complete subordination of the world. At the mall certain spots sold old stuff: sports memorabilia & video games, vintage organs & deluxe baby grands. In one store there were highly priced comics with toys & ephemera related to the stories. They had action figures based on some series I guess called The Crisis ofInfinite Earths. I wrote the phrase down in my notebook & realized only later that I'd made a rather telling trans- position, putting the word 'world' where 'earth' was & thinking The Crisis of Infinite Worlds I guess because anyone will occasion the world as a world its commonality precarious but real, & the person beside them does the same the person far in every way from them will as well where the wound of even being in material conditions where consciousness is made these confrontations & arrangements each taking their referent then as earth or taking something else entirely as world—the word is profligate & dense & transparent & cheap & impossibly one the clearest pill. In our minds it floods with light & we see through that, life's benevolent corruption in a radiance we can't make any sense of. Krystle, have you ever, just standing around, noticed someone smoking in an older silver Volvo & watched the comeback feelings of a Tupac Easter Sunday steep in their ambivalent features until they are more radiant than cinematic virgins having lost it in the wake of Saint Maria Goretti whose patronage is lost to the brutalized sweetness of her charges when depicted in the mind & reconstructed as a low-res simulation by scientists the weekend Wall Street's occupied & particles are found to go faster than light then weirdly feel like this is paradise not for people but paradise regardless. That same May I had gone to Detroit. I saw the most wonderful graffiti, more a prayer, written on a wall in magic marker, it read— Two Things: 1) That we would grow closer & closer as time progresses. 2) That our ships would not crash. Magic marker on a surface doesn't have much depth of skin. You move it smoothly on the wall & it stays smooth barely records the softest friction of two separate textures meeting. The wetness of its onyx dries quick or even quicker if you blow on it with circled lips, like clouds in old maps that blew ships across a flat earth to an edge I don't exactly not idealize. That somewhere there's a precipice in this world & tracing my finger along those ardent lines I'd found the fault of it a little, in its boldness far too faint & not enough.

You came to my door in the dawn and sang; it angered me to be awakened from sleep, and you went away unheeded. You came in the noon and asked for water; it vexed me in my work, and you were sent away with reproaches. You came in the evening with your flaming torches. You seemed to me like a terror and I shut my door. Now in the midnight I sit alone in my lampless room and call you back whom I turned away in insult.

What large, dark hands are those at the window Lifted, grasping the golden light Which weaves its way through the creeper leaves To my heart's delight? Ah, only the leaves! But in the west, In the west I see a redness come Over the evening's burning breast — — 'Tis the wound of love goes home! The woodbine creeps abroad Calling low to her lover: The sun-lit flirt who all the day Has poised above her lips in play And stolen kisses, shallow and gay Of pollen, now has gone away — She woos the moth with her sweet, low word, And when above her his broad wings hover Then her bright breast she will uncover And yield her honey-drop to her lover. Into the yellow, evening glow Saunters a man from the farm below, Leans, and looks in at the low-built shed Where hangs the swallow's marriage bed. The bird lies warm against the wall. She glances quick her startled eyes Towards him, then she turns away Her small head, making warm display Of red upon the throat. His terrors sway Her out of the nest's warm, busy ball, Whose plaintive cry is heard as she flies In one blue stoop from out the sties Into the evening's empty hall. Oh, water-hen, beside the rushes Hide your quaint, unfading blushes, Still your quick tail, and lie as dead, Till the distance folds over his ominous tread. The rabbit presses back her ears, Turns back her liquid, anguished eyes And crouches low: then with wild spring Spurts from the terror of his oncoming To be choked back, the wire ring Her frantic effort throttling: Piteous brown ball of quivering fears! Ah soon in his large, hard hands she dies, And swings all loose to the swing of his walk. Yet calm and kindly are his eyes And ready to open in brown surprise Should I not answer to his talk Or should he my tears surmise. I hear his hand on the latch, and rise from my chair Watching the door open: he flashes bare His strong teeth in a smile, and flashes his eyes In a smile like triumph upon me; then careless-wise He flings the rabbit soft on the table board And comes towards me: ah, the uplifted sword Of his hand against my bosom, and oh, the broad Blade of his hand that raises my face to applaud His coming: he raises up my face to him And caresses my mouth with his fingers, which still smell grim Of the rabbit's fur! God, I am caught in a snare! I know not what fine wire is round my throat, I only know I let him finger there My pulse of life, letting him nose like a stoat Who sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood: And down his mouth comes to my mouth, and down His dark bright eyes descend like a fiery hood Upon my mind: his mouth meets mine, and a flood Of sweet fire sweeps across me, so I drown Within him, die, and find death good.

And to the curious I say, Don’t be naïve. The soul, like a trinket, is a she. I lay down in the tweed of one man that first frost night. I did not like the wool of  him. You have one mitochondrial speck of evidence on your cleat. They can take you down for that. Did I forget to mention that when you’re dead You’re dead a long time. My uncle, dying, told me this when asked, Why stay here for such suffering. A chimney swift flits through the fumatorium. I long for one last Blue democracy, Which has broke my heart a while. How many minutes have I left, the lover asked, To still be beautiful? I took his blond face in my hands and kissed him blondly On his mouth.

Hark how the Mower Damon sung, With love of Juliana stung! While everything did seem to paint The scene more fit for his complaint. Like her fair eyes the day was fair, But scorching like his am’rous care. Sharp like his scythe his sorrow was, And withered like his hopes the grass. ‘Oh what unusual heats are here, Which thus our sunburned meadows sear! The grasshopper its pipe gives o’er; And hamstringed frogs can dance no more. But in the brook the green frog wades; And grasshoppers seek out the shades. Only the snake, that kept within, Now glitters in its second skin. ‘This heat the sun could never raise, Nor Dog Star so inflame the days. It from an higher beauty grow’th, Which burns the fields and mower both: Which mads the dog, and makes the sun Hotter than his own Phaëton. Not July causeth these extremes, But Juliana’s scorching beams. ‘Tell me where I may pass the fires Of the hot day, or hot desires. To what cool cave shall I descend, Or to what gelid fountain bend? Alas! I look for ease in vain, When remedies themselves complain. No moisture but my tears do rest, Nor cold but in her icy breast. ‘How long wilt thou, fair shepherdess, Esteem me, and my presents less? To thee the harmless snake I bring, Disarmèd of its teeth and sting; To thee chameleons, changing hue, And oak leaves tipped with honey dew. Yet thou, ungrateful, hast not sought Nor what they are, nor who them brought. ‘I am the Mower Damon, known Through all the meadows I have mown. On me the morn her dew distills Before her darling daffodils. And, if at noon my toil me heat, The sun himself licks off my sweat. While, going home, the evening sweet In cowslip-water bathes my feet. ‘What, though the piping shepherd stock The plains with an unnumbered flock, This scythe of mine discovers wide More ground than all his sheep do hide. With this the golden fleece I shear Of all these closes every year. And though in wool more poor than they, Yet am I richer far in hay. ‘Nor am I so deformed to sight, If in my scythe I lookèd right; In which I see my picture done, As in a crescent moon the sun. The deathless fairies take me oft To lead them in their dances soft: And, when I tune myself to sing, About me they contract their ring. ‘How happy might I still have mowed, Had not Love here his thistles sowed! But now I all the day complain, Joining my labour to my pain; And with my scythe cut down the grass, Yet still my grief is where it was: But, when the iron blunter grows, Sighing, I whet my scythe and woes.’ While thus he threw his elbow round, Depopulating all the ground, And, with his whistling scythe, does cut Each stroke between the earth and root, The edgèd steel by careless chance Did into his own ankle glance; And there among the grass fell down, By his own scythe, the Mower mown. ‘Alas!’ said he, ‘these hurts are slight To those that die by love’s despite. With shepherd’s-purse, and clown’s-all-heal, The blood I staunch, and wound I seal. Only for him no cure is found, Whom Juliana’s eyes do wound. ’Tis death alone that this must do: For Death thou art a Mower too.’

You give me flowers resembling Chinese lanterns. You give me hale, for yellow. You give me vex. You give me lemons softened in brine and you give me cuttlefish ink. You give me all 463 stairs of Brunelleschi’s dome. You give me seduction and you let me give it back to you. You give me you. You give me an apartment full of morning smells—toasted bagel and black coffee and the freckled lilies in the vase on the windowsill. You give me 24-across. You give me flowers resembling moths’ wings. You give me the first bird of morning alighting on a wire. You give me the sidewalk café with plastic furniture and the boys with their feet on the chairs. You give me the swoop of homemade kites in the park on Sunday. You give me afternoon-colored beer with lemons in it. You give me D.H. Lawrence, and he gives me pomegranates and sorb-apples. You give me the loose tooth of California, the broken jaw of New York City. You give me the blue sky of Wyoming, and the blue wind through it. You give me an ancient city where the language is a secret everyone is keeping. You give me a t-shirt that says all you gave me was this t-shirt. You give me pictures with yourself cut out. You give me lime blossoms, but not for what they symbolize. You give me yes. You give me no. You give me midnight apples in a car with the windows down. You give me the flashbulbs of an electrical storm. You give me thunder and the suddenly green underbellies of clouds. You give me the careening of trains. You give me the scent of bruised mint. You give me the smell of black hair, of blond hair. You give me Apollo and Daphne, Pan and Syrinx. You give me Echo. You give me hyacinths and narcissus. You give me foxgloves and soft fists of peony. You give me the filthy carpet of an East Village apartment. You give me seeming not to notice. You give me an unfinished argument, begun on the Manhattan-bound F train. You give me paintings of women with their eyes closed. You give me grief, and how to grieve.

Soft kisses may be innocent; But ah! too easy maid, beware; Tho’ that is all thy kindness meant, ’Tis love’s delusive, fatal snare. No virgin e’er at first design’d Thro’ all the maze of love to stray; But each new path allures her mind, Till wandering on, she lose her way. ’Tis easy ere set out to stay; But who the useful art can teach, When sliding down a steepy way, To stop, before the end we reach? Keep ever something in thy power, Beyond what would thy honour stain: He will not dare to aim at more, Who for small favours sighs in vain.

For Marian Before you, I was living on an island And all around the seas of that lonely coast Cast up their imitation jewels, cast Their fables and enigmas, questioning, sly. I never solved them, or ever even heard, Being perfect in innocence: unconscious of self; Such ignorance of history was all my wealth— A geographer sleeping in the shadow of virgins. But though my maps were made of private countries I was a foreigner in all of them after you had come, For when you spoke, it was with a human tongue And never understood by my land-locked gentry. Then did the sun shake down a million bells And birds bloom on bough in wildest song! Phlegmatic hills went shivering with flame; The chestnut trees were manic at their deepest boles! It is little strange that nature was riven in her frame At this second creation, known to every lover— How we are shaped and shape ourselves in the desires of the other Within the tolerance of human change. Out of the spring’s innocence this revolution, Created on a kiss, announced the second season, The summer of private history, of growth, through whose sweet sessions The trees lift toward the sun, each leaf a revelation. Our bodies, coupled in the moonlight’s album, Proclaimed our love against the outlaw times Whose signature was written in the burning towns. Your face against the night was my medallion. Your coming forth aroused unlikely trumpets In the once-tame heart. They heralded your worth Who are my lodestar, my bright and ultimate North, Marrying all points of my personal compass. This is the love that now invents my fear Which nuzzles me like a puppy each violent day. It is poor comfort that the mind comes, saying: What is one slim girl to the peoples’ wars? Still, my dice are loaded: having had such luck, Having your love, my life would still be whole Though I should die tomorrow. I have lived it all. —And love is never love, that cannot give love up.

Let it not your wonder move, Less your laughter, that I love. Though I now write fifty years, I have had, and have, my peers; Poets, though divine, are men, Some have lov'd as old again. And it is not always face, Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace; Or the feature, or the youth. But the language and the truth, With the ardour and the passion, Gives the lover weight and fashion. If you then will read the story, First prepare you to be sorry That you never knew till now Either whom to love or how; But be glad, as soon with me, When you know that this is she Of whose beauty it was sung; She shall make the old man young, Keep the middle age at stay, And let nothing high decay, Till she be the reason why All the world for love may die.