1247 Love poems

Twice or thrice had I lov'd thee, Before I knew thy face or name; So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be; Still when, to where thou wert, I came, Some lovely glorious nothing I did see. But since my soul, whose child love is, Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do, More subtle than the parent is Love must not be, but take a body too; And therefore what thou wert, and who, I bid Love ask, and now That it assume thy body, I allow, And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow. Whilst thus to ballast love I thought, And so more steadily to have gone, With wares which would sink admiration, I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught; Ev'ry thy hair for love to work upon Is much too much, some fitter must be sought; For, nor in nothing, nor in things Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere; Then, as an angel, face, and wings Of air, not pure as it, yet pure, doth wear, So thy love may be my love's sphere; Just such disparity As is 'twixt air and angels' purity, 'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.

One last meal, family-style — no family, and with suspect style. November first, my almost-groom fresh off his flasher costume discharge at the office. Harris tweed. I read it on his antisocial feed. The motel life is all a dream — we were, as they say, living the dream. I appreciate our quandary, hot-plate dates and frowsy laundry. Face tattoos are never a good sign. I hope his tumor is benign. I won’t forget the time he lent me Inches, which I gave up for Lent. Our love was threat, like phantom pain. An almost-plan for a bullet train. I’m weaning myself off graphic tees, not taking on any new disease. I walk along Pier 5 to kill the myth, of course another stab at myth. I pull my output from the shelf and wildly anthologize myself. I’ve adopted another yellow lab. I hope to die inside this cab. My lack of faith is punctuation — no wait, the lack of punctuation. Every intonation, one more pact with injury; my latest one-act: “Flossing in Public.” In the spattered glass of the republic.

1 i want to have your child cuz upon losing you i’ll have more than memory more than ache more than greatness i’ll have laughter i do not mean to be fatalistic know the limits put on you black man me, black woman when you are killed or imprisoned desert or separate from me i’ll continue fill the void of your absence with love between me and ours gods 2 you love me in your eyes. don’t say it loud pain america will never let you 3 you’re home. it’s a surprise you’ve made it thru another day one more night in your arms to fuck merge our bodies merge give wealth/freedom congress cannot legislate away 4 eyes wide as suns inquire where’s daddy? he’s gone away i love my daddy i smile he’s a good man eyes wide as suns burn my hand with a kiss go outside to play in the streets god what god is about

I thought i knew what love was turns out i knew what wanting someone to stay feels like different thing harder thing mine thing

Amyntas led me to a Grove, Where all the Trees did shade us; The Sun it self, though it had Strove, It could not have betray’d us: The place secur’d from humane Eyes, No other fear allows. But when the Winds that gently rise, Doe Kiss the yielding Boughs. Down there we satt upon the Moss, And id begin to play A Thousand Amorous Tricks, to pass The heat of all the day. A many Kisses he did give: And I return’d the same Which made me willing to receive That which I dare not name. His Charming Eyes no Aid requir’d To tell their softning Tale; On her that was already fir’d ’Twas easy to prevaile. He did but Kiss and Clasp me round, Whilst those his thoughts Exprest: And lay’d me gently on the Ground; Ah who can guess the rest?

When I get up he has been long at work, his brush limber against the house. Seeing him on his ladder under the eaves, I look back on myself asleep in the dream I could not carry awake. Sleep inside a house that is being painted, whole lifetimes now only the familiar cast of morning light over the prayer plant. This “not remembering” is something new of where you have been. What was settled or unsettled in sleep stays there. But your house under this steady arm is leaving itself and you see this gradual surface of new light covering your sleep has the greater power. You think now you felt brush strokes or the space between them, a motion bearing down on you—accumulation of stars, each night of them arranging over the roofs of entire cities. His careful strokes whiten the web, the swirl of woodgrain blotted out like a breath stopped at the heart. Nothing has changed you say, faithlessly. But something has cleansed you past recognition. When you stand near his ladder looking up he does not acknowledge you, and as from daylight in a dream you see your house has passed from you into the blessed hands of others. This is ownership, you think, arriving in the heady afterlife of paint smell. A deep opening goes on in you. Some paint has dropped onto your shoulder as though light concealed an unsuspected weight. You think it has fallen through you. You think you have agreed to this, what has been done with your life, willingly.

If an orchidophage’s tastebud magnified resembles an orchid so my buds indubitably mimic pricking ice cream cones. Love, little by little it dawned on us the artisanal ice cream, especially the prizewinning caramel, would be out of our reach, like the previous Friday of a Sunday leaving the beach, in the meltdown. When you gasp at the soundfile of cymbals

you are my bread and the hairline noise of my bones you are almost the sea you are not stone or molten sound I think you have no hands this kind of bird flies backward and this love breaks on a windowpane where no light talks this is not time for crossing tongues (the sand here never shifts) I think tomorrow turned you with his toe and you will shine and shine unspent and underground

The wine of Love is music, And the feast of Love is song: And when Love sits down to the banquet, Love sits long: Sits long and ariseth drunken, But not with the feast and the wine; He reeleth with his own heart, That great rich Vine.

By photography’s gospel, I thank you, think you back. You fail far away from me, waving at pain. A perfect song is loveless and here by your name. Things will never be the same. Are they the same yet?