1247 Love poems

You are the man You are my other country and I find it hard going You are the prickly pear You are the sudden violent storm the torrent to raise the river to float the wounded doe

With the man I love who loves me not, I walked in the street-lamps' flare; We watched the world go home that night In a flood through Union Square. I leaned to catch the words he said That were light as a snowflake falling; Ah well that he never leaned to hear The words my heart was calling. And on we walked and on we walked Past the fiery lights of the picture shows — Where the girls with thirsty eyes go by On the errand each man knows. And on we walked and on we walked, At the door at last we said good-bye; I knew by his smile he had not heard My heart's unuttered cry. With the man I love who loves me not I walked in the street-lamps' flare — But oh, the girls who ask for love In the lights of Union Square.

for John Fogleman There are some things we just don’t talk about— Not even in the morning, when we’re waking, When your calloused fingers tentatively walk The slope of my waist: How love’s a rust-worn boat, Abandoned at the dock—and who could doubt Waves lick their teeth, eyeing its hull? We’re taking Our wreckage as a promise, so we don’t talk. We wet the tired oars, tide drawing us out. We understand there’s nothing to be said. Both of us know the dangers of this sea, Warned by the tide-worn driftwood of our pasts—. But we’ve already strayed from the harbor. We thread A slow wake though the water—then silently, We start to row, and will for as long as this lasts.

There is no stillness in this wood. The quiet of this clearing Is the denial of my hearing The sounds I should. There is no vision in this glade. This tower of sun revealing The timbered scaffoldage is stealing Essence from shade. Only my love is love’s ideal. The love I could discover In these recesses knows no lover, Is the unreal, The undefined, unanalysed, Unabsolute many; It is antithesis of any, In none comprised.

boat me around gently. whoever i'm with i'm seeing only you. diplomacy has wounded us. pierced us. smashed us. is there something in the turning of this river's head that will mend our dislocations? your eagle drives my ego. there is ice in your thighs. take the buoys of light for your thighpaths whose eyes night has darkened.

in your arms it was incredibly often enough to be in your arms careful as we had to be at times about the I.V. catheter in my hand, or my wrist, or my forearm which we placed, consciously, like a Gamboni vase, the center of attention, placed, frail identity as if our someday-newborn on your chest— to be secluded, washed over in your arms often enough, it was in that stillness, the only stillness amidst the fears which wildly collided and the complexities of the illness, all the work we had yet to do, had just done, the hope, ridiculous ammounts of it we had to pump from nothing, really, short-lived consensus possibility & experiment to access from our pinched and tiny minds just the idea of hope make it from scratch, air and water like manufactured snow a colossal fatigue the severe concentration of that, the repetition of that lifted for a moment just above your arms inevitable, pressuring it weighed down but remained above like a cathedral ceiling, strangely sheltering while I held tightly while there I could in your arms only there, the only stillness remember the will, allow the pull, tow against inevitable ebb— you don't need reasons to live one reason, blinking in the fog, organically sweet in muddy dark incredibly often enough it is, it was in your arms

Ah, gaze not on those eyes! forbear That soft enchanting voice to hear: Not looks of basilisks give surer death, Nor Syrens sing with more destructive breath. Fly, if thy freedom thou’dst maintain, Alas! I feel th’advice is vain! A heart, whose safety but in flight does lie, Is too far lost to have the power to fly.

As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say The breath goes now, and some say, No: So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love. Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did, and meant; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent. Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it. But we by a love so much refined, That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do. And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like th' other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.

I’ll tell thee now (dear Love) what thou shalt do To anger destiny, as she doth us, How I shall stay, though she esloygne me thus And how posterity shall know it too; How thine may out-endure Sybil’s glory, and obscure Her who from Pindar could allure, And her, through whose help Lucan is not lame, And her, whose book (they say) Homer did find, and name. Study our manuscripts, those myriads Of letters, which have past twixt thee and me, Thence write our annals, and in them will be To all whom love’s subliming fire invades, Rule and example found; There, the faith of any ground No schismatic will dare to wound, That sees, how Love this grace to us affords, To make, to keep, to use, to be these his records. This book, as long-lived as the elements, Or as the world’s form, this all-graved tome In cipher writ, or new made idiom; We for love’s clergy only’are instruments, When this book is made thus, Should again the ravenous Vandals and the Goths invade us, Learning were safe; in this our universe Schools might learn sciences, spheres music, angels verse. Here Love’s divines (since all divinity Is love or wonder) may find all they seek, Whether abstract spiritual love they like, Their souls exhaled with what they do not see, Or loth so to amuse Faith’s infirmity, they choose Something which they may see and use; For, though mind be the heaven, where love doth sit, Beauty’a convenient type may be to figure it. Here more than in their books may lawyers find, Both by what titles mistresses are ours, And how prerogative these states devours, Transferred from Love himself, to womankind, Who though from heart, and eyes, They exact great subsidies, Forsake him who on them relies And for the cause, honor, or conscience give, Chimeras, vain as they, or their prerogative. Here statesmen (or of them, they which can read) May of their occupation find the grounds, Love and their art alike it deadly wounds, If to consider what’tis, one proceed, In both they do excel Who the present govern well, Whose weakness none doth, or dares tell; In this thy book, such will there nothing see, As in the Bible some can find out alchemy. Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I’ll study thee, As he removes far off, that great heights takes; How great love is, presence best trial makes, But absence tries how long this love will be; To take a latitude Sun, or stars, are fitliest viewed At their brightest, but to conclude, Of longitudes, what other way have we, But to mark when, and where the dark eclipses be?

simplicity say sleep or shall we shower have an apple you are as I need water shall I move? do you dream? shallow snow flesh melt this