1247 Love poems

Since you dare Brave me, with a Rivals Name, You shall prevail, and I will quite my Claime: For know, proud Maid, I Scorn to call him mine, Whom thou durst ever hope to have made thine: Yet I confess, I lov’d him once so well, His presence was my Heav’n, his absence Hell: With gen’rous excellence I fill’d his Brest, And in sweet Beauteous Forms his Person drest; For him I did heaven, and its Pow’r despise, And onely lived by th’Influence of his Eyes: I fear’d not Rivals, for I thought that he That was possess’d of such a Prize as me, All meaner Objects wou’d Contemn, and Slight, Nor let an abject thing Usurpe my Right: But when I heard he was so wretched Base To pay devotion to thy wrinkled Face I Banish’t him my sight, and told the Slave, He had not Worth, but what my Fancy gave: ’Twas I that rais’d him to this Glorious State, And can as easily Annihilate: But let him live, Branded with Guilt and Shame, And Shrink into the Shade from whence he came; His Punishment shall be, the Loss of Me, And be Augumented, by his gaining Thee.

Incautious Youth , why do'st thou so mis-place Thy fine Encomiums on an o’er-blown Face; Which after all the Varnish of thy Quill, Its Pristine wrinkles shew apparent still: Nor is it in the power of Youth to move An Age-chill’d heart to any strokes of Love. Then chuse some budding Beauty , which in time May crown thy Wishes in thy blooming prime: For nought can make a more preposterous show, Than April’s Flowers stuck on St. Michael’s Bow. To consecrate thy first-born Sighs to me, A superannuated Deity; Makes that Idolatry and deadly Sin, Which otherwise had only Venial been.

Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine— A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, “On! on!”—but o’er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast! For, alas! alas! with me The light of Life is o’er! No more—no more—no more— (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar! And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy grey eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams— In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams.

Why do I love? Go, ask the Glorious Sun Why every day it round the world doth run; Ask Thames and Tiber, why they Ebb and Flow: Ask Damask Roses why in June they blow; Ask Ice and Hail, the reason, why they’re Cold: Decaying Beauties, why they will grow Old They’ll tell thee, Fate, that every thing doth move, Inforces them to this, and me to Love. There is no Reason for our Love or Hate; ’Tis irresistible, as Death or Fate; ’Tis not his face; I’ve sence enough to see, That is not good, though doated on by me; Not is’t his Tongue, that has this Conquest won; For that at least is equall’d by my own: His Carriage can to none obliging be, ’Tis Rude, Affected, full of Vanity: Strangely Ill-natur’d, Peevish and Unkind, Unconstant, False, to Jealousie inclin’d, His Temper cou’d not have so great a Pow’r, ’Tis mutable, and changes every hour: Those vigorous Years that Women so Adore, Are past in him: he’s twice my Age, and more; And yet I love this false, this worthless Man With all the Passion that a Woman can; Doat on his Imperfections, though I spy Nothing to Love; I Love, and know not why. Since ’tis Decreed in the dark Book of Fate That I shou’d Love, and he shou’d be ingrate.

You are young, and I am older; You are hopeful, I am not— Enjoy life, ere it grow colder— Pluck the roses ere they rot. Teach your beau to heed the lay— That sunshine soon is lost in shade— That now’s as good as any day— To take thee, Rosa, ere she fade.

I wanted to be sure to reach you; though my ship was on the way it got caught in some moorings. I am always tying up and then deciding to depart. In storms and at sunset, with the metallic coils of the tide around my fathomless arms, I am unable to understand the forms of my vanity or I am hard alee with my Polish rudder in my hand and the sun sinking. To you I offer my hull and the tattered cordage of my will. The terrible channels where the wind drives me against the brown lips of the reeds are not all behind me. Yet I trust the sanity of my vessel; and if it sinks, it may well be in answer to the reasoning of the eternal voices, the waves which have kept me from reaching you.

Whenever I look out at the snowy mountains at this hour and speak directly into the ear of the sky, it’s you I’m thinking of. You’re like the spirits the children invent to inhabit the stuffed horse and the doll. I don’t know who hears me. I don’t know who speaks when the horse speaks.

She turned to gold and fell in love. She danced life upside down. She opened her wild eyes again and asked some strangers in. The strangers felt her in and out. They found her outsides thin. Since her heart was still and hard, they knocked her insides in.

At 14th Street and First Avenue Is a bank and in the bank the sexiest teller of all time Next to her the greatest thing about today Is today itself Through which I go up To buy books They float by under a bluer sky The girls uptown Quiet, pampered The sum of all that's terrible in women And much of the best And the old men go by holding small packages In a trance So rich even they can't believe it I think it's a red, white, and blue letter day for them too You see, Con Ed's smokestacks are beautiful The way Queens is And horses: from a pleasant distance Or a fleet of turkeys Stuffed in a spotless window In two days they'll be sweating in ovens Thinking, "How did I ever get in a fix like this?" Light pouring over buildings far away Up here when someone shouts "Hey!" In the street you know that they aren't going to kill you They're yelling to a friend of theirs named Hey John David Hey, perhaps And the garbage goes out In big white billowy plastic bags tied at the top And even the people go out in them Some are waiting now At the bus stop (for a nonexistent bus) And I thought it was garbage! It's so pretty! If you're classless or modern You can have fun by Walking into a high-class antique store So the stately old snob at the desk will ask In eternity "You're going where?" You get to answer, "Up." I like these old pricks If you have an extra hair in the breeze Their eyes pop out And then recede way back As if to say, "That person is on . . . dope!" They're very correct But they're not in my shoes In front of a Dubuffet a circus that shines through A window in a bright all-yellow building The window is my eye And Frank O'Hara is the building I'm thinking about him like mad today (As anyone familiar with his poetry will tell) And about the way Madison Avenue really Does go to heaven And turns around and comes back, disappointed Because up here you can look down on the janitor Or pity him And rent a cloud-colored Bentley and Architecture's so wonderful! Why don't I notice it more often? And the young girls and boys but especially the young girls Are drifting away from school In blue and white wool Wrapped in fur Are they French? They're speaking French! And they aren't looking for things to throw Skirts sliding up the legs of girls who can't keep from grinning Under beautiful soft brown American eyes At the whole world Which includes their Plain Jane girlfriends She even smiled at me! I have about as much chance of fucking her as the girl at the bank But I stride along, a terrifying god Raunchy A little one-day-old beard And good grief I really did forget to brush my teeth this morning They're turning red with embarrassment Or is that blood I've been drinking—I ordered a black coffee Miss And then a black policeman comes in Unbuttoning his uniform at the warmish soda fountain While I pull the fleece over my teeth And stare innocently at the books I've bought One a book with a drawing By Apollinaire called Les Fraises au Mexique Strawberries in Mexico But when I open the book to that page It's just a very blue sky I'm looking at

It's really something from the past— when you and I split up without any regrets— just one thing that I don't quite understand . . . When we were saying our farewells and our house was up for sale the empty pots and pans strewn across the courtyard— perhaps they were gazing into our eyes and others that were upside down— perhaps they were hiding their faces from us. A faded vine over the door, perhaps it was confiding something to us —or grumbling to the faucet. Things such as these never cross my mind; just one thing comes to mind again and again— how a street dog— catching the scent wandered into a bare room and the door slammed shut behind him. After three days— when the house changed hands we swapped keys for hard cash delivered every one of the locks to the new owner showed him one room after the other— we found that dog's carcass in the middle of a room . . . Not once had I heard him bark —I had smelled only his foul odor and even now, all of a sudden, I smell that odor— it gets to me from so many things . . .