1247 Love poems

Make and be eaten, the poet says, Lie in the arms of nightlong fire, To celebrate the waking, wake. Burn in the daylong light; and praise Even the mother unappeased, Even the fathers of desire. Blind go the days, but joy will see Agreements of music; they will wind The shaking of your dance; no more Will the ambiguous arm-waves spell Confusion of the blessing given. Only and finally declare Among the purest shapes of grace The waking of the face of fire, The body of waking and the skill To make your body such a shape That all the eyes of hope shall stare. That all the cries of fear shall know, Staring in their bird-pierced song; Lines of such penetration make That shall bind our loves at last. Then from the mountains of the lost, All the fantasies shall wake, Strong and real and speaking turn Wherever flickers your unreal. And my strong ghosts shall fade and pass My love start fiery as grass Wherever burn my fantasies, Wherever burn my fantasies. April 1955

Now that I have your face by heart, I look Less at its features than its darkening frame Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame, Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd’s crook. Beyond, a garden. There, in insolent ease The lead and marble figures watch the show Of yet another summer loath to go Although the scythes hang in the apple trees. Now that I have your face by heart, I look. Now that I have your voice by heart, I read In the black chords upon a dulling page Music that is not meant for music’s cage, Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed. The staves are shuttled over with a stark Unprinted silence. In a double dream I must spell out the storm, the running stream. The beat’s too swift. The notes shift in the dark. Now that I have your voice by heart, I read. Now that I have your heart by heart, I see The wharves with their great ships and architraves; The rigging and the cargo and the slaves On a strange beach under a broken sky. O not departure, but a voyage done! The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun. Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.

Love has crept into her sealed heart As a field bee, black and amber, Breaks from the winter-cell, to clamber Up the warm grass where the sunbeams start. Love has crept into her summery eyes, And a glint of colored sunshine brings Such as his along the folded wings Of the bee before he flies. But I with my ruffling, impatient breath Have loosened the wings of the wild young sprite; He has opened them out in a reeling flight, And down her words he hasteneth. Love flies delighted in her voice: The hum of his glittering, drunken wings Sets quivering with music the little things That she says, and her simple words rejoice.

Sweetest love, I do not go, For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can show A fitter love for me; But since that I Must die at last, 'tis best To use myself in jest Thus by feign'd deaths to die. Yesternight the sun went hence, And yet is here today; He hath no desire nor sense, Nor half so short a way: Then fear not me, But believe that I shall make Speedier journeys, since I take More wings and spurs than he. O how feeble is man's power, That if good fortune fall, Cannot add another hour, Nor a lost hour recall! But come bad chance, And we join to'it our strength, And we teach it art and length, Itself o'er us to'advance. When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind, But sigh'st my soul away; When thou weep'st, unkindly kind, My life's blood doth decay. It cannot be That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st, If in thine my life thou waste, That art the best of me. Let not thy divining heart Forethink me any ill; Destiny may take thy part, And may thy fears fulfil; But think that we Are but turn'd aside to sleep; They who one another keep Alive, ne'er parted be.

Chide me not, darling, that I sing Familiar thoughts and metres old: Nay, do not scold My spirit’s childish uttering. I know not why ’t is that or this I murmur to you thus or so: Only I know It throbs across my silences, It blows over my heart,—a long Infinite wind, again, again! Again! and then My life kneels down into a song.

Shall I wasting in despair Die because a woman's fair? Or make pale my cheeks with care 'Cause another's rosy are? Be she fairer than the day, Or the flow'ry meads in May— If she be not so to me, What care I how fair she be? Shall my foolish heart be pined 'Cause I see a woman kind? Or a well-disposed nature Joinèd with a lovely feature? Be she meeker, kinder, than Turtle dove or pelican, If she be not so to me, What care I how kind she be? Shall a woman's virtues move Me to perish for her love? Or her merits' value known Make me quite forget mine own? Be she with that goodness blest Which may gain her name of Best; If she seem not such to me, What care I how good she be? 'Cause her fortune seems too high Shall I play the fool and die? Those that bear a noble mind Where they want of riches find, Think what with them they would do That without them dare to woo; And unless that mind I see, What care I how great she be? Great or good, or kind or fair, I will ne'er the more despair: If she love me, this believe, I will die ere she shall grieve; If she slight me when I woo, I can scorn and let her go; For if she be not for me, What care I for whom she be?

After I found out that you were a sheep, it was always afternoon, and I stood trembling at the pasture fence, my hands full of dandelion and the longer grasses. How could I call you to come near? We had no names and only this place, this sun, the hill and its limitless sky held together by your gentle outline as you leaned toward tufts of grass. How beautiful you were, so still, so close to moving. I gathered bouquets of clover, strung violets from the fence slats. Sometimes I whispered, but the words disappeared before I knew what they were or what they meant. Once I saw darkness. I remember my eyes were open and there was nothing, only black, and my heart aching as I felt for my face and I was still human. While I cried, stars came and traced sheep in the sky and the voice that knew never spoke. I fell asleep mistaking the scent of hay for your breath. To wake once from the sleep in which you are held, in which your name emanates without utterance from the being that cradles you—There is no other sleep. Now it is always afternoon. How can I call you when we have no names? I search for the clover and violets. There are always enough. My shadow is always the same length and shaped with arms and legs. Between us, the distance of field is green and exact; the sun gleams from its cloudless height—I know that there is enough time, that there is always enough. Please. Come to me, remember me: undo this world.

You that are dear, O you above the rest! Forgive him his evasive moods and cold; The absence that belied him oft of old, The war upon sad speech, the desperate jest, And pity’s wildest gush but half-confessed, Forgive him! Let your gentle memories hold Some written word once tender and once bold, Or service done shamefacedly at best, Whereby to judge him. All his days he spent, Like one who with an angel wrestled well, O’ermastering Love with show of light disdain; And whatso’er your spirits underwent, He, wounded for you, worked no miracle To make his heart’s allegiance wholly plain.

for my love, Charles (1938-2000) Say: 言 I love you, I love you, I love you, no matter your race, your sex, your color. Say: the world is round and the arctic is cold. Say: I shall kiss the rondure of your soul’s living marl. Say: he is beautiful, serenely beautiful, yet, only ephemerally so. Say: Her Majesty combs her long black hair for hours. Say: O rainbows, in his eyes, rainbows. Say: O frills and fronds, I know you Mr. Snail Consciousness, O foot plodding the underside of leaves. Say: I am nothing without you, nothing, Ms. Lookeast, Ms. Lookeast, without you, I am utterly empty. Say: the small throat of sorrow. Say: China and France, China and France. Say: Beauty and loss, the dross of centuries. Say: Nothing in their feudal antechamber shall relinquish us of our beauty— Say: Mimosa—this is not a marriage song (epithalamion). Say: when I was a young girl in Hong Kong a prince came on a horse, I believe it was piebald. O dead prince     dead dead prince     who paid for my ardor. Say: O foot     O ague     O warbling oratorio . . . Say: Darling, use “love” only as a transitive verb for the first forty years of your life. Say: I have felt this before, it’s soft, human. Say: my love is a fragile concertina. Say: you always love them in the beginning, then, you take them to slaughter. O her coarse whispers     O her soft bangs. By their withers, they are emblazoned doppelgangers. Say: beauty and terror, beauty and terror. Say: the house is filled with perfume, dancing sonatinas and pungent flowers. Say: houses filled with combs     combs     combs and the mistress’ wan ankles. Say: embrace the An Lu Shan ascendancy and the fantastical diaspora of tears. Say: down blue margins my inky love runs. Tearfully, tearfully, the pearl concubine runs. There is a tear in his left eye—sadness or debris? Say: reverence to her, reverence to her. Say: I am a very small boy, a very small boy. I am a teeny weeny little boy who yearns to be punished. Say: I can’t live without you Head Mistress, Head Mistress, I am a little lamb, a consenting little lamb. I am a sheep without his fold. Say: God does not exist and hell is other people— And Mabel, can’t we get out of this hotel? Say: Gregor Samsa—someone in Tuscaloosa thinks you’re magnifico, she will kiss your battered cheek, embrace your broken skull. Is the apple half eaten or half whole? Suddenly, he moves within me, how do I know that he is not death, in death there is certain / / caesura. Say: there is poetry in his body, poetry in his body, yes, say: this dead love, this dead love, this dead, dead love, this lovely death, this white percale, white of hell, of heavenly shale. Centerfolia . . . say: kiss her sweet lips. Say: what rhymes with “flower”: “bower,” “shower,” “power”? I am that yellow girl, that famished yellow girl from the first world. Say: I don’t give a shit about nothing ’xcept my cat, your cock and poetry. Say: a refuge between sleeping and dying. Say: to Maui     to Maui     to Maui creeps in his petty pompadour. Day to day, her milk of human kindness ran dry: I shall die of   jejune jujune la lune la lune. Say: a beleaguered soldier, a fine arse had he. Say: I have seen the small men of my generation rabid, discrete, hysterical, lilliput, naked. Say: Friday is okay; we’ll have fish. Say: Friday is not okay; he shall die of the measles near the bay. Say: Friday, just another savage day until Saturday, the true Sabbath, when they shall finally stay.   Say: Sojourner Truth. Say: I am dismayed by your cloying promiscuousness and fawning attitude. Say:amaduofu, amaduofu. Say: he put cumin and tarragon in his stew. Say: he’s the last wave of French Algerian Jews. He’s a cousin of Helene Cixous, twice removed. Say: he recites the lost autobiography of Camus. Say: I am a professor from the University of Stupidity. I cashed my welfare check and felt good. I saw your mama crossing the bridge of magpies up on the faded hillock with the Lame Ox— Your father was conspicuously absent. Admit that you loved your mother, that you killed your father to marry your mother. Suddenly, my terrible childhood made sense. Say: beauty and truth, beauty and truth, all ye need to know on earth all ye need to know. Say: I was boogying down, boogying down Victoria Peak Way and a slip-of-a-boy climbed off his ox: he importuned me for a kiss, a tiny one on his cankered lip. Say: O celebrator     O celebrant of a blessed life, say: false     fleeting     hopes. Say: despair, despair, despair. Say: Chinawoman, I am a contradiction in terms: I embody frugality and ecstasy. Friday Wong died on a Tuesday. O how he loved his lambs. He was lost in their sheepfold. Say: another mai tai before your death. Another measure     another murmur     before your last breath. Another boyfriend, Italianesque. Say: Save. Exit. Say: I am the sentence which shall at last elude her. Oh, the hell of heaven’s girth, a low mound from here . . . Say: Oh, a mother’s vision of the emerald hills draws down her brows. Say: A brush of jade, a jasper plow furrow. Say: ####00000xxxxx!!!! Contemplate     thangs     cerebral     spiritual     open     stuff     reality by definition     lack     any     spatial     extension we occupy     no space     and     are     not     measurable we do not move     undulate     are not in     perpetual motion where     for example     is thinking     in the head?     in my vulva? whereas     in my female lack of penis?     Physical thangs     spatial extensions     mathematically     measurable preternaturally     possible     lack bestial     vegetable     consciousness lack     happiness     lackluster     lack chutzpah lack     love Say: A scentless camellia bush bloodied the afternoon. Fuck this line, can you really believe this? When did I become the master of suburban bliss? With whose tongue were we born? The language of the masters is the language of the aggressors. We’ve studied their cadence carefully— enrolled in a class to improve our accent. Meanwhile, they hover over, waiting for us to stumble . . . to drop an article, mispronounce an R. Say: softly, softly, the silent gunboats glide. O onerous sibilants, O onomatopoetic glibness. Say: How could we write poetry in a time like this? A discipline that makes much ado about so little? Willfully laconic, deceptively disguised as a love poem. Say: Your engorging dict- atorial flesh grazed mine. Would you have loved me more if I were black? Would I have loved you more if you were white? And you, relentless Sinophile, holding my long hair, my frayed dreams. My turn to objectify you. I, the lunatic, the lover, the poet, the face of an orphan static with flies, the scourge of the old world, which reminds us—it ain’t all randy dandy in the new kingdom Say     rebuke     descry Hills and canyons, robbed by sun, leave us nothing.

The wind was high—it gave to your hair a lift in equal parts gradual, steep, disarming— I love a storm, and said so; by I have always loved better the wreckage after, I did not mean instead of, but a preference. To the air, an edge anyone would call arctic—isn't that why we left it nameless? To your face, a look I'd admired before in the bodies of those who seem not so much indifferent as made ignorant, or stunned as if by sudden luck, or else repentant and in payment, somehow, for what all price falls like an irrelevance, a stole, an expensive sail in a calm away from. Sex as a space available where neither loss nor regret figures—imagine that. Or not having, finally, to take anything away—in the form of photographs of the mostly ice that the harbor's water, the shore past that, the street after had become; or as words like those that came to me:green, kind of, lit almost, by as if from within in places, a spill but an arrested one, less force than the idea of it, block and edge like the chance for pattern, but spent now or only, from the very start, false —false and singing. The wind was high; it exaggerated what you were already, a man returning toward shelter he can't see yet, but believes just ahead exists, the sort of man for whom to doubt at all is treason. By not unfaithful, I understood I could mean both things: I'd do nothing I'd promised not to— Also, there is nothing I'll forget.