1247 Love poems

(from Two Gentlemen of Verona ) Who is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admirèd be. Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness. Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness; And, being helped, inhabits there. Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling; To her let us garlands bring

Why so pale and wan fond lover? Prithee why so pale? Will, when looking well can’t move her, Looking ill prevail? Prithee why so pale? Why so dull and mute young sinner? Prithee why so mute? Will, when speaking well can’t win her, Saying nothing do’t? Prithee why so mute? Quit, quit for shame, this will not move, This cannot take her; If of herself she will not love, Nothing can make her; The devil take her.

Wintah, summah, snow er shine, Hit's all de same to me, Ef only I kin call you mine, An' keep you by my knee. Ha'dship, frolic, grief er caih, Content by night an' day, Ef only I kin see you whaih You wait beside de way. Livin', dyin', smiles er teahs, My soul will still be free, Ef only thoo de comin' yeahs You walk de worl' wid me. Bird-song, breeze-wail, chune er moan, What puny t'ings dey'll be, Ef w'en I's seemin' all erlone, I knows yo' hea't's wid me.

You’re flush with hearts and I’m forced to fold this hand and swear off another luckless match. How we’ve found ways to love each other, cajoled our cindered hearts, flushed and forced to fold upon themselves like Saint Valentine ensouled with seizure, skin a whirring bee swarm, a hatched flush of doves. My heart, how I’m forced to fold my hands in prayer for another struck match.

How can you go swimming in another human being? I am swimming and asking for light. Once I paddled into dust and fucking and the horsemen and ruin and the poisonous hollows of a projected blue eye and cracked my skull on all and caught more disease in my already dread mind and entered the medicines of no human power, the forests of disappearing moans, which were rich in sap but lacked dissolve fertilized against my own swimming nature, Aleph I am swimming for you now and I don’t care. When you leave the forest you do not become the ocean and I have become the desert trying to swim in the ocean and knowing this, carrying the forest floor in a sweet wood coffin and the blackbrush and rocks, the yucca and cacti of receded oceans, which were never oceans at all or there would have been shells on the sand, they only looked like oceans in my thirst, I cut the old horizon with a sword you have given and I gut the heavens and bleed their light and swim in that.

Listen, Sanoe Dewy lehua bud Here I am Waiting for your voice. The answer comes I am satisfied Softly, sweetheart You excite my whole being. My body is waiting Waiting there in yearning belief How are we to fulfill The desire of our thoughts? Calling to you, my water lily Budding for the two of us Here close by is a compliment The manu comes to deliver. The Queen is listening The aroma of the scents comes together Mixes and rises upward So similar, so alike.

So it is: sleep comes not on my eyelids. Nor in my eyes, with shaken hair and white Aloof pale hands, and lips and breasts of iron, So she beholds me. And yet though sleep comes not to me, there comes A vision from the full smooth brow of sleep, The white Aphrodite moving unbounded By her own hair. In the purple beaks of the doves that draw her, Beaks straight without desire, necks bent backward Toward Lesbos and the flying feet of Loves Weeping behind her. She looks not back, she looks not back to where The nine crowned muses about Apollo Stand like nine Corinthian columns singing In clear evening. She sees not the Lesbians kissing mouth To mouth across lute strings, drunken with singing, Nor the white feet of the Oceanides Shining and unsandalled. Before her go cryings and lamentations Of barren women, a thunder of wings, While ghosts of outcast Lethean women, lamenting, Stiffen the twilight.

(Bubbling and spuming as if trying to talk under water, I address you thus:) Must I pretend not to love you (in your present bloom, your present perfection — soul encased in fleshly relevance) so you won’t believe me just another seabed denizen vying for your blessed attention? Some of us (but not you) are so loosely moored to our bodies we can barely walk a straight line, remaining (most days) only marginally conscious. We stagger and shudder as buckets of   blood or sperm or chocolate mousse or spittle or lymph or sludge sluice continually through us... I love the way you wear your face, how you ride this life. I delight in the sight of you, your nervous, inquisitive eyes, though I try to act otherwise. Being stoned out of thy mind only amps up thy fearsome brain wattage. Pardon my frontal offensive, dear chum. Forgive my word-churn, my drift, the ways this text message has gotten all frothy. How was it you became holy to me? Should I resist, furiously? Is this your true visage, shaken free, flashing glimpses of what underlies the world we can see?Do not forget me murmurs something nibbled by fish under the sea. After dark you’re quick-silvery, wet /slick /glistening. Don’t make me chase you, dragging my heavy caresses, a pair of awkward, serrated claws, hither and yon. Give me a swig of   whatever you’re drinking, to put me in tune with the cosmos’s relentless melt, with the rhythms of dish-washing, corn-shucking, hard-fucking, bed-wetting, and the folding of   bones of other loves into well-dug graves...    may we never become lost to the world.

On our first trip to the beach together I cut my foot on sharp rocks lining the shore and watched the ocean lick the crimson clean off, the salt on my tongue a slight distraction from the deep blue, the wide open, the playground sting. I’m sorry my flesh is softer than it has to be, my skin thinner than yours. I’m sorry there are parts of me I have scrubbed raw, hurt; I only wanted to be polished, untainted, good as new. I’m sorry I didn’t see the waves crashing, didn’t see any of this coming; I’m sorry I wasn’t careful, or strong. When the sea soaked up my blood that day I thought maybe it needed to drink too, needed to kiss, needed to need. I thought maybe you had always been right — when you drain my body of tears you also drain it of salt and dust so that you can shrink me down two sizes smaller and I can fit neatly into your life without taking up too much space, so that you can carry me with you wherever you go, to cities and mountains and valleys and all the oceans you’ve never explored. Tell me, please, if you find something. Tell me if you need me to search, too. Tell me if there are places you still have to visit, things you still have to unearth. Tell me if there’s any way to love you, deep blue and wide open, soft and scrubbed and thin, flesh and skin, shrinking bones, raw parts, any way at all, without letting myself bleed. shallow body, 2014 by Caitlin Hazell

When the trains come into strange cities The citizens come out to meet the strangers. I love you, Jack, he said I love you, Jack, he said At another station. When passengers come in from strange cities The citizens come out to help the strangers. I love you too, I said I love you too, I said From another station. The citizens are kind to passing strangers And nourish them and kiss their lips in kindness. I walk the unbelieving streets I walk the unbelieving streets In a strange city. At night in cold new beds the welcomed strangers Achieve in memory the city's promise. I wake in love with you I wake in love with you At last year's station. Then say goodbye to citizens and city Admit this much—that they were kind to strangers. I leave my love with you I leave my love with you In this strange city.