1247 Love poems

To Iretha A textbook photograph most likely led me to think the Rosetta Stone the size of a library’s old Webster’s Third Edition or two loaves of bread on a side board, but here it stands, three tongues, or one mind that can say three ways we say the one thing, the breaths and sights of each way in rock, a milestone in intangibles between them. Reflected light from outside through the entrance, duplicating on the glass case      the door image that the stone itself is       opens when you walk around behind it exhibit the inhibition of letters, and I see you, not a translation, step through from beyond all description into the calling of flesh in black skin: beauty. Beauty. Beauty.

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread—and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness— Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest He who has found our hid security, Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, And heard our word, ‘Who is so safe as we?’ We have found safety with all things undying, The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying, And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth. We have built a house that is not for Time’s throwing. We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever. War knows no power. Safe shall be my going, Secretly armed against all death’s endeavour; Safe though all safety’s lost; safe where men fall; And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be? For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing. — Our lady of love by you is unbeholden; For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we That love, we know her more fair than anything. — Is she a queen, having great gifts to give? — Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain, Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears; And when she bids die he shall surely die. And he shall leave all things under the sky And go forth naked under sun and rain And work and wait and watch out all his years. — Hath she on earth no place of habitation? — Age to age calling, nation answering nation, Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to say; For if she be not in the spirit of men, For if in the inward soul she hath no place, In vain they cry unto her, seeking her face, In vain their mouths make much of her; for they Cry with vain tongues, till the heart lives again. — O ye that follow, and have ye no repentance? For on your brows is written a mortal sentence, An hieroglyph of sorrow, a fiery sign, That in your lives ye shall not pause or rest, Nor have the sure sweet common love, nor keep Friends and safe days, nor joy of life nor sleep. — These have we not, who have one thing, the divine Face and clear eyes of faith and fruitful breast. — And ye shall die before your thrones be won. — Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun Shall move and shine without us, and we lie Dead; but if she too move on earth and live, But if the old world with all the old irons rent Laugh and give thanks, shall we be not content? Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not die, Life being so little and death so good to give. — And these men shall forget you.—Yea, but we Shall be a part of the earth and the ancient sea, And heaven-high air august, and awful fire, And all things good; and no man's heart shall beat But somewhat in it of our blood once shed Shall quiver and quicken, as now in us the dead Blood of men slain and the old same life's desire Plants in their fiery footprints our fresh feet. — But ye that might be clothed with all things pleasant, Ye are foolish that put off the fair soft present, That clothe yourselves with the cold future air; When mother and father and tender sister and brother And the old live love that was shall be as ye, Dust, and no fruit of loving life shall be. — She shall be yet who is more than all these were, Than sister or wife or father unto us or mother. — Is this worth life, is this, to win for wages? Lo, the dead mouths of the awful grey-grown ages, The venerable, in the past that is their prison, In the outer darkness, in the unopening grave, Laugh, knowing how many as ye now say have said, How many, and all are fallen, are fallen and dead: Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have not risen? —Not we but she, who is tender and swift to save. — Are ye not weary and faint not by the way, Seeing night by night devoured of day by day, Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire? Sleepless: and ye too, when shall ye too sleep? — We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet, And surely more than all things sleep were sweet, Than all things save the inexorable desire Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep. — Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow? Is this so sure where all men's hopes are hollow. Even this your dream, that by much tribulation Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight? — Nay, though our life were blind, our death were fruitless, Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless; But man to man, nation would turn to nation, And the old life live, and the old great world be great. — Pass on then and pass by us and let us be, For what light think ye after life to see? And if the world fare better will ye know? And if man triumph who shall seek you and say? — Enough of light is this for one life's span, That all men born are mortal, but not man: And we men bring death lives by night to sow, That man may reap and eat and live by day.

Wondered Knob-Cracker at Stout-Heart: ‘Are you timed by your will, does your pulse List credit, ready to slam like a till? Can you keep it up?’ Growled Beard Splitter to Smug: ‘Your forces delay, bibbing at Northern walls While snow drives rifts between, barring the way. I am sufficient.’ Pleaded Knob-Cracker with Fail-Safe: ‘You’ve boarded at last, your hands in your pockets, Hat on the back of your head and flags up the mast. Can’t I come with you?’ Nodded Beard-Splitter to Sorrowful: ‘The islands are prisons and no one returns, No power or possessions where my rule is. I will make you mine.’

They amputated Your thighs off my hips. As far as I'm concerned They are all surgeons. All of them. They dismantle us Each from the other. As far as I'm concerned They are all engineers. All of them. A pity. We were such a good And loving invention. An aeroplane made from a man and wife. Wings and everything. We hovered a little above the earth. We even flew a little.

1 Indeed I must confess, When souls mix ’tis an happiness, But not complete till bodies too do join, And both our wholes into one whole combine; But half of heaven the souls in glory taste Till by love in heaven at last Their bodies too are placed. 2 In thy immortal part Man, as well as I, thou art. But something ’tis that differs thee and me, And we must one even in that difference be. I thee both as a man and woman prize, For a perfect love implies Love in all capacities. 3 Can that for true love pass When a fair woman courts her glass? Something unlike must in love’s likeness be: His wonder is one and variety. For he whose soul nought but a soul can move Does a new Narcissus prove, And his own image love. 4 That souls do beauty know ’Tis to the body’s help they owe; If when they know’t they straight abuse that trust And shut the body from’t, ’tis as unjust As if I brought my dearest friend to see My mistress and at th’instant he Should steal her quite from me.

We dine at Adorno and return to my Beauvoir. She compliments me on my Bachelard pad. I pop in a Santayana CD and Saussure back to the couch. On my way, I pull out two fine Kristeva wine glasses. I pour some Merleau-Ponty and return the Aristotle to Descartes. After pausing an Unamuno, I wrap my arm around her Hegel. Her hair smells of wild Lukacs and Labriola. Our small talk expands to include Dewey, Moore and Kant. I confess to her what's in my Eckhart. We Locke. By this point, we're totally Blavatsky. We stretch out on the Schopenhauer. She slips out of her Lyotard and I fumble with my Levi-Strauss. She unhooks her Buber and I pull off my Spinoza. I run my finger along her Heraclitus as she fondles my Bacon. She stops to ask me if I brought any Kierkegaard. I nod. We Foucault. She lights a cigarette and compares Foucault to Lacan. I roll over and Derrida.

O thy bright eyes must answer now, When Reason, with a scornful brow, Is mocking at my overthrow; O thy sweet tongue must plead for me And tell why I have chosen thee! Stern Reason is to judgment come Arrayed in all her forms of gloom: Wilt thou my advocate be dumb? No, radiant angel, speak and say Why I did cast the world away; Why I have persevered to shun The common paths that others run; And on a strange road journeyed on Heedless alike of Wealth and Power— Of Glory's wreath and Pleasure's flower. These once indeed seemed Beings divine, And they perchance heard vows of mine And saw my offerings on their shrine— But, careless gifts are seldom prized, And mine were worthily despised; So with a ready heart I swore To seek their altar-stone no more, And gave my spirit to adore Thee, ever present, phantom thing— My slave, my comrade, and my King! A slave because I rule thee still; Incline thee to my changeful will And make thy influence good or ill— A comrade, for by day and night Thou art my intimate delight— My Darling Pain that wounds and sears And wrings a blessing out from tears By deadening me to real cares; And yet, a king—though prudence well Have taught thy subject to rebel. And am I wrong to worship where Faith cannot doubt nor Hope despair, Since my own soul can grant my prayer? Speak, God of Visions, plead for me And tell why I have chosen thee!

Please marry me. Your mother likes me. —Line spoken by an unknown woman, in a dream We are stretched out on a dingy sofa, and I think I must be barefoot because a woman whom no one knows Is massaging the ankle of one leg of mine and the instep Of the other, all this toward morning, and I have that Occasional epiphany one has while still asleep That I am floating down a river Because I am so happy and all the dismal issues Have been made tractable at last, and so I say to her That the late symphonies of Gustav Mahler Are more lucid if you’re sitting close to, and above, The orchestra, so that you can see the contrapuntal Lines moving from strings to woodwinds And then back again, whereupon this woman, Sitting (I now realize) at my feet, says, in the full Heat of our dream life, and in that happiness, “Please marry me. Your mother likes me,” And so I wake, not laughing, although my mother Has been dead for over thirty years, but in wonderment Over what quality this dream-woman must have owned To have pleased my mother so that she, My late mother, would have said, despite her ban On ordinary pleasantries, that she had liked someone, Anyone, who might have cared for me, and as I lie In bed I think of the last movement of Mahler’s Ninth When the melodic lines go quiet for minute after minute In a prolonged farewell to music and to life, Which my mother would attend to in her bathrobe Late at night, the stereo turned up, blended whiskey In her highball glass mixed with milk as a disguise, Leaning back, hand over eyes, silent-movie style Like Norma Desmond listening as Von Stroheim plays The organ wearing his white gloves. No, it wasn’t Mahler, it was Schoenberg,Verklärte Nacht, Moon-drunk music, mad and inconsolable.