1247 Love poems

Where you are tender, you speak your plural. Roland Barthes 1 One version of the story is I wish you back— that I used each evening evening out what all day spent wrinkling. I bought a dress that was so extravagantly feminine you could see my ovaries through it. This is how I thought I would seduce you. This is how frantic I hollowed out. 2 Another way of telling it is to hire some kind of gnarled and symbolic troll to make a tape recording. Of plastic beads coming unglued from a child’s jewelry box. This might be an important sound, like serotonin or mighty mitochondria, so your body hears about how you stole the ring made from a glittery opiate and the locket that held candy. 3 It’s only fair that I present yet another side, as insidious as it is, because two sides hold up nothing but each other. A tentacled skepticism, a suspended contempt, such fancies and toxins form a third wall. A mean way to end and I never dreamed we meant it. 4 Another way of putting it is like slathering jam on a scrape. Do sweets soothe pain or simply make it stick? Which is the worst! So much technology and no fix for sticky if you can’t taste it. I mean there’s no relief unless. So I’m coming, all this excitement, to your house. To a place where there’s no room for play. It is possible you’ll lock me out and I’ll finally focus on making mudcakes look solid in the rain. 5 In some cultures the story told is slightly different— in that it is set in an aquarium and the audience participates as various fish. The twist comes when it is revealed that the most personally attractive fish have eyes only on one side and repel each other like magnets. The starfish is the size of an eraser and does as much damage. Starfish, the eponymous and still unlikely hero, has those five pink moving suckerpads that allow endless permutations so no solid memory, no recent history, nothing better, left unsaid. 6 The story exists even when there are no witnesses, kissers, tellers. Because secrets secrete, and these versions tend to be slapstick, as if in a candy factory the chocolate belted down the conveyor too fast or everyone turned sideways at the same time by accident. This little tale tries so hard to be humorous, wants so badly to win affection and to lodge. Because nothing is truly forgotten and loved. 7 Three million Richards can’t be wrong. So when they levy a critique of an undertaking which, in their view, overtakes, I take it seriously. They think one may start a tale off whingy and wretched in a regular voice. But when one strikes out whimsically, as if meta-is-better, as if it isn’t you, as if this story is happening to nobody it is only who you are fooling that’s nobody. The Richards believe you cannot privately jettison into the sky, just for fun. You must stack stories from the foundation up. From the sad heart and the feet tired of supporting it. Language is architecture, after all, not an air capsule, not a hang glide. This is real life. So don’t invite anyone to a house that hasn’t been built. Because no one unbuilds meticulously and meticulosity is what allows hearing. Three million Richards make one point. I hear it in order to make others. Mistake. 8 As it turns out, there is a wrong way to tell this story. I was wrong to tell you how muti-true everything is, when it would be truer to say nothing. I’ve invented so much and prevented more. But, I’d like to talk with you about other things, in absolute quiet. In extreme context. To see you again, isn’t love revision? It could have gone so many ways. This just one of the ways it went. Tell me another.

I. FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land Unvisited over the sea, Who tell me how lonely you stand With a single gold curl in the hand Held up to be looked at by me, — II. While you ask me to ponder and say What a father and mother can do, With the bright fellow-locks put away Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay Where the violets press nearer than you. III. Shall I speak like a poet, or run Into weak woman's tears for relief ? Oh, children ! — I never lost one, — Yet my arm 's round my own little son, And Love knows the secret of Grief. IV. And I feel what it must be and is, When God draws a new angel so Through the house of a man up to His, With a murmur of music, you miss, And a rapture of light, you forgo. V. How you think, staring on at the door, Where the face of your angel flashed in, That its brightness, familiar before, Burns off from you ever the more For the dark of your sorrow and sin. VI. God lent him and takes him,' you sigh ; — Nay, there let me break with your pain : God 's generous in giving, say I, — And the thing which He gives, I deny That He ever can take back again. VII. He gives what He gives. I appeal To all who bear babes — in the hour When the veil of the body we feel Rent round us, — while torments reveal The motherhood's advent in power, VIII. And the babe cries ! — has each of us known By apocalypse (God being there Full in nature) the child is our own, Life of life, love of love, moan of moan, Through all changes, all times, everywhere. IX. He 's ours and for ever. Believe, O father ! — O mother, look back To the first love's assurance. To give Means with God not to tempt or deceive With a cup thrust in Benjamin's sack. X. He gives what He gives. Be content ! He resumes nothing given, — be sure ! God lend ? Where the usurers lent In His temple, indignant He went And scourged away all those impure. XI. He lends not ; but gives to the end, As He loves to the end. If it seem That He draws back a gift, comprehend 'Tis to add to it rather, — amend, And finish it up to your dream, — XII. Or keep, — as a mother will toys Too costly, though given by herself, Till the room shall be stiller from noise, And the children more fit for such joys, Kept over their heads on the shelf. XIII. So look up, friends ! you, who indeed Have possessed in your house a sweet piece Of the Heaven which men strive for, must need Be more earnest than others are,—speed Where they loiter, persist where they cease. XIV. You know how one angel smiles there. Then weep not. 'Tis easy for you To be drawn by a single gold hair Of that curl, from earth's storm and despair, To the safe place above us. Adieu.

Pure gaze, you are lightning beyond the last trees and you are the last trees’ past, branching green lightning of terminal brain branches numened densely with summer’s hunter color, as night comes on, the ocean they conceal gone berserk, wind still rising. Pure seeing, dual vortex doors to the blue fire where sex is burned away, and all is as it was and I am being offered in your eyes, as in cupped hands, the water of to never thirst again. Again I turn away, and the future comes, all at once towering around me on every side, and I am lost. Pure looking, past pain (this is promised): we must have wed on poverty’s most hair-raising day delighting, flashing risk, risk unfailingly lighting the way, anything possible in that dissolving of seam between minds, no more golden time— each step I took the right step, words came to me finally and finding the place you had set for them, once again wrote themselves down. Till true word’s anvil ring, and solid tap of winged blind cane come, I wish you all the aloneness you hunger for. That big kitchen table where you sit laughing with friends, I see it happening. And I wish that I could not be so much with you when I’m suddenly not; that inwardly you might switch time, to sleep and winter while you went about your life, until you woke up well, our conversation resumed. Ceaseless blue lightning, this love passing through me: I know somehow it will go on reaching you, reaching you instantly when I’m not in the way; when it is no longer deflected by all the dark bents, all I tried to overcome but I could not— so much light pulled off course as it passed within reach, so much lost, lost in me, but no more. October

Come and let us live my Deare, Let us love and never feare, What the sowrest Fathers say: Brightest Sol that dies to day Lives againe as blithe to morrow, But if we darke sons of sorrow Set; o then, how long a Night Shuts the Eyes of our short light! Then let amorous kisses dwell On our lips, begin and tell A Thousand, and a Hundred, score An Hundred, and a Thousand more, Till another Thousand smother That, and that wipe of another. Thus at last when we have numbred Many a Thousand, many a Hundred; Wee’l confound the reckoning quite, And lose our selves in wild delight: While our joyes so multiply, As shall mocke the envious eye.

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me, Whispering, I love you, before long I die, I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you, For I could not die till I once look’d on you, For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.

It was a green barn coat from L. L. Bean That he had ordered, thinking of her Walking the snowy hillside of his dream Though she detested the style and color. That it arrived two days after he died Did not dispose her to detest it less Though she may have wished she did, The way she wished she’d kept house More neatly or baked instead of fried, For every coronary’s a latent homicide— If not what we did, what we did not do. If not what we said, what we did not say. In this, the inner jury’s always out, No different for man or woman— For everyone over forty, the human Condition is grief complicated by guilt. It’s unexceptional really, what’s left After deaths. We’re thrown back on our own taste. That coat, for instance. If that was a gift, She would have to hide to throw it away.

1. The candle will be our medium for dialogue We must always be on speaking terms 2. When you see the candle by the bedside burning it will be my message to you: Do Not Touch! 3. You will heal through herbs & the words I give you to spray unto the solution 4. Never dress in black I may mistake you for someone ready to die 5. As much as possible do not speak wickedly or damn anyone 6. As much as possible stay away from funerals I like to work alone Death is death’s work (Iku n’iku che) 7. Egun will be my messenger 8. You may also petition me through that white staff you know the one— with bells & snail shells You also know the chant 9. Do not be tempted by possessions & titles If you have patience I will make possible those you actually will need 10. Remember this pact & I will give you health & long life (aiku) All this was negotiated just prior to his birth. He probably kneeled before the Owner of the Sky while Iku, his patron Orisha, and many Egun sat watching with fly whisks in hand and full regalia (after all, one of their own was about to embark on his journey to the human world). The ilé aiyé. He probably placed in circular fashion inside a big calabash all his choices, probably whispered into the gourd a slow "Ashé tó iba Eshu." We say probably because one thing is for sure, El Niño does not remember the details. In fact no one does (except the deities & Iku). No one remembers the details of their creation. No one remembers the destiny, the mission they chose, their personal Orisha, and most importantly the date of their last breath. Memory & continuity. Keeping el hilo de la conversación. Never losing the wavy & fragile link that keeps you grounded to yr root. The dialogue with spirits that may tap yr left shoulder & all that. But no one remembers. No one remembers. Ésto si es trágico. In order to recall the details of what went on in the other world, to map his destiny, El Niño must be taken for divination. And even then one session won’t do it. The story will get revealed as his life turns each page & changes rhythm & the oracle is cast several more times. So they took El Niño to the diviner Edikán's house. After pouring libations & reciting the necessary ayuba prayers—greeting the creator, the ancestors, the divination, earth, wind, river, ocean, jungle, & crossroad orishas, Edikán cast the divining chain/ópele used by the babalawo. A picture began to emerge. He said the Orishas & Egun, collectively called ara orun or citizens of the other world, have given us certain verses & stories to deliver messages regarding the rhythms of our lives. He said El Niño’s patron deity is Oshun but he will always have an affinity with Ogun & Obatalá. But most prominent is his close relationship with Egun, that is, the ancestors, Iku’s messengers. He said it would be through a kinship with Egun that he would accomplish his most difficult tasks; even the arts of divination. He will be a mouthpiece for Egun. Edikán said El Niño has a predisposition to a vivid imagination. Because of this there are & will be mysterious phenomena happening to him like visions & dreams of secret songs. He will not regard them as strange. He said El Niño should be taught even at an early age the rigors of an herbalist. He should be taught at least how to recognize certain trees & plants, the healing properties of the most commonly used herbs, their harvesting times, how they mix & with what substances. All this will eventually lead to an encyclopedic knowledge not only of their healing properties but of their ability to alter the invisible rhythms that underlie most things. Edikán said there will be certain resguardos that must be prepared so as to begin bridging the gap between Orishas, Iku, Egun, & himself. Even though El Niño’s inner head/ori inu chose a good destiny in the other world, such destiny must be aligned with his physical head/ori in this world. It will be Orishas & Egun that will focus his life & help him fulfill the destiny he chose in the other world. He said beginning with the feet El Niño must be securely fastened to the earth so as to not depart too soon for the other world. (You see there is always the detail of Iku being overprotective. The relationship is like playing with a leopard—even an affectionate jab with its paw will cause a scar). The head will also have to be ritually prepared & fed with bits of white fruit among other ingredients & thus given a firm root, stability—“para que su cabeza no esté en el aire,” he said. We were witness to this event. We heard what needed to be done. There was actually a time, maybe this is still going on, when people consulted with the spirit world, the other world, on such occasions as the third month after birth. We collected the ingredients that would shape his destiny & began to assemble them. Much of them were from the river, the jungle, & of course, the cemetery. We heard what needed to be done. Ara Orun are hip to the images & subtle rhythms that stories & verses evoke. The same images & subtle rhythms running through our lives. Edikán said that barring some details of modernity, his life would follow a certain ancient story pertaining to the divination— Ofun is like this/ Ofun ni jé bé— The page continues to turn.The rhythm, the rhythm will come from dreams.

Suddenly discovering in the eyes of the very beautiful Normande cocotte The eyes of the very learned British Museum assistant.

Taking on an aspect of the Orient, Skies full of hatchets and oranges Love, uninvited, hangs in the blood: But what is a kingdom to a dying emperor? Skies full of hatchets and oranges Keep the birds singing, sorrows fresh— But what is a kingdom to a dying emperor, As the nights grow steadily into mountains. Keep the birds singing, sorrows fresh— The princess braids these into a necklace As the nights grow steadily into mountains, Why, even regrets recede unexpectedly. The princess braids these into a necklace: Roads and rivers that lead away from the palace. Why, even regrets recede unexpectedly In a solitude full of wars and songs. Roads and rivers that lead away from the palace Never converge in that vast landscape; In a solitude full of wars and songs, The words remain light and fugitive. Never converge in that vast landscape In the way that stars keep their distance. The words remain light and fugitive In an anticipation crossed with absence. In the way that stars keep their distance, Love, uninvited, hangs in the blood In an anticipation crossed with absence, Taking on an aspect of the Orient.

If there is a word in the lexicon of love, it will not declare itself. The nature of words is to fail men who fall in love with men. It will not declare itself, the perfect word.Boyfriend seems ridiculous: men who fall in love with men deserve something a bit more formal. The perfect word? Boyfriend? Ridiculous. But partner is . . . businesslike— we deserve something a bit less formal, much more in love with love. But if partner is businesslike, then lover suggests only sex, is too much in love with love. There is life outside of the bedroom, and lover suggests only sex. We are left with roommate, or friend. There is life, but outside of the bedroom. My friend and I rarely speak of one another. To my left is my roommate, my friend. If there is a word in the lexicon of love, my friend and I rarely speak it of one another. The nature of words is to fail.