1247 Love poems

“Do it,” yells the man across the street to his motorcycle. We each meet the day in our own way. The aquarium with three unspent goldfish buzzes. Three flies are flying. Coffee, traceable to dark, wet trees in Central America, cools. The black cat on my lap hates poetry, even the sound of it being typed. My skull and the falling stars sing back and forth the songs of magnets in heat. A car with a broken muffler hums along, mumbling answers to questions I haven’t shaped yet. What is a life? Stacks of typing paper wait to be darkened, dented. On my white wall a photograph of the poet James Galvin (cut out from the American Poetry Review). Sometimes I want to be: 1.  an American 2.  a poet 3.  reviewed James looks like a farmboy (Iowa, Iowa, you have more poets than scarecrows these fuse-lit days). How carelessly James sits back on his hips, staring into the camera’s eye. (Imprisoned inside there is the last surviving Cyclops), and I think of W. C. W.’s lines: the beauty of / terrible faces. When my face opens like James’s, it is a year later, years later. Some life is gone. Only poems remain. Perhaps a poem that a magazine wanted to publish before it folded (“folded,” the flight of such a word). And so the poem is stuck on a roll without a player piano. Imagination insists on saving its works as a poem, a tattoo, a quilt, an essay, or an aside, like this one: LOVE’S CHILLY NIGHT an angel’s cold hand irons leaves into this flat romance colors distract us from stems rotting under our own feet an angel burdens our night with its little laughs as a derisive white moon freezes far from a fire Even as I type this my coffee is cold; the peasants who picked the beans are sleeping; bottles of erasing fluids await their inevitable moments. I lose this moment. I’m dancing in the rain with a witch from San Carlos: Botta—is it you? Her red skirt turns like one solid year of sunsets. I almost catch her, but I’m back to this moment. Just in time to send you, my friends, another telegram. Here, Wordsworth’s worthy words. (I know I will have to bear their cost.) CLING (STOP) TOGETHER (STOP) IN (STOP) ONE (STOP) SOCIETY (STOP) RANE (STOP) BUT THE WORDS WON’T STOP and what do I owe? On my desk: a dictionary. All mine, my mine. Words like “lacrimator” wait for me, lak re mat ar which means: 1.  the lake really matters 2.  the lilac reddens into matters of the air 3.  the lack of the red mats in the attic YES! All of the above and below. One of the flies has landed on a photograph of me hiding behind Japanese fans. I stare at the fly staring at the me who no longer exists. I will not exist soon. I’m here, behind the typewriter. Men don’t split into new personae at the command of flashes. We can become fleshless though, like the skeletons in Mexican cathedrals, guardians of empty confessionals. In my room, I stare into a smaller box: “a brooding young man embraces a golden girl whose blue dress has the words ‘forget Xanadu’ stitched into it while dice without numbers float in the air suspended between a far Heaven and a near Earth as a black spider crawls toward the blind moon. A gray feather’s sleep on a blackening hill is a hint of uncompleted journeys” My neighbor comes home on his slow, red motorcycle and enters this poem again. The miles hum between his legs. One of the flies has bitten me. The black cat darkens all the windows by jumping sill to sill. The goldfish haven’t lost their glitter. At last, this is my land. I’ve learned to speak its language: America, I give you the power to break my heart.

I. ENOUGH ! we're tired, my heart and I. We sit beside the headstone thus, And wish that name were carved for us. The moss reprints more tenderly The hard types of the mason's knife, As heaven's sweet life renews earth's life With which we're tired, my heart and I. II. You see we're tired, my heart and I. We dealt with books, we trusted men, And in our own blood drenched the pen, As if such colours could not fly. We walked too straight for fortune's end, We loved too true to keep a friend ; At last we're tired, my heart and I. III. How tired we feel, my heart and I ! We seem of no use in the world ; Our fancies hang grey and uncurled About men's eyes indifferently ; Our voice which thrilled you so, will let You sleep; our tears are only wet : What do we here, my heart and I ? IV. So tired, so tired, my heart and I ! It was not thus in that old time When Ralph sat with me 'neath the lime To watch the sunset from the sky. Dear love, you're looking tired,' he said; I, smiling at him, shook my head : 'Tis now we're tired, my heart and I. V. So tired, so tired, my heart and I ! Though now none takes me on his arm To fold me close and kiss me warm Till each quick breath end in a sigh Of happy languor. Now, alone, We lean upon this graveyard stone, Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I. VI. Tired out we are, my heart and I. Suppose the world brought diadems To tempt us, crusted with loose gems Of powers and pleasures ? Let it try. We scarcely care to look at even A pretty child, or God's blue heaven, We feel so tired, my heart and I. VII. Yet who complains ? My heart and I ? In this abundant earth no doubt Is little room for things worn out : Disdain them, break them, throw them by And if before the days grew rough We once were loved, used, — well enough, I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

He said he buried his right eye in South Georgia — on a dare, he said, when he was little, beneath one green ash of two that mark the end of a road whose name he’s by now forgotten:Lonesome something, maybe Dog or Cricket. He said he couldn’t love me, not really, not without his old right eye, and anyway he’d left his tongue as a tip slid under a mug at a small North Florida diner, would collect it too along the way, seeing as he’d asked the server to save it, and she had kindly agreed. Three of his ribs were further gone — one in Wisconsin, where he’d planted it like a tree though he believed even then nothing would bloom on it. Another he pawned in Manitoba for a silver bracelet, which he wore only when he was very sad, and his last rib he’d been keeping in a safe deposit box in a credit union on the alien Oregon coast where he’d visit sometimes, stopping often at vantages to take in expanses of pines covered in moss and something else, like brine, and the pines were tall, tall and uncommunicating, as if they had been designed only to listen. His ears he’d left with me, I told them everything — words I had invented for the color of new moons, city names I had given to four slender ant colonies that had since emerged on the lawn. I told the ears Come back to me, but they were unable to relay these types of things, and anyway there was nothing else to do. I took all my littlest veins and pitched them as a woven tightrope out of the kitchen window and hooked, with a makeshift grapple, the cheek of the visible moon, which carried me away, and I was sorry to have wounded it like that and I was sorry to be carried by what I had wounded.

FERRARA That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said “Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not Her husband’s presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace—all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech—which I have not—to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse— E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master’s known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretense Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Come, O come, my life’s delight, Let me not in languor pine! Love loves no delay; thy sight, The more enjoyed, the more divine: O come, and take from me The pain of being deprived of thee! Thou all sweetness dost enclose, Like a little world of bliss. Beauty guards thy looks: the rose In them pure and eternal is. Come, then, and make thy flight As swift to me, as heavenly light.

O my Love sent me a lusty list, Did not compare me to a summer's day Wrote not the beauty of mine eyes But catalogued in a pretty detailed And comprehensive way the way(s) In which he was better than me. "More capable of extra- and inter- Polation. More well-traveled -rounded multi- Lingual! More practiced in so many matters More: physical, artistic, musical, Politic(al) academic (I dare say!) social (In many ways!) and (ditto!) sexual!” And yet these mores undid but his own plea(s)(e) And left, none-the-less, the Greater Moor of me.

My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room and offers supper in a bowl made of his breath. The stew has boiled and I wonder at the cat born from its steam. The cat is in the bedroom now, mewling. The cat is indecent and I, who am trying to be tidy, I, who am trying to do things the proper way, I, who am sick from the shedding, I am undone. My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room and offers pastries in a basket spun from his vision. It is closely woven, the kind of container some women collect. I have seen these in many colors, but the basket he brings is simple: only black, only nude. The basket he brings is full of sweet scones and I eat even the crumbs. As if I've not dined for days. My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room and offers tea made from the liquid he's crying. I do not want my lover crying and I am sorry I ever asked for tea. My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room pretending he never cried. He offers tea and cold cakes. The tea is delicious: spiced like the start of our courtship, honeyed and warm. I drink every bit of the tea and put aside the rest. My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room like a man loving his strength. The lock I replaced this morning will not keep him away. My lover, who lives far away, opens the door to my room and brings me nothing. Perhaps he has noticed how fat I've grown, indulged. Perhaps he is poor and sick of emptying his store. It is no matter to me any longer, he has filled me, already, so full. My lover who is far away opens the door to my room and tells me he is tired. I do not ask what he's tired from for my lover, far away, has already disappeared. The blankets are big with his body. The cat, under the covers, because it is cold out and she is not stupid, mews.

My lute awake! perform the last Labour that thou and I shall waste, And end that I have now begun; For when this song is sung and past, My lute be still, for I have done. As to be heard where ear is none, As lead to grave in marble stone, My song may pierce her heart as soon; Should we then sigh or sing or moan? No, no, my lute, for I have done. The rocks do not so cruelly Repulse the waves continually, As she my suit and affection; So that I am past remedy, Whereby my lute and I have done. Proud of the spoil that thou hast got Of simple hearts thorough Love's shot, By whom, unkind, thou hast them won, Think not he hath his bow forgot, Although my lute and I have done. Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain That makest but game on earnest pain. Think not alone under the sun Unquit to cause thy lovers plain, Although my lute and I have done. Perchance thee lie wethered and old The winter nights that are so cold, Plaining in vain unto the moon; Thy wishes then dare not be told; Care then who list, for I have done. And then may chance thee to repent The time that thou hast lost and spent To cause thy lovers sigh and swoon; Then shalt thou know beauty but lent, And wish and want as I have done. Now cease, my lute; this is the last Labour that thou and I shall waste, And ended is that we begun. Now is this song both sung and past: My lute be still, for I have done.

I now think Love is rather deaf than blind, For else it could not be That she, Whom I adore so much, should so slight me And cast my love behind. I'm sure my language to her was as sweet, And every close did meet In sentence of as subtle feet, As hath the youngest He That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree. O, but my conscious fears, That fly my thoughts between, Tell me that she hath seen My hundred of gray hairs, Told seven and forty years Read so much waste, as she cannot embrace My mountain belly and my rocky face; And all these through her eyes have stopp'd her ears.

All that I know Of a certain star, Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue, Till my friends have said They would fain see, too, My star that dartles the red and the blue! Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a world? Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.