1247 Love poems

Listen. Put on morning. Waken into falling light. A man’s imagining Suddenly may inherit The handclapping centuries Of his one minute on earth. And hear the virgin juries Talk with his own breath To the corner boys of his street. And hear the Black Maria Searching the town at night. And hear the playropes caa The sister Mary in. And hear Willie and Davie Among bracken of Narnain Sing in a mist heavy With myrtle and listeners. And hear the higher town Weep a petition of fears At the poorhouse close upon The public heartbeat. And hear the children tig And run with my own feet Into the netting drag Of a suiciding principle. Listen. Put on lightbreak. Waken into miracle. The audience lies awake Under the tenements Under the sugar docks Under the printed moments. The centuries turn their locks And open under the hill Their inherited books and doors All gathered to distil Like happy berry pickers One voice to talk to us. Yes listen. It carries away The second and the years Till the heart’s in a jacket of snow And the head’s in a helmet white And the song sleeps to be wakened By the morning ear bright. Listen. Put on morning. Waken into falling light.

All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that, today; One day more bursts them open fully – You know the red turns grey. Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest? May I take your hand in mine? Mere friends are we, – well, friends the merest Keep much that I resign: For each glance of the eye so bright and black, Though I keep with heart’s endeavor, – Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, Though it stay in my soul for ever! – Yet I will but say what mere friends say, Or only a thought stronger; I will hold your hand but as long as all may, Or so very little longer!

Song from Abdelazar Love in Fantastic Triumph sat, Whilst Bleeding Hearts around him flowed, For whom Fresh pains he did Create, And strange Tyrannic power he showed; From thy Bright Eyes he took his fire, Which round about, in sport he hurled; But ’twas from mine he took desire Enough to undo the Amorous World. From me he took his sighs and tears, From thee his Pride and Cruelty; From me his Languishments and Fears, And every Killing Dart from thee; Thus thou and I, the God have armed, And set him up a Deity; But my poor Heart alone is harmed, Whilst thine the Victor is, and free.

I Today I dissected a squid, the late acacia tossing its pollen across the black of the lab bench. In a few months the maples will be bleeding. That was the thing: there was no blood only textures of gills creased like satin, suction cups as planets in rows. Be careful not to cut your finger

When I think of my kindness which is tentative and quiet And of yours which is intense and free, I am in elaboration of knowledge impatient Of even the patientest immobility. I think of my kind, which is the human fortune To live in the world and make war among its friends, And of my version, which is to be moderately peaceful, And of your version; and must make amends By my slow word to your wish which is mobile, Active and moving in its generous sphere. This is the natural and the supernatural Of humankind of which I grow aware.

Kiss’d yestreen, and kiss’d yestreen, Up the Gallowgate, down the Green: I’ve woo’d wi’ lords, and woo’d wi’ lairds, I’ve mool’d wi carles and mell’d wi’ cairds, I’ve kiss’d wi’ priests— ‘twas done i’ the dark, Twice in my gown and thrice in my sark; But priest, nor lord, nor loon can gie Sic kindly kisses as he gae me.

My breasts are small and my eyes round. Your legs long and cool as the freshet that runs down from the fountain. I bite your neck, it’s sturdy, still not yet ripe, like a walnut that has just now fallen. You clamber on top, start kissing my middle, strew wet wavelets all over my skin, now up here, now down there, like the first fat drops to fall before the storm starts, splat, splat, splat. We’ve gone to sleep back to chest, the way lips rejoin after sighing.

En Cuba tuve— I’m tired of hearing your complaints. All that whining about elexilio, the tragedy of loss, In Cuba I had— the catalogue of things, the status, the riches, the opulence of it all. I had a mate. We were a pair. Our mistress was young. We were young. We would dangle on her ear Concentrate on what you have. Forget the past. and go out on the town. Mojitos at La Floridita, dancing at the Tropicana and later No, don’t tell me about later. in the jewel case, an aqua Tiffany box with white satin interior, we Tiffany’s? From New York? I didn’t know you— would lie together in the pillowy luxury, my ruby top layer and his aligned, our bases Please you needn’t— touching, my diamond waist and his forming a continuous line. Sometimes we would switch backs, I’d push I understand that in communities of exile the population my piercing needle through his back, his through mine. That’s tends to lose ground politically as assimilation takes place, that how I liked it best, a little harsh, but sweet. Tu y yo, you and I, is what she called us because our very longing is a constitutive ingredient of not only the condition of exile but— body parts were paired, he and I, forming a single unit, an I and a thou. Apart Surely you have adjusted. Look, you’re mounted on a ring, you are independent, and prized. Very attractive for your age, I might add. we are nothing. Longing doesn’t quite— One adapts? As to an amputation. And La Revolución? Don’t make me vomit.

Agathas Four and forty lovers had Agathas in the old days, All of whom she refused; And now she turns to me seeking love, And her hair also is turning. Young Lady I have fed your lar with poppies, I have adored you for three full years; And now you grumble because your dress does not fit And because I happen to say so. Lesbia Illa Memnon, Memnon, that lady Who used to walk about amongst us With such gracious uncertainty, Is now wedded To a British householder. Lugete, Veneres! Lugete, Cupidinesque! Passing Flawless as Aphrodite, Thoroughly beautiful, Brainless, The faint odor of your patchouli, Faint, almost, as the lines of cruelty about your chin, Assails me, and concerns me almost as little.

A physician of eminence, some years ago, Was called in , to attend on a lady of fashion, Who had long been admired — and the toast of each beau, Tho’ now , her sunk features excited compassion. The doctor no sooner the lady had eyed, Than he begged, ‘She for once would his freedom forgive If he stepped from the rules of good breeding aside, To mention the terms on which she might live.’ ‘By all means,’ cried the lady, ‘for surely no word A physician may utter, should e’er give offence; Punctilio, in illness, is always absurd, And shows either doctor, or patient wants sense.’ ‘Why then, my dear lady, I cannot resist Pronouncing this truth, like a plain honest man; That if, in the use of white paint you persist No medicine will save you, do all that I can.’ ‘You astonish me, Doctor! but, such is my case, That I may as well die , as leave painting alone; For, should I appear with my natural face Amongst my acquaintance — I should not be known.’