Ohhhhhh Love
For Valentine's Day, I'm going to post some poems on love, romantic love--of course, in all its variations.
It's light, like a decorated brown bag of valentines!
Taped lollipops, cute faces, smiles, laughter!
It's heavy, like a hallway full of memories.
Like waiting, wanting.
It's here for us all,
it comes for us all, whether we like it or not.
And now...that meager 2019 poem by me (ha!), will be followed by poems that have and will stand the test of time: from the 15th century to the 21st century.
Did you get chocolates today? A love card? Lots of kisses and hugs? Did you watch a silly romantic movie by yourself and drink wine? Did you rage-fully ruminate on past wrongs? Did you pine away after someone...mostly in your mind, maybe in your actions? Did you forget it was even Valentine's Day?
Well, it's time for some poetry!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
sometimes
i stop myself lfrom
saying the words out loud
as if leaving my mouth too often
might wear them down
-i love you, rupi kaur
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the right one does not
stand in your way
they make space for you
to step forward
rupi kaur
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To My Dear and Loving Husband
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more tan whole mines of gold
Or all the riches tha the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Anne Bradstreet
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Love Song
By the fierce flames of Love I'm in a sad taking,
I'm singed like a pig that is hung up for bacon,
My stomach is scorched like an over-done mutton-chop,
That for want of gravy wont afford a single drop.
Love, love, love is like a dizziness,
Wont let a poor man go about his business.
My great toes and little toes are burnt to a cinder,
As a hot burning-glass burns a dish-cloth to tinder,
As cheese by a hot salamander is roasted,
By beauty that's red-hot, like a cheese am I toasted.
Love, love, love is like a dizziness,
Wont let a poor man go about his business.
Attend all young lovers, who after ladies,
I'm singed like a duck's foot over a candle,
By this that and t'other, I'm treated uncivil,
Like a gizzard I'm peppered, and then made a devil.
Love, love, love is like a dizziness,
Wont let a poor man go about his business.
Royall Tyler
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Love is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I Shall Forget You Presently
I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And oaths were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,--
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
-----------------------------------------------------------------
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and teh sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the starts apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
e.e. cummings
---------------------------------------------------------------------
After Love
Afterwards, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.
These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.
Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.
The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar
and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.
Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when
the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self
lay lightly down, and slept.
Maxine Kumin
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Widow's Lament in Springtime
Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but no
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirty-five years
I lived with my husband.
the plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turned away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.
William Carlos Williams
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Or woods or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw and ivy-buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.
Christopher Marlowe
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Effort of Love
I am worn out
with the effort of trying to love people
and not succeeding.
Now I've made up my mind
I love nobody, I am going to love nobody,
I'm not going to tell any lies about it
and it's final.
If there's a man here and there, or a woman
whom I can really like,
that's quite enough for me.
And if by a miracle a woman happened to come along
who warmed the cockles of my heart
I'd rejoice over the woman and the warmed cockles of my heart
so long as it didn't all fizzle out in talk.
D.H. Lawrence
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
tell them i was the
warmest place you knew
and how you turned me cold
rupi kaur
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
it felt like you threw me
so far from myself
i've been trying to find my way back ever since
rupi kaur
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
what is stronger
than the human heart
which shatters over and over
and still lives
rupi kaur
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
.........................
.........................
.........................
Did you make it?
Phew! Love is quite a journey!
It's not always as easy as the decorated brown bag filled of valentines.
But yeah yeah yeah, the satisfaction comes in the variety of ways we endure/enjoy it :-)
It's light, like a decorated brown bag of valentines!
Taped lollipops, cute faces, smiles, laughter!
It's heavy, like a hallway full of memories.
Like waiting, wanting.
It's here for us all,
it comes for us all, whether we like it or not.
And now...that meager 2019 poem by me (ha!), will be followed by poems that have and will stand the test of time: from the 15th century to the 21st century.
Did you get chocolates today? A love card? Lots of kisses and hugs? Did you watch a silly romantic movie by yourself and drink wine? Did you rage-fully ruminate on past wrongs? Did you pine away after someone...mostly in your mind, maybe in your actions? Did you forget it was even Valentine's Day?
Well, it's time for some poetry!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
sometimes
i stop myself lfrom
saying the words out loud
as if leaving my mouth too often
might wear them down
-i love you, rupi kaur
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the right one does not
stand in your way
they make space for you
to step forward
rupi kaur
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To My Dear and Loving Husband
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more tan whole mines of gold
Or all the riches tha the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Anne Bradstreet
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Love Song
By the fierce flames of Love I'm in a sad taking,
I'm singed like a pig that is hung up for bacon,
My stomach is scorched like an over-done mutton-chop,
That for want of gravy wont afford a single drop.
Love, love, love is like a dizziness,
Wont let a poor man go about his business.
My great toes and little toes are burnt to a cinder,
As a hot burning-glass burns a dish-cloth to tinder,
As cheese by a hot salamander is roasted,
By beauty that's red-hot, like a cheese am I toasted.
Love, love, love is like a dizziness,
Wont let a poor man go about his business.
Attend all young lovers, who after ladies,
I'm singed like a duck's foot over a candle,
By this that and t'other, I'm treated uncivil,
Like a gizzard I'm peppered, and then made a devil.
Love, love, love is like a dizziness,
Wont let a poor man go about his business.
Royall Tyler
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Love is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I Shall Forget You Presently
I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And oaths were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,--
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
-----------------------------------------------------------------
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and teh sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the starts apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
e.e. cummings
---------------------------------------------------------------------
After Love
Afterwards, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.
These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.
Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.
The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar
and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.
Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when
the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self
lay lightly down, and slept.
Maxine Kumin
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Widow's Lament in Springtime
Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but no
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirty-five years
I lived with my husband.
the plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turned away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.
William Carlos Williams
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Or woods or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw and ivy-buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.
Christopher Marlowe
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Effort of Love
I am worn out
with the effort of trying to love people
and not succeeding.
Now I've made up my mind
I love nobody, I am going to love nobody,
I'm not going to tell any lies about it
and it's final.
If there's a man here and there, or a woman
whom I can really like,
that's quite enough for me.
And if by a miracle a woman happened to come along
who warmed the cockles of my heart
I'd rejoice over the woman and the warmed cockles of my heart
so long as it didn't all fizzle out in talk.
D.H. Lawrence
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
tell them i was the
warmest place you knew
and how you turned me cold
rupi kaur
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
it felt like you threw me
so far from myself
i've been trying to find my way back ever since
rupi kaur
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
what is stronger
than the human heart
which shatters over and over
and still lives
rupi kaur
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
.........................
.........................
.........................
Did you make it?
Phew! Love is quite a journey!
It's not always as easy as the decorated brown bag filled of valentines.
But yeah yeah yeah, the satisfaction comes in the variety of ways we endure/enjoy it :-)
Comments
Post a Comment