Heart Attack

I look at you, into your eyes.
We are past surprised.
You are wiser but wise? No.
So, though a hundred answers you might promise,
a hundred things not forgone yet,
you - thunder cloud clanging,
banging, you make me see, understand
but no plan holds up.

Enough!

I hate you, forsake you, break through.
You ain't sh--, you barely is.
This grand scheme, dream that you'll get
back at me for that heart attack I gave you
no I never forgave you
you
you
you
you
you
screw you
again
and then again.

Haven't I seen that look before?
More! Thats where its at. Believe
your hundred thousand tantrums,
rantrums, mantrums, oh man some one begun
the hard trippin' flippin' son of a bitchin'
I hate you but I'm in your kitchen,
cookin' os hot it all boils over.

And it's me you see on the back of your eyelids.
It's me you see with each goodbye that's
painful, I laid a claim full
of silver mines on your heart.
Apart, we are none.
Begun, strung, hung, a sort of black lung
of the soul.

My heart beats
a loud defeat
at your feet.

My Half of the Last Straw

You want me to be nicer?
You better get a slicer,
cut your b/s in half
or I'm gonna kick your a--.

You tellin' me whatever,
keep tryin' to be clever,
that's the best you can do
step up or skidoo.

You better quit it
or you're gonna get it.
You want me around
quit actin' like a clown.

All you do is bring me down
when you bother hangin' round.

Tellin' me to get over it?
Yea, I'm over it.
There's a lot you're losin'
startin' with yoru mind, and
even sh-- you're usin'.

Tellin' me f' you?
That's just what you wanna do.
But you ain't gonna hit it
until you quit it.

You sayin' I'm annoyin'?
Pick up a mirror boy an'
take a good look.
You wrote the book.

You don't wanna discuss it?
You know what, f' it.
F' you too. I'm through.
Mother f'er.



Kaliedescope

You, a kaliedescope
shifting-I'm missing
the focus of your gaze,
the ways you come and go.

So fluid and smooth-you,
too constant for the changes
you intend. Pretend
they are already there.
You're just not yet aware.
Your subtle hands,
your plans demand
what you already understand
but don't yet see.

Me - I've known a thing or two
all along about you.
Been right and wrong about you.
Been strong with and without you.
But every time I ever heard you speak
again I thought of you for weeks
on end. Oh, why pretend?
I never stopped thinking.

And we can blame the drinking,
or the tears we were blinking,
or the fears that were sinking
us into the stinking black pit
of over it
and throwing fits
and that and this.

But above all that
love- a phoenix rising.
Isn't really so surprising,
considering the fire of our desire
and the higher
point to it all
that we see and saw,
that our ashes would bring forth
re-birth with clashes and remorse.

And I loved you then and then
and then and now
and now and again until the end
of might be, might have been and been.

You, jeweled kaliedescope,
of love, nevermore, evermore and hope,
can shift and turn,
can live and learn,
stare and declare,
impair and repair,
I'll always be there
holding you in my hand
as you stand
in my gaze.
As you amaze,
your truth a prism,
each ism transcendental vision,
your kaliedescopic shifting
moving with me.

When You are Old
inspired by one by the great Yeats

When you are old and the lines of your face
settle deeply into place
and your hair is grey or maybe white
and your strong arms tired from the fight
that is sometimes life,

let me still look and find you there
and trace the lines and touch your hair
and feel your arms around me still.
Because you know I always will
love your light.

The light that shines in beckoning beams
and fills rooms with ecstatic screams
of the mingling of all we are bringing.
It cuts the night.

It slices sorrow; your every breath
defeating time and loss and death.
They all fall at your feet
with my head on your heartbeat;
when we unite.

You who gave me the gift of your youth,
you so brave and full of truth,
that I keep, a secret, a treasure
with the whispers of deepest pleasure
we have found. They surround.

So come to me still when you are old
and weathered with the heat, wind and cold
of this weary world we wander in.
Let me hold and love you then
as I do now, caress your brow.

Let me still turn and find you beside
me with my own whitened hair and lines
upon my face for you to trace.
Until our souls twine in their final place
with the stars above. You, the blood
of my love.

You, my beacon,
you, my light,
bright beam of life,

keep these words and still hold
them and me when you are old.

The Absence of Your Absence

I walk on a sidewalk,
hawks pin feathers drift down
around my face;
your smile on its' wings
the sun sings
when it flies by.
Then I see the trees have your eyes
in their leaves.
The breeze, I believe
brings your lingering fingers
back to me.

You, spread across the sky,
a canopy. I
feel your thoughts across the clouds
loud and clear because you are here,
beside, inside, alive
in each scuttling leaf,
each piece of time.

My mind
wrapped around you like a sheet,
sweaty with the sweet
aftermath of loves' apocolypse.
My heart
consumed, tuned
to the beat.
My soul a bowl
filled with the thrill
of our second coming.

Morning - I slide in side
you flicker by
the corner of my eye,
flutter past the clutter
of your chocolate, still warm,
a bed still pressed with your form
and my brain a storm.
Its' rain the torrential torment
of the wonder of the thunder
of it all. It falls, the walls
echo with the whisper of your kiss.

How can I miss
you? You are here;
near, clear, you appear;
the wind and fate your mirror.
Like a ghost of a chance,
a butterflys' dance;
boundlessly, presently
I see, though you are far away
your absence is absent.
And will always be.

One Perfect Kiss

The heat of your palms shows in your eyes.
They've grown wise, reflect lies, surprised, demise;
our cries
could fill canyons with the deafening volume of their silence and seeming as we turn from dreaming
to an alarming waking, love crashing, ringing
like a hundred brass clocks all set to go off
at this moment.

Opponents
in a battle we've always blamed or named
one another as we fight against ourselves
against love, the fragile dove cooing gently
then so violently struck
in one, swift, shot.

It is not
a winnable war. So, battle sore,
we yearn, burn, try to prove, earn
more, more, more, more, more
no matter where the floor
never mind the stage, the play stays
and runs, and runs, and runs.
Opening as improvisation,
not matured to annotation,
a collected work of flying skirts
amidst the flinging of love and dirt
and booing crowds.
Still I am proud of our loud
ecstasy. Where is admission free?
We've paid the price in slices of not so nices and delighteds.

Can I have a thousand nights of this?
You, your burning hands and eyes?
Our thighs, sighs, cries, whys
mingling as we're bringing them to one another,
already in side of each other,
without this perfect engaging
of all our love and all our raging.

All of a sudden it comes,
with one swift thrust that takes us to a place where trust
simply cannot be a question, where posession
is absolute and truth - self evident.

Oh resident love, true love, real love, feel love,
soul cry of dying stars you are
already everything.

There is nothing you don't bring
or think or do or try to be but we;
and we already are
and you the brightest star
of dimmest night and brightest dawn, you linger
so do the supernovas of your fingers
scattering ecstatic atoms of touch thats light
and touch thats rough and touch thats' never quite enough.
Because with you there can be no such thing
love, infinite, has no ending.

Atoms of love, and truth and all the juice
of the breaking and taking and making
of distorted chords in perfect symphonies
they please so much, so please, please, please,
touch me there and there adn there and then
again, again, again, again
and begin with you or is it me
and where do we end, begin, do we?
Or are we really one another,
as I've always heard that lovers
do or should and oh great God the good
I would do to you the true love of my heart.
I want to do it to each part, then start
all over again, like we did then.

And though then isn't long ago.
I think and think again of what it showed
and ache in ways that quite amaze
and don't know if I can or cannot stand
to do or not do it again.

But my toes curl at the memory of your eyes.
The thought of your breath quivvers my thighs
and falling rain strikes like the exquisite pain
of our falling into one, gentle, long, longing kiss
that contained the bliss
of the hundred little deaths you execute and start.
You, swift and sure, a dart
finding a new target in each part.
You touch until you flood my heart
and everything inside of me flows out to you
and you cover me with the dew
of loves' early morning

and the only warning
of all of this?
One perfect kiss.

Letter in Prose to the Morning Star

I wake to the echoes of your eyes
your cries, eternal, erupting sighs
no matter where you are.
Morning star,
beacon of black night,
enveloping delight,
then take flight
into dreams of you.

Like dunes, each few
moments cover, smother
all other
thoughts or oughts or shoulds, woulds, coulds
you've got the goods
on me, you see,
(and oh, you see).

Each pore on your skin an eye,
each breath a cry, sigh, why
why was there good bye?

We fly
like faceless angels, we've lost
so much, at such a cost
and tried to freeze our hearts with frost
of hate and wait and its' too late
and baited breath and death and death
and left and cleft
those frozen hearts in four
until our cloven hooves were sore
from the stomping and romping
of each taking a stand.
Our lines were in sand.

Oh what a grand
display of dismay, a best closed play
of absurd words heard and unheard
and so tightly well did we spin
our when, then, or never and never again
that the threads still tightly wind
around our minds
like those slipped around fingertips till they're numb.
Like we did when we were young.

So now, unstrung,
we mind as we unwind.
Each turn brings a thousand strings
and we know better, yes, we know.
We say things like don't go then go -- slow.
We hold our tounges, then they unleash, unstrung
themselves, we cannot help
but pry to the sore core and all the more deny yet cry for.

Most say the heart holds and brings the pain
but strings and scolds come from the brain.

We know better, better, yes
but did we ever really rest?
Morning star you do not set.
Days' just in the way.

All that light, we thought was sight
was but a blinding and our minding
the wrong matter.
Fatter than calves for prodigals
each syllable that falls
from your lips is thick
with meaning, screaming, dreaming, screaming
no-go-so!

The flow
of true love to its' other,
the oh so so of lover to lover
and though it smothers we discover
the sense of the sound,
of all we have found

and see clearly the cost
of what we have lost
enfolded in soft bright clouds of now.

Never setting star,
ever shining are,
you are not just part of my heart,
you are its' start.

And for all that has been
how could been end?
There is only when.
And so we begin again, too wise to pretend.

Send
me the million rays of your days.
I will carry them
and make the blackest night bright
and all the world right.
All it takes is the sight
of the echoes of your eyes
sounding loud and near.

They are always here.

IN LOVE AND LUST

Harvest Moon

Although it is the brightest moonlight
it does not compare to the blaze of your eyes
the electric beams of the fullest moon
do not pull the way you do
into the deep desert of your heart
we are not apart

two eyes two hands that meet as we
did once need only once to be
and I remember most not
your touch
nor your heat
nor your weary face or feet
but the salt sting of a tear
that pressed near
for one moment
to my fevered lips

as though I tasted your soul with the tip
of every tounge within me
a holy moment dropping
that has no way of stopping
I reach into the air
and somehow you are still there
your silken hair and eyes
that watch
keep time, do not mind,
these rhymes
are but echoes of a deeper you
that I knew
for a moment and in each moment
enough ---

you are more than a thousand dreams
a million primal screams
I still feel the scrape of your finger
across the ridges of my face
I cannot replace
you --- how you linger

Although it is the brightest moonlight
it does not compare to the blaze of your eyes
the electric beams of the fullest moon
do not pull the way you do
into the deep desert of your heart
we are not apart
two eyes two hands that meet as we
did once need only once to be
and I remember most not
your touch
nor your heat
nor your weary face or feet
but the salt sting of a tear
and a million primal screams
I send them to you across my dreams

bright beam, you
upon who all
centers
if you decide it's so

how is it that I
am lucky enough to know?

Take me into your infinite arms
and hold me against the thousand storms
let me but look once into your eyes
eyes burning with the fever of
a thousand harvest skies
just once
look at me again
and run your fingers across my face
trace, all that lies beneath
you see...

Last Night

Burning
Piercing
Flash back past
Torrid
Tangled
Fever
Flailing
Twisting
You

Two Days in a Haze

We forgot the time some time ago.
Amnesia struck a sudden blow.
Kocked us back sharp as sun slapped
across the face of morning.
Without warning
we just forgot the time.

Though the clock ticked days,
though our eyes grew glazed,
we continued unphased
till all of our parts
(including our hearts)
were sore.

We grabbed for more.
We fell on the floor.
Bent, rent, spent;
time came and went
but we had forgotten the time
some time ago.

We dropped,
stopped,
surprised realized
it was well past five.

Knocked back,
a sharp slap
we remembered the time.

The Morning After

The sun is up.
I'm up before you.
Your skin reflects the sun.

You snore.
I laugh and drift back into unconciousness.

Tonight I will miss you
like the sky will miss the sun

Snake Oil Man

He's got dagger eyes and 3D mind.
His hair waves in ancient rhymes.
He's a snake oil man,
beating with a canyon heart
on a lonesome drum
for someone, one, one,
to come from somewhere
sometime.

Now and then wave in his wind.
He doesn't dwell on been or when.
He doesn't mind only moves in blind,
bright movements.
If he wants it, he can do it.
With the swiftness of a hawk,
or the softness
of a butterflies' flutter
it's one or the other,
no, sometimes both.
That's what will scare you most.

He'll eclipse you
if you let him get you,
lift you
on his voice like sand
on his fiery hands;
that snake oil man
understands.

He'll hit you like 2 hurricaines,
all the while speaking plain;
making it so clear it's insane.
He can even make it rain,
that snake oil man.

He's hard to undertsand unless
he takes you in hand.
Now, it's not likely to happen,
but if it does, it's rapid;
like a copperhead strike,
or a spider bite.

It's like this you see,
(take it from me),
if he makes up his mind
he's not leaving you behind
you're going to find
yourself following the plan
of that snake oil man.

His eyes will call across his storms
like lighthouses, except he won't warn
you'll just find
you're in his 3D mind.
A snapshot captured.

He can make heavens twirl around his finger
make stars wink and honey bees linger
in frenzied flushes of round red moon.
Once he decides, you find out real soon.

Then each time you breathe you'll miss him
as you feel him from deep distances;
from the bottom of his canyon eyes
and echoing heart that cannot lie.
And his voice becomes wind, rain and sky.

Waving hair of ancient lands
he's a snake oil man
beating with a canyon heart
on a lonesome drum
for someone, one, one,
to come from somewhere
sometime.

It might be you.
It's true.
You never know what that man will do.

Anything at All

I think and find
I would't mind
not doing anything at all
if it were you
I was not
doing anything at all
with.

Light

In the dim blue light
of a smoke filled room
I taste the sticky damp heat of you.

Your toes curl like burning paper
till we feel the electric shock of time

You the Sun

The sun teases the waves
like a matador teases a bull
with a red that registers
slow, violent reaction

The Kiss

Your kiss
is as soft as a flower
about to die;

it's melting,
like a popsicle in July.

You

You enter softly, like drizzle on a drain-pipe.

I feel the press of your hand on my wrist
long after you're gone.

Fever

Sticky pink pucker
I'm pulled into your heat.
Your slow sizzle burn hisssssss
is like water on neon.

Fragile light bulb shard,
naughty grin,
wax paper skin,
I have you.

Yesterday

Kisses fell from your lips like proverbs.

Cats stretched wanting to be fed;
so did you.

I gave you love for breakfast.

Achilles

One
Squelching
Jab
and
I'm immobilized.
You
make me gape and gush;
slice me open and
unveil soft, squishy secrets.

The pain is quite extraordinary;
a sweet release
as if I had been eager to sustain you.

You promise a violent extraction
to exceed this brutal joining.
Still,
I am quite unable
to pluck or pry you out;
to peer past blackening blood
and find its cause.

The little eye you opened
will not close
nor ever cease
to weep.

Man at the End of a Bar

This callous canvas does not suit you,
I would paint you as a DaVinci angel
drunk with the blood of the saints.

Here, gargoyles grimace Goya-like,
they perch in a lurch, as though to strike
while you, the source of uninied light
stare at the dark world warily.

The bar lamp grants you a pie-pan halo,
I'd surround you with cherubs benign as Tiepolos'
on a background of matted gold.

Look up from that cup you hold.
It's not full of wine but the blood of the saints.
See me, with my brush and my paints
waiting to give you wings.

You

I saw the round, round world and Kansas too
as I threw my head back and laughed
off a rock at the top of Pike's Peak.
But I'd rather see you.

You're Times Square at Midnight
You're moonlight
when cicadas sing.
You're spring when winters' been 20 below.
You're snow
on Valentines Day.

Nothing I can say
captures anything I do
better than I'd rather see you.

Method Acting

You talk about method acting,
mention James Dean.

I could tell you
that you both have a father
stuck like a frog in your throat;
a perpetual bad taste in your mouth.

I could tell you
that maybe method acting
wasn't such a stretch for him.

I could tell you
but words catch.
I've hatched a frog of my own.

You teach me a little method acting.

The method of silence,
the method of showing
primal limits of passion,
mind stripped bare
in a pornographic paring down
to the hard core of love.

I could tell you
but I don't tell you.
The words catch
like a frog in my throat.

I practice the method of silence,
move to the method of showing.

LOVE'S LABOR LOST

White Things

In shut up drawers I keep memories of you;
like some keep letters and other hidden things,
they open rawly like bone and other white things.

Cigarettes, loose pearls an old kid glove, I browse
through them when I feel most alone;
feel raw like bone,
like Christmas and snow in Virginia
and other white things.

In shut up drawers I keep memories of you;
like some keep letters and other hidden things.
In every one it is Christmas
with an enormous tree and a thousand lights
like snow in Virginia
lightly sprinkled over moss.
I browse through them when I feel most alone;
feel raw like bone,
like Christmas and snow in Virginia
and other white things.

Chicago Midnight

The sad, sad strangeness of you lingers.
I feel your little fingers.

They quieted this crevice of the sidewalk;
quieted the din of spit out songs
and the sinking clinking of our drinking.

Here's your unfinished drink
and a cigarette you rolled
looking like nothing so much
as an angel lost in a Warhol film.

Lucky glass;
how unfair
something unaware
kissed you goodbye.

The sad, sad strangeness of you lingers,
returns though you do not.

Time Sucks in it's Breath

I try to touch you.
You disappear,
slip into the end of summer air
as though my fingers melted you.

Time sucks in it's breath
slows it's measure
from polka to waltz.

Rain echoes hollowly.

Sorrow

I said goodbye
to your sleepy face
and you were gone.

Now memory crawls
down the wall;
with a slow-steeping chill.

It lands with a thud
and leaves a sorrow-black bruise

Goodbye Sigh

The air hangs heavy
like a sigh.
Black sorrow moving
you surround me.

Slow steeping chill
you fall with night
like memory.

The air hangs heavy
like a sigh.
Rooms whisper a soft goodbye.

3 am Love Song

I threw out all your letters,
tossed them into been wind
trying to forget
that the only me left
you kept when you left.

At 3am in Richmond rain
you came.
You weren't the same.

So I threw out all your letters.
Tossed them into been wind
trying to forget
that the only me left you kept.

Moral: Never desire slippery fishes for their wishes.

Goodbye

I was just going to say goodbye.
I suppose it has to be done.
It's just as much my fault,
I wanted to come.
I knew it a long time ago
looking at you
but what happened?

Being with you
was like being kept alive
by a medicine dropper.

Now, the morning
is in the midst of dawn
and I knew it long
ago
I have to go.
I was just going to say goodbye.

Music

I remember you still,
how I preferred the silence of you
to any music.
I think and wish in whispers
to not know you half so well

Rememberance of Things Past

Strange to be with you now
that love has passed.
Sidelong glances cast
mask tears.
You cried once too
as though you knew.

Strange to be with you now.
that love has passed, still stranger

Gray Morning

In the morning flung with gray
sparrows kiss the puckering day.

You are gone.

I remember

your eyes smiled too.
The morning then was blue,
when I kissed the puckering you

Where You Were

Cold, soft, floating dream of you...

You took the sun with you.

There is stillness where you were
and quiet falling across stillness.

OVER IT TO VARYING DEGREES OR SORRY I WENT THERE AT ALL

Bye

Now you dance on your head
as if you wanted the world
to take notice of you.

You've little more motive
than exhebitionism.

You, moving like that,
as though
the world were your mirror.

The balance
is thrown off.

You are so alone.

You & I

Time nails the dust
of rusting sighs to the wall.

They fall
in disappointed fits
to sharred, fragmented bits
of expectancy.

Rememberance skips
a record broken
to sharred, fragmented bits.

They fall like a rusting sighs;
in disappointed fits.

Thinking of You

I think of you
when there's nothing else to think of.

You
are the only person I could ever love
if you were the last person on earth

A Casual Thing

We occur to one another
on inconsequential days,
in inconsequential ways.

We wake to a painted on dawn.

I produce a manditory grin.

I begin again to pretend
I'd like to see you again

Mundane

Mundane touches profane.
Heart and mind
connect.

Sometimes we forget
to mark the box 'fragile'
or storm through warnings.

You run your tounge across your teeth.
Your mouth full of doubt, you taste the twang
of hunched disappointment

Waking Up

The sun hits the blinds
7am wide.

I anticipate; then compare
7am to a needle misdirected.

8am

I anticipate; then compare
you to my too hot coffee.

You're like a needle misdirected.

Room for You

Frigid, remote, unfeeling walls,
without character or definition;
so much like you.

How I Really Feel

Ok, maybe you're not the answer;
not a Buddha,
Krishna,
Jesus or even
a Jedi Knight.

I'm glad.
Buddha had some weight problems
and Krishna slept around.
Jesus was more than a little preoccupied.
A Jedi Knight might die young.

Maybe you're not everything
I ever dreamed of.
I'd be lying
if I said you're all that matters
or all I've lost
I've found in you.

Still,
you wander into
the occasional dream.

You matter
more than most.

You're more than I hoped to find.

Maybe you're a note
piped on the flute of Krishna.
Maybe you're a wish
granted by the Buddha.
Maybe you're a little
tiny miracle
(with the makings of a Jedi who won't die young).

You're not all I ever lost.

Still, I'm glad I found you.

And now my favorite love poems by others...

She Came and Went

James Russell Lowell

As a twig trembles, which a bird
lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
so is my memory thrilled and stirred --
I only know she came and went.

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,
the blue dome's measureless content,
so my soul held that moment's heaven; -
I only know she came and went.

As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps
the orchards full of bloom and scent,
so clove her May my wintery sleeps;
I only know she came and went.

An angel stood and met my gaze,
through the low doorway of my tent;
the tent is struck, the vision stays;
I only know she came and went.

O, when the room grows slowly dim,
and life's last oil is nearly spent,
one gush of light these eyes will brim,
only to think she came and went

The Ecstasy
(John Donne (1532-1761) heavily edited/translated from the Donne by yours truly --- yes, I dared presume go ahead and send hate mail if you must)

Our hands were firmly cemented by a fast flame,
from it the beams from our eyes came
then twisted, and threaded our eyes upon one double string;
our hands were stuck together as if that was all it took to make us one
and the pictures in our eyes drew us untill we were between two equal armies of fate
fate suspended its' often uncertain victory
while our souls (which, to advance their state, had left) hung between us.

We, (though we didn't know what our souls said
because we and our souls meant, spoke the same)
consumed something entirely new and left far purer than we came.

This ecstasy makes it all clear (we said)
it wasn't sex, we see, we saw not what moved
but everything our souls contained, a mixture of things,
souls that till then didn't know until they mixed, mixed again
and made us both one, each this and that, redoubled still and multiplied

When two people love one another so much that their souls bring each other to life
we then, who are this soul know what we're really made of.
That the very atoms and anatomies from which we grow
are souls, that no change can invade

But it's sad it was so long, we so far, that we must stay in bodies
they are ours though they are not we, we are the intelligences they the spheres
we owe them thanks because it is through these bodies
that this was all communicated to us. They yielded their forces, senses,
to us not to drown us but bring us together.

Love first imprints bodies, the air so soul into soul may flow
and by going to our bodies, makes our blood struggle to bring forth spirit.
Such fingers as ours, cemented, knit that subtle knot that makes us human
made truly whole in the way the souls of pure lovers can translate their love
their awareness, with such fingers as ours cemented
so that our senses can reach and capture loves mysteries.
But it grows in our souls.

The body is the book and if some lover, such as we,
have heard this dialogue of one
let him still remember us he, will see
no change when our bodies are gone

I bet whoever he wrote about he really is still with loving that much now --- even though their bodies were gone in the 1700s -- which is why I thought he might not mind if I updated it a little.

Her Merriment

When I had met my love the twentieth time,
she put me to confession day and night:
Did I like woman far above all things,
or did the songs I make give more delight?

'Listen, you sweeter flower than ever smiled
in Aprils' sunny face,' I said at last -
'the voices and the legs of birds and women
have always pleased my eyes and ears the most.'

And saying this, I watched my love with care,
not knowing would my words offend or please:
but laughing gaily, her delighted breasts
sent ripples down her body to her knees.
W.H. Davies

Moonlight

The far moon maketh lovers wise
in her pale beauty trembling down.
Lending curved cheeks, dark lips, dark eyes,
a strangeness not her own.
And, though they shut their eyes to kiss,
in starless darkness peace to win,
even on that secret world from this
her twilight enters in.
Walter de la Mare

Winter

The tree still bends over the lake,
and I try to recall our love,
our love which had a thousand leaves.
Sheila Wingfield

Ditty of First Desire

In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A heart.

And in the ripe evening
I wanted to be a nightingale.
A nightingale.

(Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.)

In the vivid morning
I wanted to be myself.
A heart.

And at the evening's end
I wanted to be my voice.
A nightingale.

Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.
Federico García Lorca

Serenata

The night soaks itself
along the shore of the river
and in Lolita's breasts
the branches die of love.

The branches die of love.

Naked the night sings
above the bridges of March.
Lolita bathes her body
with salt water and roses.

The branches die of love.

The night of anise and silver
shines over the rooftops.
Silver of streams and mirrors
Anise of your white thighs.

The branches die of love.

Federico García Lorca

"I may be able to speak the languages of human beings and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have the faith needed to move mountains-but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned-but if I have no love, this does me no good."
1 Corinthians, 13:1-13

"Let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth."
1 John 3:18

"I found the one my heart loves."
Song of Solomon 3:4

"Come let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves."
Proverbs 7:18

SONNET 129

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
William Shakespeare