Poetry Appreciation (do NOT post your own poetry)

I Wish You Love

I wish you bluebirds in the spring

To give your heart a song to sing

And then a kiss, but more than this

I wish you love

And in July a lemonade

To cool you in some leafy glade

I wish you health

But more than wealth

I wish you love

My breaking heart and I agree

That you and I could never be

So with my best

My very best

I set you free

I wish you shelter from the storm

A cozy fire to keep you warm

But most of all when snowflakes fall

I wish you love

But most of all when snowflakes fall

I wish you love

I wish you love

I wish you love, love, love, love, love

I wish you love

~Ann Sally

 

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.
The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.


Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

~Pablo Neruda

 

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

-Kahlil Gibran

 

Reveille

do you know
the taste of morning
as it slides along
sleep warmed lips
and blanket rubbed thighs
where my hands
can trace
the shape of your
smile and drink
the awakening hours
from the languid cauldron

-J.W. Bouwman

 

I love the handful of the earth you are.
Because of its meadows, vast as a planet,
I have no other star. You are my replica
of the multiplying universe.
Your wide eyes are the only light I know
from extinguished constellations;
your skin throbs like the streak
of a meteor through rain.
Your hips were that much of the moon for me;
your deep mouth and its delights, that much sun;
your heart, fiery with its long red rays,
was that much ardent light, like honey in the shade.
So I pass across your burning form, kissing
you—compact and planetary, my dove, my globe.

–Pablo Neruda, “One Hundred Love Sonnets: Morning, XVI

 

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

-Edgar Allan Poe

 

I actually haven't seen the movie yet (I have a lot of catching up to do movie-wise), but my son did download it for me. I've been cleaning out closets & going through things to get ready for a yard sale, and I came across an old book of Edgar Allan Poe's writings today.

 

I remember it being advertised and thought it sounded interesting, but I never got around to watching it. I'd forgotten all about it until my son recently said he'd downloaded it for me because it looked like it'd be something I'd like.

 

I've always liked it, and I've always been a Poe fan.

Great contributions. :smt023

 

The walk

Did you ever know
As you strolled with ease
Down your rosy path
I walked by your side gingerly
My path strewn with thorns
My soles raw from keeping up
tears ever inward

Yet I smiled to the world
alien and friendless
alone in my secret agony
a madness you see
no one would
begin to comprehend

Did you ever know
As you strode ahead
I could walk no more
You never looked back
Not a single glance
To where I stood
Helpless

Now I must find
my way back
To where I once belonged
All the way once again
This time alone…

-Unknown

Trapped and Alone

I live here, in this land of filth,
Here I sit, prosperity beyond that which I can achieve,
Oh, this land, it keeps me prisoner,
I cannot move on, I cannot leave.

This land needs no fence or guards to imprison me,
For it has already drained the fire inside, the fire of hope,
Oh, this land, it shackles my soul, locks my heart.
The land supplies the darkness through which I grope.

Here I wander, friendless and alone, across the land,
I wander through the forest of despair, all is gray,
Oh this land, it cages me in the bars that are my intelligence,
This land controls me, commands my mind, I’m forced to stay.

-The King

 

Romance


To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,
Scented and warm against my beating breast;

To whisper soft and quivering your name,
And drink the passion burning in your frame;

To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek,
And tease your mouth with kisses till you speak

Love words, mad words, dream words, sweet senseless words,
Melodious like notes of mating birds;

To hear you ask if I shall love always,
And myself answer: Till the end of days;

To feel your easeful sigh of happiness
When on your trembling lips I murmur: Yes;

It is so sweet. We know it is not true.
What matters it? The night must shed her dew.

We know it is not true, but it is sweet—
The poem with this music is complete.

~Claude McKay

 

Courage

O lonely heart so timid of approach,
Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips
To the faint touch of tender finger tips:
What is your word? What question would you broach?

Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind
To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale,
Your guarded life too exquisitely frail
Against the daggers of my warring mind.

There is no part of the unyielding earth,
Even bare rocks where the eagles build their nest,
Will give us undisturbed and friendly rest.
No dewfall softens this vast belt of dearth.

But in the socket-chiseled teeth of strife,
That gleam in serried files in all the lands,
We may join hungry, understanding hands,
And drink our share of ardent love and life.

-Claude McKay