Untitled
When we two parted
In silence and tears
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years
Pale grew thy cheek and cold
Colder thy kiss
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this!
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken
And share in it's shame.
They name thee before me
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me-
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee
Who knew thee too well:
Long,long shall I rue thee
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met:
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years
How should I greet thee?-
With silence and tears
-Lord Byron
I wanted to Smash
I wanted to smash
something, anything against
their dull, stupid faces,
but then you reached down
with a certain smile,
put a flower in my hand.
Raymond Souster
The Clod and the Pebble
“Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.”
So sung a little Clod of Clay
Trodden with the cattle’s feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these meter meet:
“Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another’s loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite.”
William Blake
A House Divided
This midnight breathing
heaves with no sensible rhythm,
is fashioned by no metronome.
Your body, eager
for the extra yard of bed,
reconnoiters and outflanks;
I bend in peculiar angles.
This nightly battle is fought with subtleties:
you get pregnant, I’m sure,
just for extra ground
-immune from kicks now.
Inside you now’s another,
thrashing like a fish,
swinging, fighting
for its inch already.
Michael Ondaatje
And in Our time
A world flew in my mouth with our first kiss
and it’s wings were dipped in all the flavors of grief.
Oh my darling, tell me, what can love mean in such a world,
and what can we or any lovers hold in this immensity
of hate and broken things?
Now it is down, down, that’s where your kiss travels me,
and, as a world tumbling shocks the theories of spheres,
so this love is like falling glass shaking with stars
the air which tomorrow, or even today will be
a slow terrible movement of scars.
Phyllis Webb
It's been
Too many nights
Of being with
To now be suddenly
Without
Jewel
How often I've cried out
In silent tounge
To be saved
From myself
In the middle of the night
Too afraid
To move
Horrified the answer
May be beyond the
Capability of my
Own two hands
So small
(No one should feel this alone)
Jewel
Sometimes
I feel
My heart
Fall
To the vague depths
Between
Words there
Are such
Spaces that
I can't help
But feel
My heart
Fall between
The pregnant pause
Of all you will not say
And all I can
Not ask
Jewel
I guess what I
Wanted was
To here
You'd stay with me always
I guess what I
Wanted was
To see
Those hands vowing
Never to leave my own
I guess what
I wanted was
To know
I am not loving in vain
Jewel
Love is like a dream, open your eyes and it's gone
Trip over love
And you will get up
Fall in love
And you'll fall forever
True love can not be found where it does not exist; nor can it be hidden where it truly does
In time, there's nothing wrong with completely and utterly falling for someone extraordinary, as long as that extraordinary someone is there to catch you.