I love you

How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints - I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!
-and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Empty Bed
She lay in her Empty Bed,
Thinking of the night before.
The way he held her close
To caress her hair
with softness of his hands.
The way he smiled at her
as he laid her down upon the bed
To touch her desires with his.
Each not wanting to feel the
emptiness any more.
Wanting to feel his body next to hers.
She takes the pillow that his head laid
on the night before.
Pulling it close,
smelling the scent of his cologne.
Closing her eyes, longing to feel
his loving arms once again.
To feel his soft hand on her cheek
as his mouth met hers.
The bed feels so very cold and empty
this night after.
That she lay in tears not knowing what
was to become of this.

to share in the warming of the Empty bed
To make the bed come alive again
with the passion of the night.
Would she hear his laughter and feel his silence.
All she could do was whisper
in the still of the night
"These are the things you do to me,
For with out you, I am so alone.
She ask herself over and over again
in her night of Dreams.
"Can there be more?
Is this the life I shall lead?
Only having him with me from time to time.
Never really having his heart,
Shall I hope and dream
and sleep alone in the emptiness
of my own heart."
As she lay sleeping
in her dreams of the night before.
She dreams of him and the way he touch
her as no other had.
Dreaming of the softness of his hands...
As they move up and down
her back leaving her longing for more.
Bring out the passion of fire
that lie deep with in her soul.
For she had never meet a man
like him before.
He was so kind and gentle
to her that night before.
To dry the tears of pain
that lay deep in her very heart.
For he was not the first to touch this flower
But he was the first to release
the petals that would soon
come in to full bloom
He had a way of letting her know
that even though he never really
could say the words she long to hear.
He loved her with all the Emptiness
of his own heart.

© Dagger Rose Productions 1996
By William Davenport

In Dreams
In dreams, there is no one to take you from me> no one to take me from you
and the biggest problems which come between us
are how far to go, how fast
this love in me growing for you is laden
with warmth of a thousand suns
this love in you showing for me is spoken
with joy of a thousand tongues
in dreams, you are all that I've ever wanted
no other than me all you need
and the biggest distance which comes between us
is the width of a body, a bed
this love in you growing for me is barren
of anything like deceit
this love in me showing for you is empty
of anything like defeat
in dreams, you are every man I have cherished
no other woman for you than me
and the biggest hurt that could come between us
is the time we are parted now

© Carla J. Atkins 1997

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim of the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I being poor have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.
-William Butler Yeats

Renouncement
I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight -
The thought of thee - and in the blue Heaven's height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.
O just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away, -
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.
-Alice Meynell

I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to love in
you that which is eternal and ever precious -- your heart, your soul.
Beauty one could get to know and fall in love with in one hour and
cease to love it as speedily; but the soul one must learn to know.
~~Count Leo Tolstoi~~

I never thought of this as funny...
I wanna be your Easter Bunny.....
I wanna be your Christmas Tree
~~Michael Stipe~~ REM

The clouds have deepened o'er the night
Till, through the dark profound,
The moon is but a stain of light
And all the stars are drowned;
And all the stars are drowned, my love,
And all the skies are drear;
But what care we for light above,
If light of love is here?
James Whitcomb Riley

love is the every only god who spoke this earth so glad and big even
a thing all small and sad man, may his mighty briefness dig for love
beginning means return seas who could sing so deep and strong one
queerying wave will whitely yearn from each last shore and home
come young so truly perfectly the skies by merciful love whispered
were, completes its brightness with your eyes any illimitable star.
~~e.e.cummings~~

I find my love fishing
His feet in the shallows.
We have breakfast together,
And drink beer.
I offer him the magic of my thighs
He is caught in the spell.
--Egyptian, from 1500-1000BC,
translated by Ezra Pound and Noel Stock

"I just want a lover who'll
make me chicken soup when
I'm sick"
-L, Nov 1 1995

i've never been one
to write mushy love sonnets
but-
right now
i'm holding on to my heart
with both hands
to keep it from breaking
your name
is the one
i think i see
inscribed on the moon
-unknown

Here I am; I'm here--
in my mind, and yours,
it seems.
Please don't hold me
too dear.
Some dreams
are unrealized.
--R

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster
Lose something every day. Accept the flurry
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look: my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (*Write* it!) like disaster.
--E.Bishop, "One Art"

“I don't know what to do with
all that potential," he said.
She exhaled slowly,
looked at him. "I'm sorry."
"Sleep well," he nodded, turned out the door,
not quite shutting it behind him.
--March 22, 1997

She held on tightly to me,
reluctant to let go for even
an instant, to allow a change
of posture between us, to
allow me to hang over her and
take the sight of her in.
Her arms wrapped around me,
I could feel the expansion
and contraction of her ribcage
as she breathed.
Later I said "God, you really
don't like to let go."
"That's OK," she replied,
"Neither do you."
-unknown

But love, he said, love was a fragile blossom;
love was a delicate crystal; love was an unstable
reaction with a half-life of about eight months.
--Joe Haldeman, _The Forever War_

My brain racked
with life,
yet all these thoughts
should comes to this:
despite all trials
and tribulations
I still hunger
for your kiss
-unknown