Rhythms of Love

1

Woman, reviling term
Of Man unto the female germ,
And Man, reproach of Woman
In this colloquy,
Have grown so contrary
That to have love
We must combine chastely next
Among the languages
Where calling is obscene
And words no more than mean.

2

" Yes!" to you is in the same breath
" No! No!" to Death.
And your " Yes! Yes!" to me
Is " No!" to Death once angrily.
The Universe, leaning from a balcony,
Says: " Death comes home to me

No More Are Lovely Palaces

No more are lovely palaces
And Taj-Mahal is old.
The listening tenements,
The wakeful entertainments,
Waited wide and many ages
For the spirits of the promises
That more than men would come,
Would come the visitants evoked
By lovely palaces
And such emblazoned places
Men would never light for men.

A little surer now you know
They do not come the way you go.
And better build you and more soberly—
Houses fitter for you to leave
Than to receive
The more than haughty hosts

Several Love-Stories

The formulas of recognition
Apply themselves to memories.
There's where,
There's when,
There's there.

Yes, a nice time.
I met three fishermen out on the bay
Who couldn't understand language.
I found a mercadon —
What's a mercadon? —
And dined with native nobility,
But there's no place like home!

Yes, true-love — not travel.
It was a sky
Not just to look at
But prove —
If possible,
If possible.

I went up of love,
I fell down of loves.

Love's Innocence

See how this Ivy strives to twine
Her wanton arms about the Vine,
And her coy lover thus restrains,
Entangled in her amorous chains;
See how these neighb'ring Palms do bend
Their heads, and mutual murmurs send,
As whisp'ring with a jealous fear
Their loves, into each others ear.
Then blush not such a flame to own
As like thy self no crime hath known;
Led by these harmlesse guides, we may
Embrace and kisse as well as they.
And like those blessed souls above,
Whose life is harmony and love,

To Amoret, of the Difference 'twixt Him and Other Lovers, and What True Love Is

To Amoret, of the difference 'twixt him, and other Lover and what true Love is

Marke, when the Evenings cooler wings
Fanne the afflicted ayre, how the faint Sunne,
Leaving undone,
What he begunne,
Those spurious flames suckt up from slime, and earth
To their first, low birth,
Resignes, and brings.

They shoot their tinsill beames, and vanities,
Thredding with those false fires their way;
But as you stay
And see them stray,

To One That Asked Me Why I Loved J.G.

Why do I Love? go, ask the Glorious Sun
Why every day it round the world doth Run:
Ask Thames and Tyber , why they Ebb and Flow:
Ask Damask Roses, why in June they blow:
Ask Ice and Hail, the reason, why they're Cold:
Decaying Beauties, why they will grow Old:
They'l tell thee, Fate, that every thing doth move,
Inforces them to this, and me to Love.
There is no Reason for our Love or Hate,
'Tis irresistable, as Death or Fate;
'Tis not his Face; I've sence enough to see,
That is not good, though doated on by me:

Mystical Poets

Bards of brow funereal
With your profiles angular
As in ancient medals grand,

Ye with air seignorial,
Ye whose glances lie afar,
Ye with voices of command;

Theologians grave and tried,
Vessels of love's meted grace,
Vessels full of sorrows found,

Ye who gaze with vision wide,
Ye whose Christ is in your face,
Ye in tangled locks enwound,—

My Muse—a maid marmoreal
Who seeks oblivion as her star,
Can find alone her raptures fanned

Amid your air seignorial,

Could man be drunk for ever

Could man be drunk for ever
With liquor, love, or fights,
Lief should I rouse at morning
And lief lie down of nights.

But men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts.

Mean Mistreater Mama

You're a mean mistreating mama
and you don't mean me no good
You're a mean mistreating mama
and you don't mean me no good
And I don't blame you, baby:
I'd be the same way if I could

You say you're going to leave me
well you say you going away
Now you say you're going to leave me
and you say you going away
That's all right baby:
maybe you'll come back home some day

Now you're a mean mistreater
and you mistreats me all the time
Now you're a mean mistreater
and you mistreats me all the time

Your love threw me down

Your love threw me down
in a land of wonder
it ambushed me like the scent
of a woman stepping into an elevator
it surprised me
in a coffee bar
sitting over a poem
I forgot the poem
It surprised me
reading the lines in my palm
I forgot my palm
It dropped on me like a blind deaf
wildfowl
its feathers became tangled with mine
its cries were twisted with mine
It surprised me
as I sat on my suitcase
waiting for the train of days
I forgot the days
I traveled with you

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