romantic poems

for Bobbie


Yesterday I wanted to
speak of it, that sense above
the others to me
important because all


that I know derives
from what it teaches me.
Today, what is it that
is finally so helpless,

different, despairs of its own
statement, wants to
turn away, endlessly
to turn away.

If the moon did not ...
no, if you did not
I wouldn’t either, but
what would I not

do, what prevention, what
thing so quickly stopped.

I pick up the skirt,
I pick up the sparkling beads
in black,
this thing that moved once
around flesh,
and I call God a liar,
I say anything that moved
like that
or knew
my name
could never die
in the common verity of dying,
and I pick
up her lovely
dress,
all her loveliness gone,
and I speak to all the gods,
Jewish gods, Christ-gods,
chips of blinking things,
idols, pills, bread,
fathoms, risks,
knowledgeable surrender,

For her hennaed naib I'll give,
pot-fuls of blood from under my throat,
that tall beloved of mine,
is attired in robes of scent Rasul.
Mir is crying his heart, away,
far in Dooru, oh love

This is for every woman
that cries herself to sleep
that lies alone in bed at night
that stays awake, unable to sleep

This is for every woman
that is scared of being hurt again
that has been left behind, heartbroken
that needs to be given something to believe in

This is for every woman
that needs to feel wanted
that wants to feel desirable
that feels like no one even cares

This is for every woman
that has loved another freely
that shows how much she cares

When dusk appears here,
day starts at your place.
Night marches with snake's hood;
my heart and eyebrow tremble in fear.

When night approaches at your place,
our magpies whistle here;
your whole body sweats in fright
as if there were venom in the air.

Lorena, o my sweet bride,
we won't live more on two distant shores;
we will taste honey of same flowers,
we will cultivate love-crops in same fields.

We will see the same dawn with our four eyes

The precentor Damoteles, Bacchus, exalts
Your tripod, and, sweetest of deities, you.
He was champion of men, if his boyhood had faults;
And he ever loved honour and seemliness too.

And let her loves, when she is dead,
Write this above her bones:
"No more she lives to give us bread
Who asked her only stones."

Crimson and cream and white -
My room is a garden of roses!
Centre and left and right,
Three several splendid posies.

As the sender is, they are sweet,
These lovely gifts of your sending,
With the stifling summer heat
Their delicate fragrance blending.

What more can my heart desire?
Has it lost the power to be grateful?
Is it only a burnt-out fire,
Whose ashes are dull and hateful?

Yet still to itself it doth say,
`I should have loved far better
To have found, coming in to-day,

Never love a simple lad,
Guard against a wise,
Shun a timid youth and sad,
Hide from haunted eyes.

Never hold your heart in pain
For an evil-doer;
Never flip it down the lane
To a gifted wooer.

Never love a loving son,
Nor a sheep astray;
Gather up your skirts and run
From a tender way.

Never give away a tear,
Never toss a pine;
Should you heed my words, my dear,
You're no blood of mine!

Fly, Love, aloft to heav'n and look out Fortune,
Then sweetly, sweetly, sweetly her importune,
That I from my Calisto best beloved
As you and she set down be never moved.
And, Love, to Carimel see you commend me,
Fortune for his sweet sake may chance befriend me.