If I could see you in a year,
I ’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I ’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I ’d toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

If you were coming in the fall - Emily Dickinson

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What Was Told, That
by Jalalu'l-din Rumi
translated by Coleman Barks

What was said to the rose that made it open was said
to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strong
and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made
sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in
Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush
like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in
language, that's happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,
chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

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Can I come to you as I am,
in secret-
brimming with the need to be held?
Can I lay hot whispers on your skin
then taste how they make you feel?
Can I show you how to touch me,
how hard to press?
If I cry
can I hide salty tears
in the soft curve of your neck?
Can I bite, ever so gently,
before I scream?
Can I be your lover,
without you loving me?
Can I, please?

(source)

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Mae West

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Afterward, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.

These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.

Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.

The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar

and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.

Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when

the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self

lay lightly down, and slept.

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Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

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All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above -

Know that you aren't alone
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.

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syntax by Maureen N. McLane

and if
I were to say

I love you and
I do love you

and I say it
now and again

and again
would you say

parataxis
would you see

the world revolves
anew

its axis
you

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Who Ever Loved, That Loved Not at First Sight? by Christopher Marlowe

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For you to trust me and me to trust you,
you have to accept me and I have to accept you
the way I am and the way you are,
fully seen and deeply known,
with no need of apology –
with my body imperfections and with yours,
with my character shortcomings and yours, too….

for you are a sacred gift to me
and I am a sacred gift to you,
and gifts are to be gratefully accepted
and heartily enjoyed,

but only if you trust me and I trust you,
can we let ourselves be ourselves
and forget real or unreal barriers,
conventions or inhibitions,
as to profoundly enjoy
what we’ve been granted:
you – the gift of me,
me – the gift of you,
as deeply as our inner worlds
can take us in,
with trust
and joy.

Trust by John Keats

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Come With Me, I Said, And No One Knew (VII) by Pablo Neruda

Come with me, I said, and no one knew
where, or how my pain throbbed,
no carnations or barcaroles for me,
only a wound that love had opened.

I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying,
and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth
or the blood that rose into the silence.
O Love, now we can forget the star that has such thorns!

That is why when I heard your voice repeat
Come with me, it was as if you had let loose
the grief, the love, the fury of a cork-trapped wine

the geysers flooding from deep in its vault:
in my mouth I felt the taste of fire again,
of blood and carnations, of rock and scald.

Come With Me, I Said, And No One Knew (VII) by Pablo Neruda

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"Do you really think, Arthur, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to." ~ Excerpt from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

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Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.

Entrance by Rainer Maria Rilke

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Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?

'Ah, are you digging on my grave
My loved one? -- planting rue?
--No: yesterday he went to wed
One of the brightest wealth has bred.
'It cannot hurt her now.' he said,
"That I should not be true."'

'Then who is digging on my grave?
My nearest dearest kin?'
--'Ah, no; they sit and think, "What use!
What good will planting flowers produce?
No tendence of her mound can loose
Her spirit from Death's gin."

'But some one digs upon my grave?
My enemy?--prodding shy?'
--'Nay: when she heard you had passed the Gate
That shuts on all flesh soon or late,
She thought you no more worth her hate,
And cares not where you lie.'

'Then, who is digging on my grave?
Say--since I have not guessed!'
--'O it is I, my mistress dear,
Your little dog, who still lives near,
And much I hope my movements here
Have not disturbed your rest?'

'Ah, yes! You dig upon my grave...
Why flashed it not on me
That one true heart was left behind!
What feeling do we ever find
To equal among human kind
A dog's fidelity!'

'Mistress, I dug upon your grave
To bury a bone, in case
I should be hungry near this spot
When passing on my daily trot,
I am sorry, but I quite forgot
It was your resting-place.'

Thomas Hardy (1914)

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and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated by Robert Bly

A Walk

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May Sarton - Now I Become Myself

Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places,
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"hurry, you will be dead before -----"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
or the end of the poem, is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!.....
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the Sun!

May Sarton - Now I Become Myself
from Collected Poems 1930-1993

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Artwork: "Flower of the Little Prince" by Chrissy261 - http://chrissy261.deviantart.com/art/Flower-of-the-little-prince-164597877

“In those days, I didn't understand anything. I should have judged her according to her actions, not her words. She perfumed my planet and lit up my life. I should never have run away! I ought to have realized the tenderness underlying her silly pretensions. Flowers are so contradictory! But I was too young to know how to love her.”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Artwork: "Flower of the Little Prince" by Chrissy261

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I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.   ~  Groucho Marx

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Met de jaren
moet er veel worden weggegooid.
De gedachte bijvoorbeeld
dat geluk mild is en duurzaam
iets als een zuidelijk klimaat
in plaats van een blikseminslag
die levenslang gekoesterde
littekens achterlaat.

© 1996, Hanny Michaelis
From: Verzamelde Gedichten
Publisher: Uitgeverij G.A Van Oorschot, Amsterdam, 1996
ISBN: 90-282-0890-9

© Translation: 2009, Judith Wilkinson
Publisher: Earlier version published on www.languageandculture.net, 2005

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You Never Told Me by Neva Flores
(Neva is one of my favorite contemporary poets - check out her website!)

You said you could climb the peaks of life to awaken pain
Even as flashes of madness called you their own
Understandably, I still loved your careless flaming heart
With a watchful face which recalls taking hold
Of your broken chains

You told me the sky hurled heroes upon your summons
Though I know, you still claimed visions shared
So I came and went until you were pleased to let me
Sing the tune of the tongues of angels
To your warrior heart

Beyond the start of centuries stroking cloudy shores
Better than a silent idea you let be sought
Lies the voice of courage clinging to those ideals
You sustained when you named fear
As no such thing

But you never told me that sometimes it rains on love
Or how often you hide when it comes a flood
So when the quiet came I thought you didn't care
I decided to climb the peaks of life myself
To sing pain back to sleep

Copyright *Neva Flores @2011

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Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I’m dumb in school?
Whatif they’ve closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there’s poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don’t grow talle?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won’t bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don’t grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

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Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick

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Pablo Neruda
Poema Veinte

I can write the saddest verses tonight.
Write, for example: "The night sky is full of stars,
And far away, blue, celestial bodies tremble".
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest verses tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she also loved me.
Through nights like tonight I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.
She loved me, and sometimes I also loved her.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
I can write the saddest verses tonight.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I lost her.
To hear the immense night, even more immeasurable without her.
And the verse falls to the soul as dew to the pasture.
It does not matter that my love could not keep her.
The night sky is full of stars, and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone sings. In the distance.
My soul cannot be relieved now that I lost her.
My eyes search for her, trying to bring her close to me.
My heart searches for her, and she is not with me.
The same night, whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, it is true, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to caress her hearing.
Another's. She must belong to someone else, just as she belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, it is true, but maybe I still love her.
Love is so short, and forgetting takes so long.
Because through nights like tonight I held her in my arms,
My soul cannot be relieved now that I lost her.
Even when this is the last pain she causes me
And these are the last verses that I write about her.

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