Maggie and Millie and Molly and May – EE Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came
home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

May I Feel, He Said… – EE Cummings

may i feel said he
(i’ll squeal said she
just once said he)
it’s fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let’s go said he
not too far said she
what’s too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you’re willing said he
(but you’re killing said she

but it’s life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don’t stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you’re divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

Be My Sherpa – Andrew Varnon

Be my buffalo head nickel, my foreboding mountain, the leg I don’t have to stand on.

What if there were big things at stake?
Be my ruckus. Be my shoot-out.

Be my corduroy, my perfect non-sequitor.
Be my cedilla.

Be my circuit breaker, my prosecuting attorney, my lengthening shadows at dusk, my nest
of pine needles, my second-story window, my autodialler.

Be my hilarious fugue, baroque rococo.

Be my Boolean logic, my array of pointers, my system architecture, my database management
software.

Be my cascading waterfall, my oscilloscope.

My engaging imagination, my radical metonymy.
Be my stone fence.

Be my axiom.
Be my if-you-stare-long-enough-you’ll-see.
Be my subatomic particle. Be my ten lords a’ leapin’.
Be my backbeat, my key of C minor, my surly apostle, my green sea birdgirl.

Be my long strides, my inscrutable syntax, my mystic chancellery.

Be these things. Be them. Be my maximum payload, my elemental munitions, my full
complement of arms.

I’m asking for guidance here. Once I was water coiled under sand. Now I make my plea. This
is errata. This is what I forgot to say before. Listen. Aren’t I your blossom, your acceptable
loss? The comet is ellipse. The mitosis is continental divide. It communicates within its own
enzymic parameters. I’m asking you. All this will be ours. Every desperate clutch, every
extenuating syllable. Emerge, come forth.

Be my long gaunt carnivore, my nullifying vision.
Be my simmering, seething, flickering, radiating, shimmering, and undulating.
Be my hereby known as, my previously referred to, my otherwise, my elsewhere.

Be my scandalous reparté.
Be my semiotic wilderness, my midnight blue metallic, my queen’s gambit.
Be my unheralded latecomer.

Be that one move: the one where you cross over, go behind your back, put it through your legs,
spin around, in midair, no look, no hands, with a wink, outstretched, half twist, and somehow
escape with your eggshell intact.

Be my come on. Be my let’s go. Be my it’s a great day to be in Montezuma.
But I’m new now. I can never go back.

Love Poem with Toast – Miller Williams

Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.

The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something,
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.

With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,

as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.

Helen – Hilda Doolittle

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees unmoved,
God’s daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.

Because I could not stop for Death – E Dickinson

BECAUSE I could not stop for Death–
He kindly stopped for me–
The Carriage held but just Ourselves–
And Immortality.

We slowly drove–He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labour and my leisure too,
For His Civility–

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess–in the Ring–
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain–
We passed the Setting Sun–

Or rather–He passed Us–
The Dews drew quivering and chill–
For only Gossamer, my Gown–
My Tippet–only Tulle–

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground–
The Roof was scarcely visible–
The Cornice–in the Ground–

Since then–’tis Centuries–and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses Heads
Were toward Eternity–

Come and kiss me, Sweet and Twenty – PL Dunbar

APPLE blossoms falling o’er thee,
And the month is May,
Laden bows bend low before thee,
With their gentle sway;
Look you where the thrush is swinging
How his melody is ringing,
As he sings my heart is singing:–
Come and kiss me sweet and twenty,
Love blooms out with flowers a-plenty,
Love me, love me without reason,
Kiss me, now’s the kissing season,
White your cheek is as the blooms are,
Sweet your breath as perfumes are,
Is this dolce far niente,
Come and kiss me sweet and twenty.

Love is at thy window suing,
All the live-long day,
Stay and listen to my wooing,
Life shall all be May.
Love like mine can falter never
Naught from thee my heart can sever
And my song shall be forever:–
Come and kiss me sweet and twenty,
Love blooms out with flowers a-plenty,
Love me, love me without reason,
Kiss me, now’s the kissing season,
White your cheek is as the blooms are,
Sweet your breath as perfumes are,
Is this dolce far niente,
Come and kiss me sweet and twenty.

Hope is a thing with Feathers – E Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.