From Doctor Drink – J.V. Cunningham

In the thirtieth year of life
I took my heart to be my wife,

And as I turn in bed by night
I have my heart for my delight.

No other heart may mine estrange
For my heart changes as I change,

And it is bound, and I am free,
And with my death it dies with me.

Blue – May Swenson

Blue, but you are Rose, too,

and buttermilk, but with blood

dots showing through.

A little salty your white

nape boy-wide. Glinting hairs

shoot back of your ears’ Rose

that tongues like to feel

the maze of, slip into the funnel,

tell a thunder-whisper to.

When I kiss, your eyes’ straight

lashes down crisp go like doll’s

blond straws. Glazed iris Roses,

your lids unclose to Blue-ringed

targets, their dark sheen-spokes

almost green. I sink in Blue-

black Rose-heart holes until you

blink. Pink lips, the serrate

folds taste smooth, and Rosehip-

round, the center bud I suck.

I milknip your two Blue-skeined

blown Rose beauties, too, to sniff

their berries’ blood, up stiff

pink tips. You’re white in

patches, only mostly Rose,

buckskin and saltly, speckled

like a sky. I love your spots,

your white neck, Rose, your hair’s

wild straw splash, silk spools

for your ears. But where white

spouts out, spills on your brow

to clear eyepools, wheel shafts

of light, Rose, you are Blue.

The Education Of A Poet – Leslie Monsour

Her pencil poised, she’s ready to create,

Then listens to her mind’s perverse debate

On whether what she does serves any use;

And that is all she needs for an excuse

To spend all afternoon and half the night

Enjoying poems other people write.

Novel – Arthur Rimbaud

I.

No one’s serious at seventeen.
–On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade
And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need
–You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade.

Lindens smell fine on fine June nights!
Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes;
The wind brings sounds–the town is near–
And carries scents of vineyards and beer. . .

II.

–Over there, framed by a branch
You can see a little patch of dark blue
Stung by a sinister star that fades
With faint quiverings, so small and white. . .

June nights! Seventeen!–Drink it in.
Sap is champagne, it goes to your head. . .
The mind wanders, you feel a kiss
On your lips, quivering like a living thing. . .

III.

The wild heart Crusoes through a thousand novels
–And when a young girl walks alluringly
Through a streetlamp’s pale light, beneath the ominous shadow
Of her father’s starched collar. . .

Because as she passes by, boot heels tapping,
She turns on a dime, eyes wide,
Finding you too sweet to resist. . .
–And cavatinas die on your lips.

IV.

You’re in love. Off the market till August.
You’re in love.–Your sonnets make Her laugh.
Your friends are gone, you’re bad news.
–Then, one night, your beloved, writes. . . !

That night. . .you return to the blinding cafés;
You order beer or lemonade. . .
–No one’s serious at seventeen
When lindens line the promenade.

The Persistence Of Memory – Colin Mortin

She knew how the sunlight
ran its warm fingers
between her smooth brown thighs,
how her shadow swayed with her skirt
when she walked in front of him.

She felt him following
and with a sidelong glance
shook hair away from her face,
aware how it fell,
faint suggestion of joy,
to the arch of her back.

She knew his want and let it
surround her. She let him
choose the music, pull the blind
unless he wanted it up
so the sun could run pale fingers
from lips to nipples to soft belly hairs.

They both said love was brief
and parted still believing it.
But the years came unasked for,
and still she walks that street
watching her shadow flirt with the sun,
wishing he would follow her again.

Erinna – Antipater of Sidon

Though short her strain nor sung with mighty boast;
Yet there the power of song had dwelling-room;
So lives her name for ever, nor lies lost
Beneath the shadow of the wings of gloom,
While bards of after days in countless host,
Slumber and fade forgotten in the tomb.
Better the swan’s brief note than thousand cries
Of rooks in springtime blown about the skies.

Think Not I Am Faithful – Edna St. Vincent Millay

Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I save to love’s self alone.
Were you not lovely I would leave you now:
After the feet of beauty fly my own.
Were you not still my hunger’s rarest food,
And water ever to my wildest thirst,
I would desert you — think not but I would! –
And seek another as I sought you first.
But you are mobile as the veering air,
And all your charms more changeful than the tide,
Wherefore to be inconstant is no care:
I have but to continue at your side.
So wanton, light and false, my love, are you,
I am most faithless when I most am true.

Daddy Fell Into The Pond – Alfred Noyes

Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey.
We had nothing to do and nothing to say.
We were nearing the end of a dismal day,
And there seemed to be nothing beyond,
THEN
Daddy fell into the pond!

And everyone’s face grew merry and bright,
And Timothy danced for sheer delight.
“Give me the camera, quick, oh quick!
He’s crawling out of the duckweed.”
Click!

Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee,
And doubled up, shaking silently,
And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft
And is sounded as if the old drake laughed.
O, there wasn’t a thing that didn’t respond
WHEN
Daddy fell into the pond!

A Very Short Song – Dorothy Parker

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad -
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.

may my heart always be open – e.e cummings

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile