When You Go

When you go,

if you go,

And I should want to die,

there's nothing I'd be saved by

more than the time

you fell asleep in my arms

in a trust so gentle

I let the darkening room

drink up the evening, till

rest, or the new rain

lightly roused you awake.

I asked if you heard the rain in your dream

and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.

-Edwin Morgan (RIP)

One Cigarette

No smoke without you, my fire

After you left,

your cigarette glowed on in my ashtray

and sent up a long thread of such quiet grey

I smiled to wonder who would believe its signal

of so much love. One cigarette

in the non-smoker's tray.

As the last spire

trembles up, a sudden draught

blows it winding into my face.

Is it smell, is it taste?

You are here again, and I am drunk on you tobacco lips.

Out with the light.

Let the smoke lie back in the dark.

Till I hear the very ash

sigh down among the flowers of brass

I'll breathe, and long past midnight, you last kiss.

-Edwin Morgan (RIP)

Old Song

I'm feeling ok still in some small way

I've come too far to just go away

I wish I could stay here some way.

So that what now comes wouldn't only be more

of what's to be lost. What's left would still leave more

to come if one didn't rush to get there.

What's still to say? Your eyes, your hair, your smile,

your body sweet as fresh air, your voice in the clear morning

after another night, another night, we lay together, sleeping?

If that has to go, it was never here.

If I know still you're here, then I'm here too

and love you, and love you.

-Robert Creeley

To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love's day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges' side

Shoudst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at a lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time's winged chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honor turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust:

The grave's a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

-Andrew Marvell

The Descent

The descent beckons

as the ascent beckoned

Memory is a kind

of accomplishment

a sort of renewal

even

an initiation, since the spaces it opens are new

places

inhabited by hordes

heretofore unrealized,

of new kinds-

since their movements

are towards new objectives

(even though formerly they were abandoned)

No defeat is made up entirely of defeat-since

the world it opens is always a place

formerly

unsuspected. A

world lost,

a world unsuspected

beckons to new places

and no whiteness (lost) is so white as the memory

of whiteness .

With evening, love wakens

though its shadows

which are alive by reason

of the sun shining

grow sleepy now and drop away

from desire .

Love without shadows stirs now

beginning to waken

as night

advances.

The descent

made up of despairs

and without accomplishment

realizes a new awakening :

which is a reversal

of despair.

For what we cannot accomplish, what

is denied to love,

what we have lost in the anticipation-

a descent follows,

endless and indestructible.

-William Carlos Williams

Ballad of the Despairing Husband

My wife and I lived all alone,

contention was our only bone.

I fought with her, she fought with me,

and things went on right merrily.

But now I live here by myself

with hardly a damn thing on the shelf,

and pass my days with little cheer

since I have parted from my dear.

Oh come home soon, I write to her.

Go fuck yourself, is her answer.

Now what is that, for Christian word?

I hope she feeds on dried goose turd.

But still I love her, yes I do.

I love her and the children too.

I only think it fit that she

should quickly come right back to me.

Ah no, she says, and she is tough,

and smacks me down with her rebuff.

Ah no, she says, I will not come

after the bloody things you've done.

Oh wife, oh wife -- I tell you true,

I never loved no one but you.

I never will, it cannot be

another woman is for me.

That may be right, she will say then,

but as for me, there's other men.

And I will tell you I propose

to catch them firmly by the nose.

And I will wear what dresses I choose!

And I will dance, and what's to lose!

I'm free of you, you little prick,

and I'm the one to make it stick.

Was this the darling I did love?

Was this that mercy from above

did open violets in the spring --

and made my own worn self to sing?

She was. I know. And she is still,

and if I love her? then so I will.

And I will tell, and tell her right...

Oh lovely lady, morning or evening or afternoon.

Oh lovely lady, eating with or without a spoon.

Oh most lovely lady, whether dressed or undressed or partly.

Oh most lovely lady, getting up or going to bed or sitting only.

Oh loveliest of ladies, than whom none is more fair, more gracious, more beautiful.

Oh loveliest of ladies, whether you are just or unjust, merciful, indifferent, or cruel.

Oh most loveliest of ladies, doing whatever, seeing whatever, being whatever.

Oh most loveliest of ladies, in rain, in shine, in any weather.

Oh lady, grant me time,

please, to finish my rhyme.

-Robert Creeley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDKVCwnnavg

The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead

I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.

You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,

You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.

And we went on living in the village of Chokan:

Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.

I never laughed, being bashful.

Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.

Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

Forever and forever and forever.

Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,

You went into far ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,

And you have been gone five months.

The monkeys make a sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.

By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,

Too deep to clear them away!

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.

The paired butterflies are already yellow with August

Over the grass in the West garden;

They hurt me. I grow older.

If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,

Please let me know beforehand,

And I will come out to meet you

As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

-Rihaku

(Translation/Interpretation -Ezra Pound)

Arbole, Arbole

Tree, tree

dry and green.

The girl with the pretty face

is out picking olives.

The wind, playboy of towers,

grabs her around the waist.

Four riders passed by

on Andalusian ponies,

with blue and green jackets

and big, dark capes.

"Come to Cordoba, muchacha."

The girl won't listen to them.

Three young bullfighters passed,

slender in the waist,

with jackets the color of oranges

and swords of ancient silver.

"Come to Sevilla, muchacha."

The girl won't listen to them.

When the afternoon had turned

dark brown, with scattered light,

a young man passed by, wearing

roses and myrtle of the moon.

"Come to Granada, muchacha."

And the girl with the pretty face

keeps on picking olives

with the grey arm of the wind

wrapped around her waist.

Tree, tree

dry and green.

-Federico Garcia Lorca

Strawberries

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held in mine
the blue plates in our laps
the strawberries glistening
in the hot sunlight
we dipped them in sugar
looking at each other
not hurrying the feast
for one to come
the empty plates laid on the stone together
with the two forks crossed
and I bent towards you

sweet in that air
in my arms
abandoned like a child
from your eager mouth
the taste of strawberries
in my memory
lean back again
let me love you

let the sun beat
on our forgetfulness
one hour of all
the heat intense
and summer lightning
on the Kilpatrick hills

let the storm wash the plates

-Edwin Morgan

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of you changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

-W. B. Yeats

The Things

When I walk in my house I see pictures,

bought long ago, framed and hanging

-de Kooning, Arp, Laurencin, Henry Moore-

that I've cherished and stared at for years,

yet my eyes keep returning to the masters

of the trivial: a white stone perfectly round,

tiny lead models of baseball players, a cowbell,

a broken great-grandmother's rocker,

a dead dog's toy - valueless, unforgettable

detritus that my children will throw away

as I did my mother's souvenirs of trips

with my dead father, Kodaks of kittens,

and bundles of cards from her mother Kate.

-Donald Hall

The Caterpillar

Under this loop of honeysuckle,

A creeping, coloured caterpillar,

I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,

I nibble it leaf by leaf.

Down beneath grow dandelions,

Daisies, old-man's-looking-glasses;

Rocks flap croaking across the lane.

I eat and swallow and eat again.

Here come raindrops helter-skelter;

I munch and nibble unregarding:

Hawthorn leaves are juicy and firm.

I'll mind my business: I'm a good worm.

When I'm old , tired, melancholy,

I'll build a leaf-green mausoleum

Close by, here on this lovely spray,

And die and dream the ages away.

Some say worms win resurrection,

With white wings beating flitter-flutter,

But wings or a sound sleep, why should I care?

Either way I'll miss my share.

Under this loop of honeysuckle,

A hungery, hairy caterpiller,

I crawl on my high and swinging seat,

And eat, eat, eat - as one ought to eat.

-Robert Graves