Penguin's Poems for Life

by Laura Barber

Be plain in Dress and sober in your Diet;

  In short my Dearee, kiss me, and be quiet.

  KIM ADDONIZIO

  For Desire

  Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;

  and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal

  surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,

  or cherries, the rich spurt in the back

  of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.

  Give me the lover who yanks open the door

  of his house and presses me to the wall

  in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I’m drenched

  and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload

  and begin their delicious diaspora

  through the cities and small towns of my body.

  To hell with the saints, with the martyrs

  of my childhood meant to instruct me

  in the power of endurance and faith,

  to hell with the next world and its pallid angels

  swooning and sighing like Victorian girls.

  I want this world. I want to walk into

  the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along

  like I’m nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass,

  and I want to resist it. I want to go

  staggering and flailing my way

  through the bars and back rooms,

  through the gleaming hotels and the weedy

  lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks

  where dogs are let off their leashes

  in spite of the signs, where they sniff each

  other and roll together in the grass, I want to

  lie down somewhere and suffer for love until

  it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again

  and put on that little black dress and wait

  for you, yes you, to come over here

  and get down on your knees and tell me

  just how fucking good I look.

  ROBERT HERRICK

  Delight in Disorder

  A sweet disorder in the dress

  Kindles in clothes a wantonness;

  A lawn about the shoulders thrown

  Into a fine distraction;

  An erring lace, which here and there

  Inthralls the crimson stomacher;

  A cuff neglectful, and thereby

  Ribands to flow confusedly;

  A winning wave, deserving note,

  In the tempestuous petticoat;

  A careless shoe-string, in whose tie

  I see a wild civility;

  Do more bewitch me, than when art

  Is too precise in every part.

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

  from Ovid’s Elegies, Book I

  Elegia V

  Corinnae concubitus

  In summer’s heat, and mid-time of the day,

  To rest my limbs upon a bed I lay;

  One window shut, the other open stood,

  Which gave such light as twinkles in a wood,

  Like twilight glimpse at setting of the sun,

  Or night being past, and yet not day begun.

  Such light to shamefast maidens must be shown,

  Where they may sport and seem to be unknown.

  Then came Corinna in a long loose gown,

  Her white neck hid with tresses hanging down,

  Resembling fair Semiramis going to bed,

  Or Lais of a thousand wooers sped.

  I snatched her gown; being thin, the harm was small,

  Yet strived she to be covered therewithal,

  And striving thus as one that would be cast,

  Betrayed herself, and yielded at the last.

  Stark naked as she stood before mine eye,

  Not one wen in her body could I spy.

  What arms and shoulders did I touch and see,

  How apt her breasts were to be pressed by me!

  How smooth a belly under her waist saw I,

  How large a leg, and what a lusty thigh!

  To leave the rest, all liked me passing well;

  I clinged her naked body, down she fell.

  Judge you the rest: being tired she bade me kiss;

  Jove send me more such afternoons as this.

  CHARLES SIMIC

  Crazy about Her Shrimp

  We don’t even take time

  To come up for air.

  We keep our mouths full and busy

  Eating bread and cheese

  And smooching in between.

  No sooner have we made love

  Than we are back in the kitchen.

  While I chop the hot peppers,

  She wiggles her ass

  And stirs the shrimp on the stove.

  How good the wine tastes

  That has run red

  Out of a laughing mouth!

  Down her chin

  And onto her naked tits.

  ‘I’m getting fat,’ she says,

  Turning this way and that way

  Before the mirror.

  ‘I’m crazy about her shrimp!’

  I shout to the gods above.

  EMILY DICKINSON

  Wild Nights – Wild Nights!

  Were I with thee

  Wild Nights should be

  Our luxury!

  Futile – the Winds –

  To a Heart in port –

  Done with the Compass –

  Done with the Chart!

  Rowing in Eden –

  Ah, the Sea!

  Might I but moor – Tonight –

  In Thee!

  JOHN DONNE

  The Ecstasy

  Where, like a pillow on a bed,

  A pregnant bank swelled up, to rest

  The violet’s reclining head,

  Sat we two, one another’s best;

  Our hands were firmly cemented

  With a fast balm, which thence did spring,

  Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread

  Our eyes, upon one double string;

  So to’ intergraft our hands, as yet

  Was all our means to make us one,

  And pictures in our eyes to get

  Was all our propagation.

  As ’twixt two equal armies, Fate

  Suspends uncertain victory,

  Our souls, (which to advance their state,

  Were gone out), hung ’twixt her, and me.

  And whilst our souls negotiate there,

  We like sepulchral statues lay;

  All day, the same our postures were,

  And we said nothing, all the day.

  If any, so by love refined,

  That he soul’s language understood,

  And by good love were grown all mind,

  Within convenient distance stood,

  He (though he knew not which soul spake

  Because both meant, both spake the same)

  Might thence a new concoction take,

  And part far purer than he came.

  This ecstasy doth unperplex

  (We said) and tell us what we love,

  We see by this, it was not sex,

  We see, we saw not what did move:

  But as all several souls contain

  Mixture of things, they know not what,

  Love, these mixed souls doth mix again,

  And makes both one, each this and that.

  A single violet transplant,

  The strength, the colour, and the size,

  (All which before was poor, and scant,)

  Redoubles still, and multiplies.

  When love, with one another so

  Interinanimates two souls,

  That abler soul, which thence doth flow,

  Defects of loneliness controls.

  We then, who are this new soul, know,

  Of what we are composed, and made,

  For, th’ atomies of which we grow,

  Are souls, whom no change can invade.

  But O alas, so long, so far

  Our bo
dies why do we forbear?

  They are ours, though they are not we, we are

  The intelligences, they the sphere.

  We owe them thanks, because they thus,

  Did us, to us, at first convey,

  Yielded their forces, sense, to us,

  Nor are dross to us, but allay.

  On man heaven’s influence works not so,

  But that it first imprints the air,

  So soul into the soul may flow,

  Though it to body first repair.

  As our blood labours to beget

  Spirits, as like souls as it can,

  Because such fingers need to knit

  That subtle knot, which makes us man:

  So must pure lovers’ souls descend

  T’ affections, and to faculties,

  Which sense may reach and apprehend,

  Else a great prince in prison lies.

  To our bodies turn we then, that so

  Weak men on love revealed may look;

  Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,

  But yet the body is his book.

  And if some lover, such as we,

  Have heard this dialogue of one,

  Let him still mark us, he shall see

  Small change, when we’are to bodies gone.

  DAVID CONSTANTINE

  ‘As our bloods separate’

  As our bloods separate the clock resumes,

  I hear the wind again as our hearts quieten.

  We were a ring: the clock ticked round us

  For that time and the wind was deflected.

  The clock pecks everything to the bone.

  The wind enters through the broken eyes

  Of houses and through their wide mouths

  And scatters the ashes from the hearth.

  Sleep. Do not let go my hand.

  ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

  from The Princess

  Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;

  Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

  Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:

  The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

  Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,

  And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

  Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,

  And all thy heart lies open unto me.

  Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves

  A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

  Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,

  And slips into the bosom of the lake:

  So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip

  Into my bosom and be lost in me.

  ARTHUR SYMONS

  White Heliotrope

  The feverish room and that white bed,

  The tumbled skirts upon a chair,

  The novel flung half-open, where

  Hat, hair-pins, puffs, and paints, are spread;

  The mirror that has sucked your face

  Into its secret deep of deeps;

  And there mysteriously keeps

  Forgotten memories of grace;

  And you, half dressed and half awake,

  Your slant eyes strangely watching me,

  And I, who watch you drowsily,

  With eyes that, having slept not, ache;

  This (need one dread? nay, dare one hope?)

  Will rise, a ghost of memory, if

  Ever again my handkerchief

  Is scented with White Heliotrope.

  ROBERT BROWNING

  Two in the Campagna

  I wonder do you feel today

  As I have felt since, hand in hand,

  We sat down on the grass, to stray

  In spirit better through the land,

  This morn of Rome and May?

  For me, I touched a thought, I know,

  Has tantalized me many times,

  (Like turns of thread the spiders throw

  Mocking across our path) for rhymes

  To catch at and let go.

  Help me to hold it! First it left

  The yellowing fennel, run to seed

  There, branching from the brickwork’s cleft,

  Some old tomb’s ruin: yonder weed

  Took up the floating weft,

  Where one small orange cup amassed

  Five beetles, – blind and green they grope

  Among the honey-meal: and last,

  Everywhere on the grassy slope

  I traced it. Hold it fast!

  The champaign with its endless fleece

  Of feathery grasses everywhere!

  Silence and passion, joy and peace,

  An everlasting wash of air –

  Rome’s ghost since her decease.

  Such life here, through such lengths of hours,

  Such miracles performed in play,

  Such primal naked forms of flowers,

  Such letting nature have her way

  While heaven looks from its towers!

  How say you? Let us, O my dove,

  Let us be unashamed of soul,

  As earth lies bare to heaven above!

  How is it under our control

  To love or not to love?

  I would that you were all to me,

  You that are just so much, no more.

  Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!

  Where does the fault lie? What the core

  O’ the wound, since wound must be?

  I would I could adopt your will,

  See with your eyes, and set my heart

  Beating by yours, and drink my fill

  At your soul’s springs, – your part my part

  In life, for good and ill.

  No. I yearn upward, touch you close,

  Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,

  Catch your soul’s warmth, – I pluck the rose

  And love it more than tongue can speak –

  Then the good minute goes.

  Already how am I so far

  Out of that minute? Must I go

  Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,

  Onward, whenever light winds blow,

  Fixed by no friendly star?

  Just when I seemed about to learn!

  Where is the thread now? Off again!

  The old trick! Only I discern –

  Infinite passion, and the pain

  Of finite hearts that yearn.

  LEMN SISSAY

  Love Poem

  You remind me

  define me

  incline me.

  If you died

  I’d.

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

  The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

  Come live with me, and be my love,

  And we will all the pleasures prove

  That valleys, groves, hills and fields,

  Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

  And we will sit upon the rocks,

  Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks

  By shallow rivers, to whose falls

  Melodious birds sing madrigals.

  And I will make thee beds of roses,

  And a thousand fragrant posies,

  A cap of flowers, and a kirtle,

  Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.

  A gown made of the finest wool

  Which from our pretty lambs we pull,

  Fair linèd slippers for the cold,

  With buckles of the purest gold.

  A belt of straw and ivy-buds,

  With coral clasps and amber studs,

  And if these pleasures may thee move,

  Come live with me, and be my love.

  The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

  For thy delight each May morning.

  If these delights thy mind may move,

  Then live with me, and be my love.

  EDWIN MUIR

  The Confirmation

  Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face.

  I in my mind had waited for this long,

&nb
sp; Seeing the false and searching for the true,

  Then found you as a traveller finds a place

  Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong

  Valleys and rocks and twisting roads. But you,

  What shall I call you? A fountain in a waste,

  A well of water in a country dry,

  Or anything that’s honest and good, an eye

  That makes the whole world bright. Your open heart,

  Simple with giving, gives the primal deed,

  The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed,

  The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea,

  Not beautiful or rare in every part,

  But like yourself, as they were meant to be.

  JOHN BETJEMAN

  The Subaltern’s Love-song

  Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,

  Furnish’d and burnish’d by Aldershot sun,

  What strenuous singles we played after tea,

  We in the tournament – you against me!

  Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,

  The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,

  With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,

  I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

  Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,

  How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won.

  The warm-handled racket is back in its press,

  But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

  Her father’s euonymus shines as we walk,

  And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,

  And cool the verandah that welcomes us in