The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry

by Неизвестный

  It can only ripen and ripen.

  And men, they too are wounded.

  They too are sifted from their loss

  and are without hope. The core

  softens. The pure flesh softens

  and melts. There are thorns, there

  are the dark seeds, and they end.

  C. K. Williams, 1969

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Cummings

  may i feel said he

  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)

  e. e. cummings, 1935

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Vidyakara

  Four Poems

  An embrace at first and then a loving kiss

  had been her losses in the gambling match.

  Now when her lover asks again for stakes

  she is silent, though the flesh upon her cheek

  rises with suppressed excitement, and her hand

  is sweating as she moves the piece.

  Rajasekhara

  As he came to bed the knot fell open of itself,

  the dress held only somehow to my hips

  by the strands of the loosened girdle.

  So much I know, my dear;

  but when within his arms, I can't remember

  who he was

  or who I was, or what we did or how.

  Vikatanitamba

  The night was deep,

  the lamp shone forth with heavy flame,

  and that darling is an expert

  in the rite which passion prompts;

  but, my dear, he made love slowly,

  slowly and with limbs constrained,

  for the bed kept up a creaking

  like an enemy with gnashing teeth.

  Vidya

  Her dress is somewhat tarnished,

  the flowers lie disheveled in her hair;

  her eye is torpid, while her breast

  is marked with the fresh track of nails;

  her loins are lighted by a serpent jewel

  that shines within her girdle's opening clasp:

  such is the poison she has taken,

  body pressed to body, from the many men

  who love her.

  Vallana

  Vidyakara's "Treasury"

  translated by Daniel H. H. Ingalls

  from 11th-Century Sanskrit

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Lawrence

  Lightning

  I felt the lurch and halt of her heart

  Next my breast, where my own heart

  was beating;

  And I laughed to feel it plunge and bound,

  And strange in my blood-swept ears was

  the sound

  Of the words I kept repeating,

  Repeating with tightened arms, and the

  hot blood's blindfold art.

  Her breath flew warm against my neck,

  Warm as a flame in the close night air;

  And the sense of her clinging flesh was sweet

  Where her arms and my neck's blood-surge

  could meet.

  Holding her thus, did I care

  That the black night hid her from me, blotted out

  every speck?

  I leaned me forward to find her lips,

  And claim her utterly in a kiss,

  When the lightning flew across her face,

  And I saw her for the flaring space

  Of a second, afraid of the clips

  Of my arms, inert with dread, wilted in fear

  of my kiss.

  A moment, like a wavering spark,

  Her face lay there before my breast,

  Pale love lost in a snow of fear,

  And guarded by a glittering tear,

  And lips apart with dumb cries;

  A moment, and she was taken again in the

  merciful dark.

  I heard the thunder, and felt the rain,

  And my arms fell loose, and I was dumb.

  Almost I hated her, she was so good,

  Hated myself, and the place, and my blood,

  Which burned with rage, as I bade her come

  Home, away home, ere the lightning floated

  forth again.

  D. H. Lawrence, 1911

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Yeats

  Leda and the Swan

  A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

  Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

  By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

  He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

  How can those terrified vague fingers push

  The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

  And how can body, laid in that white rush,

  But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

  A shudder in the loins engenders there

  The broken wall, the burning roof and tower

  And Agamemnon dead.

  Being so caught up,

  So mastered by the brute blood of the air,

  Did she put on his knowledge with his power

  Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

  William Butler Yeats, 1928

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Justice

  In Bertram's Garden

  Jane looks down at her organdy skirt

  As if it somehow were the thing disgraced,

  For being there, on the floor, in the dirt,

  And she catches it up about her waist,

  Smooths it out along one hip,

  And pulls it over the crumpled slip.

  On the porch, green-shuttered, cool,

  Asleep is Bertram, that bronze boy,

  Who, having wound her around a spool,

  Sends her spinning like a toy

  Out to the garden, all alone,

  To sit and weep on a bench of stone.

  Soon the purple dark will bruise

  Lily and bleeding heart and rose,

  And the little Cupid lose

  Eyes and ears and chin and nose,

  And Jane lie down with others soon

  Naked to the naked moon.

  Donald Justice, 1954

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Rich

  Two Songs

  1

  Sex, as they harshly call it,

  I fell into this morning

  at ten o'clock, a drizzling hour

  of traffic and wet newspapers.

  I thought of him who yesterday

  clearly didn't

  turn me to a hot field

  ready for plowing,

  and longing for that young man

  piercèd me to the roots

  bathing every vein, etc.

  All day he appears to me

  touchingly desirable,

  a prize one could wreck one's peace for.

  I'd call it love if love

  didn't take so many years

  but lust too is a jewel

  a sweet flower and what

  pure happiness
to know

  all our high-toned questions

  breed in a lively animal.

  2

  That "old last act"!

  Any yet sometimes

  all seems post coitum triste

  and I a mere bystander.

  Somebody else is going off,

  getting shot to the moon.

  Or, a moon-race!

  Split seconds after

  my opposite number

  lands

  I make it—

  we lie fainting together

  at a crater-edge

  heavy as mercury in our moonsuits

  till he speaks—

  in a different language

  yet one I've picked up

  through cultural exchanges. . .

  we murmur the first moonwords:

  Spasibo. Thanks. O.K.

  Adrienne Rich, 1964

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Glück

  Mock Orange

  It is not the moon, I tell you.

  It is these flowers

  lighting the yard.

  I hate them.

  I hate them as I hate sex,

  the man's mouth

  sealing my mouth, the man's

  paralyzing body—

  and the cry that always escapes,

  the low, humiliating

  premise of union—

  In my mind tonight

  I hear the question and pursuing answer

  fused in one sound

  that mounts and mounts and then

  is split into the old selves,

  the tired antagonisms. Do you see?

  We were made fools of.

  And the scent of mock orange

  drifts through the window.

  How can I rest?

  How can I be content

  when there is still

  that odor in the world?

  Louise Glück, 1985

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Donne

  Woman's Constancy

  Now thou hast loved me one whole day,

  Tomorrow when thou leav'st, what wilt thou say?

  Wilt thou then antedate some new made vow?

  Or say that now

  We are not just those persons which we were?

  Or, that oaths made in reverential fear

  Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear?

  Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,

  So lovers' contracts, images of those,

  Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose?

  Or, your own end to justify,

  For having purposed change and falsehood, you

  Can have no way but falsehood to be true?

  Vain lunatic, against these 'scapes I could

  Dispute and conquer, if I would,

  Which I abstain to do,

  For by tomorrow, I may think so too.

  John Donne, 1601

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Etherege

  To a Lady asking him how long

  he would love her

  It is not, Celia, in our power

  To say how long our love will last;

  It may be we within this hour

  May lose those joys we now do taste;

  The Blessed, that immortal be,

  From change in love are only free.

  Then, since we mortal lovers are,

  Ask not how long our love will last;

  But while it does, let us take care

  Each minute be with pleasure passed:

  Were it not madness to deny

  To live because we're sure to die!

  Sir George Etherege, c.1665

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Carew

  To My Inconstant Mistress

  When thou, poor excommunicate

  From all the joys of love, shalt see

  The full reward and glorious fate

  Which my strong faith shall purchase me,

  Then curse thine own inconstancy.

  A fairer hand than thine shall cure

  That heart, which thy false oaths did wound;

  And to my soul, a soul more pure

  Than thine, shall by Love's hand be bound,

  And both with equal glory crowned.

  Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain

  To Love, as I did once to thee;

  When all thy tears shall be as vain

  As mine were then; for thou shalt be

  Damned for thy false apostacy.

  Thomas Carew, 1640

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Suckling

  The Constant Lover

  Out upon it, I have loved

  Three whole days together!

  And am like to love three more,

  If it prove fair weather.

  Time shall moult away his wings

  Ere he shall discover

  In the whole wide world again

  Such a constant lover.

  But the spite on 't is, no praise

  Is due at all to me:

  Love with me had made no stays,

  Had it any been but she.

  Had it any been but she,

  And that very face,

  There had been at least ere this

  A dozen dozen in her place.

  Sir John Suckling, 1642

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Sexton

  For My Lover, Returning to

  His Wife

  She is all there.

  She was melted carefully down for you

  and cast up from your childhood,

  cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies.

  She has always been there, my darling.

  She is, in fact, exquisite.

  Fireworks in the dull middle of February

  and as real as a cast-iron pot.

  Let's face it, I have been momentary.

  A luxury. A bright red sloop in the harbor.

  My hair rising like smoke from the car window.

  Littleneck clams out of season.

  She is more than that. She is your have to have,

  has grown you your practical your tropical

  growth.

  This is not an experiment. She is all harmony.

  She sees to oars and oarlocks for the dinghy,

  has placed wild flowers at the window

  at breakfast,

  sat by the potter's wheel at midday,

  set forth three children under the moon,

  three cherubs drawn by Michelangelo,

  done this with her legs spread out

  in the terrible months in the chapel.

  If you glance up, the children are there

  like delicate balloons resting on the ceiling.

  She has also carried each one down the hall

  after supper, their heads privately bent,

  two legs protesting, person to person,

  her face flushed with a song and their little sleep.

  I give you back your heart.

  I give you permission—

  for the fuse inside her, throbbing

  angrily in the dirt, for the bitch in her—

  and the burying of her wound—

  for the burying of her small red wound alive—

  for the pale flickering flare under her ribs,

  for the drunken sailor who waits in her left

  pulse,

  for the mother's knee, for the stockings,

  for the garter belt, for the call—

  the curious call

  when you will burrow in arms and breasts

  and tug at the orange ribbon in her hair

  and answer the call, the curious call.

  She is so naked and singular.

  She is the sum of yourself and your dream.

  Climb her like a monument, step after step.

  She is solid.

  As for me, I am a watercolor.

  I wash off.

  Anne Sexton, 1969

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Warner

  The House Gro
wn Silent

  After he had gone the wind rose,

  Buffeting the house and rumbling in the chimney,

  And I thought: It will roar against him like a lion

  As onward he goes.

  Seven miles before him, all told—

  Chilled will be the lips I kissed so warm at parting,

  Kissed in vain; for he's forth into the wind,

  and kisses

  Won't keep out the cold.

  Closer should I have kissed, fondlier prayed:

  Pleasant is the room in the wakeful firelight,

  And within is the bed, arrayed with peace

  and safety.

  Would he had stayed!

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, 1928

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Anonymous

  Western Wind

  Western wind, when will thou blow,

  The small rain down can rain?

  Christ, if my love were in my arms

  And I in my bed again!

  Author unknown, c.1500

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Snyder

  Siwashing it out once in

  Siuslaw Forest

  I slept underrhododendron

  All night blossoms fell

  Shivering on a sheet of cardboard

  Feet stuck in my pack

  Hands deep in my pockets

  Barely able to sleep.

  I remembered when we were in school

  Sleeping togetherin a big warm bed

  We were the youngest lovers

  When we broke up we were still nineteen.

  Now our friends are married

  You teach school back east

  I don't mind living this way

  Green hills the long blue beach

  But sometimes sleeping in the open

  I think back when I had you.

  Miyazawa Kenji

  translated by Gary Snyder, 1968

  Next | TOC> What Lips My Lips> Tennyson

  O that 'twere possible

  O that 'twere possible

  After long grief and pain