Penguin's Poems for Love

by Laura Barber

  though every level pond gives back another.

  But the bright disc shining in the black lagoon,

  perceived by astrophysicist and lover,

  is milliseconds old. And even that light’s

  seven minutes older than its source.

  And the stars we think we see on moonless nights

  are long extinguished. And, of course,

  this very moment, as you read this line,

  is literally gone before you know it.

  Forget the here-and-now. We have no time

  but this device of wantonness and wit.

  Make me this present then: your hand in mine,

  and we’ll live out our lives in it.

  KATE CLANCHY

  Patagonia

  I said perhaps Patagonia, and pictured

  a peninsula, wide enough

  for a couple of ladderback chairs

  to wobble on at high tide. I thought

  of us in breathless cold, facing

  a horizon round as a coin, looped

  in a cat’s cradle strung by gulls

  from sea to sun. I planned to wait

  till the waves had bored themselves

  to sleep, till the last clinging barnacles,

  growing worried in the hush, had

  paddled off in tiny coracles, till

  those restless birds, your actor’s hands,

  had dropped slack into your lap,

  until you’d turned, at last, to me.

  When I spoke of Patagonia, I meant

  skies all empty aching blue. I meant

  years. I meant all of them with you.

  Happily ever after

  C. K. WILLIAMS

  Love: Beginnings

  They’re at that stage where so much desire streams between

  them, so much frank need and want,

  so much absorption in the other and the self and the

  self-admiring entity and unity they make –

  her mouth so full, breast so lifted, head thrown back so far in her

  laughter at his laughter,

  he so solid, planted, oaky, firm, so resonantly factual in the

  headiness of being craved so,

  she almost wreathed upon him as they intertwine again, touch

  again, cheek, lip, shoulder, brow,

  every glance moving toward the sexual, every glance away

  soaring back in flame into the sexual –

  that just to watch them is to feel again that hitching in the groin,

  that filling of the heart,

  the old, sore heart, the battered, foundered, faithful heart,

  snorting again, stamping in its stall.

  MURIEL RUKEYSER

  Looking at Each Other

  Yes, we were looking at each other

  Yes, we knew each other very well

  Yes, we had made love with each other many times

  Yes, we had heard music together

  Yes, we had gone to the sea together

  Yes, we had cooked and eaten together

  Yes, we had laughed often day and night

  Yes, we fought violence and knew violence

  Yes, we hated the inner and outer oppression

  Yes, that day we were looking at each other

  Yes, we saw the sunlight pouring down

  Yes, the corner of the table was between us

  Yes, bread and flowers were on the table

  Yes, our eyes saw each other’s eyes

  Yes, our mouths saw each other’s mouth

  Yes, our breasts saw each other’s breasts

  Yes, our bodies entire saw each other

  Yes, it was beginning in each

  Yes, it threw waves across our lives

  Yes, the pulses were becoming very strong

  Yes, the beating became very delicate

  Yes, the calling the arousal

  Yes, the arriving the coming

  Yes, there it was for both entire

  Yes, we were looking at each other

  TED HUGHES

  Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days

  She gives him his eyes, she found them

  Among some rubble, among some beetles

  He gives her her skin

  He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her

  She weeps with fearfulness and astonishment

  She has found his hands for him, and fitted them freshly at the wrists

  They are amazed at themselves, they go feeling all over her

  He has assembled her spine, he cleaned each piece carefully

  And sets them in perfect order

  A superhuman puzzle but he is inspired

  She leans back twisting this way and that, using it and laughing, incredulous

  Now she has brought his feet, she is connecting them

  So that his whole body lights up

  And he has fashioned her new hips

  With all fittings complete and with newly wound coils, all shiningly oiled

  He is polishing every part, he himself can hardly believe it

  They keep taking each other to the sun, they find they can easily

  To test each new thing at each new step

  And now she smooths over him the plates of his skull

  So that the joints are invisible

  And now he connects her throat, her breasts and the pit of her stomach

  With a single wire

  She gives him his teeth, tying their roots to the centrepin of his body

  He sets the little circlets on her fingertips

  She stitches his body here and there with steely purple silk

  He oils the delicate cogs of her mouth

  She inlays with deep-cut scrolls the nape of his neck

  He sinks into place the inside of her thighs

  So, gasping with joy, with cries of wonderment

  Like two gods of mud

  Sprawling in the dirt, but with infinite care

  They bring each other to perfection.

  WILLIAM BLAKE

  When a Man has Married a Wife

  he finds out whether

  Her knees & elbows are only

  glued together

  JOHN MILTON

  from Paradise Lost, Book IX

  Thus Eve with count’nance blithe her story told;

  But in her cheek distemper flushing glowed.

  On th’ other side, Adam, soon as he heard

  The fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed,

  Astonied stood and blank, while horror chill

  Ran through his veins, and all his joints relaxed;

  From his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve

  Down dropped, and all the faded roses shed:

  Speechless he stood and pale, till thus at length

  First to himself he inward silence broke.

  O fairest of Creation, last and best

  Of all God’s works, creature in whom excelled

  Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,

  Holy, divine, good, amiable or sweet!

  How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,

  Defaced, deflow’red, and now to death devote?

  Rather how hast thou yielded to transgress

  The strict forbiddance, how to violate

  The sacred fruit forbidd’n! Some cursèd fraud

  Of Enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,

  And me with thee hath ruined, for with thee

  Certain my resolution is to die;

  How can I live without thee, how forgo

  Thy sweet convérse and love so dearly joined,

  To live again in these wild woods forlorn?

  Should God create another Eve, and I

  Another rib afford, yet loss of thee

  Would never from my heart; no no, I feel

  The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,

  Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state

  Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
>
  ALDEN NOWLAN

  Parlour Game

  We were sitting there

  hating one another when

  some friends dropped in

  who’ve always said

  we’re the most loving

  couple they know

  and of course the two of us

  went into the act

  as usual, each afraid

  of the other’s equally

  strong inclination

  to give the game away,

  both sneering inwardly

  for the first five or ten

  minutes and then

  both trying not to burst,

  without knowing whether

  the laughter that came

  would be savage or joyous

  – and within half an hour

  we caught ourselves exchanging

  silly and affectionate

  smiles even when

  nobody else was watching:

  for the millionth time,

  starting over again.

  WILLIAM BARNES

  Jeäne

  We now mid hope vor better cheer,

  My smilen wife o’ twice vive year.

  Let others frown, if thou bist near

  Wi’ hope upon thy brow, Jeäne;

  Vor I vu’st lov’d thee when thy light

  Young sheäpe vu’st grew to woman’s height;

  I loved thee near, an’ out o’ zight,

  An’ I do love thee now, Jeäne.

  An’ we’ve a-trod the sheenen bleäde

  Ov eegrass in the zummer sheäde,

  An’ when the leäves begun to feäde

  Wi’ zummer in the weäne, Jeäne;

  An’ we’ve a-wander’d drough the groun’

  O’ swaÿen wheat a-turnen brown,

  An’ we’ve a-stroll’d together roun’

  The brook an’ drough the leäne, Jeäne.

  An’ nwone but I can ever tell

  Ov all thy tears that have a-vell

  When trials meäde thy bosom zwell,

  An’ nwone but thou o’ mine, Jeäne;

  An’ now my heart, that heav’d wi’ pride

  Back then to have thee at my zide,

  Do love thee mwore as years do slide,

  An’ leäve them times behine, Jeäne.

  SEAMUS HEANEY

  Scaffolding

  Masons, when they start upon a building,

  Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

  Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,

  Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

  And yet all this comes down when the job’s done

  Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

  So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be

  Old bridges breaking between you and me

  Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall

  Confident that we have built our wall.

  U. A. FANTHORPE

  Atlas

  There is a kind of love called maintenance,

  Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

  Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget

  The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

  Which answers letters; which knows the way

  The money goes; which deals with dentists

  And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,

  And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

  The permanently ricketty elaborate

  Structures of living; which is Atlas.

  And maintenance is the sensible side of love,

  Which knows what time and weather are doing

  To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;

  Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers

  My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps

  My suspect edifice upright in air,

  As Atlas did the sky.

  PHYLLIS MCGINLEY

  The 5:32

  She said, If tomorrow my world were torn in two,

  Blacked out, dissolved, I think I would remember

  (As if transfixed in unsurrendering amber)

  This hour best of all the hours I knew:

  When cars came backing into the shabby station,

  Children scuffing the seats, and the women driving

  With ribbons around their hair, and the trains arriving,

  And the men getting off with tired but practiced motion.

  Yes, I would remember my life this, she said:

  Autumn, the platform red with Virginia creeper,

  And a man coming toward me, smiling, the evening paper

  Under his arm, and his hat pushed back on his head;

  And wood smoke lying like haze on the quiet town,

  And dinner waiting, and the sun not yet gone down.

  SHARON OLDS

  True Love

  In the middle of the night, when we get up

  after making love, we look at each other in

  complete friendship, we know so fully

  what the other has been doing. Bound to each other

  like mountaineers coming down from a mountain,

  bound with the tie of the delivery-room,

  we wander down the hall to the bathroom, I can

  hardly walk, I wobble through the granular

  shadowless air, I know where you are

  with my eyes closed, we are bound to each other

  with huge invisible threads, our sexes

  muted, exhausted, crushed, the whole

  body a sex – surely this

  is the most blessed time of my life,

  our children asleep in their beds, each fate

  like a vein of abiding mineral

  not discovered yet. I sit

  on the toilet in the night, you are somewhere in the room,

  I open the window and snow has fallen in a

  steep drift, against the pane, I

  look up, into it,

  a wall of cold crystals, silent

  and glistening, I quietly call to you

  and you come and hold my hand and I say

  I cannot see beyond it. I cannot see beyond it.

  RICHARD WILBUR

  For C.

  After the clash of elevator gates

  And the long sinking, she emerges where,

  A slight thing in the morning’s crosstown glare,

  She looks up toward the window where he waits,

  Then in a fleeting taxi joins the rest

  Of the huge traffic bound forever west.

  On such grand scale do lovers say good-bye –

  Even this other pair whose high romance

  Had only the duration of a dance,

  And who, now taking leave with stricken eye,

  See each in each a whole new life forgone.

  For them, above the darkling clubhouse lawn,

  Bright Perseids flash and crumble; while for these

  Who part now on the dock, weighed down by grief

  And baggage, yet with something like relief,

  It takes three thousand miles of knitting seas

  To cancel out their crossing, and unmake

  The amorous rough and tumble of their wake.

  We are denied, my love, their fine tristesse

  And bittersweet regrets, and cannot share

  The frequent vistas of their large despair,

  Where love and all are swept to nothingness;

  Still, there’s a certain scope in that long love

  Which constant spirits are the keepers of,

  And which, though taken to be tame and staid,

  Is a wild sostenuto of the heart,

  A passion joined to courtesy and art

  Which has the quality of something made,

  Like a good fiddle, like the rose’s scent,

  Like a rose window or the firmament.

  JOHN KEATS

  Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art –

  Not in lone splendour hung aloft the
night

  And watching, with eternal lids apart,

  Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,

  The moving waters at their priestlike task

  Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

  Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

  Of snow upon the mountains and the moors –

  No – yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

  Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

  To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,

  Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

  Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

  And so live ever – or else swoon to death.

  Treacherously

  THOMAS MOORE

  On Taking a Wife

  ‘Come, come,’ said Tom’s father, ‘at your time of life,

  There’s no longer excuse for thus playing the rake.

  It’s time you should think, boy, of taking a wife.’

  ‘Why so it is, father. Whose wife shall I take?’

  E. E. 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)