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i like my body when it is with your
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh ... And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new
-edward estlin cummings (1894 - 1962)
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When My Dead Father Called
Last night I dreamt my father called to us.
He was stuck somewhere. It took us
A long time to dress, I don't know why.
The night was snowy; there were long black roads.
Finally, we reached the little town, Bellingham.
There he stood, by a streetlamp in cold wind,
Snow blowing along the sidewalk. I noticed
The uneven sort of shoes that men wore
In the early Forties. And overalls. He was smoking.
Why did it take us so long to get going? Perhaps
He left us somewhere once, or did I simply
Forget he was alone in winter in some town?
-Robert Bly (b. 1926)
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Yes, They Are Love Poems ...
For days when I think
only of touching your lips : Earth
begins at these feet, rises
up through the bones. Deep
feelings spread out from
the clenched heart, the old
moan sounded
before men's dawn. Teenage summers,
I moved toward the heat of metal and cushions,
gearshift & gas pedal forgotten, brake & radio
on. Lips on lips, areas possessed
that have since become
common ground. Torn asunder,
the pink veil of charity & red of lust
resume in a new world. Habit
cloaks women forced by destiny
to huddle by new fires, not
entirely alone. Dark
speaks your name.
I nightmare tornadoes & the last man,
15 years ago
who loved me with equal's gain. He
carries my child & leads the other by the hand. Man,
touch the values of the sexes
with a gentle tongue. I seem
a plaster vixen, but tremble,
wanting your skin on my
dream alone ...
-Wendy Joan Knox
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Black Stone Lying on a White Stone
I will die in Paris, on a rainy day,
on some day I can already remember.
I will die in Paris--and I don't step aside--
perhaps on a Thursday, as today is Thursday, in autumn.
It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday, setting down
these lines, I have put my upper arm bones on
wrong, and never so much as today have I found myself
with all the road ahead of me, alone.
César Vallejo is dead. Everyone beat him
although he never does anything to them;
they beat him hard with a stick and hard also
with a rope. These are the witnesses:
the Thursdays, and the bones of my arms,
the solitude, and the rain, and the roads. . .
-César Vallejo (1892 - 1938)
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I want to see it face to face
And then I intend to raise hell
No, I don't have anything prepared
I'll rely entirely on inspiration
Also, my ancestors who
Just now begin to laugh their heads off.
In all probability, I'll make a fool of myself
Turn away grinning stupidly -
Light a cigarette with
Trembling fingers
Ask about the weather:
About that cloud, shaped
Like a medicine bundle
Hovering so still in the windless sky
-Charles Simic (b. 1938)
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6. |
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Mad Girl's Love Song
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, -- hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"
-Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963)
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POEMS I COULD NOT WRITE is a collection of my favorite poems that I set to song. I don't know if it's legal or not. I should probably look into that.