until they forget

by Richard Siken

things i know but don't yet understand #6

I've been trying to figure out why I seem to fall in love at the drop of a hat, and why people drop so many hats near me. 

Thom Tuck

I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I never want to be away from you again, except at work, in the restroom or when one of us is at a movie the other does not want to see. 

Lemony Snicket: The Beatrice Letters

still alive for you

Lovers by Jarek Puczel

to the harbormaster

I wanted to be sure to reach you; 

though my ship was on the way it got caught 

in some moorings. I am always tying up 

and then deciding to depart. In storms and 

at sunset, with the metallic coils of the tide 

around my fathomless arms, I am unable 

to understand the forms of my vanity 

or I am hard alee with my Polish rudder 

in my hand and the sun sinking. To 

you I offer my hull and the tattered cordage 

of my will. The terrible channels where 

the wind drives me against the brown lips 

of the reeds are not all behind me. Yet 

I trust the sanity of my vessel; and 

if it sinks, it may well be in answer 

to the reasoning of the eternal voices, 

the waves which have kept me from reaching you. 

To the Harbormaster by Frank O'Hara

good night

(This was supposed to be a post with links in. 

But what do you know, I haven't found much to link to this past week. 

So have a gut-punching, spine-tingling, mercurial poem instead.)

I wanted to write "stay" 

on your sides, surround 

your bed with oceans 

of salt. 

I hope he folds you 

into a fox, loves you 

like a splintered arrow, 

brandishes the kill 

of your lips. 

May the bouquet 

of your hips wither. 

May the wolves 

forget your name. 

J. Bradley

things i know but don't yet understand #3

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

Siddhartha Gautama

(So here's how it went: I was supposed to write a post on how bored I am with inspirational quotes and how empty and insipid they feel right now. And then I stumbled across this and the words hit me right in the guts and 

the tears dripped off my chin before I even realised I was crying. 

Maybe I'll save the intended post for later.)

on love #3

 

(Sometimes I need poetry. Need it with a heart-shaking fist-clenching urgency, buckets of words poured in through the eyes, they settle deep in the throat and wander to the safety of my ribcage and burn on a low flame, or run down my spine like drops of mercury.)

on love #2

on love #1

From the preface of Michael Ondaatje's novel In the Skin of a Lion. Things like this should not be read casually on the tram, they should come with a warning. (Everything Ondaatje has so much as grazed should come with a warning and yet I never seem to remember.)

(This begins a series of my favourite love poems [yes, poems; The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient work of epic poetry, despite the prosaic translation], which I hope will measure up to some kind of a standard and not go the cliché route. We shall see. Please inform me if I ever stray into the roses-and-honey territory.)