Love Poetry Out Loud (9 page)

 

Love on the Last Day

A massive airplane roars by close overhead, and for a moment the poet thinks it's the coming of angels at the end of the world — or at least a plane crash. What else comes to mind? A potted plant, hunger, and love
.

Angels =
Jacob wrestled with an angel (Genesis 32:24 – 30); in aviation jargon
, angels =
altitude
.

Connie Voisine

A
lthough the angels of numbers and letters

wrestle darkness into shapes, and the plane

descending over the I-10 wraps

my car in the gust and sonic draw of velocity —

it too has a flight path and calm passengers and no

fiery end for us — I duck and think
so this is it
.

Medievals thought hunger lived its own life in the

body, parasitic, our organs entered by it.

Love was like this too, a contagion, the blood-

filled heart unlocked by his face, her voice,

and we suffered from its side effects of hedonism,

forgetting. The geranium on my porch seems to be

a testament to the finite, the stable, in the warp

of its knobby stems and the slip of white

at each petal's seat, 99 cents at Kmart, but lush

hairs blur the edges of leaves and its musk

supercedes — the water I drink standing near it tastes

heavy and spiced. This flower unlocks, hunger-like,

borders (my mouth, my nose, the water) as does the 747.

Overfull, virulent, the plane dissolves the differences

between my arms, the steering wheel, the airport's

sky and fills me with a roaring which medievals

could only see as dangerous. Animals

killed for slaughter spill their hunger, see how they

continue to bite at the earth? They believed this pour

was absorbed by the grasses and trees, geraniums,

air, and see how much and why I lose myself to you.

 

DIALOGUES

Love poems are usually a solitary activity, and most of the poems in this book feature one person speaking. But when love becomes a two-nay street, some interesting collisions ensue. Here are two wrecks in the making
.

The New English Bible

[Bridegroom:]

How beautiful are your sandalled feet, O prince's daughter!

The curves of your thighs are like jewels,

the work of a skilled craftsman.

Your navel is a rounded goblet

that never shall want for spiced wine.

Your belly is a heap of wheat

fenced in by lilies.

Your two breasts are like two fawns,

twin fawns of a gazelle.

Your neck is like a tower of ivory.

Your eyes are the pools in Heshbon,

beside the gate of the crowded city.

Your nose is like towering Lebanon

that looks towards Damascus.

You carry your head like Carmel;

the flowing hair on your head is lustrous black,

your tresses are braided with ribbons.

How beautiful, how entrancing you are,

my loved one, daughter of delights!

You are stately as a palm-tree,

and your breasts are the clusters of dates.

I said, “I will climb up into the palm

to grasp its fronds.”

May I find your breasts like clusters of grapes on the vine,

the scent of your breath like apricots,

and your whispers like spiced wine

flowing smoothly to welcome my caresses,

gliding down through lips and teeth.

[Bride:]

I am my beloved's, his longing is all for me.

Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields

to lie among the henna-bushes;

let us go early to the vineyards

and see if the vine has budded or its blossoms opened,

if the pomegranates are in flower.

There will I give you my love,

when the mandrakes give their perfume,

and all rare fruits are ready at our door,

fruits new and old

which I have in store for you, my love.

If only you were my own true brother

that sucked my mother's breasts!

Then, if I found you outside, I would kiss you,

and no man would despise me.

I would lead you to the room of the mother who bore me,

bring you to her house for you to embrace me;

I would give you mulled wine to drink

and the fresh juice of pomegranates,

your left arm under my head and your right arm round me.

 

Love Divine

Many scholars think the Old Testament Song of Songs a collection of ancient Semitic wedding poems, gathered together and attributed to Solomon as expressions of divine love for the chosen people. They seem to be spoken by both a bride and a bridegroom and get pretty racy—probably one reason they're not in the lectionary of Bible readings you're likely to hear in church
.

William Shakespeare

Romeo:
If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Juliet:
   Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this:

For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Romeo:
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

Juliet:
   Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in pray'r.

Romeo:
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do,

They pray—grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

Juliet:
   Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

Romeo:
Then move not while my prayer's effect I take.

[He kisses her.]

 

A Sonnet for Two

Most Elizabethan sonnets are by a single speaker, professions of a poet's love for the beloved. Here, at the moment when Romeo and juliet first meet and flirt in Shakespeare's play, their dialogue forms a perfect fourteen-line sonnet
.

Pilgrims =
Romeo pretends to be a religious pilgrim at a holy shrine
.

Saints =
The carved images of saints at cathedrals, objects of pilgrimage
.

Palmers =
In addition to shaking hands, palmers carried palm leaves on pilgrimage. Juliet puns on the two meanings of palm
.

Move =
Statues don't move when pilgrims touch them
.

 

SECRET LOVE, SILENT LOVE

When poets turn from public praise to private feelings, the tone can become more quiet, less boastful, and more specific. That's as it should be — not all loves can stand sunlight; some require the moon
.

 

Whispers in the Darkness

In this invitation to a tryst in the dark, notice the sounds — the breathy open vowels, the sibilant consonants, like a whisper at night
.

Porphyry =
Glittering stone
.

Danaë =
In Greek mythology, she was a great beauty, locked up where no man could reach her. But Zeus lusted for her, and came to her in the form of a golden shower. The child of their union was the hero Perseus
.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

N
ow 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.

 

Dangerous to Know

Lord Byron was characterized by one of his lovers as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” In his time, he was like one of today's tabloid superstars, leaving in his wake a trail of gossip, broken hearts, and ruined reputations. Here, though, it's Byron who claims to be the injured party
.

George Gordon, Lord Byron

W
hen we two parted

In silence and tears,

Half broken-hearted

To sever for years,

Pale grew thy cheek and cold,

Colder thy kiss;

Truly that hour foretold

Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning

Sunk chill on my brow—

It felt like the warning

Of what I feel now.

Thy vows are all broken,

And light is thy fame;

I hear thy name spoken,

And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,

A knell to mine ear;

A shudder comes o'er me —

Why wert thou so dear?

They know not I knew thee,

Who knew thee too well: —

Long, long shall I rue thee,

Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met —

In silence I grieve,

That thy heart could forget,

Thy spirit deceive.

If I should meet thee

After long years,

How should I greet thee? —

With silence and tears.

Edmund Spenser

J
oy of my life, full oft for loving you

I bless my lot, that was so lucky placed:

But then the more your own mishap I rue,

That are so much by so mean love embased.

For had the equal heavens so much you graced

In this as in the rest, ye might invent

Some heavenly wit, whose verse could have enchased

Your glorious name in golden monument.

But since ye deign'd so goodly to relent

To me your thrall, in whom is little worth,

That little that I am shall all be spent

In setting your immortal praises forth;

Whose lofty argument uplifting me

Shall lift you up unto an high degree.

 

YOU MAKE ME A BETTER MAN

Low self-esteem haunts many poets, who are often much misunderstood by the world and their loved ones. Or not. Sometimes it's a pose
.

 

On a Pedestal

Edmund Spenser plays a variation on a common theme of sonneteers, where the poet is ennobled by his beloved's affection
.

Embased =
Made plain
.

Equal heavens =
Divine justice
.

Enchased =
To decorate with engraving or gems
.

Thrall =
Slavish servant
.

 

Weekend Warrior

We don't think of love poets celebrating suburban domesticity, and indeed Robert Phillips hints that he didn't think so highly of it himself — a self-image problem that new love seems to have cured. Here, then, is the poet as good neighbor
.

Pavarotti =
Famed operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti
.

Scrooge =
From Charles Dickens's novel
A Christmas Carol.

Robert Phillips

I
f you were to hear me imitating Pavarotti

in the shower every morning, you would know

how much you have changed my life.

If you were to see me stride across the park,

waving to strangers, then you would know

I am a changed man — like Scrooge

awakened from his bad dreams feeling feather-

light, angel-happy, laughing the father

of a long line of bright laughs —

“It is still not too late to change my life!”

It is changed. Me, who felt short-changed.

Because of you I no longer hate my body.

Because of you I buy new clothes.

Because of you I'm a warrior of joy.

Because of you and me. Drop by

this Saturday morning and discover me

fiercely pulling weeds gladly, dedicated

as a born-again gardener.

Drop by on Sunday — I'll Turtlewax

your sky-blue sports car, no sweat. I'll greet

enemies with a handshake, forgive debtors

with a papal largesse. It's all because

of you. Because of you and me,

I've become one changed man.