06-02-2015, 09:14 AM
I was in a thrift store where someone dumped a load of women's studies books, I picked up Love's Witness, Five Centuries of Love Poetry by Women, compiled by Jill Hollis. It's got a first line index, which is a fun way to choose what to read. Here are a few that I've enjoyed so far.
The Feather by Lilian Bowes Lyon (1895-1949)
A man and woman walking
Up the rye hill
Had no breath for talking.
The evening was still;
Only the wind in the rough grass
Made a papery patter;
Like yesterday it was,
Too spent a sigh to matter.
Down fell a curlew's feather
As they went on their way
(Who walked kindly together
And had nothing to say).
So light, so soft, so strange,
To have settled on her heart.
It was the breath of change,
That breathed them apart.
CHINA, BY DORIANNE LAUX b.1952
From behind he looks like a man
I once loved, that hangdog slouch
to his jeans, a sweater vest, his neck
thick-veined as a horse cock, a halo
of chopped curls.
He orders coffee and searches
his pockets, first in front, then
from behind, a long finger sliding
into the slitted denim the way that man
slipped his thumb into me one summer
as we lay after love, our freckled
bodies two pale starfish on the sheets.
Semen leaked and pooled in his palm
as he moved his thumb slowly, not
to excite me, just to affirm
he’d been there.
I have loved other men since, taken
them into my mouth like a warm vowel,
lain beneath them and watched their irises
float like small worlds in their eyes.
But this man pressed his thumb
toward the tail of my spine
as if he were entering
China, or a ripe papaya
so that now when I think of love
I think of this.
**the one place I found this on line had the end as below, I don't know which is right.
But this man pressed his thumb
toward the tail of my spine
as if he were entering
China, or a ripe papaya
so that now
when I think of love
I think of this.
Time does not bring relief (Sonnet II)
Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892 - 1950
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
Auld Robin Forbes
BY SUSANNA BLAMIRE (1747-94)
And auld Robin Forbes hes gien tem a dance,
I pat on my speckets to see them aw prance;
I thout o’ the days when I was but fifteen,
And skipp’d wi’ the best upon Forbes’s green.
Of aw things that is I think thout is meast queer,
It brings that that’s by-past and sets it down here;
I see Willy as plain as I dui this bit leace,
When he tuik his cwoat lappet and deeghted his feace.
The lasses aw wonder’d what Willy cud see
In yen that was dark and hard featur’d leyke me;
And they wonder’d ay mair when they talk’d o’ my wit,
And slily telt Willy that cudn’t be it:
But Willy he laugh’d, and he meade me his weyfe,
And whea was mair happy thro’ aw his lang leyfe?
It’s e’en my great comfort, now Willy is geane,
The he offen said— nae place was leyke his awn heame!
I mind when I carried my wark to yon steyle
Where Willy was deykin, the time to beguile,
He wad fling me a daisy to put i’ my breast,
And I hammer’d my noddle to mek out a jest.
But merry or grave, Willy often wad tell
There was nin o’ the leave that was leyke my awn sel;
And he spak what he thout, for I’d hardly a plack
When we married, and nobbet ae gown to my back.
When the clock had struck eight I expected him heame,
And wheyles went to meet him as far as Dumleane;
Of aw hours it telt eight was dearest to me,
But now when it streykes there’s a tear i’ my ee.
O Willy! dear Willy! it never can be
That age, time, or death, can divide thee and me!
For that spot on earth that’s aye dearest to me,
Is the turf that has cover’d my Willy frae me!
The Feather by Lilian Bowes Lyon (1895-1949)
A man and woman walking
Up the rye hill
Had no breath for talking.
The evening was still;
Only the wind in the rough grass
Made a papery patter;
Like yesterday it was,
Too spent a sigh to matter.
Down fell a curlew's feather
As they went on their way
(Who walked kindly together
And had nothing to say).
So light, so soft, so strange,
To have settled on her heart.
It was the breath of change,
That breathed them apart.
CHINA, BY DORIANNE LAUX b.1952
From behind he looks like a man
I once loved, that hangdog slouch
to his jeans, a sweater vest, his neck
thick-veined as a horse cock, a halo
of chopped curls.
He orders coffee and searches
his pockets, first in front, then
from behind, a long finger sliding
into the slitted denim the way that man
slipped his thumb into me one summer
as we lay after love, our freckled
bodies two pale starfish on the sheets.
Semen leaked and pooled in his palm
as he moved his thumb slowly, not
to excite me, just to affirm
he’d been there.
I have loved other men since, taken
them into my mouth like a warm vowel,
lain beneath them and watched their irises
float like small worlds in their eyes.
But this man pressed his thumb
toward the tail of my spine
as if he were entering
China, or a ripe papaya
so that now when I think of love
I think of this.
**the one place I found this on line had the end as below, I don't know which is right.
But this man pressed his thumb
toward the tail of my spine
as if he were entering
China, or a ripe papaya
so that now
when I think of love
I think of this.
Time does not bring relief (Sonnet II)
Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892 - 1950
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
Auld Robin Forbes
BY SUSANNA BLAMIRE (1747-94)
And auld Robin Forbes hes gien tem a dance,
I pat on my speckets to see them aw prance;
I thout o’ the days when I was but fifteen,
And skipp’d wi’ the best upon Forbes’s green.
Of aw things that is I think thout is meast queer,
It brings that that’s by-past and sets it down here;
I see Willy as plain as I dui this bit leace,
When he tuik his cwoat lappet and deeghted his feace.
The lasses aw wonder’d what Willy cud see
In yen that was dark and hard featur’d leyke me;
And they wonder’d ay mair when they talk’d o’ my wit,
And slily telt Willy that cudn’t be it:
But Willy he laugh’d, and he meade me his weyfe,
And whea was mair happy thro’ aw his lang leyfe?
It’s e’en my great comfort, now Willy is geane,
The he offen said— nae place was leyke his awn heame!
I mind when I carried my wark to yon steyle
Where Willy was deykin, the time to beguile,
He wad fling me a daisy to put i’ my breast,
And I hammer’d my noddle to mek out a jest.
But merry or grave, Willy often wad tell
There was nin o’ the leave that was leyke my awn sel;
And he spak what he thout, for I’d hardly a plack
When we married, and nobbet ae gown to my back.
When the clock had struck eight I expected him heame,
And wheyles went to meet him as far as Dumleane;
Of aw hours it telt eight was dearest to me,
But now when it streykes there’s a tear i’ my ee.
O Willy! dear Willy! it never can be
That age, time, or death, can divide thee and me!
For that spot on earth that’s aye dearest to me,
Is the turf that has cover’d my Willy frae me!
billy wrote:welcome to the site. make it your own, wear it like a well loved slipper and wear it out. ella pleads:please click forum titles for posting guidelines, important threads. New poet? Try Poetic DevicesandWard's Tips
