Valentine's Day poem thread

[rayheinrich]

Post Valentine's Day poems or links-to, yours or others, old or new.


A Valentine - by Edgar Allan Poe

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!–they hold a treasure
Divine–a talisman–an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-
The words–the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets–as the name is a poet's, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto–Mendez Ferdinando-
Still form a synonym for Truth–Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

THE END


And some of mine:

< valentine days >

< valentine days >


hearts


(mostly broken these)


filed


in metal cabinets


the lights


on at seven


off at six


- - -

< how many hearts does it take to make a quilt? >

< how many hearts does it take to make a quilt? >

i am sitting on a box
in my aunt's garage
helping to pack it up

us up

her up

all
these
pieces
of her life

here's
a small shoebox

i open it
and inside
about fifty hearts
cut from cloth


she loved to make quilts


how many hearts does it take to make a quilt?


- - -

< what hearts do >

< what hearts do >

they break
they heal
they break
they heal

the scars
make them strong

the scars
make them hard*

- - -

[size=1]

*but
(i've been told)
that love
when massaged in
makes them soft again

< the red heart and the silver heart >

< the red heart and the silver heart >


"Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated
on it. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing
before the throne. And then the book of life was
opened, and the dead were judged by what was written in
the book. And the sea gave up the dead, and the lake of
fire, the second death, rose up. And they were judged,
each one of them, according to what they had done. If
anyone's name was not found written in the book of
life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."
- Revelation 20:11


the red heart and the silver heart
the first
filled with blood
the second
with the lightness of clouds

the red heart
a sharp knife
swings at your hand
never mind who
(maybe your other hand)
but the steel inside you
stops the knife
with the skin split
and the blood waits
and the two sides of flesh
are translucent
and the bone at the bottom
is white and gray
and then the blood comes
to relieve this paleness
to give it life
flowing easily
warmly
thickly
brightly
but later
it is almost black

the red heart
filled with blood
the silver
as thin as breath
watch a tree
throw itself against the sky
the silver heart believes
the tree
is the forked tongue
of some creature
buried
beneath the earth
licking the air
getting a taste of the sun
but the red
sees only blood

the red heart and the silver heart
on quiet nights
hear each other
beating between their own beats
hearing the voice of the other
hearing the voice of blood
hearing the voice of air
and between the beats of both
hear
the continents
miles down
rubbing rock against rock
singing with their heat
miles and miles down

the red heart and the silver heart
keep slivers of consciousness
magic
like the rocks are magic
living in the weather
that comes from the sun
and at night
the red goes on
the heart filled with blood
filled with the brilliant blood goes on
but the silver heart must rest
from writing down the story
from whole pages of hands
needing eyes
and much is missed
but the silver heart must rest

the red heart swells
again with blood
again with temples and sacrifice
obsidian blades
striking down to stone
with only a million ribs between
the red heart fills
and empties many times
and drinks it all as food and still is hungry
while the silver sleeps

the red heart and the silver heart
read the list of names
and they are always finding more
engraved in walls
printed in books
and the names they roll
roll from the silver
roll
into the red
and all the names
yours too
the red devours

- - -



The illustration is "Bleeding Heart", a painting by Tania Geyer: http://tiny.cc/TaniaGeyer

[billy]

i've never done a valentine poem but i enjoyed the ones you put up. as well as poe's piece

[billy]

Gertrude Stein, “Idem the Same: A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson”


A VERY VALENTINE.

Very fine is my valentine.

Very fine and very mine.

Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine.

Very fine is my valentine and mine, very fine very mine and mine is my valentine.

[Leanne]

I don't do romance well at all, I'm too much of a cynic -- and I'm rarely impressed by romantic poetry either (although poetry by the Romantics is another story entirely).

I do really like this one though:

A Valediction -- Forbidden Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
'The breath goes now,' and some say, 'No:'

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refin'd,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.

-- John Donne

The only VD poem I've ever written is Villanellentine. So no, not a romantic at all

[Smiffy]

Everything and More

As you started to read
Your voice
a little softer than usual
I fell from O to V
in that word I dare not think of
Sat before me
free from the masquerade
I thought you beautiful
resisting the urge to pinch myself
lest’ I be dreaming
silently thanking a God I am unsure of
Fighting the urge to kneel at your feet
losing in that movement
a picture of you more precious than anything
I have ever known
Unable in that moment to believe
that everything and more than I had ever dreamed of
Could now be mine

[seriouslyme]

Not Yet

Just because I reach out
And you’re not there
Does not mean you never will.
That day will come
With news that you are real,
That I can finally believe in you.
I can reach out and feel
flesh and warmth,
Body and soul...
And love, a love
they will write about,
A love that will last forever...
Till then, my darling.