My love
is
building
a building
around
you, a
frail
slippery
house, a strong fragile house
(beginning at the singular beginning
of your smile) a skilful uncouth
prison, a precise clumsy
prison (building that and this into Thus,
Around the reckless magic of your mouth)
my love is building a magic,a discrete
tower of magic and (as i guess)
when Farmer Death (whom fairies hate) shall
crumble the mouth-flower fleet
He’ll not my tower,
laborious, casual
where the surrounded smile
hangs
breathless.
E.E Cummings, Selected Poems (via violentwavesofemotion)
theparisreview: Maybe it was the passing of my parentsFinally back into my childhood version of them—Beauty, power—And maybe it was the stallI felt in my own life just then,An unwillingnessTo face up to anything beyond a day’s routine,Or just the anticipationOf a day spent with childrenIn the large peace of work animals. But none of this makes sense of what I knew,Caught in the swirl of water around the dappled shouldersAnd lifted heads, the purposefulSilence of swimming horses. I knew that my death meant nothing,Although there were no words to appease my wonder at it. —Jordan Smith, from “The Dream of Horses”Photography Credit Mario Zamora
my kind of lover
I once dated a writer and
Writers are forgetful,
but they remember everything.
They forget appointments and anniversaries,
but remember what you wore,
how you smelled,
on your first date…
They remember every story you’ve ever told them -
like ever,
but forget what you’ve just said.
They don’t remember to water the plants
or take out the trash,
but they don’t forget how
to make you laugh.
Writers are forgetful
because
they’re busy
remembering
the important things.
We are arrogant —
frustrated when foreign tongues
don’t bow to our own.
We convince ourselves
we’re better than
waif-like accent marks and
loose translation.
You ask me to pronounce myself
in your language,
how to communicate ache and lust
and destruction.
We are arrogant.
Some things are better left unsaid,
some people better left unspoken.
TO MY BOOKS.
Silent companions of the lonely hour,
Friends, who can never alter or forsake,
Who for inconstant roving have no power,
And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take,—
Let me return to you; this turmoil ending
Which worldly cares have in my spirit wrought,…
Caroline Norton (1808-1877)
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
