DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER LOVE?,
or: a few of my favourite poems concerning unreciprocated feelings, short-lived flames, messy partings, & loveless lovers. in no particular order:
“lady of miracles”, nina cassian (since you walked out on me / i’m getting lovelier by the hour. / i glow like a corpse in the dark.)
“lessons in hunger”, anne sexton (blackness lunged in my heart, / and something that had been good, / a sort of kindly oxygen, / turned into a gas oven.)
“time does not bring relief; you all have lied”, edna st. vincent millay (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.)
“poem”, lucy ives (that person does not know where i am, does not think of me. / does not know i have exhausted every argument against him. / that person does not know i no longer love freedom.)
“the more loving one”, w. h. auden (were all stars to disappear or die, / i should learn to look at an empty sky / and feel its total dark sublime, / though this might take me a little time.)
“donal og”, isabella augusta, lady gregory (you have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me; / you have taken what is before me and what is behind me)
“mad girl’s love song”, sylvia plath (i fancied you’d return the way you said, / but i grow old and i forget your name.)
“letter to the past after long silence”, sarah murphy (love, it is a little lonely without you. / i sit on the porch swing and whistle, / but stillness still stings. love, i loved / your stories. above all other things.)
“one last poem for richard”, sandra cisneros (richard, it’s christmas eve again / and old ghosts come back home. / i’m sitting by the christmas tree / wondering where did we go wrong.)
“i know i have been happiest”, dorothy parker (i will not make you songs of hearts denied, / and you, being man, would have no tears of me, / and should i offer you fidelity, / you’d be, i think, a little terrified.)
“pad, pad”, stevie smith (what i cannot remember is how i felt when you were unkind / all I know is, if you were unkind now i should not mind.)
“i’m glad your sickness”, marina tsvetaeva (thank you for the nights i’ve spent in quiet. / thank you for the walks under the moon / you’ve spared me and those sunset meetings unshared.)
“yesterday he still looked in my eyes”, marina tsvetaeva (i know everything, don’t argue with me! / i can see now, i’m a lover no longer. / and now i know wherever love holds power / death approaches soon like a gardener.)
“you thought i was that type”, anna akhmatova (and i swear to you by the garden of the angels, / i swear by the miracle-working icon, / and by the fire and smoke of our nights: / i will never come back to you.)
“bruise ghazal”, sharon olds (sleep and dream—but not of his return. / since it cannot harm him, wound him, in your dream.)
“litany in which certain things are crossed out”, richard siken (hello darling, sorry about that. / sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we / lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell / and how i ruined everything by saying it out loud.)
“no, i wasn’t meant to love and be loved”, mirza asadullah khan ghalib (knowing you are faithless keeps me alive and hungry. / knowing you faithful would kill me with joy.)
“letter to ____”, mary oliver (just as well. time / to read books, rake the lawn / in peace, sweep the floor, scour / the faces of pans, / anything.)
“i’ll open the window”, anna swir (tonight I am going to sleep alone / on the bedclothes of purity. / aloneness / is the first hygienic measure.)
“love after love”, derek walcott (give back your heart / to itself, to the stranger who has loved you / all your life, whom you ignored / for another, who knows you by heart.)
“postcards”, wendy cope (i don’t know / if we’ll meet again. be happy. / if you hear this, send a postcard.)
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