#full poems

[serratedpens]

Laelaps, Margaret Wack

[mooneyedandglowing]

[daweyt]

Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee, Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave! Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee, Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave? Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover Over the mountains, on that northern shore, Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover Thy noble heart forever, ever more? Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers, From those brown hills, have melted into spring: Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers After such years of change and suffering! Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee, While the world's tide is bearing me along; Other desires and other hopes beset me, Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong! No later light has lightened up my heaven, No second morn has ever shone for me; All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given, All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee. But, when the days of golden dreams had perished, And even Despair was powerless to destroy, Then did I learn how existence could be cherished, Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy. Then did I check the tears of useless passion— Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine; Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten Down to that tomb already more than mine. And, even yet, I dare not let it languish, Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain; Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, How could I seek the empty world again?

Emily Brontë, “Remembrance”

[goodlinesfrombadpoems]

On Strike

I want to get you so hot that I bring your pussy to a boil and rotisserie my tongue on your beast hole, hold my beer? No, hold my tongue, only because I have to suppress any genuine interest I have in you, compressing it into a ZIP poem, and then extracting it to this Tex-Mex-sex-mess of a copped feeling— the sloppy seconds of love at first sight. I am married and thus marked for mutually-assured-destruction, I need to implode these emotions on the page before they are adapted into a movie, and then into a wicked and dangerous game. So let’s get a Coke and a Cost of Living Adjustment to go, if only we—if only this—could be here to stay, you struck a nerve, but my nerve endings went on strike, and I didn’t have the nerve to cross picket lines.

[desescrita]

“Day after day I think of you as soon as I wake up. Someone has put cries of birds on the air like jewels.”

— Anne Carson, “On Le Bonheur d’Etre Bien Aimée”, in Plainwater: Essays and Poetry

[daweyt]

The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow; But a tyrant spell has bound me, And I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending Their bare boughs weighed with snow; The storm is fast descending, And yet I cannot go. Clouds beyond clouds above me, Wastes beyond wastes below; But nothing drear can move me; I will not, cannot go.

Emily Brontë, “The night is darkening round me”

[daweyt]

No coward soul is mine No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere I see Heaven's glories shine And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear O God within my breast Almighty ever-present Deity Life, that in me hast rest, As I Undying Life, have power in Thee Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts, unutterably vain, Worthless as withered weeds Or idlest froth amid the boundless main To waken doubt in one Holding so fast by thy infinity, So surely anchored on The steadfast rock of Immortality. With wide-embracing love Thy spirit animates eternal years Pervades and broods above, Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears Though earth and moon were gone And suns and universes ceased to be And Thou wert left alone Every Existence would exist in thee There is not room for Death Nor atom that his might could render void Since thou art Being and Breath And what thou art may never be destroyed.

Emily Brontë, “No Coward Soul Is Mine”