from Amours de Voyage, Canto II
X Claude to Eustace
I am in love, meantime, you think; no doubt you would think so.
I am in love, you say; with those letters, of course, you would say
so.
I am in love, you declare. I think not so; yet I grant you
It is a pleasure, indeed, to converse with this girl. Oh, rare gift,
Rare felicity, this! she can talk in a rational way, can
Speak upon subjects that really are matters of mind and of
thinking,
Yet in perfection retain her simplicity; never, one moment,
Never, however you urge it, however you tempt her, consents to
Step from ideas and fancies and loving sensations to those vain
Conscious understandings that vex the minds of man-kind.
No, though she talk, it is music; her fingers desert not the keys;
’tis
Song, though you hear in the song the articulate vocables
sounded,
Syllabled singly and sweetly the words of melodious meaning.
I am in love, you say; I do not think so exactly.
I do not love thee! – no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,
Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.
I do not love thee! – yet, I know not why,
Whate’er thou dost seems still well done, to me:
And often in my solitude I sigh
That those I do love are not more like thee!
I do not love thee! – yet, when thou art gone,
I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear)
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.
I do not love thee! – yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,
Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.
I know I do not love thee! yet, alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me gazing where thou art.
Forgetmeknot
She loves him, she loves him not, she is confused:
She picks a fist of soaking grass and fingers it:
She loves him not.
The message passing from her head to heart
Has in her stomach stopped,
She cannot quite believe the information is correct:
She loves him not.
She knows her needs and yet
There is no special place where they can rest.
To be loved alone is not enough,
She feels something has been lost.
She picks a fist of soaking grass.
Her world is blank, she thinks perhaps it’s
meaningless.
from Astrophil and Stella
I
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she (dear she) might take some pleasure of my pain;
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know;
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain;
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting invention’s stay;
Invention, nature’s child, fled step-dame study’s blows;
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
‘Fool,’ said my muse to me; ‘look in thy heart and write.’
Stealing Up
I’ve always hated gardening: the way
The earth gets under your nails
And in the chevrons of your shoes.
So I don’t plan it; I steal up on it,
Casually, until I find –
Hey presto! – the whole lawn’s cut
Or the sycamore’s wand suddenly
Sports an ungainly, foal-like leaf.
Similarly, I’d have written to you
Sooner, if I’d had the choice.
But morning after morning I woke up
To find the same clouds in the sky,
Disabling the heart. But tomorrow
Maybe I’ll get up to find an envelope,
Sealed, addressed to you, propped against
My cup, lit by a slanting sun.
from Romeo and Juliet, II, ii
ROMEO:
But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east and Juliet is the sun!
Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid since she is envious,
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.
It is my lady, O it is my love!
O that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.
I am too bold. ’Tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp. Her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek.
JULIET:
Ay me.
ROMEO:
She speaks.
O speak again bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
JULIET:
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
ROMEO:
Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
Jamesian
Their relationship consisted
In discussing if it existed.
Things That Could Happen
1.
She swoons, falls into his arms
and they live together happily ever after.
2.
She kisses him: the restaurant applauds.
3.
There’s a pin-drop silence. She turns
the knife in her hand, slowly.
4.
His heart bursts in his mouth before he can say the words.
It splatters the table, ruins her dress, and she never forgives him.
5.
He’s interrupted by a handsome man from another table
who asks if he can cut in. She accepts, of course,
and waltzes off to an orchestra of cutlery, side-plates,
strummed napkins and warm bread. He seethes, turns bald
and tells the story to every man he meets.
6.
She falls in love with the waiter.
7.
She falls in love with the waitress.
8.
She starts by saying that she’s quitting the country,
that there’s nothing in London to keep her.
He loses his voice, has to write it all down.
She spills a glass of wine, the ink blurs and swims
across the page. I’m sorry she says, and he nods,
his eyes turning to crystal.
10.
They laugh.
11.
They have passionate sex in the single toilet.
Outside, a lengthening queue tuts and frets.
Someone presses their ear to the door.
12.
She doesn’t believe him.
13.
They have 3 children. Some nights, she tells them
(again) how their father won her heart
over chicken gyoza and ebi katsu.
Whenever he hears this, something in him rises
like a bull-chested spinnaker.
14.
Her mobile rings. The moment falls, like a crumb,
to the napkin in her lap. She brushes it away.
15.
He learns a new language – says it in French or Swahili.
She’s mightily impressed, but doesn’t understand.
16.
She chokes on a noodle. The tips of her fingers turn blue
as she fights for breath, and fails. Later, he learns to love
the bite of alcohol and numbs his tongue with ice.
She chokes on a noodle. He Heimlichs her.
She sees him in a different light,
as he dabs the sparkling sputum
from her lips.
18.
He watches the way she eats
and thinks better of saying anything.
19.
Before he can speak, she leans across the table,
fingers barely touching the corners of his mouth,
and says I know, already. I know.
Love
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing?
‘A guest’, I answered, ‘worthy to be here’:
Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.’
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
‘Who made the eyes but I?’
‘Truth, Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not’, says Love, ‘who bore the blame?’
‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down’, says Love, ‘and taste my meat’:
So I did sit and eat.
Timing
It’s now my love for you is perfect as an egg
Soft-boiled – a quail’s egg with a mottled shell
Whose markings are the landscape of our world.
I peel – the skin is soft between my teeth
I roll it on my tongue and taste its heat
Then I choose to bite and eat or keep it whole.
Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with take warning, I am surely far different from what
you suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d
satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this façade, this smooth and tolerant
manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real
heroic man?
Have you no thought O dreamer that it may be all maya,
illusion?
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Sonnet
I can’t sleep in case a few things you said
no longer apply. The matter’s endless,
but definitions alter what’s ahead
and you and words are like a hare and tortoise.
Aaaagh there’s no description – each a fractal
sectioned by silences, we have our own
skins to feel through and fall back through – awful
to make so much of something so unknown.
But even I – some shower-swift commitments
are all you’ll get; I mustn’t gauge or give
more than I take – which is a way to balance
between misprision and belief in love
both true and false, because I’m only just
short of a word to be the first to trust.
Kissing the Toad
Somewhere this dusk
a girl puckers her mouth
and considers kissing
the toad a boy has plucked
from the cornfield and hands
her with both hands,
rough and lichenous
but for the immense ivory belly,
like those old fat cats
sprawling on Mediterranean beaches,
with popped eyes,
it watches the girl who might kiss it,
pisses, quakes, tries
to make its smile wider:
to love on, oh yes, to love on.