Love Poems

[realiz]

Here is another Ted Hughes poem. There are some similarities to Lovesong in the interesting way he uses body parts, but where Lovesong is devouring this one is more about giving new life, about discovery.

Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days
Ted Hughes

She gives him his eyes, she found them
Among some rubble, among some beetles

He gives her her skin
He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her
She weeps with fearfulness and astonishment

She has found his hands for him, and fitted them freshly at the wrists
They are amazed at themselves, they go feeling all over her

He has assembled her spine, he cleaned each piece carefully
And sets them in perfect order
A superhuman puzzle but he is inspired
She leans back twisting this way and that, using it and laughing
Incredulous

Now she has brought his feet, she is connecting them
So that his whole body lights up

And he has fashioned her new hips
With all fittings complete and with newly wound coils, all shiningly oiled
He is polishing every part, he himself can hardly believe it

They keep taking each other to the sun, they find they can easily
To test each new thing at each new step

And now she smoothes over him the plates of his skull
So that the joints are invisible

And now he connects her throat, her breasts and the pit of her stomach
With a single wire

She gives him his teeth, tying the the roots to the centrepin of his body

He sets the little circlets on her fingertips

She stiches his body here and there with steely purple silk

He oils the delicate cogs of her mouth

She inlays with deep cut scrolls the nape of his neck

He sinks into place the inside of her thighs

So, gasping with joy, with cries of wonderment
Like two gods of mud
Sprawling in the dirt, but with infinite care
They bring each other to perfection.

[Penelope]

Another kind of love.....about which I know....a lot!

By Seamus Heaney

Mother of the Groom

What she remembers
Is his glistening back
In the bath, his small boots
In the ring of boots at her feet.

Hands in her voided lap,
She hears a daughter welcomed.
It's as if he kicked when lifted
And slipped her soapy hold.

Once soap would ease off
The wedding ring
That's bedded forever now
In her clapping hand.

[vintage34]

"They are not long, the days of wine and roses" - Dowson

A couple of poems for older folks like myself.
Remembering lost loves from long ago, and lovers who have recently died,
and those who will be leaving soon.

TIDES by Sara Teasdale

LOVE in my heart was a fresh tide flowing
Where the starlike sea gulls soar;
The sun was keen and the foam was blowing
High on the rocky shore.

But now in the dusk the tide is turning,
Lower the sea gulls soar,
And the waves that rose in resistless yearning
Are broken forevermore.


ECHO by Christina Rossetti

COME to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream.
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream.
Come back in tears,
O memory of hope, love of finished years.

Oh dream how sweet, to sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose waking should have been in Paradise;
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet.
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My life again tho' cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
    Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.

[Penelope]

Hello Vintage

Oh that Christina Rosetti!!!!!

I find her poems so poignant. I have to read them peeping out from behind a metaphorical sofa.

The one you have posted here especially.....but thank you.

[giselle]

Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days
Ted Hughes

This Ted Hughes poem is more positive, more constructive, where the last one was almost cannibalistic. I find the idea of a man and woman 'assembling' each other until they find perfection quite compelling. The use of physical body parts that are of a non-sexual nature, like the spine, is effective but I think he still sets the poem into a sexual frame overall.

[Penelope]

giselle:

The use of physical body parts that are of a non-sexual nature, like the spine, is effective but I think he still sets the poem into a sexual frame overall.

Well, sexuallity is 'the life force'.

But when it dies away.....as it seems it inevitably does...then there is a deep spiritual 'closeness'.

I wonder if we miss the former and undervalue the latter.....

We just keep on keeping on.....

[Saffron]

Hello Vintage

Oh that Christina Rosetti!!!!!

I find her poems so poignant. I have to read them peeping out from behind a metaphorical sofa.

The one you have posted here especially.....but thank you.

Reading the Christina Rosetti poem sent a chill down my spine. So, what color is that metaphorical sofa, Penny?

[Penelope]

Saffron: So, what color is that metaphorical sofa, Penny?

In the present economic climate in Britain....I do a lot of peeping out from behind the metaphorical sofa!!

Today it's orange.......a cheerful, hopeful, philosophical colour.

The Pink Elephants also help.

[giselle]

penelope

Well, sexuallity is 'the life force'.

But when it dies away.....as it seems it inevitably does...then there is a deep spiritual 'closeness'.

In terms of Hughes poem, you raise a good point - one could look beyond the obvious physical/sexual references to the emotional and spiritual. Sometimes I wonder if we think that sexuality, as a life force in a relationship, has to die before we can reach that deep spiritual closeness that you are talking about, that sexuality somehow blocks it? I don't think so but then others may feel differently?

[Penelope]

giselle: I wonder if we think that sexuality, as a life force in a relationship, has to die before we can reach that deep spiritual closeness that you are talking about, that sexuality somehow blocks it? I don't think so but then others may feel differently?

We can only speak from our own experience. Sexuality, doesn't block the closeness - it is a jolly good basis for a relationship I reckon, from my limited experience.

But I do think, from observing my peers...as married couples, that although sex is the first and vital attraction.....but it can be overwhelming and blinding.....it must be important to ask oneself....'if I was the same sex, would I choose this person as a friend?' That is by no means a fail-safe method.....but it is useful. We've been married for 45 years this year....the thing that has kept us together has been our shared sense of humour....no more than that at times. He makes me laugh....and we laugh at the same things.....That sounds tenuous, but I know it isn't.