Send me a leaf, but from a bush
That grows at least one half hour
Away from your house, then
You must go and will be strong, and I
Thank you for the pretty leaf.

~Bertolt Brecht~

You take my hand and
I’m suddenly in a bad movie,
it goes on and on and
why am I fascinated

We waltz in slow motion
through an air stale with aphrodisms
we meet behind the endless ptted palms
you climb through the wrong windows

Other people are leaving
but I always stay till the end
I paid my money, I
want to see what happens.

In chance bathtubs I have to
peel you off me
in the form of smoke and melted
celluloid
Have to face it I’m
finally an addict,
the smell of popcorn and worn plush
lingers for weeks.

~Margaret Atwood~

Carelessly over the plain away,
Where by the boldest man no path
Cut before thee thou canst discern,
Make for thyself a path!

Silence, loved one, my heart!
Cracking, let it not break!
Breaking, break not with thee!

~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe~

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.

~William Butler Yeats~

A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.

~Robert Frost~

1.

Each of us like you
has died once,
has passed through drift of wood-leaves,
cracked and bent
and tortured and unbent
in the winter-frost,
the burnt into gold points,
lighted afresh,
crisp amber, scales of gold-leaf,
gold turned and re-welded
in the sun;

each of us like you
has died once,
each of us has crossed an old wood-path
and found the winter-leaves
so golden in the sun-fire
that even the live wood-flowers
were dark.

2.

Not the gold on the temple-front
where you stand
is as gold as this,
not the gold that fastens your sandals,
nor thee gold reft
through your chiselled locks,
is as gold as this last year’s leaf,
not all the gold hammered and wrought
and beaten
on your lover’s face.
brow and bare breast
is as golden as this:

each of us like you
has died once,
each of us like you
stands apart, like you
fit to be worshipped.

~Hilda Doolittle~

You wanted a challenge
That’s calling you higher
I landed on my feet crawling
I remember standing alone trying to forget you idling
I hate to admit that that’s my reference point
But there it is
You say you want me

I’m what you found
I’m upside down
You’re in the air
You’re in the air
And I am breathing

Brighten the stars
The weather is lifting
The heavens love
A love like this
It’s pulling you higher
Twist it and turn this around
It lights from within
It dribbles your chin
Now brings a smile
I’m lost again
I’m lost again

I’m what you found
I’m upside down
You’re in the air
You’re in the air
And I am breathing

I want the stars to know they’ve won
If only to beguile
The sky has opened up again
In heaven reconciled
I want you naked
I want you wild
I want the stars to know they win
Give me that smile
Just give it me
Just turn it on
I’m lost again

I’m what you found
I’m upside down
You’re in the air
I’m what you found
I’m upside down
You’re in the air
I’m what you found
I’m upside down
You’re everywhere
You’re in the air
And I am breathing you.

~Michael Stipe~

I wait for you. The years in silence pass
And as the image, one, I wait for you again.

The distance is in flame — and clear one as glass,
I, silent, wait — with sadness, love and pain.

The distance is in flame, and you are coming fast,
But I’m afraid that you will change your image yet,

And will initiate the challenging mistrust
By changing features, used, at long awaited end.

Oh, how I will fell — so low and so pine,
Unable to overcome my dreams’ continued set!

The distance is such bright! And azure is so fine!
But I’m afraid that you will change your image yet.

~Alexander Blok~

Love is not a profession
genteel or otherwise

sex is not dentistry
the slick filling of aches and cavities

you are not my doctor
you are not my cure,

nobody has that
power, you are merely a fellow/traveller

Give up this medical concern,
buttoned, attentive,

permit yourself anger
and permit me mine

which needs neither
your approval nor your surprise

which does not need to be made legal
which is not against a disease

but against you,
which does not need to be understood

or washed or cauterized,
which needs instead

to be said and said.
Permit me the present tense.

~Margaret Atwood~