quote:

What It Is (Was es ist)

It is madness, says reason
It is what it is, says love
It is unhappiness, says caution
It is nothing but pain, says fear
It has no future, says insight
It is what it is, says love
It is ridiculous, says pride
It is foolish, says caution
It is impossible, says experience
It is what it is, says love
--Erich Fried

quote:

Song 5 (Carmen V)

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
and let us judge all the rumors of the old men
to be worth just one penny!
The suns are able to fall and rise:
When that brief light has fallen for us,
we must sleep a never ending night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then another hundred,
then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then yet another thousand more, then another hundred.
Then, when we have made many thousands,
we will mix them all up so that we don't know,
and so that no one can be jealous of us when he finds out
how many kisses we have shared.
--Gaius Valerius Catullus

quote:

Celia Celia

When I am sad and weary,
When I think all hope has gone,
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on

--Adrian Mitchell

quote:

'TIS true, 'tis day ; what though it be?
O, wilt thou therefore rise from me?
Why should we rise because 'tis light?
Did we lie down because 'twas night?
Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither,
Should in despite of light keep us together.

Light hath no tongue, but is all eye ;
If it could speak as well as spy,
This were the worst that it could say,
That being well I fain would stay,
And that I loved my heart and honour so
That I would not from him, that had them, go.

Must business thee from hence remove?
O ! that's the worst disease of love,
The poor, the foul, the false, love can
Admit, but not the busied man.
He which hath business, and makes love, doth do
Such wrong, as when a married man doth woo.

quote:

LOVERS' INFINITENESS.
by John Donne

IF yet I have not all thy love,
Dear, I shall never have it all ;
I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move,
Nor can intreat one other tear to fall ;
And all my treasure, which should purchase thee,
Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters I have spent ;
Yet no more can be due to me,
Than at the bargain made was meant.
If then thy gift of love were partial,
That some to me, some should to others fall,
Dear, I shall never have thee all.

Or if then thou gavest me all,
All was but all, which thou hadst then ;
But if in thy heart since there be or shall
New love created be by other men,
Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,
In sighs, in oaths, and letters, outbid me,
This new love may beget new fears,
For this love was not vow'd by thee.
And yet it was, thy gift being general ;
The ground, thy heart, is mine ; what ever shall
Grow there, dear, I should have it all.

Yet I would not have all yet.
He that hath all can have no more ;
And since my love doth every day admit
New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store ;
Thou canst not every day give me thy heart,
If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it ;
Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart,
It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it ;
But we will have a way more liberal,
Than changing hearts, to join them ; so we shall
Be one, and one another's all.

quote:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

quote:

Auf der Treppe sitzen meine Öhrchen,
Wie zwei Kätzchen, die die Milch erwarten...
Auf der Treppe sitzt mein Herz und harret,
Wie ein Geistchen, Kinn in Hand gestützet.

Doch der Bote mit den Briefen kommt nicht.
Taub und ohne Seele drin im Zimmer
Lieg ich. Wünsche nichts zurück zu haben.
Nicht die rosa Kätzchen, nicht das Geistchen.

quote:

Und werden wir uns nie besitzen,
so will ich Deinen Namen doch
ins Holz der Weltenesche schnitzen,
ein Zeugnis fernstem Volke noch.

So sollen tausend Herzen lesen,
die gern ein kleines Lied beglückt,
was Du dem Einsamen gewesen,
wie Du ihn innerlichst entzückt

~You are a *Taverner*.
Sometimes patrons want to go where everybody knows their names, though it helps 
when half of them are named John. When people want to celebrate, or commiserate, 
they gather to your establishment. You provide the atmosphere, the warmth, rum, 
and even an ear to bend. Did I mention the rum? Years before the language will be 
mangled with terms like facilitator and networking and interpersonal communication,
you've overseen it all, and broken up a few bar fights, to boot.~
-Royko

quote:

The Arrow and the Song


I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

quote:

Originally posted by Thirith & His Enormous Tibia:
There are a lot of great poems by John Donne, although they're more of the "Let's get it on, baby!" variety than love poems. Same holds true for Andrew Marvell and his gorgeous "To His Coy Mistress". They were the Barry White of their time.

quote:

Come my love I'll tell you a tale,
Of a boy and girl
And there love story.
And how he loved her oh so much,
and all the charms she did posess

Now this did happen once apon a time,
When things were not so complex.
And how he worshiped the ground she walked,
And when he looked he became obsessed.

My love is like a storybook story,
But its as real as the feelings I feel.
My love is like a storybook story,
But its as real as the feelings I feel.

His love was stronger than the power so dark,
A prince could have within his keeping.
His spells to weave and steal her heart,
Within her heart but only sleaping.

My love is like a storybook story,
But its as real as the feelings I feel.
My love is like a storybook story,
But its as real as the feelings I feel.

And he said:
"Don't you know i love you oh, so much,
and lay my heart at the foot of your dress."
And she said:
"Don't you know that storybook loves,
Always have a happy ending."

Then he swooped her up just like in the books
And on his stalion the rode away.

My love is like a storybook story,
But its as real as the feelings I feel.
My love is like a storybook story,
But its as real as the feelings I feel.

quote:

Originally posted by Babylon the Bride:
I don't much like the Shakespeare sonnet, Thirith. Always felt overclever to me in an "hey, I'm just being honest" way.

quote:

Originally posted by Babylon the Bride:
I don't much like the Shakespeare sonnet, Thirith. Always felt overclever to me in an "hey, I'm just being honest" way.

quote:

Early In The Morning

While the long grain is softening
in the water, gurgling
over a low stove flame, before
the salted Winter Vegetable is sliced
for breakfast, before the birds,
my mother glides an ivory comb
through her hair, heavy
and black as calligrapher's ink.

She sits at the foot of the bed.
My father watches, listens for
the music of comb
against hair.

My mother combs,
pulls her hair back
tight, rolls it
around two fingers, pins it
in a bun to the back of her head.
For half a hundred years she has done this.
My father likes to see it like this.
He says it is kempt.

But I know
it is because of the way
my mother's hair falls
when he pulls the pins out.
Easily, like the curtains
when they untie them in the evening.

quote:

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

quote:

somewhere i have never travelled

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers
you open always petal by petal myself as spring opens
(touching skilfully, misteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending,

nothing we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility; whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain has such small hands

quote:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

quote:

When my words lose their syllables to tiredness
and the silly mistakes begin on my typewriter
when I want to fall asleep and not wake anymore to the daily sadness
about the happenings in this world and the things that I can't prevent

then here and there a word starts to groom itself and quietly hums
and half a thought starts brushing up and looks for another
that momentarily was choking on something that it couldn't swallow
and now looks around
and takes the half thought by its hand and says: Come

And then some of the tired words fly
and some of the typos that laugh about themselves
with or without half or whole thoughts
from London's ghetto over sea and plains and mountains
again and again across to the same spot

And when you walk down the steps through your garden in the morning
and you pause and pay attention and look at them
you can see them rest or hear them flutter
a little cold and perhaps still a little misplaced
but always truly happy that they are with you

quote:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
All my base are
Belong to you

quote:

To Dorothy

You are not beautiful, exactly.
You are beautiful, inexactly.
You let a weed grow by the mulberry
And a mulberry grow by the house.
So close, in the personal quiet
Of a windy night, it brushes the wall
And sweeps away the day till we sleep.

A child said it, and it seemed true:
"Things that are lost are all equal."
But it isn't true. If I lost you,
The air wouldn't move, nor the tree grow.
Someone would pull the weed, my flower.
The quiet wouldn't be yours. If I lost you,
I'd have to ask the grass to let me sleep.

-Marvin Bell