40 Timeless Love Poems to Treasure and Inspire Your Heart

The most beautiful feeling in this world is being loved and being in love. It leaves a magical feeling in your heart and minds. To honor this emotion, we have compiled a collection of the most beautiful love poems to inspire you and your heart. 💓 Ah, love! Regardless of the passage of time, love continues to be a cherished theme for poets and readers alike.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climates and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

Lord Byron - She Walks In Beauty

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and everything is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grew old and I forgot your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

Sylvia Plath - Mad Girl's Love Songs

I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it like a warm coat
when winter comes to cover you,
or like a pair of thick socks
the cold cannot bite through,

I love you,

I have nothing else to give you,
so it is a pot full of yellow corn
to warm your belly in winter,
it is a scarf for your head, to wear
over your hair, to tie up around your face,

I love you,

Keep it, treasure this as you would
if you were lost, needing direction,
in the wilderness life becomes when mature;
and in the corner of your drawer,
tucked away like a cabin or hogan
in dense trees, come knocking,
and I will answer, give you directions,
and let you warm yourself by this fire,
rest by this fire, and make you feel safe

I love you,

It's all I have to give,
and all anyone needs to live,
and to go on living inside,
when the world outside
no longer cares if you live or die;
remember,

I love you.

Jimmy Santiago Baca - I Am Offering this Poem,

Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and spend our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I would complain about the tide
of Humber. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My love vegetable should grow
Vaster than empires and more slowly;
A hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on your forehead gauze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in your marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turns to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on your skin like morning dew,
And while your willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like loving birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, although we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Andrew Marvell - To His Coy Mistress

Cover my eyes, O my Love!
Mine eyes that are weary of bliss
As of light that is poignant and strong
O silence my lips with a kiss,
My lips that are weary of song!
Shelter my soul, O my love!
My soul is bent low with the pain
And the burden of love, like the grace
Of a flower that is smitten with rain:
O shelter my soul from your face!

Sarojini Naidu - Ecstasy

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

How do I love you? Let me count the ways.
I love you to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love you to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love them purely, as they turn from praise.
I love you with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love you with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love you with the breath,
smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God chooses,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning - How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Edgar Allan Poe - Annabel Lee

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

E.E. Cummings - I Carry Your Heart with Me

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a divine law
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained her brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If you kiss not me?

Percy Bysshe Shelley - Love's Philosophy

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.

Robert Burns - A Red, Red Rose

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

John Keats - Bright Star

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,
Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow Rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses
And a thousand fragrant positions,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,
With Coral clasps and Amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds' Swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

Christopher Marlowe - The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Love is anterior to life,
posterior to death,
initial of creation,
and the exponent of breath.

Emily Dickinson - The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by,
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

Emily Dickinson - The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted us in the Seven Sleepers' den?
'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes a little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to another, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

John Donne - The Good-Morrow

somewhere i have never traveled, 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, mysteriously)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 which 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

E. E. Cummings - Somewhere I Have Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth holds.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give reward.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persevere,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Anne Bradstreet - To My Dear and Loving Husband

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

Christina Rossetti - A Birthday,

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

John Keats - La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad

Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree—
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?

The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?

Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly’s sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He still may leave thy garland green.

Emily Bronte - Love and Friendship

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

John Donne - Go and Catch a Falling Star

Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

She's all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.

John Donnes - The Sun Rising

Never seek to tell your love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,
Ah! she did department!

Soon as she was gone from me,
A traveler came by,
Silently, invisibly
He took her with a sigh.

William Blake - Love's Secret

Wild nights - Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile - the winds -
To a Heart in port -
Done with the Compass -
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden -
Ah - the Sea!
Might I but moor - tonight -
In thee

Emily Dickinson - Wild Nights

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fountain.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man's days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

Rabindranath Tagore - Unending Love

Light now restricts itself
To the top half of trees;
The angled sun
Slants honey-colored rays
That lessen to the ground
As we bike through
The corridor of Palm Drive
We two

Have reached a safety the years
Can claim to have created:
Unconsumed, therefore
Unjaded, unsated.
Picnic, movie, ice cream;
Talk; to clear my head
Hot buttered rum - coffee for you;
And so not to bed

And so we have set the question
Aside, gently.
Were we to become lovers
Where would our best friends be?
You do not wish, nor I
To risk again
This savored light for noon's
High joy or pain.

Vikram Seth - A Style Of Loving.

Love came to Flora asking for a flower
That would of flowers be undisputed queen,
The lily and the rose, long, long had been
Rivals for that high honor. Bards of power
Had sung their claims. "The rose can never tower
Like the pale lily with her Juno mien" —
"But is the lily lovelier?" Thus between
Flower-factions rang the strife in Psyche's bower.
"Give me a flower delicious as the rose
And stately as the lily in her pride" —
But of what color?" — "Rose-red," Love first chose,
Then prayed — "No, lily-white — or, both provide;"
And Flora gave the lotus, "rose-red" dyed,
And "lily-white" — the queenliest flower that blows.

Toru Dutt - Love Came to Flora Asking for a Flower

Have you not heard his silent steps?
He comes, comes, always comes.

Every moment and every age,
every day and every night he comes, comes, ever comes.

Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind,
but all their notes have always proclaimed,
`He comes, comes, ever comes.'

In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path he comes,
comes, ever comes.

In the rainy gloom of July nights on the thundering chariot of clouds
he comes, comes, ever comes.

In sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart,
and it is the golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine.

Rabindranath Tagore - Silent Steps

late night, our hearts ticking, the crickets outside
play the the drums of their lives

the candle by our bedside flickers, flickers
billie eilish in the background, in the red background

swears she knows us
i can hear your breath rubbing against mine

your breasts flattened against my chest
what’s on your mind at this moment

wetin dey bother you?
i just dey grateful say i dey here with you

i press my lips against your scalp & say nothing
silence, like a priest

baptizes the child of our desired
desire, peeled like a lime, tasted & tasted

outside the bedroom door, Lola scratches the door
her paws a muse, a music, a memento

are you gonna go get your cat
oh, he just wants attention

fine, he can come join us in bed
he’s probably going to purr into my dreams

in the silence that follows, our lips touch again, again
our bodies, our bodies, everywhere

Lola sleeps like a child, like our child
the crickets hurl the song of their lives

at the window

after,
silence, like an afobaje, crowns our sleep

Name Emeka Patrick - Late Night

No matter who leads tonight, who follows,
I feel his stare as we work the floor.

He swaggers from heel to toe.
Is it his smile?
Or his eyes I can't ignore?

Even the lights wink, catching the pearl
buttons on his black paisley shirt.

The whole room tonight turns
on his crocodile boots, his porn mustache—

Mr. Crew Cut, Mr. High Firm Ass.
The mirrors on the wall show us

what we are and where we've been,
Shania singing: the woman in me needs the man

in you. What I give
is what he takes—
I move us hard until the music breaks.

He moves us hard until the music breaks.
I turn and almost trip. I fall behind.

He grips my hand,
taking me slow
through the Oak Ridge Boys, Patsy Cline.

The time shifts from sleep to wake.
I pull away. He stops. He never speaks

but stares me down. Hand on my hip,
he turns left, then right.
I'm the whip

he snaps. I'm the horse he rides.
He's what I want and what I fear—

in his arms, then not. My shadow glides
around me like a skirt.
In the mirrors

we turn, step, spin. He won't let go.
How do you flirt—quick-quick, slow-slow?

I'm learning to flirt—quick-quick, slow-slow—
my blood a mix of cheap flat beer.

He smells of wilderness, hot road tar,
Crew pomade. Half horse plow,

half attitude, is he a tease?
I don't know
his name, where he's from, can't hear what

he whispers in my ear.
I've no excuse.
His horseshoe buckle shines beyond a doubt.

What's faith if not what I refuse
to know? Will he be a priest tomorrow,

the florist, the judge? He's a man now
on a mission with a gun. In the mirrors

we're here again
with everywhere to go
no matter who leads tonight, who follows.

Bruce Snider - At the Rainbow Cattle Company

The water was so still
I believed it would keep us
right-side up forever
there in that pool
on a night so dim
it looked like the negative
of itself, with the friend
I loved in high school,
a boy (I thought
they were a boy) who
had also shed
their clothes and risked
the bare run into
chlorine heaven, a place
that seems like a myth
to me now, where I felt
no shame, our twin forms,
from far away,
naked mirrors
of the other, bodies
we both lied about
every day, but that night
I helped you shave
your legs for the first
time, soaping them
and edging a cheap pink
razor up your calf, rinsing
sixteen years of
growth in the wrong
direction down the drain,
listening to Karen Carpenter
whimper from another
room, we've only just begun.

Kara Van De Graaf - Forever

Your voice translated me,
a lucid memory.

You videotaped my hands, words.
Now that's all gone to the birds.

What led you to sign, to grasp?
Your fluency made me gasp.

You turned deaf to others sneering.
Your ears were so used to hearing.

Translate me one more time.
I loved how we could rhyme.

Death's a cruel interpreter:
Nothing translates for later.

Raymond Luczak - Later

There is no magic any more,
We meet as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea—
There is no splendor any more,
I have grown listless as the pool
Beside the shore.
But though the pool is safe from storm
And from the tide has found surcease,
It grows more bitter than the sea,
For all its peace.

Sara Teasdale - After Love

Down the lane winding between & behind houses, I find the cottage
I rented after I left Michael, he painted it bright yellow, decades later
it’s the same color, Mike with stars of paint in his curly black hair,
standing at the door, beer can in hand, saying, Done, saying, You sure
about this, sure as a twenty-two-year-old, he was my first lover
who I married because he asked & because of the look
in his eyes like no one could love me more, we kissed good-bye,
his smoky-sweet smell, he got into his truck, drove to Colorado, I went inside,
opened the windows, sat on the twin bed, only place to sit except a folding
chair at the scarred table where I ate mustard sandwiches, wrote in a spiral
notebook, read Of Time and the River, 900 pages, starting over again
when I finished, stood outside late at night, lizards darting across
the lane under streetlights, in the breeze the trees' shadows watery,
mine mixed among them, the heart young & old at once.

Susan Browne - Down the Lane

not back, let's not come back, let's go by the speed of
queer zest & stay up
there & get ourselves a little
moon cottage (so pretty), then start a moon garden

with lots of moon veggies (so healthy), i mean
i was already moonlighting
as an online moonologist
most weekends, so this is the immensely

logical next step, are you
packing your bags yet, don't forget your
sailor moon jean jacket, let's wear
our sailor moon jean jackets while twirling in that lighter,

queerer moon gravity, let's love each other
(so good) on the moon, let's love
the moon
on the moon

Chen Chen - i love you to the moon

From grave to grave,
I carry my loyalty to you.
—Essex Hemphill

where
do you find
strength
to climb
down the hill
to your lover’s
grave

what
do you bring
but thirteen years
of memories/

how do you deal
with his death
when your gasps
loom
in the autumn air
like circling crows
spasms rock
your body
like squirrels
shake the scarlet oak
& purple dogwood
branches
while through the buzz
of a helicopter
the roar
of an elevated train
the firecracker thunder
of a buddhist service
one can still hear
your sobs
over & over
utter his name/

jan
my jan
even blindfolded
I would find my way
to you
around this
evergreen cemetery

I gaze at
the engraved picture/
I outline
the entwined hearts/
I smooth out
the act-up triangle/

the musical notes
float high
on each side
of your viking name
along with dates of birth
& recent death/
poetry books

bold flap
on each side
of my voodoo pseudonym
birth name & date
open-ended/

I smile at
the “nuclear lovers” epitaph/
I sit on
the grass grateful

I will rest
not soon enough
right here
above you
in the shadow
of the trade center
towering
in the distance/

years ago
after we found out
our status
I begged you
to be buried
with me
because I don't believe
in the foolishness
of spiritual
afterlife

“the soul survives”
you insist/
“prove it”
I demanded/

“man is the only creature
known to bury its dead”
you persisted/

“should we act
like dogs & swine”
I contended/

“manhattan queens
why should we be buried
of all places in brooklyn”
you retorted/

as usual
my patience thinned fast/
hysterical I screamed
if you died before me
I could not carry out
your wish to be
cremated/

at first
you laughed
that you would
outlast me
then guessing
the improbability
you lashed back
that I always need
to have things my way

threatening
to replace me
as your executor/

hurt
I held you hard
as you tried
to break away
from my embrace
while crossing my heart
I swore
to do right by you/

there was this masochist
ex-priest
who after his lover’s
cremation
added a dash of ash
to the dough
every Sunday baked a batch
of peanut butter cookies
as he listened to mass
on the radio/

with no more communion
to down as morning pick-me-ups
to sweeten afternoon naps
to soothe nightmares
he dressed in a harness
knelt in the bathtub
slashed his wrists letting
his blood drop
in the urn
while on the cd
callas repeatedly sobbed
“vissi d' art vissi d'amore”/

drama queen
he reminded me
of something
I would do
like that midday
in summer
I freaked
pulled out my dick
jerked off quick
on the geraniums
over the grave/

I also remember
during my second hospitalization
we watched
this television report
on greedy companies
that cremated corpses
together
& handed families
the wrong remains/

open-mouth shaken
you paced the room
we shared in co-op care/
laid down with pcp
my throat got tight/

then last year
in the candlelight glow
of a swedish meatballs
haitian rice & beans
anniversary dinner
capped with entenmann's eclairs
you affirmed to be buried with me
would honor our relationship/

that night
we curled
into each other
aware
one of us
would leave roses
tears & kisses
on our tombstone
the next november 9th/

Assotto Saint - The Language of Dust

I love the conversations we have
after making love—of course it's just me, making
love to myself, talking to you,
loving you—though I do not really
know you, so I guess not loving you—
craving the dream of knowing you.
“When will I be able to scream with you?!”
I moan. “I am screaming, I am screaming,” I moan, very
quiet. Afterwards, breathing in
the fragrance on my fingers, I tell you that
I love the smell with a tender love, it is so
sweet, so nectar, as I've loved with a strong
love the smell of semen, with those
working animals in it,
those snapping rippling tails! I want
to go with you
somewhere I haven't
been—and just lie, in a bed
for days, sometimes eat, sometimes
swim, I am so tired of not looking at you,
I want to gaze at you with a day-long
gaze . The barriers down! The doors off their
hinges! After coming, and coming,
as if with you, I miss you more.
I want you hour and hour in my line of
sight, I want to sing with you to
dance with you and sleep with you in the
still (sho dote'n shoby doe) of the nii-iiiight

Sharon Olds - To You, from Your Secret Admirer

The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me — she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me; surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!

Robert Browning - Porphyria's Lover

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return ,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

Pablo Neruda - Your Laughter

Love is...
Love is feeling cold in the back of vans
Love is a fanclub with only two fans
Love is walking holding painted hands
Love is.
Love is fish and chips on winter nights
Love is blankets full of strange delights
Love is when you don't put out the light
Love is
Love is the gifts in Christmas shops
Love is when you're feeling Top of the Pops
Love is what happens when the music stops
Love is
Love is white panties all lying forlorn
Love is pink nightdresses still slightly warm
Love is when you have to leave at dawn
Love is
Love is you and love is me
Love is prison and love is free
Love's what's there when you are away from me
Love is...

Adrian Henri - Love Is

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