Poems I Love
Gold Fish
by Jewel

In my belly is a gold fish.
I swallowed it and kept it there.
I sing to it, and can feel it wiggle
when it especially likes the tune--
Brahms makes it do backflips of glee.
Sonnet xii
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

We talk of taxes, and I call you friend;
Well, such you are,--but well enough we know
How thick about us root, how rankly grow
Those subtle weeds no man has need to tend,
That flourish through neglect, and soon must send
Perfume too sweet upon us and overthrow
Our steady senses; how such matters go
We are aware, and how such matters end.
Yet shall be told no meagre passion here;
With lovers such as we forevermore
Isolde drinks the draught, and Guinevere
Receives the Table's ruin through her door,
Francesca, with the loud surf at her ear,
Lets fall the coloured book upon the floor.
Sonnet xiii
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Into the golden vessel of great song
Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast
Let other lovers lie, in love and rest;
Not we,--articulate, so, but with the tongue
Of all the world: the churning blood, the long
Shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed
Sharply together upon the escaping guest,
The common soul, unguarded, and grown strong.
Longing alone is singer to the lute;
Let still on nettles in the open sigh
The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute
As any many, and love be far and high,
That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit
Found on the ground by every passer-by.
Sonnet xiv
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter
We drenched the altars of Love's sacred grove,
Shaking to earth green fruits, impatient after
The launghing of the coloured moths of Love.
Love's proper myrtle and his mother's zone
We bound about our irreligious brows,
And fettered him with garlands of our own,
And spread a banquet in his frugal house.
Not yet the god has spoken; but I fear
Though we should break our bodies in his flame,
And pour our blood upon his altar, here
Henceforward is a grove without a name,
A pasture to the shaggy goats of Pan,
Whence flee forever a woman and a man.
Wild Nights-- Wild Nights!
by Emily Dickinson

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!
I Am Not from Here
by Jewel

I am not from here,
my hair smells of the wind
and is full of constellations
and I move about this world
with a healthy disbelief
and approach my days and my work
with vaporous consequence
     a touch that is translucent
     but can violate stone.
Long Has a Cloak
by Jewel

Long has a cloak of coarse wool
and wet feathers smothered my flight.
Long has doubt and a thorny chain of words
caused my vision to stagger.
Tired of my purple burden,
in search of freedom, I have longed to throw
off the gauze curtains and kisses
which bind me
     my mouth so full of berries
     and other people's tongues
my heart sick with thick hands and spittle
But there is a secret I do not tell you;
     I have dulled my spark
     and weakened my heart
     so I could continue
     to stay where I knew
     I did not flourish
          (There.  It is said.)
To stand new in the naked air
with no crutch, no pretty eye,
I leave not only you
but also the part of me
that fears my own song's truth.
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Absence of Fear
by Jewel

Inside my skin there is this space >> It twists and turns >> It bleeds and aches >> Inside my heart there's an empty room >> It's waiting for you >> And I am wanting >> And I am needing you here >> Inside the absence of fear >> >> Muscle and sinew >> Velvet and stone >> This vessel is haunted >> It creaks and moans >> My bones call to you >> In their separate skin >> I make myself translucent >> To let you in, for >> I am wanting >> And I am needing you here >> Inside the absence of fear >> >> There is this hunger >> This restlessness inside of me >> And it knows that you're no stranger >> You're my gravity >> >> My hands will adore you through all darkness aim >> They will lay you out in moonlight >> And reinvent your name >> For I am wanting you >> And I am needing you here >> I need you near >> Inside the absence of fear
Jupiter
by Jewel