Valentine's Day Poetry

Thursday (collective groan) is Valentine's Day--the day that takes all the spontaneity out of affection. The day when men learn, often the hard way, that no matter what your significant other says, she does want you to do something special for her.

It's a day when many women wish their man were more like John Keats, who in a famous letter to his love--a young woman named Fanny Brawne--set the bar a little higher for all of us:

"I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your Loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minuteÉwould I could take a sweet poison from your lips to send me out of it....I will imagine you Venus tonight and pray, pray, pray to your star like a Heathen."

Thank you, John.

At least it's a good day for poetry.

In honor of the day, here are three of my favorite love poems. They're all a little unorthodox (no "roses are red" here). Oh, and guys, feel free to use one Thursday. Unless your lover has a Master's Degree in English, chances are she hasn't read them before.

Here's since feeling is first by E.E. Cummings. It's lighthearted and playful throughout but still conveys genuine emotion.

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry

- the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

D.H. Lawrence's The Elephant is Slow to Mate is, in fact, about elephant sex. Stay with me here. While his subject matter is...unorthodox, Lawrence handles the issue with genuine wonder and affection. By the end, he's completely won me over.

The Elephant is Slow to Mate


The elephant, the huge old beast,

is slow to mate;


he finds a female, they show no haste

they wait

for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts

slowly, slowly to rouse

as they loiter along the river-beds

and drink and browse


and dash in panic through the brake

of forest with the herd,

and sleep in massive silence, and wake

together, without a word.

So slowly the great hot elephant hearts

grow full of desire,

and the great beasts mate in secret at last,

hiding their fire.


Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts

so they know at last

how to wait for the loneliest of feasts

for the full repast.


They do not snatch, they do not tear;

their massive blood

moves as the moon-tides, near, more near

till they touch in flood.

You may have noticed how Lawrence uses short lines after longer four-beat lines to frustrate the poem's momentum. Thus, the rhythm built up in one line stalls in the next. This, obviously, goes hand in hand with the poem's subject matter.

Finally, here's a short poem by William Butler Yeats, an Irishman who spent much of his life pining (unrequited) for a woman named Maud Gonne. Yeats proposed to her four times and got to be very, very good at pining. I think he'd be happy to know that somebody was benefiting from it. A Drinking Song is short enough to memorize and perfect for toasting the two of you.


A Drinking Song

Wine comes in at the mouth

And love comes in at the eye;

That's all we shall know for truth

Before we grow old and die.

I lift the glass to my mouth,

I look at you, and I sigh.

That one's a closer, no? And it sure beats chocolates.

Click here for more Huffington Post Valentine's Day coverage.

Comments

[JerseyBob]

05:23 PM on 02/12/2008

Happy Valentine’­s Day Ann!

John Greenleaf Whittier too wrote of a Maud. Maud Muller is the name of his poem published in 1867. Yeats' use of “pining” in Maud Gonne prompts memory of Whittier’s Maud Muller and the “rich repiner” found in Whittier’s poem. Whittier’s poem was more about a love that might have been, not an unrequited one.

Chris Kelly recently blogged about Rick Santorum’s endorsemen­t of Romney and touched on Ann Coulter’s intense dislike for McCain. Alas, spinster Coulter, a political drudge, seems likely to sit forever at tables set for one. And so the following with a bit borrowed from Whittier’s Maud Muller (1867):
Coulter is going to dine at Rick's. The place has fallen on hard times and the waiter is Rick.

AND THERE WON'T BE A TIP!

Alas for Fox,
alas for Coulter,
for right wing jocks
and this drudge at their alter.

For of many sad words
of tongue or pen,
some sad ones might be
"She’s done it again."

At a table for two
She's asked for her pleasure
And with a righteous tongue
says "McCain at my leisure."

"I'll tell you when! Go away from me now!"
And with sharp slathering tongue
thinks of McCain,
and of eating her young.

The waiter has taken the other setting.
She meant it to stay.
(Ah yes, "Go away from me now!")
Coulter looks ahead
at an empty chair.
Alas

[percyveer]

06:29 PM on 02/11/2008

I notice that all three poems you chose are written by men. Now I suggest a whole small book by a woman - Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese­". Plus, as one of the female persuasion­, I have to say that the elephant sex would really get to me! Or in a darker mood, another of Yeats' for Maud Gonne, "No Second Troy". Could any woman not be blown away by that?
Happy Valentine'­s Day with another poet's thought on icebreakin­g
"Candy is dandy
But liquor is quicker"

[DougPoet]

04:09 PM on 02/10/2008

WE ARE GLOWING

From the journey of a dream
I awoke happy, enveloped in you
under covers

Enraptured in the blankets
of home
with you
of you

Our embrace is
the brightness
of us
with us

We are
the morning together
together in love

An awakening
is here to be
for real
at home

peaceful passion
satisfacti­on day

not dreaming
but being

in the lightness
of us
with us

we are warm
being the morning sun,
like banners waving
playfully above
the river of Love

extremely rippling,
our streaming
child to the river

Ripples of the day
we stream
like banners waving
playfully above
a gentle brook
child to the stream

The child's babble
joyful enough
to be a gurgle
in a float-alon­g morning

We splash along
embraced
by immersion
and the kiss of the day
fantastic
better than a dream
-- Douglas Gilbert

RIDING

I imagine you drifting
in thoughts on the bus
by the window with
a mystery package

Hear me honk
see me as the bird
that flaps a clap
applauding your reverie

On your way, squealing
with the wheeling of the bus
I am the squeaky brakes
squawking to see you; I am
the roar of the engine

Wake up. Don't
miss your stop
don't drop your
precious package

Arrive soon, because
I can't wait to
open you up
to ride with me
-- Douglas Gilbert
http://moj­oepoe.word­press.com

A LETTER FROM THE SKY

A wisp of fluff
blows beneath the sun,
seems threads of ponytail
a jog of fantasy swinging
your hair and the
arms of your rainbow
written in the sky

I will embrace the
dawn of our meeting

Kiss me out of the blue
for you are my gentle meadow
my every green nature
who grows me
the pollen of your blossom
-- Douglas Gilbert
http://moj­oepoe.word­press.com

[grendl]

11:23 AM on 02/10/2008

You obviously know nothing about women.

You give them a poem about elephant sex, she's going to think you're insinuatin­g she's overweight­.

[rushmc]

10:55 AM on 02/10/2008

A favorite from Pablo Neruda:

XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernail­s,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratúe.