The Salt Stone
I have licked
the salt stone.
Run mad
as a mushroom cap
bobbing in the rapids
of a dark stream.
Leapt up
the oak ladder
to circle the
crescent moon.
The wind
lies languid
in the ivory caves
of your
morning
mouth.
Poems on the topic: desire
Poems on the topic “desire” on Poets.by.
Tide
You move
like a winter tide
rolling on a belly
of sand.
Swirling over me,
fondling
the broken shells
of my sighs.
Lick my skin
with salt
and silt
before I
die.
Grind
Bright rising curves,
disco ball glistens on a setting sun.
The Shape is hidden under warm, wet fur.
We are only bodies in transit,
skin to skin.
Filthy, sweating:
involuntary rapture.
A brief sinless violence
Falling to exhaustion.
Ballet
Dwarfed by black yews
you pirouette, a ruby shadow
in green arabesque fern.
Twirling like an autumn leaf
you dance in the shade
for a flute of birds.
Beneath a quilt of fern
your breasts bud and flower
I glimpse the wind.
Turn Me to My Yellow Leaves
Turn me to my yellow leaves,
I am better satisfied;
There is something in me grieves--
That was never born, and died.
Let me be a scarlet flame
On a windy autumn morn,
I who never had a name,
Nor from breathing image born.
From the margin let me fall
Where the farthest stars sink down,
And the void consumes me,--all
In nothingness to drown.
Let me dream my dream entire,
Withered as an autumn leaf--
Let me have my vain desire,
Vain--as it is brief.
A Song
I thought no more was needed
Youth to prolong
Than dumb-bell and foil
To keep the body young.
Oh, who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?
Though I have many words,
What woman's satisfied,
I am no longer faint
Because at her side?
Oh, who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?
I have not lost desire
But the heart that I had,
I thought 'twould burn my body
Laid on the death-bed.
Love-songs, at Once Tender and Informative III
Breathes there a man with hide so tough
Who says two sexes aren't enough?
Minna V
Pain is a country cousin of yours.
He flings buds of awakening desires
Upon the stately weddings in your heart,
And laughs.
You must teach him better manners;
Bind his mouth with pale sleep;
Caress him with trailing hands
That loosen the buds he has stolen, into flowers.
Minna XI
Your body was puzzling, like a half-made figure
Till the final shaping of your voice came
And riotous secrets of lines curved out
And trembled upon your limbs.
Then silence touched your body to motion:
Your limbs released fleeing andantes of pain
And your heart flung little crescents of budding caresses
Into the waiting hunger of your eyes.
Advice to Maple-Trees
O little maple-trees,
Slender and unkempt, looking with shaggy askance
Upon the moon-spiked solitude;
O little maple-trees,
Growing a little toward the sky
That touches you to all eyes save your own,
You rattle insistently for wings,
But wings could never tear
The stain of earth from your feet:
The earth that gnaws at you until
Your wing-cries strike the autumn night.
You see, with me, this crescent moon
Juggled on the tawny fingertip
Of a running cloud.
The touch of your desire, or its fall,
Would but be symbols of an equal death.
The Crows
The woman who has grown old
And knows desire must die,
Yet turns to love again,
Hears the crows' cry.
She is a stem long hardened,
A weed that no scythe mows.
The heart's laughter will be to her
The crying of the crows.
Who slide in the air with the same voice
Over what yields not, and what yields,
Alike in spring, and when there is only bitter
Winter-burning in the fields.
A Northern Love-Song
Brigidin Ban of the lint-white locks,
What was it gave you that flaxen hair,
Long as the summer heath in the rocks?
What was it gave you those eyes of fire,
Lip so waxen and cheek so wan?
Tell me, tell me, Brigidin Ban,
Little white bride of my heart's desire.
Was it the Good People stole you away,
Little white changeling, Brigidin Ban?
Carried you off in the ring of the dawn,
Laid like a queen on her purple car,
Carried you back 'twixt the night and the day;
Gave you that fortune of flaxen hair,
Gave you those eyes of wandering fire,
Lit at the wheel of the southern star;
Gave you that look so far away,
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