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Carl Sandburg
Women of night life amid the lights
Where the line of your full, round throats
Matches in gleam the glint of your eyes
And the ring of your heart-deep laughter :
It is much to be warm and sure of to-morrow.
Women of night life along the shadows,
Lean at your throats and skulking the walls.
Gaunt as a bitch worn to the bone,
Under the paint of your smiling faces :
It is much to be warm and sure of to-morrow.
Your were like ice in the summer;
Your body was warm,
Hot even,
Burning, tingling at touch.
Keeping me warm too.
Your heart was cold,
Alone in the dark,
Frozen still.
Cracking like ice.
You were like fresh waves crashing on hot sand,
Refreshing but not new.
You weren't ice cream melting in the sun,
Not annoying.
You were ice in the summer,
Common, regular, but different.
Needed and wanted.
Not too far,
Stay close.
Stay still,
Arms loose.
Resting heads,
On shoulders.
No other humans,
Just us.
Stars dancing,
Between.
Heaven throwing,
Down rain.
Water making,
Us shiver.
For warmth,
Draw closer.
Now sit in the sunken stairwell,
rejoining there.
There is only the real physical cold
for the moment,to gather you there.
It is for every time you knew before,
that this matters.
The plain sun will hold enough
of tomorrow.
But for you,there is no place
to refuge from.
Only the moment is cold enough,
for the warmth to survive in it.
We have lost most of,
Yet all is again for that moment of cold.
of an embrace which never
belonged, of kisses left
suspended in air, untouched,
the ghost of your fingertips
seemingly brushing against my
cheek, only to realise that all
that was left were my tears and i?
how do you miss the warmth,
of friends who never stayed,
drifting away and vanishing
just as mist, figures barely
holding its form before falling
apart and breaking down,
and when the sun shines once more
all you find is the traces of a love
no longer there, vaporised, lost?
the radiance of the sun,
nestled deep in this hollow
cavity of mine; one which yearns
to see the glorious rays of a hope
left forgotten. a delightful warmth
spreads through my fingertips
and is bursting at my seams, filling
me with such beauty and splendour;
one which pours eternal, everlasting
admiration for you,
you,
you,
and only you,
as i bask in its serendipitous luminosity,
before i inevitably melt away
just as the wings of icarus,
birthday—
too busy catching up
to blow out candles
warming from
the inside
She stood nonchalant
clothed like a dandelion
before the fire.
She smiled lifting
her chemise to warm her
arse in the flames.
Because the earth is vast and dark
And wet and cold;
Because man's heart wants warmth and light
Lest it grow old;
Therefore the house was built--wall, roof
And brick and beam,
By a lost hand following the lost
Delight of a dream,
And room and stair show how that hand
Groped in eager doubt,
With needless weight of teasing timber
Matching his thought--
Such fond superfluousness of strength
In wall and wood
As his half-wise, half-fearful eye
Deemed only good.