Poetry of Love

Who said love is real??? It is only a moral form... We make it real by investing it with meaning, and by working for it, caring for one or many, all of which takes time and life and labor to do... And when it works we get it back in spades... I simply do not see love as the opposite of fear... I see hate as the same thing as fear showing a brave and cruel face... But the opposite of love is not love, and not caring... There is with love plenty of reason to fear... People often hurt people who love them... People often bring a lot of pain into their relationships, and when they share that pain, both parties hurt... Some times people outgrow the one they are with and pack up and leave a broken heart behind... Sometimes they find people capable of love and torture them in a multitude of ways until each has wasted the larger part of their lives... No relationship is perfect, and some relationships do not deserve the name... People call a relationship love very often when hate is the correct name... Honestly, death I have faced many times in my life without a shrug, but loving has demanded more courage of me at times than the fear of nearly certain death, and I think the difference is this: When a man faces death for patriotism, for money, or a way of life, even to the end it can make sense to him, but to reach for love is to reach for a spiritual quality, a moral form which can seem so real, but like all illusions makes us feel so stupid when it deserts us and evaporates taking our lives with it...

"Love Story" has been on TV at least 3 times during the past few days here in Boston.

As Miller said, be joyous and alive. A lot of what you say about romantic love is not love at all. Why don't you just will the independence of the one you love. You are much too heavy, you would weigh on anybody.

The night has a thousand eyes
and the day but one
Yet the light of the bright world dies
with the setting sun

The mind has a thousand eyes
and the heart but one
Yet the light of a whole life dies
when love is done

Well yes... When I am in it, in the act of loving, which is to say, with my lover, then I can think of nothing else...Away from her I often and sometimes think of no one and nothing else but of her and of love... It is not always easy... There is a lot of dynamite in our sugar... I often look for the bonds of love so I can snap them, and walk away... But no matter how mad I get, I can't stay mad... I must admit that I am charmed, and in the significance of love my anger is insignificant.... I wish I could bottle its essence, but for each it is all... I wish I could capture it and be the capture of my capture... When I crow about love I sing my own song, as we all do... And I can't say I would die for love, and to do so would certainly make me feel stupid, but I will certainly live for love and try to be worthy of it... I already have the best woman in the world, and no the challenge is to keep her...

Independence I do not need to will for her to have it... It is the merging of our two selves into one effective whole that I most will... She does not need me to be superhuman, but I need her to be human....

When I say love I mean
a luscious lust so obscene
as the lapdance of Salome
for the honor of a queen
Worth the mind of a prophet
and the waste of a soul
a diamond of desires
and two haves made whole

When I mean love I say
a sun so bright as a summer day
a hope so pure and sharp
as a winter star in dark
a dream of joy that rides and rolls
like moonlight on a field of snow
that hurries the seasons with a kiss
and waits upon a summer wish

When I feel love I feel
moment on moment
while time stands still
a devotion longer than the ocean
a longing wider than the firmament
When I feel love I feel
every mystery of life revealed
returning to from where I came
a satisfaction in reaction
a treasure worth both life and death
strength without weapons or threat
security without temerity
and peace, caring, rest
When I feel love I feel I live for this.

What Fido feels isn't love. It's hormonal activity. What would you be without your hormones, dear Fido?

Do you mean, like adrenalin, or insulin??? But Dear, what would they be without me??? What you say may be true... With all moral forms the definition is in the air, and if you say love, and I say love, then not another person on the planet can say if, or if not our feelings are even an approximation of the same emotion... Look at how often people call love what an objective observer would call hate... That man who preyed upon children as a coach at Penn State said he Loved Chidlren... I don't love children, but I would never abuse them... Imagine what such a one would do if he did not love children, what horrors he could justify based upon his emotions... In the end, the good of love is the good it makes us do for the one we love... I was early on burned on love, and I have felt like an outlaw for most of my life... It is a personal triumph for me to be able to love, for love is never without risk... I am not immune to hurt... I no longer fear the hurt of love so much as the pain of a life without love...

His lust could never be love, as defined by the mystics, who are the only true lovers in this world.

Seriously??? From my perspective there is a huge difference between being captured by the idea of something whether the love of God or simply of Love and being captured by a person, or should I say captivated, and calling it love because no other word is so appropriate...Mysticism rejects reason, and love has little enough to do with reason, but if your love does not make perfect sense, and if it does not work as a practical matter, as a form of relationship, then people are soon disabused of their affliction and brought to a more sober sense of reality... To be mystical about some abstraction like God means to be abstract about an abstraction, or to be spiritual about spirits, either of which puts one totally beyond the reach of reason for ever...

Love is mostly cause and effect: I love you because, and etc., and let me grab my calulator while I am at it to count the ways... When every tally is made of needs and satisfaction, there will always be something incalculable in love, something of the whole being greater than the sum... But just because some of it will be beyond our understanding is no reason to waste much time in mysticism... Love is not to wonder at, but to celebrate with every breath and step...

There is no secret to women, no trick the understanding of which will lever a woman into bed, or better, into love... Women are all different and all people and all the equal of men...It is not possible to love women... It is possible and desirable to love a woman.... Women are an idea, like wealth, or a fatherland, or freedom, or God... People can love others individually, but they cannot love ideas- as masses of people are...I know that people say they do love in that fashion, but that is only cant...When one has what you need, and they give it to you with a smile, then love is not strange or beyond understanding, but taking it for granted is beyond forgiveness...

A Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns

My love is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June :
My love is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I :
And I will love 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 :
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only love,
And fare thee weel a while !
And I will come again, my love,
Thou’ it were ten thousand mile

The First Kiss of Love
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
(composed: 1805 or 1806)
1
Away with your fictions of flimsy romance,
Those tissues of falsehood which folly has wove!
Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance,
Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.

2
Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with phantasy glow,
Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove;
From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow,
Could you ever tasted the first kiss love!

3
If Apollo should e’er his assistance refuse,
Or the Nine be disposed from your service to rove,
Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the muse,
And try the effect of the first kiss of love.

4
I hate you, ye cold compositions of art!
Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots reprove,
I court the effusions that spring from the heart,
Which throbs with delight to the first kiss of love.

5
Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes,
Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move:
Arcadia displays but a region of dreams;
What are visions like these to the first kiss of love.

6
Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth,
From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove;
Some portion of paradise still is on earth,
And Eden revives in the first kiss of love.

7
When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past—
For years fleet away with the wings of the dove—
The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love.

My love is like a life on fire
a live wire crackling with desire
bursting forth with bloom and fight
Lightning on the dark of night

you play not passive for the pigs
bow not for kings and prigs
make your little man feel so big
with the touch of your sweet hand

The promise I make of moon and sky
you take well knowing they are lies
but lies or not you can have the lot
when I can make them mine

There's no song sweeter than your voice
nor painting as pretty as your laugh
there is no scenery sweeter than
the rolling valleys of your skin

Give me wings and let me fly
High above where angels dare
Lift from me my weary cares
and with me all your glories share

My heart dances with the thought of you
My feet race so I can run with you
There is no wonder you can't do
no wonder I'm in love with you

Remember how Byron bought from willing parents
a child to screw until his fortune spent
he sent her home to do her penance
And then he dared to write of love
as though the word would not curse
as though sweet memory would charm
and not make watery death his fate
and he could live to a ripe old age
in care of his clap and syphillus
with darling dreams to warm his slumbers
while reality came closer
with each shot to his mark

Well, I was such a whore as he
adding each new bride to my tally
and all the while missing the essence of the girl
reaching for the darting element of light
having only my open hand to show
while each new prize found her way home
He was not worse than me
nor I one wit better
find'em fleshem and forget them
but never dare to love

Money we spend buying loneliness and pain
because we cannot dare give all and more
upon one true love that only true love will keep true
because we fear to wager all on one good throw
Because we will not show, nor risk to know
our pleasure or the pain of another
because with all our talk we fear to communicate
for communication is truth and so many live lies
No; Byron was not worse in my eyes
Only a child jaded incapable of surprise
Incapable of that virginal moment
when now is the only time

I hope you appreciate that these are all off the cuff, written as they came out of my head, not as the first draft, but as the only draft... It is what makes love the best of subjects... Every day we are different, and every day love is different too... It is the river no one can step in the same one of twice...

Love is like imagining how the meal is before it is cooked
Love is like saying 'you look beautiful' before you even looked
Love is like being content listening and not being heard
Love is like knowing what the other has said without saying a word

Love is like a cliche rapped in chocalates and flowers
Love is like not afraid to let them know they need a shower
Love is like doing something for no reward
Love is like the times where you bang your head against the wall

Love is like not caring for the spinach in their teeth
Love is like laughing at the times when we are weak
Love is like family getting together and saying the same old things
Love is like here one second and gone in a blink

Love is like breathing the air and being thankful
Love is like a periscope, it can be seen in different angles
Love is like something you know that's there but hard to find
Love is like the communication between your heart and mind

Love is like proof of an undoubtable truth
Cos love is like a light in a room with no views

Love like many forms is nothing much to look at
and what it is it mostly is
for all that people do to give it meaning
Since life is meaning
and all with meaning giving life
or taking life freely given
there is with love the recognition
love is essential to our conditon