Rhapsodic

The first poem probably requires a little explanation. It combines poetry with Greek mythology and a really unique style. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this particular Greek myth (and its many variations) I'll narrate Ovid's version, which is my favorite.

Narcissus was a Greek youth of unparalleled beauty. As is often characteristic of pretty boys, he was vain and scornful of those who lavished attention on him. A nymph by the name of Echo fell in love with him, but was sadly rebuffed. She spent the rest of her life pining for him, until nothing remained of her but her voice. Yes, I know that was abominably stupid on her part, but let's overlook that for now.
The god Nemesis heard her prayer, and cursed Narcissus to be impaled by his own form of cruelty. Narcissus came across his own reflection in a forest pool and promptly fell in love with it. (Clearly, the ancient Greeks had some issues, self-love and co-dependence being two depicted in this story alone.)
Anyway, he too, pined for his unattainable love. When he died, his soul was vanquished to the depths of hell and a flower, the narcissus, grew where his body had succumbed.

In the poem, Narcissus and Echo both speak of their respective obsessions.

Shall the water not remember Ember
my hand’s slow gesture, tracing above of
its mirror my half-imaginary airy
portrait? My only belonging longing;
is my beauty, which I take ache
away and then return, as love of
teasing playfully the one being unbeing.
whose gratitude I treasure Is your
moves me. I live apart heart
from myself, yet cannot not
live apart. In the water’s tone, stone?
that brilliant silence, a flower Hour,
whispers my name with such slight light:
moment, it seems filament of air, fare
the world becomes cloudswell. well.
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Swedish poet. I can't seem to find many poems of his, and he seems to be amateur. One that would put a lot of modern poets to shame.

Translated by Bill Coyle

When I saw one of those men touch your hair,  
I heard for the first time in many a year
the ancient battle trumpets and I saw
the banners of an army winding off to war
and felt that blind power urging me to knock
him out with one punch, send him tumbling to the floor.
If nobody had held me back, stopped me,  
I would—God help me—have killed him on the spot,
stomped out his blood, and spit in it. I'm sorry,
but you must be aware your winding hair  
is different now, a hornets' nest, a snakes' lair!
Yes, like a ball of snakes in a flower basket, dear.


via The Poetry Foundation
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I wrote something like this many years before I read this one. I wonder if my literature professor thought I was plagiarizing. Though I suppose I would've failed the course if she had. Not a happy thought!

Wind and Window Flower
by Robert Frost

Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,

He marked her though the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by
To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.

But he signed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.

Perchange he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelight looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.
__________


This one's just beautiful.

Cloths of Heaven
by W.B. Yeats

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

__________



Heh. I suspect there are at least a few of us who feel this way about our exes.

You Fit Into Me
by Margaret Atwood

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye


__________




Please note, I neither condone the sentiment below, nor can I identify with it. Really.

On Being A Woman
by Dorothy Parker

Why is it, when I am in Rome,
I'd give an eye to be at home,
But when on native earth I be,
My soul is sick for Italy?

And why with you, my love, my lord,
Am I spectacularly bored,
Yet do you up and leave me- then
I scream to have you back again?