Erotic Poems I

"Coming Together"
by Jeff Walt

Drenched in summer sweat, I beg,
Wait, don't come yet.
The candle burned to its wick.
The heat and humidity compare
to the intensity of our want:
fire inside and out.
Your face contorts with pleasure-
we know we are near the end, spent,
but still I beg, Wait for me,
as I rush to catch up.
My greedy tongue travels your body
like the child I was among the dunes
of the Cape-mysterious, wild, free.
I wonder how the people beyond these walls
can sleep knowing the pleasure
their bodies contain as you scream
Yes!-More!-Harder!-Faster!-God!
until the moment-like two runners
neck and neck at the end of their race-
I demand now and we cross
the finish line as one, come together,
trembling, out of breath.
The wick flickers to its end
and the room goes completely black.
I say I love you, but already
you are asleep, your wet back turned
to me, so I roll to the opposite side
of the bed, find comfort in the cool
wall as I trace old, dried veins of paint
with my thumb. I do not need
to be next to you to know you love me-
it is in the numb joy of my tongue,
the ache of my hip, the pulse beneath
my nipples that recalls your lips.




"I Think Table And I Say Chair"
by Gloria Fuertes (Tr. Philip Levine, Ada Lang)

                I think table and I say chair,
                I buy bread and I lose it,
                whatever I learn I forget,
                and what this means is I love you.
                The harrow says it all
                and the huddled beggar,
                the fish that flies through the living room,
                the bull bellowing in his last corner.
                Between Santander and Asturias
                a river runs, deer pass,
                a great load passes.
                Between my blood and my tears
                there is a tiny bridge,
                and nothing crosses; what
                this means is that I love you.



"Poem"
by Denis Johnson

Loving you is every bit as fine
as coming over a hill into the sun
at ninety miles an hour darling when
it's dawn and you can hear the stars unlocking
themselves from the designs of God beneath
the disintegrating orchestra of my black
Chevrolet. The radio clings to an un-
identified station - somewhere a tango suffers,
and the dance floor burns around two lovers
whom nothing can touch - no, not even death!
Oh! the acceleration with which my heart does proceed,
reaching like stars almost but never quite
of light the speed of light the speed of light.







"Armfuls of Summer"
by Kathleen Iddings

In lustful
hot dress
We celebrate
the great black night.

With summer
in our hair

Our bodies brim
with fruits and meat.

We help ourselves,
each to each.

Lean into the
curve of my body.

What we do together
we do

Until the rising moon
exposes us.

Until the tide
takes back the beach.



"In The Summer"
by Nizar Qabbani

In the summer
I stretch out on the shore
And think of you
Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.




"Joy"
by Wendell Berry, from The Blue Robe

How joyful to be
together, alone, as when
we first were joined
in our little house
by the river long ago, except that
now we know each other,
as we did not then;
and now instead of two stories
fumbling to meet,
we belong to one story
that the two, joining, made.

And now
we touch each other
with the tenderness of mortals
who know themselves...




“Body of a woman..."
by Pablo Neruda

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant’s body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.
I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,
and nigh swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.

But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!

Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows
and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.




"The Word Plum"
by Helen Chasin

The Word Plum is delicious
Pout and push, luxury of
self-love, and savoring murmor
full in the mouth and falling
like fruit
taut skin
peirced, bitten, provoked into
juice, and tart flesh
question
and reply, lip and tongue
of pleasure.




"The Jewels"
by Baudelaire

My well-beloved was stripped. Knowing my whim,
She wore her tinkling gems, but naught besides:
And showed such pride as, while her luck betides,
A sultan's favoured slave may show to him.
When it lets off its lively, crackling sound,
This blazing blend of metal crossed with stone,
Gives me an ecstasy I've only known
Where league of sound and lustre can be found.
She let herself be loved: then, drowsy-eyed,
Smiled down from her high couch in languid ease.
My love was deep and gentle as the seas
And rose to her as to a cliff the tide.
My own approval of each dreamy pose,
Like a tarned tiger, cunningly she sighted:
And candour, with lubricity united,
Gave piquancy to every one she chose,
Her limbs and hips, burnished with changing lustres,
Before my eyes clairvoyant and serene,
Swarmed themselves, undulating in their sheen;
Her breasts and belly, of my vine the clusters,
Like evil angels rose, my fancy twitting,
To kill the peace which over me she'd thrown,
And to disturb her from the crystal throne
Where, calm and solitary, she was sitting.
So swerved her pelvis that, in one design,
Antiope's white rump it seemed to graft
To a boy's torso, merging fore and aft.
The talc on her brown tan seemed half-divine.
The lamp resigned its dying flame. Within,
The hearth alone lit up the darkened air,
And every time it sighed a crimson flare
It drowned in blood that amber-coloured skin.



"Warming Her Pearls"
by Carol Anne Duffy

Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
bids me wear them, warm then, until evening
when I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them
round her cool, white throat. All day I think of
her,
resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering
each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.
She's beautiful. I dream about her
in my attic bed; picture her dancing
with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent
beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.
I dust her shoulders with a rabbit's foot,
watch the soft blush seep through her skin
like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass
my red lips part as though I want to speak.
Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see
her every movement in my head...Undressing,
taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching
for the case, slipping naked into bed, the way
she always does...And I lie here awake,
knowing the pearls are cooling even now
in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night
I feel their absence and I burn.



"As Time Goes By"
by Herman Hupfeld, 1931

        This day and age we're living in,
        Gives cause for apprehension!
        With speed and new invention
        And things like fourth dimension.
                Yet we get a trifle weary
                With Mr. Einstein's theory,
                So we must get down to earth at times,
                Relax, relieve the tension.
                        And no matter what the progress,
                        Or what may yet be proved,
                        The simple facts of life are such,
                        They cannot be removed ......
        You must remember this,
        A kiss is still a kiss,
        A sigh is just a sigh.
        The fundamental things apply
           as time goes by.
        And when two lovers woo,
        They still say 'I love you',
        On that you can rely.
        No matter what the future brings
           as time goes by.
        Moonlight and love songs
           never out of date.
        Hearts full of passion
           jealousy and hate.
        Woman needs man
           (and man must have his mate)
        That no one can deny ...
        It's still the same old story,
        A fight for love and glory,
        A case of do or die.
        The world will always welcome lovers
           as time goes by.


"The Song of Wandering Aengus"
by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

        I went out to the hazel wood,
        Because a fire was in my head,
        And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
        And hooked a berry to a thread;
        And when white moths were on the wing,
        And moth-like stars were flickering out,
        I dropped the berry in a stream
        And caught a little silver trout.
        When I had laid it on the floor
        I went to blow the fire aflame,
        But something rustled on the floor,
        And someone called me by my name:
        It had become a glimmering girl
        With apple blossom in her hair
        Who called me by my name and ran
        And faded through the brightening air.
        Though I am old with wandering
        Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
        I will find out where she has gone,
        And kiss her lips and take her hands;
        And walk among long dappled grass,
        And pluck till time and times are done
        The silver apples of the moon,
        The golden apples of the sun.



"Iconolatry"
by Corey Mesler

You placed your ankles
on my shoulders
as I entered you.
It was quite a trick.
You were an athlete, a killer
softball shortstop.
Your legs were strong as
the mainstay of the
laboring bark.
I was younger then, still
entirely flummoxed by your
incandescent beauty.
You left me, of course, and
before you did you
undermined my confidence
with your diffident, dying
love. That’s the
way the story is written. That’s
its power, as story, as dream.
Still, I have that image,
your legs so open I thought I
would be welcome forever, forever.




"See Under Seduction"
by Corey Mesler

I wanted to seduce you without metaphor.
I wanted to watch real-world clothing
flutter away to the hard wood floor.
I wanted to take fasteners in my teeth and
spit them out. I wanted all this as if I
had never written a poem or hidden behind
a pilcrow. Instead I compared you to
a simmering day, one where I could not write
but only writhe in simple human craving.



"Desire in Your Very Mouth"
by Corey Mesler

I love
the way
your lips
unfold
like a book
opening.
Your dark
eyes,
Your
desire.
I love
the way
you place
yourself
right in
my path,
as if
I were
going anyplace
else
anyway.
Your lips
part,
to tell me
riddles,
to bamboozle me,
finally
to take
me in.

"Poem for -----"
by Corey Mesler

You will always be
what you became.
This is part of the process.
I wish I could recall
your name, or smile.
Instead I have you in a
Walter Anderson dress,
and naked, and with these
words in your mouth: I
could never love you




"Memphis Mojo"
by Corey Mesler

Living in this city
my emotions
are over-ripe, why

I spill to you,
why I often
seem like a kettle on

the boil.   It’s the way
Memphians
know how to lay that

organ ripple underneath
a song
as if it were something

in your blood.   It’s
Booker T.
It’s Jim Dickinson.   It’s

Reverend Al Green.
Memphis Mojo.
And I am just a pawn

living in a city of soul,
with a heart
like a stuck accelerator.


"Listener"
by Corey Mesler

            “Where Ma Rainey and Beethoven once unwrapped their bedrolls
             Tuba players now rehearse around the flagpole.”
                                    Bob Dylan


Music dies in me
like the last
plucked harp string.
A coagulant
replaces it, a deceptive
honey.  I strain
to notice the
backbeat; I long for
the plaintive
chorus, but they are
no longer there.
Where can I go now
when the night
becomes too much,
when the light
wavers like a balloon?
I turn as if on
a table.  The maestro
picks up a bazooka.
Remember that I love
you.  Remember
that I used to be called
beautiful.



"Sex Without Love"
by Sharon Olds

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.



"Unrequited Love Poem"
by Sierra DeMulder

You will be out with friends
when the news of her existence
will be accidentally spilled all over
your bar stool. Respond calmly
as if it was only a change in weather,
a punch line you saw coming.
After your fourth shot of cheap liquor,
leave the image of him kissing another woman
in the toilet.

In the morning, her name will be
in every headline: car crash, robbery, flood.
When he calls you, ignore the hundreds of ropes
untangling themselves in your stomach.
You are the best friend again. He invites
you over for dinner and you say yes
too easily. Remind yourself this isn’t special,
it’s only dinner, everyone has to eat.
When he greets you at the door, do not think
for one second you are the reason
he wore cologne tonight.

In his kitchen, he will hand-feed you
a piece of red pepper. His laugh
will be low and warm and it will make you
feel like candlelight. Do not think this is special.
Do not count on your fingers the number
of freckles you could kiss too easily.
Try to think of pilot lights and olive oil,
not everything you have ever loved about him,
or it will suddenly feel boiling and possible
and so close. You will find her bobby pins
laying innocently on his bathroom sink.
Her bobby pins. They look like the wiry legs
of spiders, splinters of her undressing
in his bed. Do not say anything.
Think of stealing them, wearing them
home in your hair. When he hugs you goodbye,
let him kiss you on the forehead.
Settle for target practice.

At home, you will picture her across town
pressing her fingers into his back
like wet cement. You will wonder
if she looks like you, if you are two bedrooms
in the same house. Did he fall for her features
like rearranged furniture? When he kisses her,
does she taste like wet paint?

You will want to call him.
You will go as far as holding the phone
in your hand, imagine telling him
unimaginable things like you are always
ticking inside of me and I dream of you
more often than I don’t.
My body is a dead language
and you pronounce
each word perfectly.

Do not call him.
Fall asleep to the hum of the VCR.
She must make him happy.
She must be
She must be his favorite place in Minneapolis.
You are a souvenir shop, where he goes
to remember how much people miss him
when he is gone.




"The People Look Like Flowers Again"
by Charles Bukowski

I sit here
drunk now.
I am
a series of
small victories
and large defeats
and I am as
amazed
as any other
that
I have gotten
from there to
here
without committing murder
or being
murdered;
without
having ended up in the
madhouse.

As I drink alone
again tonight
my soul despite all the past
agony
thanks all the gods
who were not
there
for me
then.



"I Love You More Than All the Windows in New York City"
by Jessica Greenbaum

The day turned into the city
and the city turned into the mind
and the moving trucks trumbled along
like loud worries speaking over
the bicycle’s idea
which wove between
the more armored vehicles of expression
and over planks left by the construction workers
on a holiday morning when no work was being done
because no matter the day, we tend towards
remaking parts of it—what we said
or did, or how we looked—
and the buildings were like faces
lining the banks of a parade
obstructing and highlighting each other
defining height and width for each other
offsetting grace and function
like Audrey Hepburn from
Jesse Owens, and the hearty pigeons collaborate
with wrought iron fences
and become recurring choruses of memory
reassembling around benches
we sat in once, while seagulls wheel
like immigrating thoughts, and never-leaving
chickadees hop bared hedges and low trees
like commas and semicolons, landing
where needed, separating
subjects from adjectives, stringing along
the long ideas, showing how the cage
has no door, and the lights changed
so the tide of sound ebbed and returned
like our own breath
and when I knew everything
was going to look the same as the mind
I stopped at a lively corner
where the signs themselves were like
perpendicular dialects in conversation and
I put both my feet on the ground
took the bag from the basket
so pleased it had not been crushed
by the mightiness of all else
that goes on and gave you the sentence inside.




"Out of the rolling ocean the crowd"
by Walt Whitman

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, I love you, before long I die,
I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look’d on you,
For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.

Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe,
Return in peace to the ocean my love,
I too am part of that ocean, my love, we are not so much separated,
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse forever;
Be not impatient – a little space – know you I salute the air, the ocean and the land,
Every day at sundown for your dear sake, my love.



"Desire"
by Langston Hughes

Desire to us
Was like a double death,
Swift dying
Of our mingled breath,
Evaporation
Of an unknown strange perfume
Between us quickly
In a naked
Room.




"Flower Of Love"
by Claude McKay

The perfume of your body dulls my sense.
I want nor wine nor weed; your breath alone
Suffices. In this moment rare and tense
I worship at your breast. The flower is blown
The saffron petals tempt my amorous mouth,
The yellow heart is radiant now with dew
Soft-scented, redolent of my loved South;
O flower of love! I give myself to you.
Uncovered on your couch of figured green,
Here let us linger indivisible.
The portals of your sanctuary unseen
Receive my offering, yielding unto me.
Oh, with our love the night is warm and deep!
The air is sweet, my flower, and sweet the flute
Whose music lulls our burning brain to sleep,
While we lie loving, passionate and mute.



"Love Poem"
by Jewel Kilcher

We made love last night
beneath the stars.
The moon's Cycloptic eye
unblinking
staring us down
uncovering our bodies of the darkness
like naked roots
we tangled ourselves
thighs and elbows heavy fruit
shiny as winter chestnuts.
Body of the man I love-
bitten mouth, tangerine lips
rose petal surprise of tongue,
I could wander the continent
of your golden valleys
without ceasing
and delight each day
in discovering
a new dawn
rising from the depths
of your mysterious being.




"Lovers Duet"
by Wendy Lee

What began as an urge to satisfy
something primal in me,
became a desire to unite deeply
with you.

I rose in love to your touch.
I lost myself in the fullness of your kiss,
the silky glide of your arms,
the strong harbor of your thighs,
the heat of your body
inside mine.

I opened to you
as you opened to me,
parting barriers unfelt until
we pressed freely beyond their sphere.

You moved with love,
holding me firmly,
giving me pleasure,
carefully stroking me fuller, harder,
more vulnerable.

Beyond the rattle of the clock
and the confines of the room.
Beyond cumbersome egos
and the constant pressure of earthly concerns.

Into an ancient rhythmical dance,
a duet of quickening passions,
breathless friction,
breathful sighs.
Your joy beckoned mine,
and mine yours.

Steadily rocking,
rolling through cannonball bursts
and delicate pulsations.
We came cheek to cheek,
sharing a sweet throaty song
of I Love Yous.




"The Thief"
by Dorianne Laux

What is it when your man sits on the floor
in sweatpants, his latest project
set out in front of him like a small world, maps
and photographs, diagrams and plans, everything
he hopes to build, invent or create,
and you believe in him as you always have,
even after the failures, even more now
as you set your coffee down
and move toward him to where he sits
oblivious of you, concentrating
in a square of sun -
you step over the rulers and blue graph-paper
to squat behind him, and he barely notices,
though you're still in your robe
which falls open a little as you reach
around his chest, feel for the pink
wheel of each nipple, the slow beat
of his heart, your ear pressed to his back
to listen - and you are torn,
not wanting to interrupt his work
but unable to keep your fingers
from dipping into the ditch in his pants,
torn again with tenderness
for the way his flesh grows unwillingly
toward your curved palm, toward the light,
as if you had planted it, this sweet root,
your mouth already an echo if its shape -
you slip your tongue into his ear
and he hears you, calling him away
from his work, the angled lines of his thoughts,
into the shapeless place you are bound
to take him, over bridges of bone, beyond
borders of skin, climbing over him
into the world of the body, its labyrinth
of ladders and stairs - and you love him
like the first time you loved him,
with equal measures of expectancy
and fear and awe, taking him with you
into the soft geometry of the flesh, the earth
before its sidewalks and cities,
its glistening spires,
stealing him back from the world he loves
into this other world he cannot build without you.



"Now!"
by Robert Browning

Out of your whole life give but a moment!
All of your life that has gone before,
All to come after it,-so you ignore,
So you make perfect the present; condense,
In a rapture of rage, for perfection's endowment,
Thought and feeling and soul and sense,
Merged in a moment which give me at last
You around me for once, you beneath me, above me-
Me, sure that, despite of time future, time past,
This tick of lifetime's one moment you love me!
How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet,
The moment eternal-just that and no more-
When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core,
While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips
meet!



"Night Secret"
by Else Lasker-Schuler
Translated by Janine Canan

I have chosen you
among all these stars.

Am awake, a listening flower
in the humming bush.

Our lips long to make honey,
our shimmering nights in full bloom.

From your body's holy spark
my heart lights its heavens.

All my dreams hang from your gold.
I have chosen you among all these stars.



"In This World"
by Izumi Shikibu

In this world
love has no color-
yet how deeply
my body
is stained with yours.



Untitled I
by Laura H. Kennedy

I am in the most exquisite distress
astride you now,
sweating
feeling an impetuous volcano
strain at its peak
inside
wanting to explode
my sweetest self
all over you.



"Late Afternoon"
by Molly Fisk

Carry me down into that liquid place again
where we meet without talking, even though
sometimes we're talking, where we laugh
without making a sound, the punchlines
floating off untethered and the corners
of your mouth tilting up like commas
around some beautiful phrase we don't
have to try to remember. Wedge your knee
between my thighs and slip your fingers
into me again, let them be glazed
with human light and lift them to your lips,
let them tell you what they found.
I'll kneel before the sunset of your skin,
its pale tone beginning to blush, evenly,
every cell inspired to red, pushing toward
that ruddiness of purpose, that sigh.
My hands will wrap around the small tendons
of your wrists to hold you here, lowered
over me like clouds before a storm,
the enormous thunder and then the rain.




"Marvelous Beast"
by Patti Tana

suspended from
your animal form
arms and legs circling
bodies touching
then glancing away

the tease of your nearness
and parting excites me
and now I am striding
at ease with your bigness
my pleasure spreading
in widening spheres

and now we are moving
faster and faster
though still unhurried
knowing this lasts
knowing how far
we can ride

and now I am
urging you enter
the quickening center
everything in me
shaped to an O




"Sun And Moon"
by Gina Zeitlin

It's all about sex,
we both know that.

But     what I wonder is
why
after every molecule of desire
in my body has been satisfied
after
the sudden moistening, the deep
fierce aching and rising heat,
after
the throbbing glory of release and the cries
of need and pleasure have dissolved
into the air,

Something like my soul slips from me
and goes to you,
without choice or question,
and wraps itself around you
all night, like the breath
of the moon

And why
I carry the thought of you
as constant as any sun
in my heart.



"Time To Embrace"
by Michael Foster

        The resolute moon is framed
        just above the treetops
        in the narrow parting of curtains.
        My eyes, startled by the full light,
        open abruptly to it and to the liquid
        embodiment of time -- digital time --
        hovering beneath the window:
        2:39, in angular, red numbers.
        The disorientation clears
        and I am returned
        to our analog time:
        the big hand (mine)
        on the bare swell of your hip
        your small hand clutching
        my shrunken, still damp
        cock like a lifeline, clinging
        to time that spends itself
        whether we spend it or not.
        While we were not looking
        the dogwood faded
        and is best forgotten
        leaving the moment uncluttered:
        the ascendant moon, lighting
        your flesh as it blossoms
        in its own season, comes
        full like the moon
        in the fullness of time.



"Seamless Beauty"
by Wendy Lee

        "The flower, the sky, your beloved can only be found in the present moment." Thich Nhat Hanh

        Bittersweet, this lying under you,
        your nose buried in my neck,
        'Can't get enough of your scent,' you mumble,
        and fall asleep.

        I kiss the sweat-licked shiny top of your head
        and twirl my finger slowly round and round
        a lock of hair at the base of your neck.
        Round and round, echoing the tug,
        pull and swirling of our energies
        which only moments ago, spun us out,
        off this soft bed, careening to a place
        where our joining felt infinite.
        Someday I'd like to die this way
        with you still inside me,
        fall into a deep sleep and never wake up,
        never have to know the parting,
        the spent wave leaving the shore.
        Your hair hugs my finger, and falls away.
        Each twirl brings you closer yet farther from me.
        The holding on becomes the letting go.



"I See My Beauty In You"
by Rumi

I see my beauty in you. I become
a mirror that cannot close its eyes

to your longing. My eyes wet with
yours in the early light. My mind

every moment giving birth, always
conceiving, always in the ninth

month, always the come-point. How
do I stand this? We become these

words we say, a wailing sound moving
out into the air. These thousands of

worlds that rise from nowhere, how
does your face contain them? I’m

a fly in your honey, then closer, a
moth caught in flame’s allure, then

empty sky stretched out in homage.




"Those Who Don’t Feel This Love"
by Rumi

Those who don’t feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don’t drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don’t want to change,

let them sleep…

This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
I you want to improve your mind that way,

sleep on.

I’ve given up on my brain.
I’ve torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.
If you’re not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,

and sleep.




"Woman Bathing"
by Raymond Carver

Natches River. Just below the falls.
Twenty miles from any town. A day
of dense sunlight
heavy with odors of love.
How long have we?
Already your body, sharpness of Picasso,
is drying in this highland air.
I towel down your back, your hips,
with my undershirt.
Time is a mountain lion.
We laugh at nothing,
and as I touch your breasts
even the ground-
squirrels
are dazzled.




"Desire"
by Connemara Wadsworth

Taking off
my clothes
piece by piece,
I turn to you,
unwrap my body,
feel you trace
its contours
with your fingers.
I am accustomed
to covering,
what I now bare,
watch you waken
and wash me
with your eyes.
I feel the cloth
of your skin,
uncovered,
inviting me in,
feel your breath
warm in my ear.
I lean closer
into you, feel
your blood surge
as you hold me
and I echo
the beat pulling
on us as I wrap
my legs around you
and open as morning
glories do
when the sun
warms them.



"Twin Flames"
by James Broughton

Embers of night flare up afresh
when you ignite the morning in my arms
and kindle the familiar hearth of love

Year after year we have warmed our lives
around the mystery of mutual fire
that heats our domain of risk and rapture

Whenever scorched however scarred
we hearten heal reconflagrate
Twin flames ever in blissful blaze



"After New Hampshire"
by Rosemary Klein

Folded into each other,
origami hearts, love
knots. Each time
I never believe
we will get any closer.
Afternoon lowers
her eyes as dusk
steals across the vision
of us, still touching.
Silk light.
Silk laughter.
My body floods
its boundaries.
You hold me through
each shudder, each
moan, my head tucked
into your chest, my legs
wrapped around your body,
my body filled with light,
my body light. Past
freedom and individuality
and the delight of my own
opinions, beyond serenity
and rock n’ roll, there is
happiness and I have found
its natural habitat beneath
your kiss and only
in your arms.




"Love Poem"
by Sarah Brown Weitzman

From here those slaps of color unravel
form you said and stepped back
from the Monet to see the separate strokes
fall into water and lilies again.
Shards of light take the eye to blossoms
pale as breasts. Sky, leaf, water, flower
merge and waver, blur then clear
as each takes something from the other
to reflect or repeat so that not a single
moment is preserved but several.

Later in the splay of late afternoon
we repeat that painting.
The spread blooms of our bodies
blend and shift and merge again until
we know as Monet knew in the crystal rush
of water over the sun-glazed lilies
the radiance of an instant.




"The Sweetest Thing That Ever Grew"
by Cento

Well-meaning readers, you that come as friends,
continuous as the stars that shine,
make me thy lyre, even as the forest is,
from cave to cave through the thick-twined vine. 4

Or with thy mind against my mind, to hear
and for mysterious things of faith rely,
the low light fails us in elusive skies,
and, in the churchyard cottage, I. 8

A sloop of amber slips away.
O blush not so! O blush not so!
Inside, you hold me back, make me wait
while at the bed's foot lay the quiver, bow. 12

It's the wetness I like,
all over the sheets and you.
You are a complete instrument:
happy and proud; at last I knew. 16

Sometimes also kneeling for hours on end,
and ever when the moon was low,
the storm in my dream made me open
on the faces that drift and blow. 20

A moon swims out of a cloud.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
What means at this unusual hour the light?
I had a dream, which was not all a dream. 24

When every cell of my body is bursting with life
and echoes of the harshest sound are sweet,
I see your lips descend to catch my lips.
O let but mine their pouting meet! 28

The tale of love gives fame for evermore.
So burns the God, consuming in desire.
Penetration till it comes like the flood -
May I beneath the shaft expire! 32

All I request is a portion of love;
but wherever the truth may be,
full of love, and full of truth,
lovers, continual lovers, only repay me. 36

Be what you will, black night, red dawn.
My darling is hotter than midsummer night.
I loosen my robe and drift in an orchid boat
deep in the deepening night. 40

In a glitter of ecstasy,
we, from the fetters of the light unbound,
rise, and float away on teeming pleasure,
seek out - less often sought than found. 44

The tide is full, the moon lies fair,
fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail;
and the warm wind is neither still nor loud,
like the seething sound in a shell. 48

Glory be to God for dappled things!
The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
it is a beauteous evening, calm and free. 52

Love delivers to me its sweetest thoughts,
translucent lovely shining clear.
I sense another world close to me,
its accents of another sphere. 56

A dream remembered in a dream -
in such a night, when passing clouds give place.
In happy dreams your smile makes day of night
for I am blind to all but to thy face. 60

And the midnight moon is weaving.
O slip the collar off of base desire!
A tear-drop glistening on the lash -
the universal wheel of Fate in ire. 64

So sweet that joy is almost pain.
Passion or conquest , wander where they will;
and beautiful it is to walk beside
kissed by strawberries on the hill. 68

I shall not see the shadows,
the cloud of mortal destiny.
Feed the heart of the night with fire
till, framed with perfect symmetry. 72

Eros seizes and shakes my very soul.
In seas of flame my plunging soul is drowned.
Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
How should we grow in other ground? 76

For you and what we do at night together -
those paths so dear to me -
responding, growing warm, oh, in how slow a fashion.
If ever two were one, then surely we. 80

My thoughts might not be, like my body, bare.
In liquid raptures I dissolve all o'er.
Two lives, a moment, fullness, bliss
between the sun and moon upon the shore. 84

The moonlight musical, the darkness clinging,
the ruby grinning for its bliss,
fragrance too rich for keeping, too light to remember,
be praised that time can stop like this! 88

One look is more than a thousand in gold;
and whom I love, I love indeed.
We meet in moments truant from time.
Let us away, my love, with happy speed! 92

I love your face when we are making love.
I love to feel you grow and grow be -
deeper and deeper into,
deeply dipping inside me. 96

I open to you like the petals of a rose.
I know your taste and the smell of you.
There is nothing I need do to please but be
--- the sweetest thing that ever grew. 100