"Hap" by Thomas Hardy

IF but some vengeful god would call to me

From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,

Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,

That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”

Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die,

Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;

Half-eased, too, that a Powerfuller than I

Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,

And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?

—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,

And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan….

These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown

Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

"Sonnet 75" by William Shakespeare

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look,
Possessing or pursuing no delight
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

"Sonnet #43" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

"Postcards" by Wendy Cope

At first I sent you a postcard
From every city I went to.
Grüsse aus Bath, aus Birmingham,
Aus Rotterdam, aus Tel Aviv.
Mit Liebe. Cards from you arrived
In English, with many commas.
Hope, you're fine and still alive,
Says one from Hong Kong. By that time
We weren't writing quite as often.

Now we're nearly nine years away
From the lake and the blue mountains,
And the room with the balcony,
But the heat and light of those days
Can reach this far from time to time.
Your latest was from Senegal,
Mine from Helsinki. I don't know
If we'll meet again. Be happy.
If you hear this, send a postcard.

"After the Lunch" by Wendy Cope

On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes,
The weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I've fallen in love.

On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:
This is nothing. you're high on the charm and the drink.
But the juke-box inside me is playing a song
That says something different. And when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair
I am tempted to skip. You're a fool. I don't care.
The head does its best but the heart is the boss-
I admit it before I am halfway across.

"Transcending Ego" by Don Iannone

Into my life you staggered
like some teetering drunk in the night
I fed you, gave you a place to rest
Eventually we became friends, then lovers

I loved you, almost as much as I love myself
This love’s ended, but you’re still here–
parading about naked in broad daylight
Even worse, lurking about as a ghost in my dreams

I built you up, you tore me down
I gave you my best, always you demanded more
I drew up separation agreements, time and time again
You never signed any of them

Why are you still here?
There’s nothing left to give you, or myself
What can I give you
that will make you go away, forever?

Even your silence draws life out of me
There is no peace as long as you’re here
No peace until I forget your name
No living until you’re dead

Not even death can extricate me
from your insatiable wantings
For somehow, you’ve embedded yourself
even in my own dark death wish

Beware, for I shall be watching you
as I sit in motionless silence
Without thinking, without doing
Watching you pass away into emptiness

"Variation on the Word Sleep" by Margaret Atwood

I would like to watch you sleeping, which may not happen. I would like to watch you, sleeping. I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head and walk with you through that lucent wavering forest of bluegreen leaves with its watery sun & three moons towards the cave where you must descend, towards your worst fear I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief at the center of your dream, from the grief at the center I would like to follow you up the long stairway again & become the boat that would row you back carefully, a flame in two cupped hands to where your body lies beside me, and as you enter it as easily as breathing in I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary.

"A Dream Within A Dream" by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

"The Poor Fools" by Brian Patten

You ask why poets speak so often
In the language of goodbyes.
It’s because beginnings take them by surprise.
Love comes and hammers them,
And then the poor fools are lost for words.
They abandon their pens, and their fingers
Itch for other things: buttons, nipples, zips –
For everything but the poor abandoned pen.

"It is Not So Much That I Miss You" by Dorothea Grossman

It is not so much that I miss you
as the remembering
which I suppose is a form of missing
except more positive,
like the time of the blackout
when fear was my first response
followed by love of the dark.

"This is a Love Poem" by Mary Fell

My blood
suddenly
knows you are gone

It is shouting your name

It runs
down to the ends of my fingers
looking for you

It wants to be
a piece of red wool
unraveling
all the way to Central America

It wants to be a boat
coming into the harbor at Managua
carrying fruit

Through all the rooms of my body
it is running
opening doors

A child in a tantrum stamps
red shoes
demanding to know where you are

"Balance" by James Harris

Next summer she'll be too old for naps,

but this July, with the right story

and patience, you can still

settle her down in our bed

in the wide berth of a weekend afternoon.

And that's why we're making love now

we're in her small room. Where you shift

on top. Where we coax and quicken

and your right hand,

braced against the wall,

inches up cool plaster.

Wind pushes in again and again,

always leaving slack the blind

to knock against the sash.

Yet, we feel no breeze through the window-

as if the blind's tugged inward

to balance a recurring loss of pressure

elsewhere in the house.

"After Years" by Ted Kooser

Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer's retina
as he stood on the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell.

"Red, Orange, Yellow" by Donald Hall

For five years of my life, or ten,
I lived no-color.
In a beige room I talked
clipped whispers
with a lady who faded while I looked at her.
Even our voices were oyster-white.
My generous monsters
were pale as puff-balls of dust.
Leaves on trees I grew
turned dingy. I mowed pale grass.
Friends parked station-wagons like huge dead mice
by my house that was nearly invisible.
Dollar bills lost color
when I kept them in my wallet.
I dreamed of mountains gray like oceans
with no house-lights on them,
only coffins that walked and talked
and buried each other continually
in beige rock in beige sand.

So I looked for the color yellow.
I drank yellow for breakfast,
orange at lunch, gold for dinner.
Red was the color of pain.
Now I eat red
all day. The sky is her yellow.
Sometimes no-color years
rise in slow motion,
like Mozart on drums. Their name is Chumble.
They smile
like pale grass, looking downward.
But red sticks
needles in my eyes.
Yellow
dozes on the beach at Big Sur
or in the center of my new room
like a cactus
that lives without water, for a year.

"Resignation" by Nikki Giovanni

I love you

because the earth turns round the sun

because the North wind blows north

sometimes

because the Pope is Catholic

and most Rabbis Jewish

because winters flow into springs

and the air clears after a storm

because only my love for you

despite the charms of gravity

keeps me from falling off this Earth

into another dimension

I love you

because it is the natural order of things

I love you

like the habit I picked up in college

of sleeping through lectures

or saying I'm sorry

when I get stopped for speeding

because I drink a glass of water

in the morning

and chain-smoke cigarettes

all through the day

because I take my coffee Black

and my milk with chocolate

because you keep my feet warm

though my life a mess

I love you

because I don't want it

any other way.

I am helpless

in my love for you

It makes me so happy

to hear you call my name

I am amazed you can resist

locking me in an echo chamber

where your voice reverberates

through the four walls

sending me into spasmatic ecstasy

I love you

because it's been so good

for so long

that if I didn't love you

I'd have to be born again

and that is not a theological statement

I am pitiful in my love for you

The Dells tell me Love

is so simple

the thought though of you

sends indescribably delicious multitudinous

thrills throughout and through-in my body

I love you

because no two snowflakes are alike

and it is possible

if you stand tippy-toe

to walk between the raindrops

I love you

because I am afraid of the dark

and can't sleep in the light

because I rub my eyes

when I wake up in the morning

and find you there

because you with all your magic powers were

determined that

I should love you

because there was nothing for you but that

I would love you

I love you

because you made me

want to love you

more than I love my privacy

my freedom my commitments

and responsibilities

I love you 'cause I changed my life

to love you

because you saw me one friday

afternoon and decided that I would

love you

I love you I love you I love you

----

This is dedicated to Alex...particularly the last line.