Love Looked at Me and Laughed and other poems - 17. Brian

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Poem No. 45

The three of me

were quite surprised to see

the shock you there received,

for I am what I seem.

What did it mean

that look you gave

what turmoil did it say

what reaction grave.

For men are of parts three

Mind, Dick and heart…

and though I am what I seem

I have much more of me between.

Do you love me…

my heart strikes a coup d'état

and topples my head to feet

and all are quite surprised to see

the possible reason it could be.

If my love loves me

then all the wonders we shall see

if my love in love be

then great in value are we three.

Poem No. 46

“…amongst the books where much was read,

I pressed the leaves of a love long dead…”

Wordsworth

Around a love long dead,

I fold the leaves anew;

Ache through them what was said,

Spoken in wont of you.

For the lack, autumn’s never done,

Stealing the shade of warmer fires,

Bearing centuries’ comparison;

Reading in them their own desires.

Such ashes always spring to mind

The passions they were consumed with;

And in them can I ever find

The madness compelling to myth.

But as these words languish in spite,

Each one in turn has come to learn,

They but live to take my love’s height,

And never mind the pain of spurn.

Around a love long dead,

Thoughts laid here bare and bleak,

Ache through what can’t be said

When ink alone must speak.

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Poem No. 47

[written four years after No. 46]

Brian

The same old problem,

The same old crisis

Where one word promises

To bloom into another;

Where one idea but poses

All the problems that

Neither poetry, nor every power

Of action incarnate

Can keep from sliding

Into old familiar excesses;

That love is nothing but

One idea promising to pull me

Deep down into another,

Old problem.

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