Modern Poetry Text – Set 1 – 2017

‘Your father always knew how to love hard,’
you tell me, crawling over broken glass, surviving
house fires and car wrecks, gather ash
for your garden, Hookum, and for the old stories
where the Indian never loses . . . .

—– —
#2

I have salmon blood
from my mother and father
and always ignore barriers
and bridges, only follow
this simple and genetic map
that you have drawn
in my interior, this map
hat always leads back
to that exact place
where you are

—– —
#3

Love Me In The Springtime
When All Is Green & New
Love Me In The Summer
When The Sky Is Oh So Blue
Love Me In The Autumn
When The Leaves R Turning Brown

—– —
#4

Your soft voice never silent
It’s forever in my ears
Serenading every moment
And calming all my fears.

—– —
#5

A charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld.
The lady dare not lift her veil
For fear it be dispelled.
But peers beyond her mesh
And wishes, and denies
Lest interview annul a want
That image satisfies.

—– —
#6

Farewell false love, the oracle of lies,
A mortal foe and enemy to rest,
An envious boy, from whom all cares arise,
A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed,
A way of error, a temple full of treason,
In all effects contrary unto reason.

—– —
#7

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I
And I will luve thee still, my dear
Till a’ the seas gang dry

—– —
#8

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

—– —
#9

Have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills
Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain
I have seen the lady April bringing in the daffodils
Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.

—– —
#10

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.
Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

—– —
#11

Too late for love, too late for joy
Too late, too late!
You loitered on the road too long
You trifled at the gate
The enchanted dove upon her branch
Died without a mate
The enchanted princess in her tower
Slept, died, behind the grate
Her heart was starving all this while
You made it wait.

—– —
#12

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms
Which I gaze on so fondly today
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms
Like fairy-gifts fading away
Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art
Let thy loveliness fade as it will
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.