Love Armed

	Love in Fantastic Triumph sat,
	Whilst Bleeding Hearts around him flowed,
	For whome Fresh pains he did create,
	And strange Tyrannic power he showed;
	From thy Bright Eyes he took his fire,
	Which round about, in sport he hurled;
	But 'twas from mine he took desire,
	Enough to undo the armorous world

	From me he took his sighs and tears,
	From thee his Pride and Cruelty;
	From me his Languishments and Fears,
	And every Killing Dart from thee;
	Thus thou and I, the God have armed.
	And set him up a Deity;
	But my poor Heart alone is harmed,
	Whilst thine the Victor is, and free.

		Aphra Behn (1640-1689)

Cider

"In the steam of hot cider you can find nature. You know?" she smiles at me over her blue mug, the smile's an invitation, playful and sly.

This is the woman I love, I think to myself. I must win her. Maybe I already have. Maybe I never will.

I reach across the table and take her hand from where it is resting on the mug. I kiss the back of her hand, then the inside of her slender wrist. She lets me. I linger, holding my lips to her pulse, feel the rhythm of the solar system against my lips.

She cups my cheek in her hand. Her hand still radiates the heat of the cider.

"You love too much," she murmurs, "You think of love as a friend. Love could hit you up for money, talk about you behind your back, stand you up when you most need its company, and you would chalk it up to fate, to the weave of poor fortune. Never to the cruelties and indifference of love itself."

What can you do, when you are in love with a woman like that?

Kirk Israel
 
 

We had but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
but thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Times winged chariot hurring near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashs all my lust:
The graves a fine and private place,
But none, I think, there do embrase.

Now therefore, while the youthfull hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At evey poor with instant fires,
Now let us sport us why we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in this slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet, we will make him run.

        Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

from "CINEMA PARADISO"

        "Once...a king gave a feast for the loveliest princesses in the 
realm.  Now, a soldier who was standing guard saw the king's daughter 
go by. She was the most beautiful of all and he fell instantly in love.
But what is a simple soldier next to the daughter of a king?
        At last he succeeded in meeting her, and he told her he could no 
longer live without her. 
        The princess was so taken by the depth of his feeling that she said 
to the soldier, "If you can wait for 100 days and 100 nights under my 
balcony, at the end of it I shall be yours."
        With that the soldier went and waited one day...
        two days...
        then ten...
        then twenty.
        Each evening the princess looked out, and he never moved!  In rain, 
in wind, in snow, he was always there!  Birds shat on his head, bees stung 
him- but he didn't budge.
        At the end of ninety nights he had become all dry, all white.  Tears 
streamed from his eyes.  He couldn't hold them back.  He didn't even have 
the strength to sleep.  And all that time, the princess watched him.
        At long last, it was the 99th night...
                and the soldier stood up, took his chair and left."

        "What happened at the end?"

        "That is the end.  And don't ask what it means.  I don't know."

                        Giuseppe Tornatore

Dance Figure

               For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee

               Dark eyed,
               O woman of my dreams,
               Ivory sandalled,
               There is none like thee among the dancers,
               None with swift feet.
               I have not found thee in the tents,
               In the broken darkness.
               I have not found thee at the well-head
               Among the women with pitchers.

               Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark
               Thy face as a river with lights.

               White as an almond are thy shoulders;
               As new almonds stripped from the husk.
               They guard thee not with eunuchs;
               Not with bars of copper.

               Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy rest.
               A brown robe, with threads of gold woven in
                        patterns, hast thou gathered about thee,
               O Nathat-Ikanaie, 'Tree-at-the-river'.

               As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon me;
               Thy fingers a frosted stream.

               Thy maidens are white like pebbles;
               Their music about thee!

               There is none like thee among the dancers;
               None with swift feet.

                    Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

...It was great seeing Annie again, and I
realized what a terrific person she was and how
much fun it was knowing her, and I thought of
that old joke, you know, this, this, this guy goes
to a psychiatrist and says, Doc, uh, my brother's
crazy, he thinks he's a chicken and, uh, the
doctor says, well why don't you turn him in?  And
the guy says, I would, but I need the eggs.  Well, I
guess that's pretty much how I feel about
relationships.  You know, they're totally irrational
and crazy and absurd and, but uh, I guess we
keep going through it... because... most of us
need the eggs.

        Woody Allen