Love Poems

Saffron · Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:44 pm

Suzanne wrote:

Each person has a natural smell, not an odor, but a scent.


	Quote: what good is it to be the lime burner's daughter left with no trace as if not spoken to in the act of love as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

These are my favorite lines. This is a very sensuous poem. I love the idea of the transfer of one person’s scent to another and how that scent will leave a mark, something lasting, and very personal.

The lines you picked out are also some of my favorite lines in the poem. I also agree that each person has a smell. My daughter like to wear my robe or to lay in my bed because, they say, it smells like me. I have actually had the experience of being marked by another person's scent. The first time I felt madly in love with a man I was struck by his smell. I couldn't get enough. After the first time I was with with him, I could smell him all the next day on my skin. I must have looked like a fool, smelling my self all day long!

Suzanne · Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:59 pm

Saffron wrote:


	Quote: I must have looked like a fool, smelling my self all day long!

OH, I can remember smelling and smiling too! I wonder if men experience the same. Michael Ondaatje seems to.

Jlane5516 · Thu Jan 07, 2010 12:09 am

Some of my earliest memories are of scents. My mother had a distinct smell.. One of books and Frangipanis which she used as bookmarks. My father remarried(I was 12)and at the ceremony I was put on the spot to deliver a short speech. The only thing that came to my mind was " You do not smell like my mother."

After my first date with my present fiance I remember loving her smell.. the smell of Frangipanis. I smiled the entire way home after that date.

Saffron · Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:38 pm


	Jlane5516 wrote: Some of my earliest memories are of scents. My mother had a distinct smell.. One of books and Frangipanis which she used as bookmarks. My father remarried(I was 12)and at the ceremony I was put on the spot to deliver a short speech. The only thing that came to my mind was " You do not smell like my mother." After my first date with my present fiance I remember loving her smell.. the smell of Frangipanis. I smiled the entire way home after that date.

I know just what you mean about smell. My daughters like to wear my robe because they say it smells like me. I still like to think about and am amused by the memory of being struck by the smell of a man I was falling in love with at the time, as he got out of my car. His scent lingered and it made me smile all the way home.

Saffron · Fri Mar 05, 2010 8:38 pm

I picked up The Love Poems of may Swenson today. I read the first poem and I'm hooked. Here is the first 6 lines of Four-Word Lines.

Your eyes are just
like bees, and I
feel like a flower.
There brown power makes
a breeze go over
my skin. when your

Swenson catches something in her first 3 lines that I have been thinking about for sometime. How it feels to be looked at by by someone that loves you.

One more and I will post the whole thing.

Neither Wanting More

To lie with you
in a field of grass
to lie there forever
and let time pass

Touching lightly
shoulder and thigh
Neither wanting more
Neither asking why

To have your whole
cool body's length
along my own
to know the strength

of a secret tide
of longing seep
into our veins
go deep...deep

Dissolving flesh
and melting bone
Oh to lie with you
alone

To feel your breast
rise with my sigh
To hold you mirrored
in my eye

Neither wanting more
Neither asking why

I think the lines I like best is

Dissolving flesh
and melting bone

At it's best, I think sex can create the deepest kind of trust and comfort between two people.

giselle · Sat Mar 06, 2010 4:22 pm

saffron:

Neither Wanting More

This is a sensual poem, and sexual, and I think she captures human sexuality well as a very special connection between people. My favourite line is:

"To feel your breast
rise with my sigh"

I wondered about the meaning of the poem. Does she mean "neither wanting more" from this (sexual) experience or "neither wanting more" than this experience from life in general? Or maybe both?

Saffron · Sat Mar 06, 2010 4:40 pm


	giselle wrote: saffron: Neither Wanting More This is a sensual poem, and sexual, and I think she captures human sexuality well as a very special connection between people. My favourite line is: "To feel your breast rise with my sigh" I wondered about the meaning of the poem. Does she mean "neither wanting more" from this (sexual) experience or "neither wanting more" than this experience from life in general? Or maybe both?

I think it is both -- the ultimate sensation of satisfaction --sexual and emotional together. And I like that set of lines too, but then I'd have to throw in --

Touching lightly
shoulder and thigh

and

To have your whole
cool body's length
along my own

I think one of the aspects of this poem that I like is the description of the two lying sated and still, in a position that still indicates the sexual activity that has taken place. Without being too graphic and disclosing -- it is one of the greatest pleasures I've know, the moments of feeling utterly safe and still next to a lover. Safety and trust, I think are the psychological underpinnings of lasting love and sex is one of the ways to construct this foundation.

giselle · Sat Mar 06, 2010 7:13 pm

saffron

"I think one of the aspects of this poem that I like is the description of the two lying sated and still, in a position that still indicates the sexual activity that has taken place."

Yes, this is the opposite of the couple sitting in bed, 2 feet apart, staring staight ahead, maybe one smoking a cigarette, although that's a bit passe now.

The poem strikes an excellent balance between the physical and the psychological aspects of sex while ultimately emphasizing the psychological, I think. Considering the overwhelming representation of sex and its physicality in books, media and film, where much of it lacks the psychological dimension, this simple poem does a great job of capturing this critical missing element.

Saffron · Sun Mar 07, 2010 7:00 am


	giselle wrote: The poem strikes an excellent balance between the physical and the psychological aspects of sex while ultimately emphasizing the psychological, I think. Considering the overwhelming representation of sex and its physicality in books, media and film, where much of it lacks the psychological dimension, this simple poem does a great job of capturing this critical missing element.

I agree.

A hint for quoting another member. Use the quote button. When the Post A Reply box opens, you can decide if you want to quote the entire post or delete what you do not want to be quoted.

One last thing -- I want to try out something I just figured out -- or I might have just figured out -- we'll see.

Edited in: It worked! Way cool. If you are wondering -- the line.

giselle · Sun Mar 07, 2010 11:53 pm

those are really awesome lines Saffron, not sure how you did that. and i do use the quote function sometimes but I find it a bit cumbersone if I just want to excerpt one line ... however it does format the reply better than using copy and paste.

Saffron · Fri Feb 11, 2011 8:57 pm

It seems to me it is time to make a post on this thread. I've read Stephen Dunn before, but tonight is the first time I've read this one. The second stanza really tickled me.

The Kiss
by Stephen Dunn

She pressed her lips to mind.
—a typo

How many years I must have yearned
for someone’s lips against mind.
Pheromones, newly born, were floating
between us. There was hardly any air.

She kissed me again, reaching that place
that sends messages to toes and fingertips,
then all the way to something like home.
Some music was playing on its own.

Nothing like a woman who knows
to kiss the right thing at the right time,
then kisses the things she’s missed.
How had I ever settled for less?

I was thinking this is intelligence,
this is the wisest tongue
since the Oracle got into a Greek’s ear,
speaking sense. It’s the Good,

defining itself. I was out of my mind.
She was in. We married as soon as we could.

oblivion · Sun Feb 13, 2011 4:02 am

I was out of my mind. She was in.

Wonderful! Love it!

lady of shallot · Sun Feb 13, 2011 2:29 pm

"The first time I felt madly in love with a man I was struck by his smell. I couldn't get enough. After the first time I was with with him, I could smell him all the next day on my skin. I must have looked like a fool, smelling my self all day long!"

Saffron this actually brought tears to my eyes. A long time ago when a lover left me, my biggest regret was that I had no item of clothing of his. Oh, how I longed for that!

Both the poems on this page are wonderful. How have I missed this thread?

Oh love poems. I was once addicted to Stage Love.

giselle · Sun Feb 13, 2011 5:38 pm

This Stephen Dunn poem has so many love images and truths, some painfully true.

"Pheromones, newly born, were floating
between us. There was hardly any air."

Being so in love that one gasps for air - I don't know if pheremones are to blame but I think this is a true and common enough experience in the good/bad way so characteristic of love. Not just a human experience rooted in emotion and physiology but one that captures that occasional intensity of human relationship .. a transcendent, intense relationship experience that changes us forever. Pure magic.

Saffron · Sun Feb 13, 2011 5:45 pm


	lady of shallot wrote: "The first time I felt madly in love with a man I was struck by his smell. I couldn't get enough. After the first time I was with with him, I could smell him all the next day on my skin. I must have looked like a fool, smelling my self all day long!"

I have had this same experience. Though he is long gone I still think about enjoying his smell.

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