Some Love Poems for Valentine's Day

i carry your heart with me . . .

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

WHEN YOU ARE OLD
by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you.
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

since feeling is first 

by E.E. Cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

Aubade

BY AMBER FLORA THOMAS

I know my leaving in the breakfast table mess.   

Bowl spills into bowl: milk and bran, bread crust   

crumbled. You push me back into bed.

More “honey” and “baby.”

Breath you tell my ear circles inside me,   

curls a damp wind and runs the circuit   

of my limbs. I interrogate the air,

smell Murphy’s Oil Soap, dog kibble.

No rose. No patchouli swelter. And your mouth—   

sesame, olive. The nudge of your tongue

behind my top teeth.

To entirely finish is water entering water.   

Which is the cup I take away?

More turning me. Less your arms reaching   

around my back. You ask my ear

where I have been and my body answers,   

all over kingdom come.

Love Dream, Eros Dream

In dream I, you, my hands

Cupped over your breasts

Bellies touching

My lips on your neck

Tongue in your mouth

In your ear. I

Nuzzle under your arm. Tongue

In your navel

Fragrant hair in my mouth.

Kiss you

Behind the knee

On the arch of the foot

Loving you from crown

To root of your very

Being.

 [Tomás Mac Giolla Phádraig, Baile Áth Cliath, Éire]

February’s Dream

the snow lies thick upon the earth

the groundhog saw his shadow

the nights are long and bitter cold

but I have watched closely

and have seen some signs:

the morning concert of chirping birds

tree twigs turned a shade of red

silver maples’ pregnant buds

I have felt the quickening

first hope in this hard winter

I look for the crocus

and remember the birth

of a love

[Bob Coughlin, 1979]

Surprise (Haiku)

Crocus pushing through

The snow.  First love blooming now,

So unexpected!

                           Bob Coughlin/January 23, 2014