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Get your words heard beside the sea.

Inviting your short poetry as comments here

so I can read them at Brighton, beyond and share..

Your stories, thoughts and prose

Here are some of the LOVE poems that have been passed my way to make your day..

Take a read..

Turn up to Dr Johnson’s House on Valentines Day

or ship up to Greyfriars Kirk for Festival Day

or hear them at speed on a recording just for you.. here

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy 

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

It promises light

like the careful undressing of love.

Here.

It will blind you with tears

like a lover.

It will make your reflection

a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.

Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

possessive and faithful

as we are,

for as long as we are.

Take it.

Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,

if you like.

Lethal.

Its scent will cling to your fingers,

cling to your knife.

Lullaby by W H Auden

Lay your sleeping head, my love,

Human on my faithless arm;

Time and fevers burn away

Individual beauty from

Thoughtful children, and the grave

Proves the child ephemeral:

But in my arms till break of day

Let the living creature lie,

Mortal, guilty, but to me

The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:

To lovers as they lie upon

Her tolerant enchanted slope

In their ordinary swoon,

Grave the vision Venus sends

Of supernatural sympathy,

Universal love and hope;

While an abstract insight wakes

Among the glaciers and the rocks

The hermit’s carnal ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity

On the stroke of midnight pass

Like vibrations of a bell,

And fashionable madmen raise

Their pedantic boring cry:

Every farthing of the cost,

All the dreaded cards foretell,

Shall be paid, but from this night

Not a whisper, not a thought,

Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:

Let the winds of dawn that blow

Softly round your dreaming head

Such a day of welcome show

Eye and knocking heart may bless,

Find the mortal world enough;

Noons of dryness find you fed

By the involuntary powers,

Nights of insult let you pass

Watched by every human love.

I do not love you… by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

The Song of Wandering Aengus by W.B.Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

Her Song by Brian Patten

For no other reason than I love him wholly

I am here; for this one night at least

The world has shrunk to a boyish breast

On which my head, brilliant and exhausted, rests,

And can know of nothing more complete.

Let the dawn assemble all its guilts, its worries

And small doubts that, but for love, would infect

This perfect heart.
I am as far beyond doubt as the sun.

I am as far beyond doubt as is possible.

Miles Away by Carol Ann Duffy

I want you and you are not here. I pause

in this garden, breathing the colour thought is

before language into still air. Even your name

is a pale ghost and, though I exhale it again

and again, it will not stay with me. Tonight

I make you up, imagine you, your movements clearer

than the words I have you say you said before.

Wherever you are now, inside my head you fix me

with a look, standing here whilst cool late light

dissolves into the earth. I have got your mouth wrong,

but still it smiles. I hold you closer, miles away,

inventing love, until the calls of nightjars

interrupt and turn what was to come, was certain,

into memory. The stars are filming us for no one.

Aware by Denise Levertov

When I found the door

I found the vine leaves

speaking among themselves in abundant

whispers.

My presence made them

hush their green breath,

embarrassed, the way

humans stand up, buttoning their jackets,

acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if

the conversation had ended

just before you arrived.

I liked

the glimpse I had, though,

of their obscure

gestures. I liked the sound

of such private voices. Next time

I’ll move like cautious sunlight, open

the door by fractions, eavesdrop

peacefully

To My Valentine  by Ogden Nash

More than a catbird hates a cat,

Or a criminal hates a clue,

Or the Axis hates the United States,

That’s how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,

And more than a grapefruit squirts,

I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,

And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,

Or a juggler hates a shove,

As a hostess detests unexpected guests,

That’s how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,

And more than the subway jerks,

I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,

And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,

And below, if such there be,

As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,

That’s how you’re loved by me.

I wanna be yours by John Cooper Clarke

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner

Breathing in your dust

I wanna be your Ford Cortina

I will never rust

If you like your coffee hot

Let me be your coffee pot

You call the shots

I wanna be yours

I wanna be your raincoat

For those frequent rainy days

I wanna be your dreamboat

When you want to sail away

Let me be your teddy bear

Take me with you anywhere

I don’t care 
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter

I will not run out

I wanna be the electric heater

You’ll get cold without

I wanna be your setting lotion

Hold your hair in deep devotion

Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean

That’s how deep is my devotion

By La Fontaine: La vie est breve, un feau de re’ve, un peu d’amour, fini – bon jour

The Life That I Have by Leo Marks

The life that I have

Is all that I have

And the life that I have

Is yours

The love that I have

Of the life that I have

Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have

A rest I shall have

Yet death will be but a pause

For the peace of my years

In the long green grass

Will be yours and yours and yours.

Giving Up Smoking – Wendy Cope

There’s not a Shakespeare sonnet

Or a Beethoven quartet

That’s easier to like than you

Or harder to forget.

You think that sounds extravagant?

I haven’t finished yet –

I like you more than I would like

To have a cigarette.

hear all of these poetry on a special recording here