Celebrating love
Pablo Neruda’s Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines, and Anthony McNeil’s the Catherine Letter are heartbreak poems that first come to mind when thinking of ‘love’ poems. So, too, is the sad Anabelle Lee, by Edgar Allen Poe.
The poems below, however, are not all heartbreak poems although Camille Dungy’s poem, written in the voice of a former freeman now slave, is a beautifully sad reminder that Valentine’s Day is almost smack in the middle of Black History month.
At Meeting Ground, we share poem-chocolates for Valentine’s Day. Here are some. Enjoy the flavours.
Love Is
A giving
& a measured taking
amputation
re-creating
everlasting
interface
a prison
& an open space
a teasing glimpse
of holy grail
a generator
that can fail
the naked jugular
the knife
the torsion balance in my life
Reprinted by permission: Mervyn Morris (Jamaica) Peeling Orange, Carcanet: 2017
From the Unwritten Letters of Joseph Freeman
(February, 1841)
Melinda, I’ve been preparing to write.
That peculiar girl named Molly,
who has a bit of liberty in the house,
has said she’ll find some paper.
I have practiced mixing charred wood with water
and have managed to shave a twig
so one end nearly resembles a nib,
but tonight Lila got caught up
under the good Doctor’s whip
for such a little offense. I am frightened.
Doctor Jackson brought in a new troop of slaves today.
A boy of thirteen among them had the welted cheek
that speaks of a driver’s dissatisfaction.
Lila put a poultice on to ease the swelling,
but Jackson wants the boy to understand his place
and thinks a scar will help. Lila’s back
and neck and arms have thirty new wounds
to replace the one she thought to heal.
Melinda, how is Jacob? Ever yours,
Reprinted by permission: Camille Dungy (USA). This is the first in a series of poems, taken from ‘Suck on the Marrow’ Red Hen Press 2010 (Winner of the American Book Award)
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The Words Between Us
If you were a pinball machine,
I’d be the springs that move the pins.
Your arms would open and close for me,
and we’d kiss to the sound of sixties ska.
If a stranger in a crowded marketplace,
I’d take you by the hand and lead you to a dark place,
put your hands in my back pockets.
Lean into you, my cheek against collarbone.
If you needed a cup of coffee, I’d brew it in blue hills
on dying coals, blow on the embers till glowing and hot;
stir your coffee with the burnt side of my tongue.
The smoky brew would cleave you to me.
If you don’t know what to write, watch my hands:
they’ll fly so fast your mind will spin itself blue,
and you’ll find the words you never knew
existed between us.
Julie Mahfood (‘Jamaican in Canada’)
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Song for Morven
these mountains here
’re bare this morning
blue tomorrow
bare mountains
whitened with snow
like me they’re lacking
you to walk with
these mountains here
bare mountains
blue this evening
if you can’t be here
then these mountains
& me we’ll surely walk
to where you stand
looking north
with blue eyes
Gerry Loose (‘Scotland’)
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Arizona
On the desert’s high seas,
your hair floating,
Arizona,
you are the harsh morning of my life,
and an even colder night.
1863 days I sit still
in your lap full of sand.
You are beautiful, mum Arizona.
A little longer and I’ll sink
in your hip and your thighs,
Hesychia of stone,
and we will become one
– red silence.
Mina Glicoric (‘Serbia’)
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Love Notes in Water
No sound but the waves;
a cay and its coconuts;
a dark sea as warm as breath;
black pebbles scuttling up;
black pebbles washing back.
And these two, cradled
by the tide, in each other.
No sound but the waves.
Ann-Margaret Lim (Jamaica) ‘The Festival of Wild Orchid’, Peepal Tree Press, 2012
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Little Red Plum
Crisis in the night.
My heart a little red plum
in my mouth. Glowing
its small fire in the dark.
How you, hand on my breast,
open my little animal cage
to watch me burn, eyes
marveling at the birds
that rush out. My voice rising
red balloons in the air. My hands
find a bright cardinal bleeding
through your shirt, my name
spreading softly on your tongue.
Swift cherry vine galloping,
stitching warm skin to skin.
I reach for you, reach into
The feathers of the dark,
wanting to stay here, wanting
to press each hour into vellum
so tomorrow I may search
and find our little blossom
still unfurling there. I slip slowly
into your light, kiss my red
Plum into your mouth.
Here. I give you all of me
In this little pink cup: hot mouthfuls
of fevergrass, of wild Jamaican
mint. Here, in the shadow of this
hothouse room, a red hibiscus
blooms and blooms
Safiya Sinclair (‘Jamaican in the USA’)
Reproduced from ‘Cannibal’ by Safiya Sinclair by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 2016 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska.
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Palimpsest
Grandma, much younger
than her age-paper,
is giggling on the floor
with baby Jon
as with his daddy
forty years ago. ‘Age
is just a number,’
as the slogan says.
Grandpa seeming buried in a book,
gives thanks for her
endearing gift
and mumbles Larkin,
‘What will survive of us is love.’
Mervyn Morris (Jamaica) ‘Peeling Orange,’ Carcanet: 2017