For millennia, poetry has been the language of love. Poems and songs point to the profound power of love to move us, to stir feeling and emotion like nothing else.
Following are some favorites; we expect this section of the site to grow, and invite you to contribute some of your own words and images. We are not poetry critics; these selections have been made based on words which have moved us, touched our hearts in various ways.
Explore and enjoy.
[Song of Solomon 4]
New Revised Standard Version Hebrew Bible
Praise of the Woman's Beauty
1 How beautiful you are, my love,
how very beautiful!
Your eyes are doves
behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats,
moving down the slopes of Gilead.
2 Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes
that have come up from the washing,
all of which bear twins,
and not one among them is bereaved.
3 Your lips are like a crimson thread,
and your mouth is lovely.
Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate
behind your veil.
4 Your neck is like the tower of David,
built in courses;
on it hang a thousand bucklers,
all of them shields of warriors.
5 Your two breasts are like two fawns,
twins of a gazelle,
that feed among the lilies.
6 Until the day breathes
and the shadows flee,
I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh
and the hill of frankincense.
7 You are altogether beautiful, my love;
there is no flaw in you.
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9 You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride,
you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes,
with one jewel of your necklace.
10 How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride!
how much better is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!
11 Your lips distill nectar, my bride;
honey and milk are under your tongue;
the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon.
12 A garden locked is my sister, my bride,
a garden locked, a fountain sealed.
13 Your channel is an orchard of pomegranates
with all choicest fruits,
henna with nard,
14 nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
with all trees of frankincense,
myrrh and aloes,
with all chief spices —
15 a garden fountain, a well of living water,
and flowing streams from Lebanon.
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16 Awake, O north wind,
and come, O south wind!
Blow upon my garden
that its fragrance may be wafted abroad.
Let my beloved come to his garden,
and eat its choicest fruits.
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Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.
I Sing the Body Electric
This is the female form;
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot;
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction!
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor – all falls aside but myself and it;
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, the atmosphere and the clouds, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d or hell, are now consumed;
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it – the response likewise ungovernable;
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands, all diffused – mine too diffused;
Ebb stung by the flow, and flow stung by the ebb – love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching;
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice;
Bridegroom night of love, working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn: Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.
The male is not less the soul, nor more – he too is in his place;
He too is all qualities – he is action and power;
The flush of the known universe is in him;
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well;
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost, become him well – pride is for him;
The full-spread of man is calming and excellent to the soul;
Knowledge becomes him – he likes it always – he brings everything to the test of himself;
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail, he strikes soundings at last only here;
(Where else does he strike soundings, except here?)
The man’s body is sacred, and the woman’s body is sacred;
No matter who it is, it is sacred;
Is it a slave? Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere, just as much as the well-off – just as much as you; Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession;
The universe is a procession, with measured and beautiful motion.)
Poems by Kenneth Robinson
From The Year of Lovemaking and Crying, C 1999
Sex, the Healer
Sex, the healer.
Expressing who we are.
Showing us the measure of our giving.
Revealing to us just how much we dare receive.
How far we will go in allowing our bodies to reach for heaven.
Whispering to us;
If we’re lucky, shouting to us:
Surrender.
Trust.
Fidelity.
Truth.
Sixty-five Dollar Poem,
Written at 9:35 a.m.
I had these two traffic tickets.
Expired tags.
Pulled over twice in two days.
Supposed to be in court today at 9:30 a.m.
To get them dismissed.
Got up early.
Went back to bed with her at 7:45 a.m.
We were just going to make love for a little while.
Wild Roses
Yes, I undid the buttons of her dress.
Saw those wild roses
Growing on their ivory hillsides.
The gentle meadow of her belly
Where that shooting star left its mark.
The round dunes of her hips
So white in the dark light by the ocean.
I lay down in the brilliant darkness
Where the tiny missles of her tenderness
Had torn thousands of small holes in the black tin can of night
Revealing specks of that world too bright
For me to enter unescorted.
Sleep, that thief
Came just before dawn
But he could not take her away.
I dreamed she was the moon
With its billion candles burning.
I walked slow in that cool white downpour.
Illumined.
Hungry and Full, Girl
I want to make you
Hungry and full, girl.
Hungry and full.
Come to me.
Show me how much you need,
As your body unknots itself
In that great uncoiling
That begins between your legs
And spills hard down to your feet
And rushes hard up through your belly
Into your breasts and nipples
Inside your chest
Catching slightly in your throat
Swelling your lips
Releasing your eyes from their need to tell us apart.
Show me how much.
My sex feels things sex can feel.
How it must be, to be you, a girl.
My sex senses how you, a girl, might feel
What you, a girl, might long for.
How Christ might you, a girl, think
Your body tells me things about what it’s like to be a girl.
And I listen with my skin
And my muscles
Where you grip them.
I feel your inside body and feel how your love moves,
And where it is held, and where it is still.
And then I am
Hungry and full, girl.
Hungry and full.
Sex
Don’t get me wrong,
You don’t need a reason to have sex.
But where are you in it all?
Would you ever bring to him the places where you’re wrong?
Your broken cup?
Would you ever bring to her
The hidden games?
The list of names?
The flaws?
The trespasses?
The places you cannot break through?
The ones your daddy, or your mama, or the preacher gave you.
Make love there too.
Grieve with your whole body.
Grieve when you’re inside her.
Rage when he’s inside you.
Say, here is my lust:
Make love to me here.
Here is my jealousy:
Make love to me here.
Here is my greed:
Make love to me here.
Here is my hiding,
Here is my coldheartedness,
Here is my unwillingness to feel,
Here is my unwillingness to give,
Here is my inept, inadequate, insecure, weak, shady, cowardly self:
Make love to me here.
Let sex heal something,
Let sex do what it can do.
We don’t even know all that it can do,
But we could find out. Find out.
We just don’t know what our lovemaking does to the world,
But we know if everyone got their fill of love
Walking on water would be commonplace.
There is nothing
Like the beauty of your unlined face after sex
With the one who loves you.
Kenneth Robinson is a psychotherapist, workshop leader, poet and musician. His book of poems, The Year of Lovemaking & Crying, can be ordered through his website, www.alayapartners.com.
Love Poems by Pablo Neruda
Body of a Woman
Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant’s body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.
I was alone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,
and night swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.
But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!
Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows
and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.
-- from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, translated by W. S. Merwin
Ode to a Beautiful Nude
(Oda a la Bella Desnuda)
With a chaste heart, with pure eyes
I celebrate your beauty
holding the leash of blood
so that it might leap out
and trace your outline
where you lie down in my ode
as in a land of forests, or in surf:
in aromatic loam
or in sea-music.
With a chaste heart,
with pure eyes
I celebrate your beauty
holding the leash of blood
so that it might leap out
and trace your outline
where
you lie down in my ode
as in a land of forests, or in surf:
in aromatic loam
or in sea-music..
With a chaste heart,
with pure eyes
I celebrate your beauty
holding the leash of blood
so that it might leap out
and trace your outline
where
you lie down in my ode
as in a land of forests, or in surf:
in aromatic loam
or in sea-music..
With a chaste heart,
with pure eyes
I celebrate your beauty
holding the leash of blood
so that it might leap out
and trace your outline
where
you lie down in my ode
as in a land of forests, or in surf:
in aromatic loam
or in sea-music..
With a chaste heart,
with pure eyes
I celebrate your beauty
holding the leash of blood
so that it might leap out
and trace your outline
where
you lie down in my ode
as in a land of forests, or in surf:
in aromatic loam
or in sea-music..
Wild Roses
Yes, I undid the buttons of her dress.
Saw those wild roses
Growing on their ivory hillsides.
The gentle meadow of her belly
Where that shooting star left its mark.
The round dunes of her hips
So white in the dark light by the ocean.
I lay down in the brilliant darkness
Where the tiny missles of her tenderness
Had torn thousands of small holes in the black tin can of night
Revealing specks of that world too bright
For me to enter unescorted.
Sleep, that thief
Came just before dawn
But he could not take her away.
I dreamed she was the moon
With its billion candles burning.
I walked slow in that cool white downpour.
Illumined.
Hungry and Full, Girl
I want to make you
Hungry and full, girl.
Hungry and full.
Come to me.
Show me how much you need,
As your body unknots itself
In that great uncoiling
That begins between your legs
And spills hard down to your feet
And rushes hard up through your belly
Into your breasts and nipples
Inside your chest
Catching slightly in your throat
Swelling your lips
Releasing your eyes from their need to tell us apart.
Show me how much.
My sex feels things sex can feel.
How it must be, to be you, a girl.
My sex senses how you, a girl, might feel
What you, a girl, might long for.
How Christ might you, a girl, think
Your body tells me things about what it’s like to be a girl.
And I listen with my skin
And my muscles
Where you grip them.
I feel your inside body and feel how your love moves,
And where it is held, and where it is still.
And then I am
Hungry and full, girl.
Hungry and full.
Sex
Don’t get me wrong,
You don’t need a reason to have sex.
But where are you in it all?
Would you ever bring to him the places where you’re wrong?
Your broken cup?
Would you ever bring to her
The hidden games?
The list of names?
The flaws?
The trespasses?
The places you cannot break through?
The ones your daddy, or your mama, or the preacher gave you.
Make love there too.
Grieve with your whole body.
Grieve when you’re inside her.
Rage when he’s inside you.
Say, here is my lust:
Make love to me here.
Here is my jealousy:
Make love to me here.
Here is my greed:
Make love to me here.
Here is my hiding,
Here is my coldheartedness,
Here is my unwillingness to feel,
Here is my unwillingness to give,
Here is my inept, inadequate, insecure, weak, shady, cowardly self:
Make love to me here.
Let sex heal something,
Let sex do what it can do.
We don’t even know all that it can do,
But we could find out. Find out.
We just don’t know what our lovemaking does to the world,
But we know if everyone got their fill of love
Walking on water would be commonplace.
There is nothing
Like the beauty of your unlined face after sex
With the one who loves you.
|
