"Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances."
— Robert Hass in an excerpt from “Meditation at Lagunitas”
The First Girl
When I say that she was the greatest,
I mean that she resembled a circus.
She was not brightly colored,
nor was she composed
of three rings, but
under a tent in the middle of
a starlit field
on a summer night,
you could see her
in just a t-shirt
and forget how unhappy
the elephants were.
Rob MacDonald
"I’ve tried to get you out of my head but I can’t seem to get you out of my flesh. I think about your body day and night. When I try to read it’s you I’m reading. When I sit down to eat it’s you I’m eating."
— Jeanette Winterson in “Written on the Body”
Screw poetry, it’s you I want,
your taste, rain
on you, mouth on your skin.
Margaret Atwood in “Late Night”
Yes
It’s about the blood
banging in the body
and the brain
lolling in its bed
like a happy baby.
At your touch, the nerve
that volatile spook tree
vibrates. The lungs
take up their work
with a giddy vigor.
Tremors in the joints
and tympani,
dust storms
in the canister of sugar.
The coil of ribs,
heats up, begins
to glow. Come
here.
Catherine Doty
"I want a trouble-maker for a lover,
Blood spiller, blood drinker, a heart of flame,
Who quarrels with the sky and fights with fate,
Who burns like fire on the rushing sea."
Blood spiller, blood drinker, a heart of flame,
Who quarrels with the sky and fights with fate,
Who burns like fire on the rushing sea."
— Rumi
the frightening truth about desire
it’s on but
i don’t know
whether i want
to be
her, fuck her
or borrow
her clothes.
Daphne Gottlieb (via)
"I was satisfied with haiku until I met you,
jar of octopus, cuckoo’s cry, 5-7-5,
but now I want a Russian novel,
a 50-page description of you sleeping,
another 75 of what you think staring out
a window."
jar of octopus, cuckoo’s cry, 5-7-5,
but now I want a Russian novel,
a 50-page description of you sleeping,
another 75 of what you think staring out
a window."
— Dean Young, excerpt from “Changing Genres”
"They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered."
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
"…and blue you there still
accepts me foolish and free
all I want is a room up there
and you in it
and even the traffic halt so thick is a way
for people to rub up against each other…"
accepts me foolish and free
all I want is a room up there
and you in it
and even the traffic halt so thick is a way
for people to rub up against each other…"
— Frank O’Hara in “Steps”
