Sensual Love Poems

by BLEASE, KATHLEEN

• ISBN13: 9780345447876
• ISBN10: 0345447875
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-02
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

How does love speak? . . . In the embrace where madness melts in bliss, And the convulsive rapture of a kiss Thus doth Love speak. Ella Wheeler Wilcox At the heart of love lies the quickening of the sensesthe thrill of touch, the perfume of passion, the taste and the voice of love, the vision of the beloved. Sensual love has inspired poets throughout the agesfrom the Bible's beautiful Song of Songs to the lively evocations of sensual love and the private world of lovers created by such gifted contemporary poets as Stanley Kunitz, Maya Angelou, and W. S. Merwin. Here gathered are the truest and the loveliest verses that tantalize the heart and celebrate the sweet turmoil of passion.Sensual Love Poemsis a bouquet the freshness of which never fades, a feast for the senses . . . forever.

Author Biography

<b>Kathleen Blease </b>is a writer and editor whose previous poetry collections are<i> Love in Verse</i>, <i>A Mother’s</i>, and <i>A Friend is Forever</i>. Several years ago, she found her true love, Roger, and they eloped just three months after they met. They are now living and raising their family in historic Easton, Pennsylvania.

Excerpts

Awakenings of Love

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LOVE LYRIC

Your love has gone all through my body

like honey in water,

as a drug is mixed into spices,

as water is mingled with wine.

Oh that you would speed to see your sister

like a charger on the battlefield, like a bull to his pasture!

For the heavens are sending us love like a flame spreading through straw

and desire like the swoop of the falcon!

Anonymous

[c. 1085–c. 570 b.c.]

FLOWER OF LOVE

The perfume of your body dulls my sense.

I want nor wine nor weed; your breath alone

Suffices. In this moment rare and tense

I worship at your breast. The flower is blown

The saffron petals tempt my amorous mouth,

The yellow heart is radiant now with dew

Soft-scented, redolent of my loved South;

O flower of love! I give myself to you.

Uncovered on your couch of figured green,

Here let us linger indivisible.

The portals of your sanctuary unseen

Receive my offering, yielding unto me.

Oh, with our love the night is warm and deep!

The air is sweet, my flower, and sweet the flute

Whose music lulls our burning brain to sleep,

While we lie loving, passionate and mute.

Claude McKay

[1890–1948] THE BAIT

Come live with me, and be my love,

And we will some new pleasures prove

Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,

With silken lines, and silver hooks.

There will the river whispering run

Warmed by thy eyes, more than the sun.

And there the’enamoured fish will stay,

Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,

Each fish, which every channel hath,

Will amorously to thee swim,

Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be’st loth,

By sun, or moon, thou darkenest both,

And if myself have leave to see,

I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,

And cut their legs, with shells and weeds,

Or treacherously poor fish beset,

With strangling snare, or windowy net:

Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest

The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,

Of curious traitors, sleavesilk flies

Bewitch poor fishes’ wandering eyes.

For thee, thou need’st no such deceit,

For thou thyself art thine own bait,

That fish, that is not catched thereby,

Alas, is wiser far than I.

John Donne

[1572–1631] SO JUST KISS ME

So just kiss me and let my hair

messy itself in your fingers

tell me nothing needs to be done—

no clocks need winding

There is no bell without a voice

needing to borrow my own

instead, let me steady myself

in the arms

of a man who won’t ask me to be

what he needs, but lets me exist

as I am

a blonde flame

a hurricane

wrapped up

in a tiny body

that will come to his arms

like the safest harbor

for mending

Jewel Kilcher

[1974– ]

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Excerpted from Sensual Love Poems by Kathleen Blease
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.