Valentine Love Poetry: Syntax

Syntax

I want to call you thou, the sound

of the shape of the start

of a kiss - like this, thou –

and to say, after, I love,

thou, I love, thou I love, not

I love you.

Because I so do –

As we say now – I want to say

thee, I adore thee,

and to know I n my lips

The syntax of love resides,

and to gaze in thine eyes.

Love’s language starts, stops, starts;

The right words flowing or clotting in the heart.

By Caroline Duffy from Love Poems

Photograph courtesy of Fanni Williams

Valentine Love Poetry: I Held You in the Square

I Held You in the Square by Ben Okri

I held you in the square

And felt the evening

Re-order itself around

Your smile

The dreams I could never touch

Felt like your body.

Your gentleness made the

Night soft.

And even if we didn’t know

Where we were going,

Nor what street to take

Or what bench to sit on

What chambers awaited

That would deliver us our

Naked joy,

I could feel in your spirit

The restlessness for a journey

Whose beauty lies

In the arriving moment

Of each desire.

Holding you in the evening square,

I sealed a dream

With your smile as the secret pact

March 1986

Photo by Alice Hu Photography via Rock'n'Roll Bride, here

Love Poetry: 'Bright Star' by Keats

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient sleepless eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors;
No yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever or else swoon to death.

Bright Star the film about Keats’ short lived affair with his neighbour Fanny Brawne is released today. Looking for inspiration for your wedding readings- you can also visit the house where he met her and wrote some of his most romantic poems, they even host a monthly poetry reading and appreciation group.

Image found here

Love Poetry: Love Is

'Love Is' by Adrien Henri

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans
Love is a fanclub with only two fans
Love is walking holding painstained hands
Love is

Love is fish and chips on winter nights
Love is blankets full of string delights
Love is when you don’t put out the light
Love is

Love is the presents in the Christmas shops
Love is when you’re feeling Top of the Pops
Love is what happens when the music stops
Love is

Love is white panties lying all forlorn
Love is a pink nightdress still slightly warm
Love is when you have to leave at dawn
Love is

Love is you and love is me
Love is a prison and love is free
Love’s what’s there when you’re away from me
Love is…