Flawed's blog: "Poetry in motion"

I remember the story: John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't, the girl with the rose. His interest in her had begun thirteen months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner's name, Miss Holly Maynell. With time and effort he located her address. She lived in New York City. He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During the next year and one month, the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding. Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting - 7.00 p.m. at the Grand Central Station in New York. "You'll recognize me," she wrote, "by the red rose I'll be wearing on my lapel." So at 7.00 p.m. he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he'd never seen. I'll let Mr. Blanchard tell you what happened: A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a small provocative smile curved her lips. "Going my way, sailor?" she murmured. Almost uncontrollably, I made one step closer to her, and then I saw Holly Maynell. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own. And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her. This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever by grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment. "I'm Lieutenant John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner?" The woman's face broadened into a tolerant smile. "I don't know what this is about, son," she answered, "but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of test!"

 You had a lot of crooks tryna steal your heart

Never really had luck, couldn’t never figure out

How to love How to love

You had a lot of moments that didn’t last forever

Now you in the corner tryna put it together

How to love How to love

For a second you were here Why you over there?

Its hard not to stare, the way you moving your body

Like you never had a love Never had a love

When you was just a young’un your looks was so precious

But now your grown up So fly its like a blessing

but you can’t have a man look at you for 5 seconds Without you being insecure

You never credit yourself so when you got older

It’s seems like you came back 10 times over

Now you’re sitting here in this damn corner

Looking through all your thoughts and looking over your shoulder

See you had a lot of crooks tryna steal your heart

Never really had luck, couldn’t never figure out

How to love How to love

See you had a lot of moments that didn’t last forever

Now you in the corner tryna put it together

How to love How to love

For a second you were here Why you over there?

Its hard not to stare the way you moving your body Like you never

had a love Had a love

You had a lot of dreams that transform to visions

The fact that you saw the world affected all your decisions

But it wasn’t your fault Wasn’t in your intentions

To be the one here talking to me Be the one listening

But I admire your poppin bottles and dippin’

Just as much as you admire bartending and stripping

Baby, so don’t be mad Nobody else trippin

You see a lot of crooks and the crooks still crook

See You had a lot of crooks tryna steal your heart

Never really had luck, couldn’t never figure out

How to love How to love

See you had a lot of moments that didn’t last forever

Now you in the corner tryna put it together

How to love How to love

Oooh, See I just want you to know

That you deserve the best You’re beautiful You’re beautiful

Yeah And I want you to know, you’re far from the usual Far from the usual

You see you had a lot of crooks tryna steal your heart

Never really had luck, couldn’t never figure out

How to love How to love

See you had a lot of moments that didn’t last forever

Now you in the corner tryna put it together

How to love How to love

See you had a lot of crooks tryna steal your heart

Never really had luck, couldn’t never figure out

How to love How to love

See you had a lot of moments that didn’t last forever

Now you in the corner tryna put it together

How to love How to love 

With chaste heart, and pure eyes I celebrate you,my beauty,

restraining my blood so that the line surges and follows your contour,

and you bed yourself in my verse, as in woodland, or wave-spume:

earth's perfume, sea's music.

Nakedly beautiful, whether it is your feet, arching at a primal touch of sound or breeze,

or your ears, tiny spiral shells from the splendour of America's oceans.

Your breasts also, of equal fullness, overflowing with the living light and,

yes, winged your eyelids of silken corn that disclose or enclose the deep twin landscapes of your eyes.

The line of your back separating you falls away into paler regions then surges to the smooth hemispheres of an apple,

and goes splitting your loveliness into two pillars of burnt gold, pure alabaster,

to be lost in the twin clusters of your feet, from which, once more,

lifts and takes fire the double tree of your symmetry:

flower of fire, open circle of candles, swollen fruit raised over the meeting of earth and ocean.

Your body - from what substances agate, quartz, ears of wheat, did it flow, was it gathered,

rising like bread in the warmth, and signalling hills silvered,

valleys of a single petal, sweetnesses of velvet depth, until the pure, fine, form of woman thickened and rested there?

It is not so much light that falls over the world extended by your body its suffocating snow,

as brightness, pouring itself out of you, as if you were burning inside.

Under your skin the moon is alive

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because -- because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because then the little drops of anguish will all run together, the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift into me, choking my lost heart. Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach; may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.

Don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because in that moment you'll have gone so far I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking, Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists:
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loveing me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

 Maya Angelou

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine

Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear;

and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling) i

fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)

i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun

will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;

which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings