Okay, I didn’t know of a good kissing poem, except the Catullus one that someone already blogged, so I wrote my own. Now, I’ve so far resisted posting my poetry, which is generally of the Vogon variety, and particularly this one, which I whipped out in five minutes on a sudden inspiration. (You can tell. “Subtle whispers?” That’s redundant and predictable.) But in any case, blogging tricks you out of your secrets eventually, so I might as well give in. I don’t have a title for it yet—
When I touch you I promise what I cannot give:
That we might be forever; that we might always live;
That time will flow about us, unmoving stones;
That the world will leave the two of us alone;
That winds will still; the sun will always smile;
That we might fly above the clouds and never sigh—
That exhausted sound of empty space
Where once there was a hand, a face,
But which once gone leaves only a hov’ring shadow
Of what-was-once; of entropy, and windows
Broken in ghost-town shacks; desert sand
Drifting invisible on subtle whispers, and
Seeping into ev’ry pristine corner; flecks
Of gold that are only sunlight tricks.
As the time trickles by;
We stand, you and I,
Kissing out our oaths as if we might tie
The river back with our fingers:
Our wrinkling fingers.
What I’m trying to do with this poem: the theme is the same as the Auden poem I blogged some time ago—that we wish and perhaps believe that love is immortal, but it is not. The poem reflects this theme by starting in a very regular meter with predictable rhymes and couplets, and gradually eroding to include enjambments and imperfect rhymes. The image of the wrinkled fingers reiterates the river image from the beginning of the poem, to represent how, even during the short duration of the poem, the poet has aged, and thus progressed toward oblivion.
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