Hi all,

I'm getting married in a couple months and for favors we would like to have cards printed up with photo/date and a love poem.

Unfortunately, poetry hound that I am...love poems have never really been my thing, so I'm having a hard time finding something I like. I don't want anything super traditional that everyone has heard a million times (i.e. "How do I love thee","Grow old along with me", etc.).

Anyone know anything good that's a little off the beaten path?

Little Words
When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf,
Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds;
And I can only stare, and shape my grief
In little words.
I cannot conjure loveliness, to drown
The bitter woe that racks my cords apart.
The weary pen that sets my sorrow down
Feeds at my heart.
There is no mercy in the shifting year,
No beauty wraps me tenderly about.
I turn to little words—so you, my dear,
Can spell them out.
—Dorothy Parker

Habitation



Marriage is not
a house, or even a tent

It is before that, and colder:

the edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert
the unpainted stairs
at the back, where we squat
outdoors, eating popcorn
where painfully and with wonder
at having survived
this far

we are learning to make fire.

Margaret Atwood

Love Poem

My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china, burrs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing
Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people:
The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.
Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers’ terror,
Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime
Yet leaping before red apoplectic streetcars—
Misfit in any space. And never on time.
A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only
With words and people and love you move at ease.
In traffic of wit expertly manoeuvre
And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.
Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel,
Your lipstick grinning on our coat,
So gayly in love’s unbreakable heaven
Our souls on glory of spilt bourbon float.
Be with me darling, early and late. Smash glasses—
I will study wry music for your sake.
For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.
—John Frederick Nims (b. 1914)

XVII (I do not love you...)
-------Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were 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 do 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.


Translated by Stephen Tapscott

What Any Lover Learns
Water is heavy silver over stone.
Water is heavy silver over stone’s
Refusal. It does not fall. It fills. It flows
Every crevice, every fault of the stone,
Every hollow. River does not run.
River presses its heavy silver self
Down into stone and stone refuses.
What runs,
Swirling and leaping into sun, is stone’s
Refusal of the river, not the river.
—Archibald Macleish

I think I'll stop now.

These are marvelous choices, Ruth, all of them. I especially like the Atwood and the Neruda. Man oh man.

I know feelings vary widely on Bly, and perhaps it is because I am a Minnesotan, but we used Robert Bly's "The Third Body" for our 1988 wedding.

Almost anything by Rumi is wonderful for weddings. I also love "To Dorothy" by Marvin Bell and "A Birthday" by W.S. Merwin, which has a knockout last line.

If we'd had time or money for anything at our wedding (at the courthouse, during finals week, having sold a textbook to pay for the license), we'd have used the poem by Merwin and also Roethke's "I Knew a Woman."

Maybe at 25 we'll have a "real wedding," but I'll take a good marriage over Cinderella stories any day.

Try James Wright's A Blessing. I had two poet friends that had it read during their wedding and had the final two lines on their cake.

First Love
By Denise Levertov

It was a flower.

There had been,
before I could even speak,
another infant, girl or boy unknown,
who drew me – I had
an obscure desire to become
connected in some way to this other,
even to be what I faltered after, falling
to hands and knees, crawling
a foot or two, clambering
up to follow further until
arms swooped down to bear me away.
But that one left no face, had exchanged
no gaze with me.

This flower:
Suddenly
There was Before I saw it, the vague
past, and Now. Forever. Nearby
was the sandy sweep of the Roman Road,
and where we sat the grass
was thin. From a bare patch
of that poor soil, solitary,
sprang the flower, face upturned,
looking completely, openly
into my eyes.
I was barely
old enough to ask and repeat its name.
‘Convolvulus,’ said my mother.
Pale shell-pink, a chalice
no wider across than a silver sixpence.

It looked at me, I looked
back, delight
filled me as if
I, not the flower,
Were a flower and were brimful of rain.
And there was endlessness.
Perhaps through a lifetime what I’ve desired
has always been to return
to that endless giving and receiving, the wholeness
of that attention,
that once-in-a-lifetime
secret communion.

That is great, Jerry, thank you.

I love this line:

And there was endlessness.

I Am Not I


I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
the one who remains silent while I talk,
the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who will remain standing when I die.

Juan Ramon Jimenez...

the second line is supposed to be indented, but it won't do it for some reason...

I love Elegy for Jane by Roethke, though ammusingly, for years I thought it was written by Donald Hall. May seem an odd choice, but to paraphrase Rilke, the
key to a perfect marriage -- is plenty of running room in opposite directions. You can reference this advice under, "Happily Married Man."

I will forever love you Ruth for quoting this Parker. If you ever get a chance, hunt down Studs Terkel's brief interview with her.It is available on CD and I don't remember the title, but its recent and Baldwin, T. Williams, B. Russell, and others are each worth are there, each alone worth the price of admission.

Oh that sounds interesting, Ken. I love Studs Terkel. I'm sure I can google this up.

Hey Guys, sorry for just like barging in like this, since I enlisted long ago but have never yet participated in this great fun forum. Lucky Elise, with such marvelous choices, but since I'm not getting married anymore, I simply marvel at those I haven't come across, poetry hound that I am too. I especially love the poignant wit of John Frederick Nims, whose work I don't know. And Denise Levertov--I named my daughter after her. Thanks for the garland of poems, Ruth. I would add W.H. Auden's "Lay Your Sleeping Head, My Love..." but I guess it won't do for weddings.

Also take a look at Ted Kooser's collection of love poems from his collection, Valentine's.
Here is one:

Map of the World

One of the ancient maps of the world
is heart-shaped, carefully drawn
and once washed with bright colors,
though the colors have faded
as you might expect feelings to fade
from a fragile old heart, the brown map
of a life. But feeling is indelible,
and longing infinite, a starburst compass
pointing in all the directions
two lovers might go, a fresh breeze
swelling their sails, the future uncharted,
still far from the edge
where the sea pours into the stars.

Whoops, sorry about the typo. The collection is entitled Valentines.

Thanks so much for all of your suggestions, they are wonderful. I've been coming back and reading them and have just been so busy I never got around to replying.

As it happens, I did find our poem of choice randomly in a book one day. We have been told by numerous people that our sweetness together is something really special to see, and we have very playful relationship. So, this seemed abundantly appropriate:

A LOVELY SONG FOR JACKSON - V.R. Lang

If I were a seaweed at the bottom of the sea,
I'd find you, you'd find me.
Fishes would see us and shake their heads
Approvingly from their submarine beds.
Crabs and sea horses would bid us glad cry,
And sea anemone smile us by.
Sea gulls alone would wing and make moan,
Wondering, wondering, where we had gone.

If I were an angel and lost in the sun,
You would be there, and you would be one.
Birds that few high enough would find us and sing
Gladder to find us than for anything,
And clouds would be proud of us, light everywhere
Would clothe us gold gaily, for dear and for fair.
Trees stretching skyward would see us and smile,
And all over heaven we'd laugh for a while.
Only the fishes would search and make moan,
Wondering, wondering, where we had gone.

Damn I love that poem

And which poem is that?

You are awesome. Next to "Imsomnia" by Elizabeth Bishop, that one by Nims is one my favorite love poems. Thank you for posting it.

Well, that depends on what kind of poetry you like. And do you need a long poem or a short one? (Sorry, I have a few books of love poetry, so I am having fun with this, lol. )

"somewhere i have never travelled" or "if everything happens that can't be done" by e. e. cummings
"Reply" by Naomi Long Madgett
"I Love You" by Carl Sandburg
"A Birthday" or "I Loved You First" by Christina Rosetti
"For C.W.B." by Elizabeth Bishop
"Prayer for a Marriage" by Steve Scafidi


"Somewhere" by Sir Edwin Arnold

Somewhere there waiteth in this world of ours
for one lone soul, another lonely soul -
Each chasing each through all the weary hours,
And meeting strangely at one sudden goal;
Then blend they - like green leaves with golden flowers,
Into one beautiful and perfect whole -
And life's long night is ended, and the way
Lies open onward to eternal day.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chamber Music XIII by James Joyce

Go seek her out all courteously,
And say I come,
Wind of spices whose song is ever
Epithalamium.
O hurry over the dark lands
And run upon the sea
For seas and land shall not divide us
My love and me.

Now, wind, of your good courtesy
I pray you go,
And come into her little garden
And sing at her window;
Singing: The bridal wind is blowing
For Love is at his noon;
And soon will your true love be with you,
Soon, O soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"As Sweet" by Wendy Cope (Sorry, but I had to. This is one of my favorites. lol)

It's all because we're so alike-
Twin souls, we two.
We smile at the expression,yes,
and know it's true.

I told the shrink. He gave our love
A different name.
But he can call it what he likes-
It's still the same.

I long to see you, hear your voice,
My narcissistic object-choice.


Well, you did say something a little off the beaten path! :p

Congratulations, btw!

try Walt Whitman who was the inspiration for Nicholas sparks. here is one

To You
by Walt Whitman


Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of
dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your
feet and hands,
Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,
troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear before me,
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops,
work, farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating,
drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you
be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better
than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb,
I should have made my way straight to you long ago,
I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted
nothing but you.

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to
yourself,
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no
imperfection in you,
None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will
never consent to subordinate you,
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better,
God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-
figure of all,
From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of
gold-color'd light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its
nimbus of gold-color'd light,
From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it
streams, effulgently flowing forever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon
yourself all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries,
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in
mockeries, what is their return?)

The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,
I pursue you where none else has pursued you,
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the
accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or
from yourself, they do not conceal you from me,
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if
these balk others they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed,
premature death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied
in you,
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good
is in you,
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits
for you.

As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like
carefully to you,
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than
I sing the songs of the glory of you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at an hazard!
These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you,
These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are
immense and interminable as they,
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of
apparent dissolution, you are he or she who is master or
mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements,
pain, passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing
sufficiency,
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest,
whatever you are promulges itself,
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided,
nothing is scanted,
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what
you are picks its way.

BonFire wrote: "Well, that depends on what kind of poetry you like. And do you need a long poem or a short one? (Sorry, I have a few books of love poetry, so I am having fun with this, lol. )

"somewhere i have ..."

I like Wendy Cope too ... here's my favorite by her

Flowers

Some men never think of it.
You did. You'd come along
And say you'd nearly brought me flowers
But something had gone wrong. The shop was closed. Or you had doubts -
The sort that minds like ours
Dream up instantly. You thought
I might not want your flowers.
It made me smile and hug you then.
Now I can only smile.
But, look, the flowers you nearly brought
Have lasted all this while.