Tingles...

I'm a sap for a good poem. Here are a few that have given me that good ol' feelings ghost chill lately.



Perhaps It Is To Feel Strike

perhaps it is to feel strike

the silverfish of her nakedness

with fins sharply pleasant, my

youth has travelled toward her these years

or to snare the timid like

of her mind to my mind that i

am come by little countries to the yes

of her youth.

                     And if somebody hears

what i say -- let him be pitiful:

because i've travelled all alone

through the forest of wonderful,

and that my feet have surely known

the furious ways and the peaceful,

and because she is beautiful

- e.e. cummings

Becoming a Nun

On cold days
it is easy to be reasonable,
to button the mouth against kisses,
dust the breasts
with talcum powder
& forget
the red pulp meat
of the heart.

On those days
it beats
like a digital clock—
not a beat at all
but a steady whirring
chilly as green neon,
luminous as numerals in the dark,
cool as electricity.

& I think:
I can live without it all—
love with its blood pump,
sex with its messy hungers,
men with their peacock strutting,
their silly sexual baggage,
their wet tongues in my ear
& their words like little sugar suckers
with sour centers.

On such days
I am zipped in my body suit,
I am wearing seven league red suede boots,
I am marching over the cobblestones
as if they were the heads of men,

& I am happy
as a seven-year-old virgin
holding Daddy’s hand.

Don’t touch.
Don’t try to tempt me with your ripe persimmons.
Don’t threaten me with your volcano.
The sky is clearer when I’m not in heat,
& the poems
are colder.

- Erica Jong

O Me! O Life!

O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

- Walt Whitman