Tasters, here at Sweetly Disturbed, we think you, our readers might love poetry and baked deliciousnesses on the same scale. Necessary decadence.
What do you like out of our love poems?
When I read a love poem, I want to know the subject is adored, that his or her presence in the world makes the poet feel that much more alive. That the desire to be in the presence of the beloved has changed the world in some large or even small way.
Adrienne Rich once said that the moment of change is the only poem. Is it not the same with baking? The moment the seperate ingredients become something together? The baking or refrigerating that seals their fate?
I have no love poem of my own to offer tonight. Oh, I've written my share, plenty for Mr. Sweetcakes over the years, and more of them to write. My favorite, Re-Statement of Romance, by dear Wallace Stevens, does love poem best - the self-assuredness of the language, the negative space, the killer endings to slay all endings.
Re-Statement of Romance
The night knows nothing of the chants of night.
It is what it is as I am what I am:
And in perceiving this I best perceive myself
And you. Only we two may interchange
Each in the other what each has to give.
Only we two are one, not you and night,
Nor night and I, but you and I, alone,
So much alone, so deeply by ourselves,
So far beyond the casual solitudes,
That night is only the background of our selves,
Supremely true each to its separate self,
In the pale light that each upon the other throws.
Tonight, it's more than eighty degrees and there's a clear sky here in Salt Lake. I'm going to go sit on my patio with a glass of wine and soak it in while it lasts.
Poetic Asides daily poem prompt: Write a love poem. Or an anti-love poem.