Poetry!

Sonnet XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

-William Shakespeare

"Desire"

in my dreams

I hold my lovers

next to me all at once

and ask them

what was it I desired?

my hands are full

of their heads

like bunches of cut roses

blond hair, brown hair, red, black,

their eyes are pools of bewilderment

staring up at me

from the bouquet

what was it I desired?

I ask again

was it your bodies?

did I hope by draping

your flesh over me

I could escape

boredom

loneliness

gray hairs shooting

towards me

from the future

like thin arrows?

did I think I could escape,

by taking your breath

into my mouth,

did I think I could escape

the responsibility

of breathing?

what did I desire in you?

sex

knowledge?

power?

love?

did I expect the clouds to

crack

and blue moths to fly out of the stars?

did I expect a voice

to call to me

saying

"Here at last is the answer."

what

I yell at them

shaking my lovers

what did I desire in you?

their ears fall off like petals

they shed their faces

in a pile at my feet

their bewildered eyes

pucker and close

centers of fallen flowers

the last face

floats down

circling in the darkness

at my feet

what did I desire in you? I whisper

the stems of their bodies

dry in my hands

-- Mary Mackey

"Of Relationships"

Lovers love love

Ever consuming love

Hearts love,

Minds love,

Bodies love.

Love is all you need...

... Eternal confusing love

-Sarah-Marie Olsen

I chose these poems because they all had a common theme of relationships. Shakespeare's Sonnet XVIII is one of my favorite poems about love and Mary Mackey's poem "Desire" touches on the lust aspect of relationships. In my found poem, I used the word "love" and wrote down everything that is associated with it to accompany it.