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[judecorp]

Articulacy of fingers, the language of the deaf and dumb, signing on the body body longing. Who taught you to write in blood on my back? Who taught you to use your hands as branding irons? You have scored your name into my shoulders, referenced me with your mark. The pads of your fingers have become printing blocks, you tap a message on to my skin, tap meaning into my body. Your morse code interferes with my heart beat. I had a steady heart beat before I met you, I relied upon it, it had seen active service and grown strong. Now you alter its pace with your own rhythm, you play upon me, drumming me taut. ~ Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

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[judecorp.livejournal.com]

When we are old and these rejoicing veins
Are frosty channels to a muted stream,
And out of all our burning their remains
No feeblest spark to fire us, even in dream,
This be our solace: that it was not said
When we were young and warm and in our prime,
Upon our couch we lay as lie the dead,
Sleeping away the unreturning time.
O sweet, O heavy-lidded, O my love,
When morning strikes her spear upon the land,
And we must rise and arm us and reprove
The insolent daylight with a steady hand,
Be not discountenanced if the knowing know
We rose from rapture but an hour ago.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Evening Song

[kieron.livejournal.com]

Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands,
And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea;
How long they kiss in sight of all the lands,
Ah! longer, longer we.

Now, in the sea's red vintage melts the sun
As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine
And Cleopatra-night drinks all- 'tis done,
Love, lay thine hand in mine.

Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart,
Glimmer, ye waves, 'round else unlighted sands;
Oh night! divorce our sun and sky apart-
Never our lips, our hands.


~Sidney  Lanier

The First Day

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I wish I could remember the first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me;
If bright or dim the season it might be;
Summer or winter for aught I can say.
So, unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was i to see and to forsee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom, yet, for many a May.

If only I could recollect it! Such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow.
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much!
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand! - Did one but know!

~Christina Rossetti

A Knight's Sleep

[kieron.livejournal.com]

Your soul speaks to me in the darkest night, your lips upon my breast feels so right. Your raven hair so soft as silk , your skin so pure as the purest milk. Eyes of the bluest oceans so vast so calm
you have the strength of a thousand soldiers within one palm. My sweet angel so gentle and kind your galant spirit is what moves my mind. My love for you is so vast so deep only within your arms is where I choose to sleep.

Why Do You Sleep With Girls?

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

(Jeannette Winterson, 1998)

Ruth

[kieron.livejournal.com]

Love, see thy lover humbled at thy feet,
Not in servility, but homage sweet,
Gladly inclined:-and with my bended knee
Think that my inward spirit bows to thee-
More proud indeed than when I stand or climb
Elsewhere:-there us no stature so sublime
As Love's in all the world, and e'en to kiss
The pedestal is still a better bliss
Than all ambitions. O! Love's lowest base
Is far above the reaching of disgrace
To shame this posture. Let me then draw nigh
Feet that have fared so nearly to the sky,
And when this duteous homage has been given
I will rise up and clasp the heart in Heaven.

~ Thomas Hood (1799-1845)