Marc Chagall

Lovers and Flowers

It has ever been since time began,

And ever will be, till time lose breath,

That love is a mood --no more -- to man,

And love to a woman is life or death.

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox ~

Claude Monet

Soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise)

My River Runs to Thee

My river runs to thee:

Blue sea, wilt welcome me?

My river waits reply.

Oh sea, look graciously!

I’ll fetch thee brooks

From spotted nooks,—

Say, sea,

Take me!

~ Emily Dickinson ~

She Walks in Beauty

Vincent Van Gogh

Starry Night Over the Rhone

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in Beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

~ Lord Byron ~

may i feel said he

Marc Chagall

At the Dawn of Love

may i feel said he

may i feel said he

(i'll squeal said she

just once said he)

it's fun said she

(may i touch said he

how much said she

a lot said he)

why not said she

(let's go said he

not too far said she

what's too far said he

where you are said she)

may i stay said he

(which way said she

like this said he

if you kiss said she

may i move said he

is it love said she)

if you're willing said he

(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he

but your wife said she

now said he)

ow said she

(tiptop said he

don't stop said she

oh no said he)

go slow said she

(cccome?said he

ummm said she)

you're divine! said he

(you are Mine said she)

~ e. e. cummings ~

Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Scene 2

Audrey Hepburn

Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Scene 2

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she:

Be not her maid, since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

It is my lady, O, it is my love!

O, that she knew she were!

She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?

Her eye discourses; I will answer it.

I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do entreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they return.

What if her eyes were there, they in her head?

The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,

As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven

Would through the airy region stream so bright

That birds would sing and think it were not night.

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O, that I were a glove upon that hand,

That I might touch that cheek!

~ William Shakespeare ~

Tonight I Can Write

Edvard Munch

Starry Night

Tonight I Can Write

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry

and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.

'The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her.

To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.

Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

~ Pablo Neruda ~

Morning Sun

Edward Hopper

A Woman in the Sun

Morning Sun

The morning sun comes thru my window

All night long I have been waiting

We who are constantly moving

Leaving part of us behind

She moves across the room with easy grace

Mona Lisa smile upon her face

I who am completely mesmerized

By the sunlight in her eyes

~ Bad Company ~

In Your Eyes

Leonardo Da Vinci

The Mona Lisa

In Your Eyes

love I get so lost, sometimes

days pass and this emptiness fills my heart

when I want to run away

I drive off in my car

but whichever way I go

I come back to the place you are

all my instincts, they return

and the grand facade, so soon will burn

without a noise, without my pride

I reach out from the inside

in your eyes

the light the heat

in your eyes

I am complete

in your eyes

I see the doorway to a thousand churches

in your eyes

the resolution of all the fruitless searches

in your eyes

I see the light and the heat

in your eyes

oh, I want to be that complete

I want to touch the light

the heat I see in your eyes

love, I don't like to see so much pain

so much wasted and this moment keeps

slipping away

I get so tired of working so hard for

our survival

I look to the time with you to keep me

awake and alive

and all my instincts, they return

and the grand facade, so soon will burn

without a noise, without my pride

I reach out from the inside

in your eyes

the light the heat

in your eyes

I am complete

in your eyes

I see the doorway to a thousand churches

in your eyes

the resolution of all the fruitless searches

in your eyes

I see the light and the heat

in your eyes

oh, I want to be that complete

I want to touch the light,

the heat I see in your eyes

in your eyes

in your eyes

in your eyes

in your eyes

in your eyes

in your eyes

~ Peter Gabriel ~

Is Anything

Edvard Munch

The Scream

Is Anything

Is what is what it was?

Was what was ever really what it is to me today?

Is what is what is was?

Is anything

Is anything

Is anything

What do you when you don't

What will you when you won't

Lay with me stay with me...fuck me baby

Is what is what it was?

Is anything
Is anything
Is anythng

Florida and blonde at fifteen, before

The sinking in of things, before
the critics in the wings

And the constant compromise

How can we have wondered about so much for so long

And received so few answers?
How can we have wondered about so much for so long

And received so few answers?

~ The Judybats ~

When You Are Old

Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida

Mother and Baby

Jan Vermeer

Girl with Ear Ring

Paul Chabas

September Morn

James Abbot McNeil Whistler

Arrangement in Grey and Black:
Portrait of the Painter’s Mother

When You Are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

~ William Butler Yeats ~

Remember

Norman Rockwell

First Love

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

~ Christina Rossetti ~

Lovers Lament

Claude Monet

La Promenade, la femme a l'ombrelle

Lovers Lament

That summer was the summer of Anne,
As blond as wheat,
Brown-eyed, sweet,
Laughter-filled, eighteen and tan,
A girl to turn the heart of any man.
And turn my heart she did, she did.
It flipped and flopped.
It nearly stopped.
But when I made by smitten bid,
Within my chest I heard it skid.
“Too young, too young,” was her reply.
I shook my head.
My heart played dead.
Ice and sleet invaded July.
Too young for love, too old to cry.
So there I stood – disqualified –
When I was ten and the world too wide.

~ Leonhard Dowty ~

The Glove and the Lions

Charles Meynier

Milo of Croton Devoured by a Lion

The Glove and the Lions

King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the court.
The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their pride,
And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he signed:
And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,
Valor and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.

Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;
They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws;
With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another,
Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thunderous smother;
The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air;
Said Francis then, "Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there."

De Lorge's love o'er heard the King, a beauteous lively dame,
With smiling lips and sharp bright eyes, which always seemed the same;
She thought, The Count my lover is brave as brave can be;
He surely would do wondrous things to show his love of me;
King, ladies, lovers, all look on; the occasion is divine;
I'll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine.

She dropped her glove, to prove his love, then looked at him and smiled;
He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild:
The leap was quick, return was quick, he has regained his place,
Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's face.
"By Heaven," said Francis, "rightly done!" and he rose from where he sat;
"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that."

~ James Leigh Hunt ~

"I Love You Sweatheart"

Joseph Stella

Old Brooklyn Bridge

"I Love You Sweatheart"

A man risked his life to write the words.

A man hung upside down (an idiot friend

holding his legs?) with spray paint

to write the words on a girder fifty feet above

a highway. And his beloved,

the next morning driving to work...?

His words are not (meant to be) so unique.

Does she recognize his handwriting?

Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before

of "something special, darling, tomorrow"?

And did he call her at work

expecting her to faint with delight

at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?

She will know I love her now,

the world will know my love for her!

A man risked his life to write the world.

Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love

is like this, Sweatheart, all sore and dumb

and dangerous, ignited, blessed--always,

regardless, no exceptions,

always in blazing matters like these: blessed.

~ Thomas Lux ~

Ripening

Thomas Hart Benton

The Lord is My Shepard

Ripening

The longer we are together
the larger death grows around us.
How many we know by now
who are dead! We, who were young,
now count the cost of having been.
And yet as we know the dead
we grow familiar with the world.
We, who were young and loved each other
ignorantly, now come to know
each other in love, married
by what we have done, as much
as by what we intend. Our hair
turns white with our ripening
as though to fly away in some
coming wind, bearing the seed
of what we know. It was bitter to learn
that we come to death as we come
to love, bitter to face
the just and solving welcome
that death prepares. But that is bitter
only to the ignorant, who pray
it will not happen. Having come
the bitter way to better prayer, we have
the sweetness of ripening. How sweet
to know you by the signs of this world!

~ Wendell Berry ~

I like my body when...

Edvard Munch

Cupido

I like my body when...

I like my body when it is with your body.
It is so quite a new thing.

Muscles better and nerves more.

I like your body. I like what it does,

I like its hows. I like to feel the spine

of your body and its bones, and the trembling

-firm-smooth ness and which i will

again and again and again

kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,

I like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz

of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes

over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

~ e. e. cummings ~

Why So Pale and Wan, Fond Lover?

Roy Lichtenstein

Forget It! Forget Me!

Why So Pale and Wan, Fond Lover?

Why so pale and wan, fond lover?

Prithee, why so pale?

Will, when looking well can't move her,

Looking ill prevail?

Prithee, why so pale?
Why so dull and mute, young sinner?

Prithee, why so mute?

Will, when speaking well can't win her,

Saying nothing do't?

Prithee, why so mute?
Quit, quit for shame! This will not move;

This cannot take her.

If of herself she will not love,

Nothing can make her:

The devil take her!

~ Sir John Suckling ~

If You Forget Me

Jan Van Eyck

The Betrothal of the Arnolfini

If You Forget Me

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon,

at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine

~ Pablo Neruda ~

When I Was One-and-Twenty

Jean Deville

Self Portrait

When I Was One-and-Twenty

When I was one-and-twentyI heard a wise man say,

'Give crowns and pounds and guineas

But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies

But keep your fancy free.

'But I was one-and-twenty,

No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty

I heard him say again,

'The heart out of the bosom

Was never given in vain;

'Tis paid with sighs a plenty

And sold for endless rue.

'And I am two-and-twenty,

And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

~ A. E. Housman ~

Maybe

Edward Hopper

Summer Evening

Maybe

Maybe he believes me, maybe not.
Maybe I can marry him, maybe not.

Maybe the wind on the prairie,
The wind on the sea, maybe,
Somebody, somewhere, maybe can tell.

I will lay my head on his shoulder
And when he asks me I will say yes,
Maybe.

~ Carl Sandburg ~