For The Romantics

Sonnets from the Portuguese, #43
by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning (1850)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints — I love with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

My Immortal

I'm so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
'Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

[CHORUS:]
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

You used to captivate me
By your resonating life
Now I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts
My once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
All the sanity in me

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

[Chorus]

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone
But though you're still with me
I've been alone all along

Its Been a While

LA Mort D'Armour

When was it that love died? We were so fond,

So very fond a little while ago.
With leaping pulses, and blood all aglow,
We dreamed about a sweeter life beyond,

When we should dwell together as one heart,
And scarce could wait that happy time to come.
Now side by side we sit with lips quite dumb,
And feel ourselves a thousand miles apart.

How was it that love died? I do not know.
I only know that all its grace untold
Has faded into gray! I miss the gold
From our dull skies; but did not see it go.

Why should love die? We prized it, I am sure;
We thought of nothing else when it was ours;
We cherished it in smiling, sunlit bowers:
It was our all; why could it not endure?

Alas, we know not how, or when, or why
This dear thing died. We only know it went,
And left us dull, cold, and indifferent;
We who found heaven once in each other’s sigh.

How pitiful it is, and yet how true
That half the lovers in the world, one day,
Look questioning in each other’s eyes this way
And know love’s gone forever, as we do.

Sometimes I cannot help but think, dear heart,
As I look out o’er all the wide, sad earth
And see love’s flame gone out on many a hearth,
That those who would keep love must dwell apart.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Maurine and Other Poems | Gay and Hancock, 1910

The Unwelcome Guest

(Or what to do when “bad” thoughts drop in uninvited)

A Cheesy New-Age Adult Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a slim, beautiful new-age woman called Daya (her real name was Babara, but her Guru had given her the name of Daya and she felt it was more in tune with her inner spirit ).

She loved reading new age books, was in touch with her Chakra energy, regularly had colonics and massages, went to yearly Buddhist retreats, and tried to live in “The Now” as much as possible.

She lived in a lovely inner city house (which she had put a lot of energy into manifesting) and was married to a loving and supportive non-new age man ; who she was trying to change by discovering her underlying beliefs of why he wouldn’t change. She had a fantastic relationship with her teenage son, even though he often asked her if she could “PLEASE TRY AND BE NORMAL FOR ONCE!” On the whole she was very happy and content with her life.

So here she was one morning sitting in her beautiful house surrounded by her Burmese cats, (Yin &Yang) when there was a knock at the door. She opened it and standing there were all her Good Thought Friends. “Welcome,” she said, beaming at them “I’m so pleased to see you, your right on time, I’ve just finished meditating.”

So all her Good Thought Friends followed her inside the house.

Abundance sat on the lounge : Daya was really happy to see him , he was one of her very special friends. Love cuddled up next to Abundance, ( Daya always felt a little bit anxious when Love popped in, as she really liked her ,but never knew how long she would stay around for ), Sensuality was checking out Love; Learning was browsing through Dayas books , and telling Patience and Tolerance that he thought some of them were a bit outdated (Linda Goodman's Astrology , Numerology, Your Erogenous Zones etc...),

Patience and Tolerance just agreed with him and went and made a cup of tea.

Manifestation was having a debate with Affirmation on the right way to get things done…it was getting a bit heated until Higher Understanding stepped in and sorted it out. Intuition really didn't have much to say, as she always knew what was coming. So there was Daya surrounded by her lovely Thought Friends; she always felt like a better person when they were there and enjoyed their company immensely.

Just then there was another knock at the door. “I wonder who that is?” Daya thought “I’m not expecting anyone else”, so she went and opened the door. “Oh No!” She screamed, “It’s that Bad Thought Fear! What is he doing here? The last time I saw him I told him to go away and never come back. I thought I had got rid of him forever!” So she quickly slammed the door in Fears face.

“Let me in” yelled Fear. “I’ve brought all my other friends” and to Dayas horror , when she looked through the peephole she saw there was a whole group of Unwelcome Guests. There was Guilt, Shame, Anger , Addiction, Lust, Jealousy, Tiredness, Depression and lots more; and pushing their way to the front were the two scariest of them all, Perfection and Self-Blame.

“Oh my God what will I do? They’ve tracked me down”, (Daya had recently moved and only given her Good Thought Friends her change of address) “Maybe if I ignore them they’ll go away, she thought” so she sat at the kitchen table and tried to make polite conversation with Clarity, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying with all the noise coming from outside.

It was getting late by this time and she was rather tired and worried, so she asked her Good Thought Friends if they would stay the night to protect her from the Unwelcome Guests outside.

“Of course we will” they said, but after they had gone to sleep she could still hear the cries of “let us in” coming faintly from the front yard. “I have to drown that noise out somehow” she thought, so she had a lovely glass (or two) of red wine, smoked a new age cigarette, rang a few of her supportive girlfriends, did a tarot reading for herself , watched something mindless on TV, took 2 Valium and finally went to bed.

In the morning everything was quiet. “Maybe they've gone”, She thought, so she peeked through the window; but to her horror all the Unwelcome Guests were there…they had even set up tents!

They were asleep, but she knew they would soon wake up and start yelling at her again. She could feel herself beginning to panic. “You must help me” she pleaded with her Good Thought Friends. “What should I do?”

Love suggested just loving them, (Daya didn't want to do that), Patience told her to wait and eventually they would go away, and Manifestation told her it was her fault they were there in the first place (outside, Blame laughed), Affirmation told her to write down and say 30 times, “ My Unwelcome Guests Are Gone”, and they would disappear.

Dayas husband wasn’t any help as he had gone to work to keep up the practical side of Dayas manifesting. “I’m going mad!” she thought as the suggestions and voices from inside and outside the house got louder and louder. “I’ll have to let them in” she realized, so slowly she walked to the door, opened it and fearfully watched as all the Unwelcome Guests marched in.

She was very afraid that now she had let them in they would never go away, and they would destroy the lovely relationship she had with her Good Thought Friends. “Don’t talk or go near my Good Thought Friends” she told them “you don’t belong with them”.

“I’ll try and pretend they're not here and only pay attention to my Good Thought Friends,” She decided; but everywhere she turned she saw or bumped into an Unwelcome Guest.

Finally, when she couldn’t stand it anymore she rushed up to Fear “What do you want?" She cried, “Can’t you see I don’t want to be friends with you? All I want you to do is go away and leave me alone!” and she slowly sank down onto the lounge, put her head in her hands and started crying.

Fear gently approached her, (here comes the cheesy bit) and putting his hand lovingly on her shoulder said to her “We aren't here to hurt you. All we want is for you to listen to us and understand what we are trying to tell you. If you get to know us you’ll see that we really aren’t that bad and you don’t have to be scared of us.”

Just then Peace came up and held hands with Fear. “You see,” said Peace “What Fear is trying to tell you are that if you don’t get to know him, you also won’t get to know me. We are ALL your friends, and all of us have gifts to share with you, if you will only accept them.”

And Daya looked on in amazement as all her Thought Friends started giving her the beautiful presents they had brought.

Soon she had to put all the presents in another room, there were so many of them .

Suddenly there was an extra loud knock at the door, and standing there, with a radiant smile on his face stood Awareness (he sometimes went by the nickname of Stilly, or Stillness). “Can I come in?” he asked “Of course” Daya laughed, “Everyone is welcome here now!”

And Daya finally understood that ALL her Thoughts were her friends and teachers, and each had his own special gift to give to her, and she didn’t have to be scared of them, or try and separate or ignore them... It was then that Compassion said “Let’s raise our glass and propose a toast, to inner peace, love, joy and grace.

And Daya lived with Awareness and Her Thoughts happily ever after.

copy write Enigma 2004