I do not love you

[agata.livejournal.com]

Sonnet XVII I do not love you, by Pablo Neruda

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

(no subject)

[theratmanknows.livejournal.com]

hi all, i'm looking for poems about cities or urban experiences, preferably appropriate for middle schoolers.

in exchange, here's Urban Renewal, by Yusef Komunyakaa


The sun slides down behind brick dust,
today’s angle of life. Everything

melts, even when backbones
are I-beams braced for impact.

Sequential sledgehammers fall, stone
shaped into dry air

white soundsystem of loose metal
under every footstep. Wrecking crews,

men unable to catch sparrows without breaking
wings into splinters. Blues-horn

mercy. Bloodlines. Nothing
but the white odor of absence.

The big iron ball
swings, keeping time

to pigeons cooing in eaves
as black feathers

float on to blueprint
parking lots.