Poem Relationships 1. Tonight I Can Write by Pablo Neruda Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is shatteredand the blue stars 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 armsI kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and 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 shattered 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 searches for her as though to go to her.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. Like my kisses before.Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite 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 armsmy sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me sufferand these the last verses that I write for her.

2. Ways of Love by Chung Yee Chong

i

you camelike the rainwithout warningthen you are the sunburns meconsumes meand i to marry your warmthalmost like a shadow?

ii

i stooda woman ........apartbut you never walked...............................overand i am still..................standing

iii

you could have madea most royal subjectworn your armourand charged your steedyou could have swept meoff my feet-insteadyou wore your hearton a sleeveand asked for lovei could not give

so i left youa broken kingwounded your pridewhen i could not queen

iv

between usthere are bridges of wordsyour eyes could never burn-it isn't througha lack of desireto set up what is a firebut where lips touchand hands meetcan never hope to reach

the loneliness beneaththe loneliness beneath

v

touch is not all-feeling at home with iti've grown numbto its call.........somehow

nowwhat hammers outthis perverse passion...............................to kill...............................to will

you in entirelyis loveis what it's all about

3. A Prayer for my Daughter by William Butler YeatsOnce more the storm is howling, and half hidUnder this cradle-hood and coverlidMy child sleeps on. There is no obstacleBut Gregorys wood and one bare hillWhereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;And for an hour I have walked and prayedBecause of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hourAnd heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,And under the arches of the bridge, and screamIn the elms above the flooded stream;Imagining in excited reverieThat the future years had come,Dancing to a frenzied drum,Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

May she be granted beauty and yet notBeauty to make a strangers eye distraught,Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,Being made beautiful overmuch,Consider beauty a sufficient end,Lose natural kindness and maybeThe heart-revealing intimacyThat chooses right, and never find a friend.

Helen being chosen found life flat and dullAnd later had much trouble from a fool,While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,Being fatherless could have her wayYet chose a bandy-leggd smith for man.Its certain that fine women eatA crazy salad with their meatWhereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

In courtesy Id have her chiefly learned;Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earnedBy those that are not entirely beautiful;Yet many, that have played the foolFor beautys very self, has charm made wise,And many a poor man that has roved,Loved and thought himself beloved,From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

May she become a flourishing hidden treeThat all her thoughts may like the linnet be,And have no business but dispensing roundTheir magnanimities of sound,Nor but in merriment begin a chase,Nor but in merriment a quarrel.O may she live like some green laurelRooted in one dear perpetual place.

My mind, because the minds that I have loved,The sort of beauty that I have approved,Prosper but little, has dried up of late,Yet knows that to be choked with hateMay well be of all evil chances chief.If theres no hatred in a mindAssault and battery of the windCan never tear the linnet from the leaf.

An intellectual hatred is the worst,So let her think opinions are accursed.Have I not seen the loveliest woman bornOut of the mouth of Plentys horn,Because of her opinionated mindBarter that horn and every goodBy quiet natures understoodFor an old bellows full of angry wind?

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,The soul recovers radical innocenceAnd learns at last that it is self-delighting,Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,And that its own sweet will is Heavens will;She can, though every face should scowlAnd every windy quarter howlOr every bellows burst, be happy still.

And may her bridegroom bring her to a houseWhere alls accustomed, ceremonious;For arrogance and hatred are the waresPeddled in the thoroughfares.How but in custom and in ceremonyAre innocence and beauty born?Ceremonys a name for the rich horn,And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

4. The Way Things Are By Roger McgoughNo, the candle is not crying, it can not feel pain.Even telescopes, like the rest of us, grow bored.Bubblegum will not make the hair soft and shiny.The duller the imagination, the faster the car,I am your father and that is the way things are.

When the sky is looking the other way,do not enter the forest. No, the windis not caused by the rushing of clouds.An excuse is as good a reason as any.A lighthouse, launched, will not go far,I am your father and that is the way things are.

No, old people do not walk slowlybecause they have plenty of time.Gardening books when buried will not flower.Though lightly worn, a crown may leave a scar,I am your father and that is the way things are.

No, the red woolly hat has not beenput on the railing to keep it warm.When one glove is missing, both are lost.Today's craft fair is tomorrows boot sale.The guitarist weeps gently, not the guitarI am your father and that is the way things are.

Pebbles work best without batteries.The deckchair will fail as a unit of currency.Even though your shadow is shorteningit does not mean you are growing smaller.Moonbeams sadly, will not survive in a jar,I am your father and that is the way things are.

For centuries the bullet remained quietly confidentthat the gun would be invented.A drowning surrealist will not appreciatethe concrete lifebelt.No guarantee my last goodbye is an au revoir,I am your father and that is the way things are.

Do not become a prison officer unless you knowwhat your letting someone else in for.The thrill of being a shower curtain will soon pall.No trusting hand awaits a falling starI am your father, and I am sorrybut this is the way things are.

For My Old Amah by Wong Phui NamTo most your dying seems distantoutside the railings of our concern.Only to you the fact was realwhen the flame caught among the final bramblesof your pain. And lying therein this cubicle, on your trestleover the old newspapers and spittoon,your face bears the waste of terrorat the crumbling of your body's walls.The moth fluttering against the electric bulb,and on the walls the old photographs,do not know your going. I do not knowwhen it has wrenched open the old wounds.When branches snapped in the darkyou would have had a god among the treeswho made us a journey of your going.Your palms crushed the child's tears from my face.Now this room will become your going, brutalin the discarded combs, the biscuit tinsand neat piles of your dresses.

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806 - 1861How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of being and ideal grace.I love thee to the level of every daysMost 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 useIn my old griefs, and with my childhoods faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.