Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Kenneth Koch (1925 - 2002) : "In Love with You"

                              

                                  I

 

O what a physical effect it has on me

To dive forever into the light blue sea

Of your acquaintance !  Ah, but dearest friends,

Like forms, are finished, as life has ends !  Still,

It is beautiful, when October

Is over, and February is over,

To sit in the starch of my shirt, and to dream of your sweet

Ways !   As if the world were a taxi, you enter it, then

Reply (to no one), "Let's go five or six blocks."

Isn't the blue stream that runs past you a translation from the Russian ?

Aren't my eyes bigger than love ?

Isn't this history, and aren't we a couple of ruins ?

Is Carthage Pompeii ? is the pillow the bed ?  is the sun

What glues our heads together ?  O midnight !  O midnight !

Is love what we are,

Or has happiness come to me in a private car

That's so very small I'm amazed to see it there?




The Poetry Foundation - In Love with You


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