The Sleep of the Beloved

“Come sleep with me: we won’t make love, love will make us.”

 — Julio Cortázar photo by Paul Schneggenburger "The sleep of the beloved"

Mine

Spirit Wife

“Every moment you spend with her, I envy you.”—Etienne Navarre (From the movie “Ladyhawke”)

My wife is in spirit now. 

I still talk to her,

confide in her,

cry with her.

We dance, sing and pray together.

But I cannot touch her, human flesh to human flesh.

I long for you, Angelena. 

I would sell my soul for one more touch…

The Flame



Sweet Child O' Mine

When She Wasn't Present

"When she wasn’t
present as body she was the soul’s image
in everything. Drawing me closer
to the orbits of planets. Distancing me from life
on earth."

—Mahmoud Darwish, from “A Mask … For Majnoon Laila” (tr. by Fady Joudah), in The Butterfly’s Burden. Copper Canyon Press, 2006

Lolita

“I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth.”

-  Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

I Carry Your Heart

"I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful y...ou are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)"
EE Cummings

Looking For Your Face

 From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it
 
Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for

Today I have found you
and those who laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did

I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you
with a hundred eyes

My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold

I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine

Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow

My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you

Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
for me
the earth and sky

My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer

- Rumi

Craving

“I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.”
― Pablo Neruda

Lay Your Heart Against My Heart

"Lay your heart against my heart that I may hear your love summoning me to forgetfulness....
Lay your mouth on my mouth until all dissolves in mist about me...."
-Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff

Lost Without You

“I am lost without you. I am soulless, a drifter without a home, a solitary bird in a flight to nowhere. I am all these things, and I am nothing at all. This, my darling, is my life without you. I long for you to show me how to live again.”
― Nicholas Sparks, Message in a Bottle

Renewed By Love

"They were renewed by love. The heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.”— Fyodor Dostoevsky

Dream Your Dream to the Sky

“Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower.  Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved.”―Khalil Gibran