Splinters in the mind

by Stanley Kunitz

Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
so many many years ago
When I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.

- Touch me

by Simon Armitage

Anyone here had a go at themselves

for a laugh? Anyone opened their wrists

with a blade in the bath? Those in the dark

at the back, listen hard.

....................... Come clean, come good,

repeat with me the punch line ‘Just like blood’

when those at the back rush forward to say

how a little love goes a long long long way.

- I Say, I Say, I Say

by Tishani Desai

perhaps I can be her after all

....

who walks through moonless nights

with lotus skin and lotus feet

across forbidden boundaries.

I’ll be the kind who sallies out

to wait for love

with musk-kissed hair

and navel bared

in a thousand secret places –

past the cowsheds

and the balsam grove,

across the river,

to the garden of hibiscus.

And although the night be dark

and fierce enough to stir

the seven sleeping oceans,

I’ll deceive the forest

like a shadow,

slipping noiselessly past

evil eyes and serpent tongues

and the husband who lies inside

jealous of my devotion.

...

And later, while the husband sleeps,

I’ll make my way

to the town’s cremation grounds.

I’ll strip away my clothes

and dance among the mounds of ash

to command the churning of a storm.

For I have been with you

since you were born

and will stay with you

till you return

soaked with the lasting dawn.

- Another man's woman

by Carol Ann Duffy

Stop. Along this path, No Midas touch
has turned the wood to gold, late in the year

It is almost impossible to be here and yet
you kneel, no one's child, ..........., distantly
the evening bell reminding you, Home, Home,
Home, and the stone in your palm telling the time

- Plainsong

Suddenly the rain is hilarious

and the moon wobbles in the dusk

- Drunk

And at midnight, a candle next to the wine

slurs it's soft wax, flatters. Shadows

circle the table. The way all faces blur

to dreams of themselves held in the eyes.

The flare of another match. The way everything dies

- The Grammar of light