David Ignatow Love Poems
- 1. Dilemma
Whatever we do, whether we light
strangersâ?? cigarettesâ??it may turn out
to be a detective wanting to know who is free
with a light on a lonely street nightsâ??
... - 2. Rescue The Dead
Finally, to forgo love is to kiss a leaf,
is to let rain fall nakedly upon your head,
is to respect fire,
is to study man's eyes and his gestures
... - 3. Walt Whitman In The Civil War Hospitals
Prescient, my hands soothing
their foreheads, by my love
I earn them. in their presence
I am wretched as death. They smile
... - 4. An Illusion
She was saying mad things:
'To hell with the world!
Love is all you need! Go on
and get it! What are you
... - 5. The Journey
I am looking for a past
I can rely on
in order to look to death
with equanimity.
... - 6. Play Again
Late in 1962 New York newspapers reported the story of a nine-year-
old child being raped on a roof, and hurled twenty stories to the
ground.
... - 7. My Skeleton, My Rival
Interesting that I have to live with my skeleton.
It stands, prepared to emerge, and I carry it
with meâ??this other thing I will become at death,
and yet it keeps me erect and limber in my walk,
... - 8. On Freedom
In a dream I'm no longer in love. I breathe deeply this sense of freedom,
and I vow never again to seal myself in, but I am reminded it is myself I love
also and that too is a kind of sealed condition. I am committed to taking
care of my body and its home accommodations, its clothes and neat
...
