Brian Patten - Collected Love Poems

First Love First Love Falling in love was like falling down the stairs Each stair had her name on it And he went bouncing down each one like a tongue-tied lunatic One day of loving her was an ordinary year He transformed her into what he wanted And the scent from her Was the best scent in the world Fifteen he was fifteen Each night he dreamed of her Each day he telephoned her Each day was unfamiliar Scary even And the fear of her going weighed on him like a stone And when he could not see her for two nights running It seemed a century had passed And meeting her and staring at her face He knew he would feel as he did forever Hopelessly in love Sick with it And not even knowing her second name yet It was the first time The best time A time that would last forever Because it was new Because he was ignorant it could ever end It was endless

After Rimbaud’s Première Soirée After Rimbaud’s Première Soirée Sitting half naked in my chair she clasped her hands to her mouth trembling with pleasure The shadows of the cypress trees leaned into the window to gawp at us Her breasts were so tiny and her hair cropped so short she could have been a boy but we were beyond such trifling considerations I licked her small ankles kissed each fragile bone as her stomach flipped over and over Things she had imagined so furtively and for so long yet had dared share with no one were coming true at last! It is how she wanted things to be Her feet shivered on the cool floor of the room beating out a rhythm of pure pleasure

Now They Will Either Sleep, Lie Still, or Dress Again Now They Will Either Sleep, Lie Still, or Dress Again It’s evening, Over the room’s silence other voices and sounds. For them the world is a distant planet. And lying here they are naked, Her blonde hair falling is spread out across him. Around her throat her mother’s necklace adds Sophistication to her clumsiness. Let their touchings be open— They no longer belong to a race of pale children Whose bodies are hardly born, Nor among the virgins hung still inside their sadness, But waking together their world is perfect. Littered about the room still Are the clothes they used for meeting in. Evening, and the sun has moved across the room. Now they will either sleep, lie still, or dress again.

Party Piece Party Piece He said: ‘Let’s stay here Now this place has emptied And make gentle pornography with one another, While the partygoers go out And the dawn creeps in, Like a stranger. Let us not hesitate Over what we know Or over how cold this place has become, But let’s unclip our minds And let tumble free The mad, mangled crocodile of love.’ So they did, There among the cigarettes and guinness stains, And later he caught a bus and she a train And all there was between them then Was rain.

Nor the Sun Its Selling Power Nor the Sun Its Selling Power They said her words were like balloons with strings I could not hold, that her love was something in a shop cheap and far too quickly sold. But the tree does not price its apples nor the sun its selling power, the rain does not gossip or speak of where it goes.

When She Wakes Drenched from Her Sleep When She Wakes Drenched from Her Sleep When she wakes drenched from her sleep She will not ask to be saluted by the light Nor carolled by morning’s squabbling birds, Nor lying in his arms wish him repeat The polite conversations already heard; She’ll not be loved by roses but by men, She will glide free of sweet beauty’s net And all her senses open out To receive each sensation for herself. If I could be that real, that open now, And not by half a light half lit I would not gossip of what is beauty and what is not Nor reduce love to a freak poem in the dark.

Dressed Dressed Dressed you are a different creature. Dressed you are polite, are discreet and full of friendships, Dressed you are almost serious. You talk of the world and of all its disasters As if they really moved you. Dressed you hold on to illusions. The wardrobes are full of your disguises. The dress to be unbuttoned only in darkness, The dress that seems always about to fall from you, The touch-me-not dress, the how-expensive dress, The dress slung on without caring. Dressed you are a different creature. You are indignant of the eyes upon you, The eyes that crawl over you, That feed on the bits you’ve allowed To be naked. Dressed you are imprisoned in labels, You are cocooned in fashions, Dressed you are a different creature. As easily as in the bedrooms In the fields littered with rubble The dresses fall from you, In the spare room the party never reaches The dresses fall from you. Aided or unaided, clumsily or easily, The dresses fall from you and then From you falls all the cheap blossom. Undressed you are a different creature.

The Transformation The Transformation You are no longer afraid. You watch, still half asleep, How dawn ignites a room; His rough head and body curled In awkward fashion can but please. His face is puffed with sleep; His body once distant from your own Has by the dawn been changed, And what little care you had at first Within this one night has grown. You smile at how those things that troubled you Were quick to leave, At how in their place has come a peace, A rest once beyond imagining. Your bodies linked, you hardly dare to move; A new thought has now obsessed your brain: ‘Come the light, He might again have changed.’ And what you feel You are quick to name, And what you feel You are quick to cage. You watch, still half asleep, How dawn misshapes a room; And all your confidence by the light is drained And still his face, His face is still transformed.

Leavetaking Leavetaking She grew careless with her mouth. Her lips came home in the evening numbed. Excuses festered among her words. She said one thing, her body said another. Her body, exhausted, spoke the truth. She grew careless, or became without care, Or panicked between both. Too logical to suffer, imagining Love short-lived and ‘forever’ A lie fostered on the mass to light Blank days with hope, What she meant to him was soon diminished. He too had grown careless with his mouth. Habit wrecked them both, and wrecked They left the fragments untouched, and left.

The Poor Fools The Poor Fools You ask why poets speak so often In the language of goodbyes. It’s because beginnings take them by surprise. Love comes and hammers them, And then the poor fools are lost for words. They abandon their pens, and their fingers Itch for other things: buttons, nipples, zips— For everything but the poor abandoned pen.

Tonight I Will Not Bother You Tonight I Will Not Bother You Tonight I will not bother you with telephones Or voices speaking their cold and regular lines; I’ll write no more notes in crowded living rooms Saying what and how much has changed, But fall instead to silence and things known. When through exhaustion you scream, throw up Sorrow that’s become a physical pain, I’ll not try and comfort you with words That add little but darkness to ourselves But with the body speak, its senses known. There is no frantic hurry to love Or press on another one’s own dream. This much I know has changed, What was once wild is calmed, And quieter now behind the brain May throw more light on things; And what starved for love survives Whatever shadow it hunted down. Taking what love comes makes All that comes much easier; Something buried deep selects what our shapes need; The smaller habits it allows to breathe then fade, Leaving the centre clean. Tonight I will not bother you with excuses. If owning separate worlds means pain Comes more easily, and hurt Remains a common part of us, The silence is best; it will allow All doubts to strip themselves. Then whatever’s seen will surely Be seen in its own light, And whatever is wanted be wanted For more than wanting’s sake.