Love 24: free

 

Gravity and Center

Henri Cole, American born 1956

from Blackbird and Wolf, 2008

 

 

I’m sorry I cannot say I love you when you say

you love me. The words, like moist fingers,

 

 

 

One of 19 intaglio prints of his own handprints; trial proof, 1998. 

Jasper Johns, American born 1930. Private collection loan to the Philadelphia Art Museum in 2021/22

 

 

appear before me full of promise but then run away

to a narrow black room that is always dark,

where they are silent, elegant, like antique gold,

devouring the thing I feel. I want the force

of attraction to crush the force of repulsion

and my inner and outer worlds to pierce

 

 

 

The Impossibe, III, 1946, bronze. 

Maria Martins, 1894-1973, Brazilian,  MOMA, NY

 

 

 

one another, like a horse whipped by a man.

I don’t want words to sever me from reality.

I don’t want to need them. I want nothing

to reveal feeling but feeling—as in freedom,

or the knowledge of peace in a realm beyond,

or 

 

 

 

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Offerings at a street shrine, Ahmedabad, India, 2010

 

 

                    the sound of water poured in a bowl.