Farewell, sweetheart, and again farewell;
To day we part, and who can tell
If we shall e’er again
Meet, and with clasped hands
Renew our vows of love, and forget
The sad, dull pain.
Dear heart, ’tis bitter thus to lose thee
And think mayhap, you will forget me;
And yet, I thrill
As I remember long and happy days
Fraught with sweet love and pleasant memories
That linger still
You go to loved ones who will smile
And clasp you in their arms, and all the while
I stay and moan
For you, my love, my heart and strive
To gather up life’s dull, gray thread
And walk alone.
Aye, with you love the red and gold
Goes from my life, and leaves it cold
And dull and bare,
Why should I strive to live and learn
And smile and jest, and daily try
You from my heart to tare?
Nay, sweetheart, rather would I lie
Me down, and sleep for aye; or fly
To regions far
Where cruel Fate is not and lovers live
Nor feel the grim, cold hand of Destiny
Their way to bar.
I murmur not, dear love, I only say
Again farewell. God bless the day
On which we met,
And bless you too, my love, and be with you
In sorrow or in happiness, nor let you
E’er me forget.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on January 11, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.
A zombie is a head
with a hole in it.
Layers of plastic,
putty, and crust.
The mindless
must be sated.
Mottled men who will
always return
mouthing wet
promises.
You rise already
harmed and follow
my sad circle
as if dancing
on shattered legs.
Shoeless, toeless,
such tender absences.
You come to me
ripped
in linens and reds,
eternal, autumnal
with rust and wonder.
My servant, sublimate
and I am yours
(the hot death
we would give each other).
My dark ardor,
my dark augur.
Love to the very open-
mouthed end.
We are made of
so much hunger.
Copyright © 2017 by Hadara Bar-Nadav. “Zombie” was published in The New Nudity (Saturnalia Books, 2017). Used with permission of the author.
Dream on, for dreams are sweet:
Do not awaken!
Dream on, and at thy feet
Pomegranates shall be shaken.
Who likeneth the youth
of life to morning?
’Tis like the night in truth,
Rose-coloured dreams adorning.
The wind is soft above,
The shadows umber.
(There is a dream called Love.)
Take thou the fullest slumber!
In Lethe’s soothing stream,
Thy thirst thou slakest.
Sleep, sleep; ’tis sweet to dream.
Oh, weep then thou awakest!
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 17, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.