Poems of Love & Marriage

Quotes also make great readings. They can be found here

Yes I’ll Marry you my Dear

by Pam Ayres

“Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear,

And here’s the reason why;

So I can push you out of bed

When the baby starts to cry,

And if we hear a knocking

And it’s creepy and it’s late,

I hand you the torch you see,

And you investigate.

Yes I’ll marry you, my dear,

You may not apprehend it,

But when the tumble-drier goes

It’s you that has to mend it,

You have to face the neighbour

Should our labrador attack him,

And if a drunkard fondles me

It’s you that has to whack him.

Yes, I’ll marry you,

You’re virile and you’re lean,

My house is like a pigsty

You can help to keep it clean.

That sexy little dinner

Which you served by candlelight,

As I do chipolatas,

You can cook it every night!

It’s you who has to work the drill and put up curtain track,

And when I’ve got PMT it’s you who gets the flak,

I do see great advantages,

But none of them for you,

And so before you see the light,

I do, I do, I do.”

I Wanna Be Yours

by John Cooper-Clarke

‘I wanna be your vacuum cleaner

breathing in your dust

I wanna be your Ford Cortina

I will never rust

If you like your coffee hot

let me be your coffee pot

You call the shots

I wanna be yours

I wanna be your raincoat

for those frequent rainy days

I wanna be your dreamboat

when you want to sail away

Let me be your teddy bear

take me with you anywhere

I don’t care

I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter

I will not run out

I wanna be the electric heater

you’ll get cold without

I wanna be your setting lotion

hold your hair in deep devotion

Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean

that’s how deep is my devotion.

Windchime, by Tony Hoagland

She goes out to hang the windchime

in her nightie and her work boots.

It’s six-thirty in the morning

and she’s standing on the plastic ice chest

tiptoe to reach the crossbeam of the porch,

windchime in her left hand,

hammer in her right, the nail

gripped tight between her teeth

but nothing happens next because

she’s trying to figure out

how to switch #1 with #3.

She must have been standing in the kitchen,

coffee in her hand, asleep,

when she heard it—the wind blowing

through the sound the windchime

wasn’t making

because it wasn’t there.

No one, including me, especially anymore believes

till death do us part,

but I can see what I would miss in leaving—

the way her ankles go into the work boots

as she stands upon the ice chest;

the problem scrunched into her forehead;

the little kissable mouth

with the nail in it.

Love is More Thicker than Forget

by EE Cummings;

love is more thicker than forget

more thinner than recall

more seldom than a wave is wet

more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly

and less it shall unbe

than all the sea which only

is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win

less never than alive

less bigger than the least begin

less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly

and more it cannot die

than all the sky which only

is higher than the sky

Marriage – Anon

Marriage is about giving and taking

And forging and forsaking

Kissing and loving and pushing and shoving

Caring and sharing and screaming and swearing

About being together whatever the weather

About being driven to the end of your tether

About sweetness and kindness

And wisdom and blindness

It’s about being strong when you’re feeling quite weak

It’s about saying nothing when you’re dying to speak

It’s about being wrong when you know you are right

It’s about giving in, before there’s a fight

It’s about you two living as cheaply as one

(you can give us a call if you know how that’s done!)

Never heeding advice that was always well meant

Never counting the cost until it’s all spent

And for you two today it’s about to begin

And for all that the two of you had to put in

Some days filled with joy, and some days with sadness

Too late you’ll discover that marriage is madness

I Love You,

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I love your lips when they’re wet with wine

And red with a wild desire;

I love your eyes when the lovelight lies

Lit with a passionate fire.

I love your arms when the warm white flesh

Touches mine in a fond embrace;

I love your hair when the strands enmesh

Your kisses against my face.

Not for me the cold, calm kiss

Of a virgin’s bloodless love;

Not for me the saint’s white bliss,

Nor the heart of a spotless dove.

But give me the love that so freely gives

And laughs at the whole world’s blame,

With your body so young and warm in my arms,

It sets my poor heart aflame.

So kiss me sweet with your warm wet mouth,

Still fragrant with ruby wine,

And say with a fervor born of the South

That your body and soul are mine.

Clasp me close in your warm young arms,

While the pale stars shine above,

And we’ll live our whole young lives away

In the joys of a living love.

Rumi;

All those in love are ready

to lose both worlds

in one stroke

let go of a hundred years of life

in one day

travel a thousand miles

to experience a moment

and lose a thousand lives

for the sake of one heart

Rumi;

all the precious words

you and I have exchanged

have found their way

into the heart of the universe

one day

they’ll pour on us

like whispering rain

helping us arise

from our roots again

Rumi;

if you’re happy

even for a moment

with your sweetheart

seize the moment

as the fulfillment

of your life

beware

let no breath

go to waste

since you will not find

that breath again

Rumi;

Look at love, how it tangles, with one fallen in love-

Look at spirit, how it fuses with earth, giving it new life-

Why are you so busy, with this or that or good or bad, pay attention to how things blend-

Why talk about all the known and the unknown, see how unknown merges into the known-

Why think separately of this life and the next, when one is born from the last-

Look at your heart and tongue, one feels but deaf and dumb, the other speaks in words and signs-

Look at water an fire, earth and wind, enemies and friends all at once-

The wolf and the lamb, the lion and the deer, far away yet together-

Look at the unity of this spring and winter, manifested in the equinox-

You too must mingle my friends, since the earth and the sky, are mingled just for you and me-

Be like sugarcane, sweet yet silent, don’t get mixed up with bitter words-

My beloved grows right out of my own heart, how much more union can there be-

How Do I Love Thee?

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

A Red, Red Rose

By Robert Burns

O my Luve is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve is like the melody

That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!

And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

Though it were ten thousand mile.

Love Poem

By Melissa Balmain

The afternoon we left our first apartment,

we scrubbed it down from ceiling to parquet.

Who knew the place could smell like lemon muffins?

It suddenly seemed nuts to move away.

The morning someone bought our station wagon,

it gleamed with wax and every piston purred.

That car looked like a centerfold in Hot Rod!

Too late, we saw that selling was absurd.

And then there was the freshly tuned piano

we passed along to neighbors with a wince.

We told ourselves we’d find one even better;

instead we’ve missed its timbre ever since.

So if, God help us, we are ever tempted

to ditch our marriage when it’s lost its glow,

let’s give the thing our finest spit and polish—

and, having learned our lesson, not let go.

Love Song; I and Thou

By Allan Dugan

Nothing is plumb, level, or square:

the studs are bowed, the joists

are shaky by nature, no piece fits

any other piece without a gap

or pinch, and bent nails

dance all over the surfacing

like maggots. By Christ

I am no carpenter. I built

the roof for myself, the walls

for myself, the floors

for myself, and got

hung up in it myself. I

danced with a purple thumb

at this house-warming, drunk

with my prime whiskey: rage.

Oh I spat rage’s nails

into the frame-up of my work:

it held. It settled plumb,

level, solid, square and true

for that great moment. Then

it screamed and went on through,

skewing as wrong the other way.

God damned it. This is hell,

but I planned it. I sawed it,

I nailed it, and I

will live in it until it kills me.

I can nail my left palm

to the left-hand crosspiece but

I can’t do everything myself.

I need a hand to nail the right,

a help, a love, a you, a wife.

Love Poem to a Butch Woman

By Deborah A. Miranda

This is how it is with me:

so strong, I want to draw the egg

from your womb and nourish it in my own.

I want to mother your child made only

of us, of me, you: no borrowed seed

from any man. I want to re-fashion

the matrix of creation, make a human being

from the human love that passes between

our bodies. Sweetheart, this is how it is:

when you emerge from the bedroom

in a clean cotton shirt, sleeves pushed back

over forearms, scented with cologne

from an amber bottle—I want to open

my heart, the brightest aching slit

of my soul, receive your pearl.

I watch your hands, wait for the sign

that means you’ll touch me,

open me, fill me; wait for that moment

when your desire leaps inside me.

Love’s Philosophy

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle.

Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth

And the moonbeams kiss the sea:

What is all this sweet work worth

If thou kiss not me?

Hug-O-War by Shel Silverstein

I will not play at tug o’ war.
I’d rather play at hug o’ war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.

Long Marriage

By Gerald Fleming

You’re worried, so you wake her

& you talk into the dark:

Do you think I have cancer, you say,

or Were there worms

in that meat, or Do you think our son is OK,

and it’s wonderful, really—almost

ceremonial as you feel the vessel of your worry pass miraculously from you to her—

Gee, the rain sounds so beautiful,

you say—I’m going back to sleep.

You by Leo Christopher

You are
what I’ve been
searching for,
chasing after,
longing to find,
every star,
moonbeam
and dream,
all of every thing
so infinitely far away
and yet so intimately
here in my arms.

Marriage

By Dan Gerber

When you are angry it’s your gentle self

I love until that’s who you are.

In any case, I can’t love this anger any more

than I can warm my heart with ice.

I go on loving your smile

till it finds its way back to your face.

(an excerpt from)

You Have Made My Dreams Come True

By Peter C. Free

A squillion stars shine in the sky.
Soaring angels sing sweet songs nearby.
I wake and smile, my dreams are true.
The star in my arms, my sun, is you

Marriage of Many Years

By Dana Gioia

Most of what happens happens beyond words.

The lexicon of lip and fingertip

defies translation into common speech.

I recognize the musk of your dark hair.

It always thrills me, though I can’t describe it.

My finger on your thigh does not touch skin—

it touches your skin warming to my touch.

You are a language I have learned by heart.

This intimate patois will vanish with us,

its only native speakers. Does it matter?

Our tribal chants, our dances round the fire

performed the sorcery we most required.

They bound us in a spell time could not break.

Let the young vaunt their ecstasy. We keep

our tribe of two in sovereign secrecy.

What must be lost was never lost on us.

A Vow by Wendy Cope

I cannot promise never to be angry;

I cannot promise always to be kind.

You know what you are taking on, my darling –

It’s only at the start that love is blind.

And yet I’m still the one you want to be with

And you’re the one for me – of that I’m sure.

You are my closest friend, my favourite person,

The lover and the home I’ve waited for.

I cannot promise that I will deserve you

From this day on. I hope to pass that test.

I love you and I want to make you happy.

I promise I will do my very best.

Adapted from the words of Rumi (for a rainy wedding day);

All the precious words, you and I have exchanged, have found their way, into the heart of the universe, and today, they pour upon us, in the form of rain, helping us arise from our roots again.

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