Sandra Cisneros
Dark wine reminds me of you,
The burgundies and cabernets.
The tang and thrum and hiss
That spiral like Egyptian silk,
Blood bit from a lip, black
Smoke from a cigarette.
Nights that swell like cork.
This night. A thousand.
Under a single lamplight.
In public or alone.
Very late or very early.
When I write my poems.
Something of you still taut
Still tugs still pulls,
A rope that trembled
Hummed between us.
Hummed, love, didn’t it.
Love, how it hummed.
Julia Child
At the wedding of Bumby Hemingway and Puck Whitlock “By the end of the afternoon, I was thoroughly marinated with strawberries and cherries, champagne, brandy, Monbazillac, Montrachet, and Calvados, and speckled by tidbits of grass.”
Two full moons in December. Did you find a kiss under one of them? Quiet, perfect, quiet…
Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, v. I.
The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise —-
Although there is no mention of kissing, it is not a stretch of the imagination that Hafiz’s recommendation to hoard life’s subtleties might encompass the art of kissing along with the good wine.
Elisabet
By Hafiz
Now that I have raised the glass of pure wine to my lips,
The nightingale starts to sing!
Go to the librarian and ask for the book of this bird’s songs, and
Then go out into the desert. Do you really need college to read this book?
Break all your ties with people who profess to teach, and learn from the
Pure Bird. From Pole the news of those sitting in quiet solitude
is spreading.
On the front page of the newspaper, the alcoholic Chancellor of the University
Said, “Wine is illegal. It’s even worse than living off charity.”
It’s not important whether we drink Gallo or Mouton Cadet, drink up!
And be happy, for whatever our Winebringer brings is the essence of grace.
The stories of the greed and fantasies of all the so-called “wise ones”
Remind me of the mat-weavers who tell tourists that each strand is a
yarn of gold.
Hafiz says: The town’s forger of false coins is also president of the city bank.
So keep quiet, and hoard life’s subtleties. A good wine is kept for drinking,
never sold.
By Martial
The fragrance of balsam extracted from aromatic trees;
the ripe odor yielded by the teeming saffron;
the perfume of fruits mellowing in their winter season;
or of silken robes of the empress from her Palatine wardrobes;
of amber warmed by the hand of a maiden;
of a jar of dark Falernian wine, broken and scented from a distance;
of a garden that attracts Sicilian bees;
of the alabaster jars of Cosmus, and the altars of the gods;
of the chaplet just fallen from the brow of the luxurious;
– but why should I mention all these things singly?
not one of them is enough by itself;
mix all together, and you have the perfume of the morning kisses of my favorite.
Do you want to know her name?
I will only tell you of the kisses.
You swear to be secret.
You want to know to much, Sabinus.
A first. A mini prologue to a posting which prologue is due to a series of inspiring events. There is no mention of wine in this poem but it certainly seems welcome, perhaps as the ‘wild darling’. Some wonderful things do sneak in. Rumi says, let them.
Elisabet
By Rumi
There is some kiss we want with
our whole lives, the touch of
spirit on the body. Seawater
begs the pearl to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling! At
night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine. Breathe into
me. Close the language-door and
open the love-window. The moon
won’t use the door, only the window.
By Shakespeare, Sad Shepherd, i.2.
Marian. You are a wanton.
Robin Hood. One, I do confess,
I want-ed till you came; but now I have you
I’ll grow to your embraces till two souls,
Distilled into kisses through our lips,
Do make one spirit of love.
By Pablo Neruda
All night I have slept with you
next to the sea, on the island.
Wild and sweet you were between pleasure and sleep,
between fire and water.
Perhaps very late
our dreams joined
at the bottom,
up above like branches moved by a common wind,
down below like red roots that touch.
Perhaps your dream
drifted from mine
and through the dark sea
was seeking me
as before,
when you did not yet exist,
when without sighting you
I sailed by your side,
and your eyes sought
what now –
bread, wine, love, and anger –
I heap upon you
because you are the cup
that was waiting for the gifts of my life.
I have slept with you
all night long while
the dark earth spins
with the living and the dead,
and on waking suddenly
in the midst of the shadow
my arm encircled your waist.
neither night nor sleep
could separate us.
I have slept with you
and on waking, your mouth,
come from your dream,
gave me the taste of earth,
of sea water, of seaweed,
of the depths of your life,
and I received your kiss
moistened by the dawn
as if it came to me
from the sea that surrounds us.
By Plato
My soul, when I kissed Agathon, did start
Up to my lips, just ready to depart.
Oh! on that kiss my soul,
As if in doubt to stay,
Lingered awhile, on fluttering wing prepared
To fly away.
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