All That I Owe the Fellows of the Grave
All that I owe the fellows of the grave
And all the dead bequeathed from pale estates
Lies in the fortuned bone, the flask of blood,
Like senna stirs along the ravaged roots.
O all I owe is all the flesh inherits,
My fathers' loves that pull upon my nerves,
My sisters tears that sing upon my head
My brothers' blood that salts my open wounds
Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop,
My fallen filled, that had the hint of death,
Heir to the telling senses that alone
Acquaint the flesh with a remembered itch,
I round this heritage as rounds the sun
His winy sky, and , as the candles moon,
Cast light upon my weather. I am heir
To women who have twisted their last smile,
To children who were suckled on a plague,
To young adorers dying on a kiss.
All such disease I doctor in my blood,
And all such love's a shrub sown in the breath.
Then look, my eyes, upon this bonehead fortune
And browse upon the postures of the dead;
All night and day I eye the ragged globe
Through periscopes rightsighted from the grave;
All night and day I wander in these same
Wax clothes that wax upon the ageing ribs;
All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet.
Then look, my heart, upon the scarlet trove,
And look, my grain, upon the falling wheat;
All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet.
poem by Dylan Thomas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
I Dreamed My Genesis
I dreamed my genesis in sweat of sleep, breaking
Through the rotating shell, strong
As motor muscle on the drill, driving
Through vision and the girdered nerve.
From limbs that had the measure of the worm, shuffled
Off from the creasing flesh, filed
Through all the irons in the grass, metal
Of suns in the man-melting night.
Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop, costly
A creature in my bones I
Rounded my globe of heritage, journey
In bottom gear through night-geared man.
I dreamed my genesis and died again, shrapnel
Rammed in the marching heart, hole
In the stitched wound and clotted wind, muzzled
Death on the mouth that ate the gas.
Sharp in my second death I marked the hills, harvest
Of hemlock and the blades, rust
My blood upon the tempered dead, forcing
My second struggling from the grass.
And power was contagious in my birth, second
Rise of the skeleton and
Rerobing of the naked ghost. Manhood
Spat up from the resuffered pain.
I dreamed my genesis in sweat of death, fallen
Twice in the feeding sea, grown
Stale of Adam's brine until, vision
Of new man strength, I seek the sun.
poem by Dylan Thomas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Heir Apparent
I came back to my old city
With fierce determination
And I couldnt find my way out of the station
Its all changed
You were there
Departing, starting
A trek I had once took
With that no-ones gonna stop me when I feel this way look
Apparent, apparent
Heir apparent
You think its so easy, I tell you - it isnt
But you may change minds with your winning smile
I fell down in my old city
Such sad degradation
So I tried to make my way back to the station
You were still there
Gleaming and leaving
Wide-eyed and awestruck
Saying how can anybody hate me
If I love them first off ?
Apparent, apparent
Heir apparent
You think its so easy, I tell you - it isnt
But you may change minds with your winning smile
Heir, heir, heir
Heir, heir, heir
Heir, heir, heir
Heir, heir, heir
But you may be ok, I dont know
Ill see you back here
In a few bruised years
Pray
Ill see you here
Ill see you here
Ill see you here
Apparent, apparent
Heir apparent
You say that you want it, Im sure that youll get it
Theyll seduce your heart and then theyll slap your arse
Heir, heir, heir
Heir, heir, heir
Heir, heir, heir
Heir, heir, heir
song performed by by Morrissey
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Vain Spell
THE house sleeps dark and the moon wakes white,
The fields are alight with dew;
'Oh, will you not come to me, Love, to-night?
I have waited the whole night through,
For I knew,
O Heart of my heart, I knew by my heart,
That the night of all nights is this,
When elm shall crack and lead shall part,
When moulds shall sunder and shot bolts start
To let you through to my kiss.'
So spake she alone in the lonely house.
She had wrapped her round with the spell,
She called the call, she vowed the vow,
And the heart she had pledged knew well
That this was the night, the only night,
When the moulds might be wrenched apart,
When the living and dead, in the dead of the night,
Might clasp once more, in the grave's despite,
For the price of a living heart.
But out in the grave the corpse lay white
And the grave clothes were wet with dew;
'Oh, will you not come to me, Love, to-night,
I have waited the whole night through,
For I knew
That I dared not leave my grave for an hour
Since the hour of all hours is near,
When you shall come to the hollow bower,
In a cast of the wind, in a waft of the Power,
To the heart that to-night beats here!'
The moon grows pale and the house sleeps still
Ah, God! do the dead forget?
The grave is white and the bed is chill,
But a guest may be coming yet.
But the hour has come and the hour has gone
That never will come again;
Love's only chance is over and done,
And the quick and the dead are twain, not one,
And the price has been paid in vain.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Old Ireland
FAR hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave, an ancient, sorrowful mother,
Once a queen--now lean and tatter'd, seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevel'd round her shoulders;
At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,
Long silent--she too long silent--mourning her shrouded hope and
heir;
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of
love.
Yet a word, ancient mother;
You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead
between your knees;
O you need not sit there, veil'd in your old white hair, so
dishevel'd; 10
For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave;
It was an illusion--the heir, the son you love, was not really dead;
The Lord is not dead--he is risen again, young and strong, in another
country;
Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave,
What you wept for, was translated, pass'd from the grave,
The winds favor'd, and the sea sail'd it,
And now with rosy and new blood,
Moves to-day in a new country.
poem by Walt Whitman
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Fortune Of The Night
Written by neil diamond, tom hensley, and alan lindgren
Fortune of the night,
Callin out my name and saying shell be mine tonight,
Fortune of the night.
Oh, my heart is tellin me,
Oh, I better put a move on.
If she got away,
Then not a day would go by without some blue song.
All my life,
Ive waited for just tonight
To say that I love her.
And all this time,
Ive wanted to call her mine
And how her I love her.
Fortune of the night,
Callin out my name and saying
I will find her.
Fortune of the night,
Is there any doubt Ill need to have her by my side,
Fortune of the night?
Fortune of the night.
And oh, Im really movin now cause,
Oh, I would feel like a fool, yeah,
If she got away.
Theyd only say the rumors would truly be true, yeah,
That all this time
I waited to call you mine.
And you got to know it.
Fortune of the night,
Callin out my name and saying I will find her.
Fortune of the night,
Isnt any doubt Ill need to have you by my side,
Fortune of the night.
To want her,
To love her,
Oh, I do.
And nows my time.
Ive waited, but nows my time to show that I love her.
Fortune of the night,
Callin out to me and saying I was chosen.
Fortune of the night,
Tellin me that well be there
Until the morning light,
Fortune of the night.
Ah ah ah ah ah
Fortune of the night,
I hear you call.
Ah ah ah ah ah
Are you gonna keep an eye on me tonight?
Ah ah ah ah ah fortune of the night, I hear you call.
Ah ah ah ah ah are you gonna sing your song with me sometime?
Ah ah ah ah ah fortune of the night, I hear you call.
Ah ah ah ah ah are you gonna shine your light on me and make her mine?
song performed by by Neil Diamond
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Song from Aella
O SING unto my roundelay,
O drop the briny tear with me;
Dance no more at holyday,
Like a running river be:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Black his cryne as the winter night,
White his rode as the summer snow,
Red his face as the morning light,
Cole he lies in the grave below:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note,
Quick in dance as thought can be,
Deft his tabor, cudgel stout;
O he lies by the willow-tree!
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Hark! the raven flaps his wing
In the brier'd dell below;
Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing
To the nightmares, as they go:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
See! the white moon shines on high;
Whiter is my true-love's shroud:
Whiter than the morning sky,
Whiter than the evening cloud:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Here upon my true-love's grave
Shall the barren flowers be laid;
Not one holy saint to save
All the coldness of a maid:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
With my hands I'll dent the briers
Round his holy corse to gre:
Ouph and fairy, light your fires,
Here my body still shall be:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Come, with acorn-cup and thorn,
Drain my heartès blood away;
Life and all its good I scorn,
Dance by night, or feast by day:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
poem by Thomas Chatterton
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Night After Night
by Bob Dylan
Night after night you wander the streets of my mind.
Night after night don't know what you think you will find.
No place to go, nowhere to turn,
Everything around you seems to burn, burn, burn.
And there's never any mercy night after night.
Night after night
Night after night
Night after night some new plan to blow up the world.
Night after night another old man kissing some young girl.
You look for salvation, you find none.
Just another broken heart, another barrel of a gun,
Just another stick of dynamite night after night.
Night after night
Night after night
Night after night you drop dead in your bed,
Night after night another bottle finds a head.
Night after night I think about cutting you loose
But I just can't do it, what would be the use?
So I just keep a holding you tight night after night.
Night after night
Night after night
Night after night
Night after night
song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Flesh & Blood
Im not that someone whos got what you want
I can do nothing but watch what you do
You just want someone to kiss you good night
But lips are never enough to get you through
You stole my nights and you got your way
Now you got me dying inside , oh baby
Ebony dont walk out on me
Listen to what I say
Pick up the pieces of my life into the night of day
How do you break this heart of steel
Nobody ever could
Open the pages of my life
Im only flesh and blood
Ill be your savior but baby I swear
Im not living my life over you
Some satisfaction you get if you dare
But is it ever enough to get you through
You stole my mind and you watch me fall
Now you leave the scene of the crime,oh no
Ebony dont walk out on me
I never thought you could
Im only what you make of me
Im only flesh and blood
Im only flesh and blood
When youre gone , youll be leaving behind,
A broken man with something to hide
Oh, lost in the night in a town without pity
You learn how to cry. you learn how to cry
(break)
Ebony dont walk out on me
Listen to what I say
Pick up the pieces of my life into the night of day
How do you break this heart of steel
Nobody ever could
Open the pages of my life
Im only flesh and blood
Gone are the days that came and went
Houses are made of wood
Live in a world of sand and stone
Im only flesh and blood
Ebony dont walk out on me
I never thought you could
Im only what you make of me
Im only flesh and blood
song performed by by Bee Gees
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Loner
(ian hunter)
I was born
On the 3rd of june-hard labor-gemini moon
I was raised
In a country town-livin dead were all puttin me down
And my flesh and blood-my flesh and blood
Kicked me out - they never understood that..
That its alright-its alright- its alright to be a loner
Skin and bone, skin and bone, lean lookin wont you let me take you home
How about is babe, how about , a little love til the money runs out
Well give em hell babe, well give em hell
I aint the kind thats gonna kiss and tell
Im alright -you know Im alright- its alright to be a loner
Its alright-its alright- its alright to be a loner
Turn out the lights-bring on the night- oh baby Im a loner
I got my bags-i got my boots- I got ma wits about me-i got my roots
I gotta guitar-40 years old- Im gonna play it til the stories been told
Well knock em dead girl-well knock em dead
So when you think o me remember what I said
Its alright girl-its alright girl- its alright to be a loner...
Its alright-you know its alright-its alright to be a loner
Tonights the night Im gonna strap you in tight
Oo baby, Im the loner
song performed by by Ian Hunter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Three Maidens
There were three maidens met on the highway;
The sun was down, the night was late:
And two sang loud with the birds of May,
O the nightingale is merry with its mate.
Said they to the youngest, Why walk you there so still?
The land is dark, the night is late:
O, but the heart in my side is ill,
And the nightingale will languish for its mate.
Said they to the youngest, Of lovers there is store;
The moon mounts up, the night is late:
O, I shall look on man no more,
And the nightingale is dumb without its mate.
Said they to the youngest, Uncross your arms and sing;
The moon mounts high, the night is late:
O my dear lover can hear no thing,
And the nightingale sings only to its mate.
They slew him in revenge, and his true-love was his lure;
The moon is pale, the night is late:
His grave is shallow on the moor;
O the nightingale is dying for its mate.
His blood is on his breast, and the moss-roots at his hair;
The moon is chill, the night is late:
But I will lie beside him there:
O the nightingale is dying for its mate.
poem by George Meredith
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The Love that wounds
Where does the sea
of your love foam
in the love that wounds,
love of flesh, of skin?
I see the blood
of your tender heart,
empty eyes of stone,
saddened smiles of sorrow.
You with your need,
eyes open as you sleep
letting loose arrows of flame
into the insomnolent night.
Body of lust
heart of torment,
whose shores
do your waves now caress
in the ocean of the night?
For the night is an ocean.
poem by Jon Blanes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Hermaphroditus
I.
LIFT UP thy lips, turn round, look back for love,
Blind love that comes by night and casts out rest;
Of all things tired thy lips look weariest,
Save the long smile that they are wearied of.
Ah sweet, albeit no love be sweet enough,
Choose of two loves and cleave unto the best;
Two loves at either blossom of thy breast
Strive until one be under and one above.
Their breath is fire upon the amorous air,
Fire in thine eyes and where thy lips suspire:
And whosoever hath seen thee, being so fair,
Two things turn all his life and blood to fire;
A strong desire begot on great despair,
A great despair cast out by strong desire.
II.
Where between sleep and life some brief space is,
With love like gold bound round about the head,
Sex to sweet sex with lips and limbs is wed,
Turning the fruitful feud of hers and his
To the waste wedlock of a sterile kiss;
Yet from them something like as fire is shed
That shall not be assuaged till death be dead,
Though neither life nor sleep can find out this.
Love made himself of flesh that perisheth
A pleasure-house for all the loves his kin;
But on the one side sat a man like death,
And on the other a woman sat like sin.
So with veiled eyes and sobs between his breath
Love turned himself and would not enter in.
III.
Love, is it love or sleep or shadow or light
That lies between thine eyelids and thine eyes?
Like a flower laid upon a flower it lies,
Or like the night’s dew laid upon the night.
Love stands upon thy left hand and thy right,
Yet by no sunset and by no moonrise
Shall make thee man and ease a woman’s sighs,
Or make thee woman for a man’s delight.
To what strange end hath some strange god made fair
The double blossom of two fruitless flowers?
Hid love in all the folds of all thy hair,
Fed thee on summers, watered thee with showers,
Given all the gold that all the seasons wear
To thee that art a thing of barren hours?
IV.
Yea, love, I see; it is not love but fear.
Nay, sweet, it is not fear but love, I know;
Or wherefore should thy body’s blossom blow
So sweetly, or thine eyelids leave so clear
Thy gracious eyes that never made a tear—
Though for their love our tears like blood should flow,
Though love and life and death should come and go,
So dreadful, so desirable, so dear?
Yea, sweet, I know; I saw in what swift wise
Beneath the woman’s and the water’s kiss
Thy moist limbs melted into Salmacis,
And the large light turned tender in thine eyes,
And all thy boy’s breath softened into sighs;
But Love being blind, how should he know of this?
Au Musée du Louvre, Mars 1863.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The POET from the POEM
That lady -
whose eyes can see no ordinary eyes can see,
and desolate winds crying for her name
till truth and lies are all the same;
who knows how she ate the stars at night,
yet left the old moon sleeping in the sky?
Certainly she married that awful death
only not to die.
Out of her hands there came blood,
till blood covered her flesh.
And the blood had life...had sweeter life
till blood became her flesh.
How can you know the poet from the poem,
or sift the melody from its song?
Judge me, for I'll say
that lady -
is the poet and he being the blood, her poem.
poem by Jessel Jane Tevar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Every man is his own ancestor, and every man his own heir. He devises his own fortune, and he inherits his own past.
quote by Francis Herbert Hedge
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Light breaks where no sun shines
Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.
A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.
Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.
Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.
Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics die,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.
poem by Dylan Thomas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Process in the Weather of the Heart
A process in the weather of the heart
Turns damp to dry; the golden shot
Storms in the freezing tomb.
A weather in the quarter of the veins
Turns night to day; blood in their suns
Lights up the living worm.
A process in the eye forwarns
The bones of blindness; and the womb
Drives in a death as life leaks out.
A darkness in the weather of the eye
Is half its light; the fathomed sea
Breaks on unangled land.
The seed that makes a forest of the loin
Forks half its fruit; and half drops down,
Slow in a sleeping wind.
A weather in the flesh and bone
Is damp and dry; the quick and dead
Move like two ghosts before the eye.
A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead.
poem by Dylan Thomas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Suicide's Stone
Peace is the heir of dead desire,
Whether abundance killed the cormorant
In a happy hour, or sleep or death
Drowned him deep in dreamy waters,
Peace is the ashes of that fire,
The heir of that king, the inn of that journey.
This last and best and goal: we dead
Hold it so tight you are envious of us
And fear under sunk lids contempt.
Death-day greetings are the sweetest.
Let trumpets roar when a man dies
And rockets fly up, he has found his fortune.
Yet hungering long and pitiably
That way, you shall not reach a finger
To pluck it unripe and before dark
Creep to cover: life broke ten whipstocks
Over my back, broke faith, stole hope,
Before I denounced the covenant of courage.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Magdalen
All things I can endure, save one.
The bare, blank room where is no sun;
The parcelled hours; the pallet hard;
The dreary faces here within;
The outer women's cold regard;
The Pastor's iterated "sin";--
These things could I endure, and count
No overstrain'd, unjust amount;
No undue payment for such bliss--
Yea, all things bear, save only this:
That you, who knew what thing would be,
Have wrought this evil unto me.
It is so strange to think on still--
That you, that you should do me ill!
Not as one ignorant or blind,
But seeing clearly in your mind
How this must be which now has been,
Nothing aghast at what was seen.
Now that the tale is told and done,
It is so strange to think upon.
You were so tender with me, too!
One summer's night a cold blast blew,
Closer about my throat you drew
That half-slipt shawl of dusky blue.
And once my hand, on summer's morn,
I stretched to pluck a rose; a thorn
Struck through the flesh and made it bleed
(A little drop of blood indeed!)
Pale grew your cheek you stoopt and bound
Your handkerchief about the wound;
Your voice came with a broken sound;
With the deep breath your breast was riven;
I wonder, did God laugh in Heaven?
How strange, that you should work my woe!
How strange! I wonder, do you know
How gladly, gladly I had died
(And life was very sweet that tide)
To save you from the least, light ill?
How gladly I had borne your pain.
With one great pulse we seem'd to thrill,--
Nay, but we thrill'd with pulses twain.
Even if one had told me this,
"A poison lurks within your kiss,
Gall that shall turn to night his day:"
Thereon I straight had turned away--
Ay, tho' my heart had crack'd with pain--
And never kiss'd your lips again.
At night, or when the daylight nears,
I hear the other women weep;
My own heart's anguish lies too deep
For the soft rain and pain of tears.
I think my heart has turn'd to stone,
A dull, dead weight that hurts my breast;
Here, on my pallet-bed alone,
I keep apart from all the rest.
Wide-eyed I lie upon my bed,
I often cannot sleep all night;
The future and the past are dead,
There is no thought can bring delight.
All night I lie and think and think;
If my heart were not made of stone,
But flesh and blood, it needs must shrink
Before such thoughts. Was ever known
A woman with a heart of stone?
The doctor says that I shall die.
It may be so, yet what care I?
Endless reposing from the strife?
Death do I trust no more than life.
For one thing is like one arrayed,
And there is neither false nor true;
But in a hideous masquerade
All things dance on, the ages through.
And good is evil, evil good;
Nothing is known or understood
Save only Pain. I have no faith
In God, or Devil, Life or Death.
The doctor says that I shall die.
You, that I knew in days gone by,
I fain would see your face once more,
Con well its features o'er and o'er;
And touch your hand and feel your kiss,
Look in your eyes and tell you this:
That all is done, that I am free;
That you, through all eternity,
Have neither part nor lot in me.
Devil's Night
a lust for blood a horrors night
a longing for the taste of innocent
flesh demons come out to play
when the nights hour is none
let the rest less rise and roam
through the streets of the living
let all awake hear the screams
as blood stains the nights streets
reward the wicked with a personal
lick of the tongue down the neck
as the blood filled vains pop in your
mouth feel alive again as your thrist
for blood is lifted
feed my children feed rip the life out of
the living let all your my children feed
allow the living to fear when the nights
none let only the wandering souls of the
dead roam these streets
cause tonight we feed like
kings on to the flesh of the living
let all a sleep awake to the horried streets
an when the nights bright let the
shattered memories of former friends
mothers, children, father be seen in a pool
of there own blood as we rest to return again
when the clock strights 3am and the night
becomes none =] hahaha until tomorrow my pretties
until tomorrow
poem by Robert Roberts
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Because I Am
Because I am your star
life shines in the sky
night loves to sleep late
the day closes its eyes
If you want be my star
become alive on earth
become the night’s lover
be a man in the dawn
Because I am your dream
life pierces in your mind
the night gazes into your soul
the day takes its stroll
If you want be my dream
seed life in my arms
pour passion in the night
transform the days into flowers
Because I am your warmth
life swims in your blood
night overflows your heart
the day longs for the night
If you want be my warmth
allow blood to come alive
shed the night from the heart
the day caresses the night
You and I are in love
me and you in the night
If you are my dream
I become reality
You and I are in love
in the night, you and me
If I am a real women
you pass into eternity
poem by Silviu Craciunas
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