To You

(Circle Limit III Tessellation by M. C. Escher, 1898-1972,
Dutch artist)

It’s even possible to express love in surreal terms.

Kenneth Koch wrote poetry filled with much irony and sarcasm, some so absurd and humorous that one critic called him the “funniest serious poet we have.”

TO YOU

I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut
That will solve a murder case unsolved for years
Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window
Through which he saw her head, connecting with
Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red
Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years;
For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not
Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a
Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails
In the wind, when you’re near, a wind that blows from
The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us;
I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields
Always, to be near you, even in my heart
When I’m awake, which swims, and also I believe that you
Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to
The place where I again think of you, a new
Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow
Of a ship which sails
From Hartford to Miami, and I love you
Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun
Receives me in the questions which you always pose.

~ Kenneth Koch (1925-2002), American poet, playwright, and writer of short stories, renowned for teaching children and the elderly how to appreciate and write poetry

All I Want Is You

(Romance by Thomas Hart Benton, 1889-
1975, American painter and muralist)

Last month, we looked at three poems that used the rhetorical device of the hypothetical. This device involves conditional clauses and verbs in the subjunctive mood to suggest the impossible and the improbable, or to express wishes and doubts and uncertainties and suppositions contrary to fact.

The hypothetical is especially useful since it allows poets and lyricists to expand the possibilities for the expression of love.

The lyrics below are of a song from the soundtrack of the film Juno. You’ll notice a few errors in the verb forms. As Barry Louis Polisar, the singer-songwriter, explained, “I wrote and recorded this song in 1977 when I was about 23 years old and should have known better. . . . I went back 20 years later and re-recorded the song with the proper grammar (and an in tune guitar!) but the director liked the old funky, off-key version with the bad grammar intact. As a kid, I listened to — and loved — the songs of Roger Miller. He had a song called ‘Reincarnation’ which begins with the line ‘If I was a bird and you was a fish / what would we do, I guess we’d wish for reincarnation.’ I’m sure this was in my subconscious when I wrote this song.”

(Click here to listen to Barry Louis Polisar’s performance.)

ALL I WANT IS YOU

If I was a flower growing wild and free,
All I’d want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and green,
All I’d want is you to shade me and be my leaves.

Chorus:
All I want is you, will you be my bride,
Take me by the hand and stand by my side?
All I want is you, will you stay with me,
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea?

If you were a river in the mountains tall,
The rumble of your water would be my call.
If you were the winter, I know I’d be the snow,
Just as long as you were with me when the cold winds blow.

If you were a wink, I’d be a nod.
If you were a seed, well, I’d be a pod.
If you were the floor, I’d wanna be the rug,
And if you were a kiss, I know I’d be a hug.

If you were the wood, I’d be the fire.
If you were the love, I’d be the desire.
If you were a castle, I’d be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I’d learn to float.

All I want is you, will you be my bride,
Take me by the hand and stand by my side?
All I want is you, will you stay with me,
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea?

Now Touch the Air Softly

(Garden in Shoreham by Samuel Palmer,
1805-1881, English painter and printmaker)

The hypothetical, as we saw in two poems last week, is a great rhetorical device for the literature of love. It uses conditional clauses and verbs in the subjunctive mood to suggest the impossible and the improbable, or to express wishes and doubts and uncertainties and suppositions contrary to fact.

With the hypothetical, poets and lyricists can expand the possibilities for the expression of love.

NOW TOUCH THE AIR SOFTLY

Now touch the air softly,
Step gently, one, two . . .
I'll love you ’til roses
Are robin’s egg blue;
I'll love you ’til gravel
Is eaten for bread,
And lemons are orange,
And lavender’s red.

Now touch the air softly,
Swing gently the broom.
I'll love you ’til windows
Are all of a room;
And the table is laid,
And the table is bare,
And the ceiling reposes
On bottomless air.

I’ll love you ’til heaven
Rips the stars from his coat,
And the moon rows away
In a glass-bottomed boat;
And Orion steps down
Like a river below,
And earth is ablaze,
And oceans aglow.

So touch the air softly,
And swing the broom high.
We will dust the gray mountains,
And sweep the blue sky:
And I’ll love you as long
As the furrow the plough,
As however is ever,
And ever is now.

~ William Jay Smith, born in 1918, American poet

If you were coming in the Fall

(Dream by Henri Matisse, 1869-1954, French
printmaker, painter, and sculptor)

Yesterday we discussed that most useful of rhetorical devices, the hypothetical, for the writing of songs and poems about love.

In this poem, Emily Dickinson also ponders the many possibilities.

If you were coming in the Fall,
I’d brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As Housewives do, a Fly.

If I could see you in a year
I’d wind the months in balls —
And put them each in separate drawers
Until their time befalls —

If only Centuries, delayed,
I’d count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s Land*.

If certain, when this life was out —
That yours and mine, should be
I’d toss it yonder, like a Rind,
And take Eternity —

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the Goblin Bee —
That will not state — its sting.

~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), American poet

* Van Diemen’s Land – Tasmania, a part of Australia; in the early 19th-century it served as a penal colony for thousands of prisoners transported there from Great Britain

If I Were a Carpenter

Each Friday we provide the link to the blogger who is hosting a celebration of poetry around the blogosphere. There you can find the links to the many other blogs that are posting poems (new and old), discussions of poems, and reviews of poetry books. It’s also a great way to explore the internet.

Enjoy the festivities!

The host this week is Tricia Stohr-Hunt.

You can find her here.


(The Intercepted Love Letter by
Carl Spitzweg, 1808-1885, German
Romanticist painter and poet)

Rhetoric is the art of using language to persuade.

Poetry is full of rhetorical devices, like alliteration, metaphor, simile, and the hypothetical.

The hypothetical uses conditional clauses and verbs in the subjunctive mood to suggest the impossible and the improbable, or to express wishes and doubts and uncertainties and suppositions contrary to fact. If we want to comment, for example, on an impossibility, we might say, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride” (using a conditional clause), and when a friend sneezes, we say “Bless you!” (using the subjunctive mood to express the wish that God bless him, that he enjoy good health).

This rhetorical device is especially useful to those poets and lyricists writing about love. One songwriter who made the most of this was Tim Hardin (1941-1980). He took up a total of four different trades in his famous ballad pleading for the affection of his beloved.

The hypothetical works its magic by expanding the possibilities, by allowing a wide range of examples for the expression of love.

IF I WERE A CARPENTER

If I were a carpenter
And you were a lady,
Would you marry me anyway?
Would you have my baby?

If a tinker were my trade
Would you still find me,
Carryin’ the pots I made,
Followin’ behind me?

Save my love through loneliness,
Save my love for sorrow.
I'm given you my onlyness,
Give me your tomorrow.

If I worked my hands in wood,
Would you still love me?
Answer me, babe, “Yes, I would,
I would put you above me."

If I were a miller
At a mill wheel grinding,
Would you miss your color box,
And your soft shoe shining?

If I were a carpenter
And you were a lady,
Would you marry me anyway?
Would you have my baby?
Would you marry me anyway?
Would you have my baby?

My favorite is the version by Bobby Darin.