POEMS OF WINE...!

Ode To Wine

Day-colored wine,
night-colored wine,
wine with purple feet
or wine with topaz blood,
wine,
starry child
of earth,
wine, smooth
as a golden sword,
soft
as lascivious velvet,
wine, spiral-seashelled
and full of wonder,
amorous,
marine;
never has one goblet contained you,
one song, one man,
you are choral, gregarious,
at the least, you must be shared.
At times
you feed on mortal
memories;
your wave carries us
from tomb to tomb,
stonecutter of icy sepulchers,
and we weep
transitory tears;
your
glorious
spring dress
is different,
blood rises through the shoots,
wind incites the day,
nothing is left
of your immutable soul.
Wine
stirs the spring, happiness
bursts through the earth like a plant,
walls crumble,
and rocky cliffs,
chasms close,
as song is born.
A jug of wine, and thou beside me
in the wilderness,
sang the ancient poet.
Let the wine pitcher
add to the kiss of love its own.

My darling, suddenly
the line of your hip
becomes the brimming curve
of the wine goblet,
your breast is the grape cluster,
your nipples are the grapes,
the gleam of spirits lights your hair,
and your navel is a chaste seal
stamped on the vessel of your belly,
your love an inexhaustible
cascade of wine,
light that illuminates my senses,
the earthly splendor of life.

But you are more than love,
the fiery kiss,
the heat of fire,
more than the wine of life;
you are
the community of man,
translucency,
chorus of discipline,
abundance of flowers.
I like on the table,
when we're speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.
Drink it,
and remember in every
drop of gold,
in every topaz glass,
in every purple ladle,
that autumn labored
to fill the vessel with wine;
and in the ritual of his office,
let the simple man remember
to think of the soil and of his duty,
to propagate the canticle of the wine. 

Pablo Neruda

To Bacchus  

God Lyæus ever young,

Ever renowned, ever sung,
Stain’d with blood of lusty grapes
In a thousand lusty shapes;
Dance upon the mazer’s brim;
In the crimson liquor swim!
From thy plenteous hand divine
Let a river run with wine!

Francis Beaumont

Come, Thou Monarch Of The Vine

Come, thou monarch of the vine,
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne[1]
In thy fats our cares be drown’d,
With thy grapes our hairs be crown’d!
Cup us till the world go round,
Cup us till the world go round!

From Antony And Cleopatra

[1] Pink eyne are small eyes.

William Shakespeare

 The Wine

 I CANNOT die, who drank delight
    From the cup of the crescent moon,
And hungrily as men eat bread,
    Loved the scented nights of June.

The rest may die — but is there not
    Some shining strange escape for me
Who sought in Beauty the bright wine
    Of immortality?

Sara Teasdale

With Cup in Hand

With cup in hand, the Beloved one day walked into the Winehouse.
And with only a wink, intoxicated all those already drunk with wine.

The hoofprint of Your horse looked like the shape of the new moon,
And Your shadow shrunk the size of the cypress pine to human scale.

Can I say truly: ‘I exist,’ when I don’t know my true Self?
Can I truly say: ‘I don’t,’ when I’m expecting The Divine?

When You got up to leave, the hearts of those in the Winehouse sank.
When You sat back down, the cheer that went up was deafening.

If any perfume smells like musk, it’s because it was near Your hair.
If indigo is used to draw a fine blue rainbow, it was taken from the brow
Of Your eyes.

My life is like a candle that has burned all night, and has burned away:
And like the burned moth, I will not rest until I see the light of day.

O Beloved, come back, so that Hafez’s spent life will be returned to him;
Like an arrow, against all of nature, shot from his drunken bow.

- Hafez