Marriage poems for my parent's 50th anniversary

[Liz of Chris & Liz]

Hi everyone,

My parent's will be celebrating their 50th anniversary in June and I am putting together a memory book of photos and well wishes from their family & friends for them.

I'd like to include some poetry on marriage and have been scouring around for appropriate material. I've found a few poems that fit the bill, but would love to find more.

If you know of any poetry sources or poems regarding marriage ... I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks much!

Liz

[waterdweller]

Liz -

This request is made to order for me... I know of many, many poems, old and new, that celebrate marriage. Example No. 1 is:

The Shipfitter's Wife

I loved him most
when he came home from work,
his fingers still curled from fitting pipe,
his denim shirt ringed with sweat
and smelling of salt, the drying weeds
of the ocean. I would go to him where he sat
on the edge of the bed, his forehead
anointed with grease, his cracked hands
jammed between his thighs, and unlace
the steel-toed boots, stroke his ankles,
his calves, the pads and bones of his feet.
Then I'd open his clothes and take
the whole day inside me -- the ship's
gray sides, the miles of copper pipe,
the voice of the first man clanging
off the hull's silver ribs, spark of lead
kissing metal, the clamp, the winch,
the white fire of the torch, the whistle
and the long drive home.

-- Dorianne Laux

I have many others, ranging from John Donne to Dylan Thomas. Do you want me to post them here, or by personal email?

WD

[waterdweller]

Or this one:

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of th purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love,

-- Christopher Marlowe

[waterdweller]

or this one:

Beauty

I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills
Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain:
I have seen the lady April bringing the daffodils,
Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.

I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea,
And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships;
But the loveliest thing of beauty God ever has shown to me,
Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips.

-- John Masefield

[waterdweller]

or this one...

Sonnet XVII: Love

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

-- Pablo Neruda

[waterdweller]

Or this one... Let me know if you want more, or if I should just fade away...

Why marry at all?

Why mar what has grown up between the cracks
and flourished like a weed
that discovers itself to bear rugged
spikes of magneta blossoms in August,
ironweed sturdy and bold,
a perennial that endures winters to persist?

Why register with the state?
Why enlist in the legions of the respectable?
Why risk the whole apparatus of roles
and rules, of laws and liabilities?
Why license our bed at the foot
like our Datsun truck: will the mileage improve?

Why encumber our love with patriarchal
word stones, with the old armor
of husband and the corset stays
and the chains of wife? Marriage
meant buying a breeding womb
and sole claim to enforced sexual service.

Marriage has built boxes in which women
have burst their hearts sooner
than those walls; boxes of private
slow murder and the fading of the bloom
in the blood; boxes in which secret
bruises appear like toadstools in the morning.

But we cannot invent a language
of new grunts. We start where we find
ourselves, at this time and place.

Which is always the crossing of roads
that began beyond the earth's curve
but whose destination we can now alter.

This is a public saying to all our friends
that we want to stay together. We want
to share our lives. We mean to pledge
ourselves through times of broken stone
and seasons of rose and ripe plum;
we have found out, we know, we want to continue.

-- Marge Piercy

[Christinko]

I knew you were a show off, but I had no idea you were a romantic too. Good job, me buddy boy!

[Liz of Chris & Liz]

Oh my....what a grand response. You are too kind! I would love more.....don't fade away!!!

Thank you!

Liz

[♥ COVID-19♥]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I would've dumped you years ago
If I only knew

[♥ COVID-19♥]

I'll get to the point
And avoid the corn
We've lasted this long
Because you hide your porn

[♥ COVID-19♥]

Roses are red
And also quite thorny
It's been 50 years
And I'm so fuckin' horny

SPOILER: Click to show

And in case you're wondering, no, I'm not fading away

[Liz of Chris & Liz]

I think you may be getting some of the sentiments correct....50 years is a long time!

[justheidi]

;D Hey Liz how about the Serenity Prayer? LMAO

[Liz of Chris & Liz]

That would probably be quite appropriate for them at times!!!

[justheidi]

so did they celebrate yet?

[Liz of Chris & Liz]

Yes they did Heidi! We held a family dinner at a snazzy restaurant & completely surprised them. The scrapbook was a HUGE hit, as were the family pictures we took.

Liz

[justheidi]

good to hear!!!!

[cockdoc]

The 50 year toast.

Here's to you! Here's to me! I hope we never disagree. But, if we do? Fuck-You, here's to me!!!!

[Tex]

bukkakeboy said:

I'll get to the point
And avoid the corn
We've lasted this long
Because you hide your porn

- Walt Whitman

[♥ COVID-19♥]

OK, well I thought it was Sylvia Plath, but you're probably right.