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This poem is taken from PN Review 229, Volume 42 Number 5, May - June 2016.

after Verlaine

twenty love poems after Paul Verlaine
Richard Scott
love version of

tonight I watched you sleep
naked on the futon
face down sweaty like a small child
and knew that everything else was bullshit

it’s so hard to stay alive these days
or sane
so keep on snoring danny
while I guard you like a rottweiler

being in love with you is fucking awful
cause one day you’ll stop breathing
in this grey light you already look dead

but then you smile thank fuck
what are you dreaming about baby wake up
tell me if the word soul still means anything



pastoral

above vauxhall the sky
...


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