Potential Titles: Kiss

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Kiss me in between the static - Leena Aboutaleb "Hijacked Interiors"

Last winter's kisses, like salt on black ice - Kim Addonizio "Wine Tasting"

Be less lavish with her kisses rare - Ellen Tracy Alden "Neighbor Edith"

Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care - Elizabeth Akers Allen "Rock Me to Sleep"

The one whose kiss she chose to return - Mike Allen "Carrington's Ferry"

Of ancient kisses vile and vain - Auguste Angellier "An Evocation" transl. by Henry van Dyke

Baubles of stolen kisses - Maya Angelou "When You Come to Me"

Kissing a bitter mouth - Homero Aridjis (transl. by George McWhirter) "The ways to see and be an angel"

The softest kiss in the wrong direction - Atticus "Love Her Wild"

Kissed better than the champagne - Atticus "Love Her Wild"

Hear the bad news kiss the wind - Peter Balakian "Ode to the Duduk"

Where you on kisses fed - Benjamin West Ball "The Cemetery in Summer"

The guerdon of a burning kiss - Benjamin West Ball "Pan and Lais"

One fragment kissed another - Mary Jo Bang "Speech Is Designed to Persuade"

Had sealed you with a warning kiss - Maurice Baring "Julian Grenfell"

Shakes the whirling planets with a kiss - Maurice Baring "Wagner"

To kiss the eyes of night farewell - Natalie Clifford Barney "Life"

And greet a stranger with a kiss - Willis Barnstone "At My Funeral"

out of kisses bringing fears - Elizabeth Bartlett "stormbird"

to kiss the imaged mist - Elizabeth Bartlett "while I live"

Hang your kisses on all my branches - Ellen Bass "Sink Your Fingers into the Darkness of My Fur"

Kisses as icy as the moon - Charles Baudelaire "The Ghost" transl. not credited

Until they kissed their souls away - Clive Bell "December"

Lands on a trail of blood kisses - Bruce Boston & Marge Simon "A Tale of Collaboration"

A kiss in youth upon a dead man's brow - William Stanley Braithwaite "Scintilla" [Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, ed. by Countee Cullen, 1927]

This kiss and its sleepless itinerary - Traci Brimhall "Aubade on a Ghost Hunt"

Receive the kiss of silk - Gwendolyn Brooks "The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith"

Never kiss a nettle - Calef Brown "Bossy Casey"

Until the key kisses the lock - Mahogany L. Browne "Goodnight, Moon"

Waiting the zephyr's first faint kiss - Marie Hedderwick Browne "Water Lilies"

Amid the kisses of the soft south-west - William Cullen Bryant "Autumn Woods"

Which kisses the glass coated asphalt - Bryan Byrdlong "Ode to Black Air Forces"

A kiss of mayo & mustard on a whole wheat bun - Regie Cabico "A Carpapalooza: An American Anthem"

Kiss the lips of Silence - Willa Cather "L'Envoi"

Air kisses the wine - Cortney Lamar Charleston "Brown Estate, 2018 Tempranillo"

The radiant kisses of the air - Wilfred Childe "Rosa Innocens"

A kiss so cold you'll catch your death - Roshani Chokshi "Miracle Babies"

Her night will kisses that midnight sun - W.E. Christian "Weaning Time"

Kiss me with your teeth - Leonard Cohen "It Uses Us!"

We kissed goodbye in fire - Leonard Cohen "Nothing I Can Lose"

A thousand kisses deep - Leonard Cohen "Thousand Kisses Deep"

And kiss the cheek of the moon - Leonard Cohen "The Window"

And bound themselves, by kisses twelve - "Come Lasses and Lads"

When the sunset rays dart kisses - Martha Walker Cook "Clouds: Cirrus. Respectfully Dedicated to Professor Guyot" [The Continental Monthly v.5 no.3, March 1864]

Feel the willow's tender kiss - Benjamin Copeland "The Meadow Air Is Sweet"

Let's commence the vigil of kisses - Giorgiomaria Cornelio "La specia storta (The Bent Species)" transl. by Moira Egan

Kisses from a waterfall - Nathalia Crane "Choice"

kisses are a better fate than wisdom - E. E. Cummings "[since feeling is first]"

Moist eyes are at kisses playing - E. E. Cummings "Songs (IV)"

The kiss of your white fire - H.D. "Cassandra"

Soft kisses like bright flowers - H.D. "Telesila"

A bloody kiss at thirty paces - Jim Daniels "Slaughter Ball"

Kiss their shadows as they dance - William H. Davies "Oh, Sweet Content"

Kissed me with the breath of hate - Coningsby Dawson "Love at Last"

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes - Thomas Dekker "Golden Slumbers"

One day we shall not kiss or quarrel any more - Babette Deutsch "Hibernal"

No zephyrs kiss the little lake - Irving Sidney Dix "Twin Lake: In the Wayne Highlands"

Drug the sea-sirens each with a kiss - Mary B. Dodge "Overdue" [Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, v.XI, no.26, May 1873]

This last lamenting kiss - John Donne "The Expiration"

Kissed the shining feet of Twilight - Helen Dudley "To One Unknown"

A kiss on the lip of the wind - Carol Ann Duffy "North-West"

And tosses a kiss at the stars - Paul Laurence Dunbar "The Rising of the Storm"

Takes every burning kiss we give - George William Russell aka A.E. "Blindness"

Kiss the edge of Saturn's outermost ring - Caleb Edmondson "In 2025, His Rings Will Disappear"

Fire kissed us and laughed - Eve L. Ewing "I come from the fire city"

Shopping has become my good-night kiss - Maggie Farren "Palms"

A kiss blown in the mirror - Julia Fehrenbacher "The Only Way I Know Love the World"

One kiss from her honey mouth - Sir Samuel Ferguson "Molly Asthore"

With his fairy kisses three - Eugene Field "Ganderfeather's Gift"

I stand in these shadows to kiss her - Annie Finch "Moon from the Porch"

Kiss the dust from my weary feet - Fanny Forrester "The Poet's Treasures" [Chambers' Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, 5th series, no.129-v.III, 19 June 1886]

Our scorching breath shall kiss - Gilbert Frankau "Eyes in the Air"

Morning ran and kissed the grass - John Freeman "The Wakers"

Throwing kisses to the birds - Rose Fyleman "Vision"

Steals its kisses with delight - Alfred C. Gellis "An Indian Cradle Song"

Caged as a prisoner, kissed as a pet - William Gibson "To a Canary Bird" [Graham's Magazine v.XL no.4, April 1852]

The cruelty of its awful kiss - Elsa Gidlow "I, Lover"

Kissed by the wild and loved by lightning - Nikita Gill "The Moon Goddess"

The wings for the kiss - Louise Gluck "An Endless Story"

Till the Princes of Earth bow low to kiss his stirrup - "The Gold-Finder" [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, no.CCCCXXXIX, v.LXXI, May 1852]

Waiting for the kiss of May - Louis Golding "Jack of April"

Spurred our parents to the kiss - Robert Graves "Children of Darkness"

And give you kisses by the dozen - Grace Greenwood "Babie Annie to Cousin J--, acknowledging the Christmas-gift of a chain"

I'd kiss the oranges blue - Kimberly Grey "Hunger Sentences"

Whose sweet breath is kissed by windflowers - J.C.H. "A Day in Early Summer" [Chambers' Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, 5th series, no.44-v.I, 1 Nov. 1884]

Imagination's kisses - Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser "Braided Creek"

Gently kissed into remote and tender silences - Paul H. Hayne "The Mocking-Bird" [Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, v.22, July 1878]

A lipstick kiss imprinted invisibly in a nano dimension - David Henderson "Blues Franchise"

Who kiss to shield yourselves from blame - Maurice Hewlett "The Village Wife's Lament"

Flinging its kisses to the budding trees - Henry B. Hirst "Thoughts in Spring" [Graham's Magazine v.XIX no.2, Aug. 1841]

Kissing all the bees - Florence Hoatson "Blossoms"

Sprang to kiss the sun - J.G. Holland "Kathrina Part 1: Childhood and Youth"

Kissed the cheek of death - J.G. Holland "Kathrina Part II: Love"

Kiss the cheek of my periphery - Jennifer Huang "Neighborhood Walk"

Cutting the darkness and kissing the moon - Langston Hughes "Moonlight Night: Carmel"

Throwing kisses to the sky - Sade Iverson "Reminders"

Your kisses turbulent, unspent to warm me - Georgia Douglas Johnson "I Want to Die While You Love Me" [Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, ed. by Countee Cullen, 1927]

Your kisses were little poisons - Ashley M. Jones "Love Note: Surely"

kissed by my own flame - Camisha L. Jones "Wrecking Ball"

Till time withers with his kiss - Joshua Henry Jones "To a Skull"

And carry me into a seven-day kiss - June Jordan "Alla Tha's All Right, But"

Wraiths of kisses newly dead - Joyce Kilmer "Matin"

The trumpet's almost kissed by enough pain - Yusef Komunyakaa "Jasmine"

Purchased lips that kiss with pain - Sidney Lanier "The Symphony" [Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, June 1875, v.XV]

Whose kiss was poison - Emma Lazarus "Chopin"

Kiss the marble and the gold - Eugene Lee-Hamilton "A Pageant of Siena"

The first kiss carries history - Joseph O. Legaspi "The Kisser's Handbook"

A kiss can resuscitate the drowned Ophelia - Joseph O. Legaspi "The Kisser's Handbook"

Decide if it's a kiss or a bullet - Dana Levin "Instructions for Stopping"

And burn the Pilgrim's kiss - Ada Limon "Publicity"

A kiss from far off Eden - Vachel Lindsay "My Lady Is Compared to a Young Tree"

Curling lips which Earth has kissed - Isabel Ecclestone Mackay "The Crocus Bed"

Whose kiss was in the wind - Isabel Ecclestone Mackay "Rose Dolores"

For wild redemption of his kiss - Fiona MacLeod "The Songs of Ethlenn Stuart"

Print of some immortal's kiss - Stephane Mallarme "L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune" (translated by Aldous Huxley)

One azure word turned kiss - Jeannette Marks "Bubbles"

Kissing the dawn with my silver - Jeannette Marks "Wild Grape Vine"

Awakened by kisses of fire - Edgar Lee Masters "Toward the Gulf"

Reaping time for kisses - Louis J. McQuilland "With Bertha Up the River"

And the kisses you returned - Frank J. Medina "'Twas Not to Be"

Kissing resolution on the lips - Risalet Merdan "Today Is a Day to Write Poems" transl. by Munawwar Abdulla

Posturing kisses gone astray for scattered sweets - Alice Meynell "The Fold"

The long, the new surprises of his kiss - Alice Meynell "West Wind in Winter"

Of seas that were wed with a kiss - Madeleine Sweeny Miller "The Wedding at Panama"

Submerged in salt kisses - Kamilah Aisha Moon "Mercy Beach"

As keen for a kiss as a crime - Charles Pelham Mulvaney "Poppoea"

Kiss of sorrow's bitter lips - Ethel Allen Murphy "A Botticelli Madonna. I, The Wondering Angel"

Flowers to kiss her - Francis Neilson "The Tryst"

A rosary of yellow kisses - Pablo Neruda "Advancing in the Lands of Chile" transl. by Jack Schmitt

The republic my kisses founded - Pablo Neruda "Night XC" transl. by Stephen Tapscott

Drunk with pines and long kisses - Pablo Neruda "Twenty Love Poems IX" translated by W.S. Merwin

The lips that kissed fire - Pablo Neruda "The Unburied Woman of Paita" transl. by Maria Jacketti

All the world kissing his glove - Jess Nevins "My Last Duke"

Kiss the sand in wanton mockery - Effie Lee Newsome "O Sea, That Knowest Thy Strength"

And kiss the earth farewell - Effie Lee Newsome "Sunset"

Sail kisses to heaven or row to a heart's shore - Margaret Noodin "Fireflies" transl. by the author

Where kisses are ships curved against the sea - Margaret Noodin "Red Sky over Superior" transl. by the author

Kissed him with ripples of laughter - Alfred Noyes "A Tale of Old Japan"

Until we kiss good night - Lin Oliver "Hush"

Kissing me with its golden mouth - Mary Oliver "I don't want to live a small life"

The stiff kiss of acorns - January Gill O'Neil "The Blower of Leaves"

Has a kiss of desire on the lips - John Boyle O'Reilly "The White Rose"

To kiss the limits of the roasted zone - T.W.P. "Letter Second: To Thomas Carlyle, Esquire, London" [The Knickerbocker v.22, no.1, July 1843]

Kissing the Old World, softly to sleep - Lily Painter "Funk (#49 song)"

To the kiss of the winds above - Conde Benoist Pallen "The Raising of the Flag"

Disaster's alkaline kiss - D.A. Powell "Useless Landscape"

Kissing the dust of the Holy Land - Adelaide Anne Proctor "Verse: Rest"

Kissed in a dark exhibit - Paige Quinones "At the Museum"

Sun that pauses to kiss the dew - Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall "My Valley"

May not perish for a kiss - Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall "On a Battle Field"

Beneath the fire of kisses - Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall "One Night"

Ghosts of burnt-out kisses - Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall "To Roses"

Ere they were kissed by winds - Theodore H. Rand "Partridge Island"

With the kiss of the tide entwine - Herbert Randall "Outside"

Faint beneath the kiss of fire - Lola Ridge "Firehead part IV: The Stone 1: The Magdalene"

Drain their own kisses as they drink - James Whitcombe Riley "The Song I Never Sing"

The salt of a thousand dry kisses - Luis J. Rodriguez "Making Medicine"

Kissed by burning stars - Alice Wellington Rollins "Indian Summer"

Caressing surveillance cameras and blowing whisper kisses - Karen A. Romanko "The Invisible Woman Runs for President"

And kisses the sparrows in her hair - Hester J. Rook "The Sparrows in Her Hair"

When we kiss my lips shatter like bleeding glass - Hester J. Rook "Under Silver Waves"

Kisses and hatred, chocolate and vengeance - Benjamin Rosenbaum "A Gardener Betrayed by Roses"

Kiss and wake the waters - Isaac Rosenberg "Don Juan's Song"

Turned with malign kiss - Isaac Rosenberg "On Receiving the First News of the War"

The breath of a first kiss - Ellen Rowland "The Way the Sky Might Taste"

Rommel was kissing heaven's dainty hands - Tomaž Šalamun "We Build a Barn and Read Reader's Digest"

Sent from earth to kiss the sky - Margaret E. Sangster "At Dawn: III. The Farmer"

And their dreams dew kissed - Margaret E. Sangster "To an Old Schoolhouse"

Peace kiss and blot their tarnished light - Herman George Scheffauer "The Masque of the Elements"

Sealed forever by reentry's kiss of peace - Ann K. Schwader "Ossuary"

With cantrip kisses seven - William Bell Scott "The Witch's Ballad"

Three times round with kisses seven - William Bell Scott "The Witch's Ballad"

Plighted faith renewed with every kiss - P. Seshadri "An Evening on the Lagoon"

Kiss high heaven - Percy Bysshe Shelley "Love's Philosophy"

Who kissed the veil from Beauty's face - Francis Sherman "In Memorabilia Mortis"

Graves by cloud wreaths kissed - Taras Shevchenko "Naimechka or The Servant" transl. by Alexander Jardine Hunter

With a cool kiss of surprise - Joyce Sidman "Come, Happiness"

Hiding kisses before they grieve - Sue William Silverman "If the Girl Escapes a Bosch Painting"

With kisses keen as snow - Clark Ashton Smith "Beauty Implacable"

Desert years in one deep kiss - Clark Ashton Smith "Ecstasy"

Without even kissing their ghosts in my dreams - Cynthia So "The Unicorn's Question"

From the distance of a kiss - Richard Solomon "Salt Doll's Incarnation"

The strawberry of a good-bye kiss - Gary Soto "California Geography"

The wind's kisses turn rough - Kelly Stewart "The Bandit King"

Paradox and ambiguity kiss each time - Christine Stewart-Nuñez "When my OB/GYN Said He Didn't Understand Poetry"

Stir beneath June's magic kiss - Muriel Stuart "The Seed Shop"

When the cold North-wind kissed her pallid lips - William Albert Sutliffe "Song of the Spirit of the North" [Graham's Magazine v.XL no.4, April 1852]

Smiles of silver and kisses of gold - Algernon Charles Swinburne "The Triumph of Time"

With rosy kisses maddening all the sky - Rabindranath Tagore "Spring that in My Courtyard"

We kiss in the shade cast by a kingfisher - Keith Taylor "Details from the Garden of Delights"

By mute communions and by salt sad kisses - Rachel Annand Taylor "The Hours of Fiammetta LIV: After Many Years"

Slips past the sun's long kiss - Tess Taylor "Solstice"

Never kissed at all - Sara Teasdale "The Look"

Wind kissing the river - Paul Tran "Taurus Sun, Cancer Moon, Scorpio Rising"

Meet our pity with a traitor's kiss - Iris Tree "[The scandal-monger after all is right]"

Crushing the poisonous berries of sinister kisses - Iris Tree "[Slowly the pale feet of morning]"

A gift of quicksand kisses, a ruin of howling - Ali Trotta "The Devil You Know"

The sun's dark kiss - John Updike "Endpoint"

Warmed to metal's kiss - John Updike "Endpoint"

blowing kisses to clouds of heather - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "The Second Stop Is Jupiter"

One kiss beneath the mistletoe - Nora C. Usher "Mistletoe" [Chamber's Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Art, 5th series, no.49--v.I, 6 Dec. 1884]

Sold into bondage by the cruel kiss of hate - Rudolph Valentino "Slavery (To E.A.P.)"

Exquisite bitterness in your kiss - Rudolph Valentino "You"

To kiss the edge of their universe - Emily van Kley "Lacustrine"

And kiss the sun "Good-bye!" - Charles William Wallace "A Choral of Sunset"

Kissed the bony branches into blossom - Charles William Wallace "The Old Benoni Tree"

Kissing apples till they blush - Julia Carter Welch "Fall"

Her kiss upon the brows of dream - John Hall Wheelock "The Undissuadable Austerity"

The kisses were ghostly with jasmine - Helen Hay Whitney "The Ghost"

The wind lays ghostly kisses on my lips - Helen Hay Whitney "In the Mist"

Strike the earth with a kiss - Phillip B. Williams "Order of Events"

Fell like a kiss from the sky - Joseph R. Wilson "One Sweet Moment"

The sun would steale a kisse - George Wither "A Love Song"

Kissing all those strangers, forgiving them - Dean Young "Undertow" [ Poetry Nov. 2007]

Radiance woven into kisses - Veronica Zondek "cold fire 16" transl. by Katherine Silver


Of passion pale and amber-kissed - Max Eastman "The Lonely Bather"

Amber-kissed with years of heat - Max Eastman "The Lonely Bather"

Petals of moon-kissed roses - Joyce Kilmer "Slender Your Hands"

The soft rain-kisses of the night - Claude McKay "A Red Flower"

Chalice of sun-kissed foam - Amber aka Martha Everts Holden "The Brook"

With sun-kisses all aflame - Frances E.W. Harper "Dandelions"


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