i love this poem

To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
You look at things
Through his eyes.
A cardinal is red.
A sky is blue.
Suddenly you know he knows too.
He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or a light spring weather.
His hand to take your hand is overmuch.
Too much to bear.
You cannot look in his eyes
Because your pulse must not say
What must not be said.
When he
Shuts a door-
Is not there_
Your arms are water.
And you are free
With a ghastly freedom.
You are the beautiful half
Of a golden hurt.
You remember and covet his mouth
To touch, to whisper on.
Oh when to declare
Is certain Death!
Oh when to apprize
Is to mesmerize,
To see fall down, the Column of Gold,
Into the commonest ash.




Gwendolyn Brooks


what is your favorite?

"ghastly freedom" is weak.

This is my favorite poem of all time.
1. The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20


I have loved this poem since I was 19 years old. I was always told I should conform to what others wanted, how they wanted me to act and what they wanted me to become. My Teacher Ed Burgess read this poem to us in class once and it stuck with me. Because way has led on to way and I am still on that road.

Gwendolyn's cool.
Remeber the poem "We Real Cool'?
It goes something like this:

We real school
We skip school
We sip gin
We sing sin
We real cool
We skip school
We die soon

butterfli25 said:

I'm not too big of a Robert Frost fan, but I have always like that poem.

1sexymf said:

yeah i like that one to.

I am not a big Frost fan either and for the longest I couldn't remember who wrote it.

I also like ee cummings and Countee Cullen
this is Incident by Countee Cullen.

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.


This resonated for me as well because I experienced things as a child that blocked out all of the good around them and and just stayed in my heart,mind and wounded spirit.

butterfli25 said:

Oh I'm really sorry to hear that you had to experience that type of SHIT, espeacially as child when we don't really have an understanding as to why people treat others so meanly. It always pisses me off to no end when I hear about that kind of crap.
I'm not familiar with Countee Cullen, but I will be looking him up now.
I also love Langston Hughes, Rita Dove, Richard Wright ("Black Boy" is one of my favorite books), Dick Gregory and Sonya Sanchez.

This Frost poem always resonated with me

Bereft

Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?

Summer was past and day was past.
Somber clouds in the west were massed.
Out in the porch's sagging floor,
leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.

Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.

wow I like that one, hmm I may have to revisit Frost

My favorite...

Mother to Son
by Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Sweeny79 said:

thats a classic!

butterfli25 said:

I'm not crazy about Frost, either...but that poem really struck a nerve with me. Love the atmosphere it evokes...