A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose

I’m going to tell you something, dear reader. Something only a few of my ex-girlfriends know about me.

No, not that! Get your mind out of the gutter (shame on you).

No, dear reader, it’s that I’m a sucker for good poetry.

Perhaps it’s because I prefer a good bourbon over a fine shiraz or because I utilize the word “fuck” more often than most people use the oxford comma, but regardless of why it still shocks people that I like a good poem.

Now, let’s be clear: in my mind good poetry can make the soul soar, and bad poetry….well bad poetry is one of the most pretentious, gag inducing things I have ever encountered.

I’ve met some true poets (lyrical geniuses really) but most people I meet who describe themselves as “poets” are really just assholes with a pen. Being a “bad poet” is like snarfing down a roadkilled squirrel in front of a vegan friend and then asking for a compliment afterword about how thoroughly you cleaned your plate: it’s disgusting, rude, and people are going to start worrying about your mental health.

Good poetry on the other hand…well what is good poetry?

That’s for every person to decide for themselves I suppose but to me good poetry is something that has a certain rhythm and I don’t mean that it has to rhyme. I mean that the words are written in such a way that they flow around your ears and sing off the page, or evoke powerful emotions while utilizing an economy of words.

Now, enough ranting (I’m sure I’ve offended at least some of you out there). Here are three examples of what I personally consider good poetry. Do you agree? Do you think I’m full of shit? Let me know (always willing to discuss and debate the written word)

Take bread away from me, if you wish,

Take air away, but

Do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,

The lance flower that you pluck,

The water that suddenly

Burst forth in joy,

The sudden wave

Of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back

With eyes tired

At times from having seen

The unchanging earth,

But when your laughter enters

It rises to the sky seeking me

And it opens for me all

The doors of life.

My love, in the darkest

Hour your laughter

Opens, and if suddenly

You see my blood staining

The stones of the street,

Laugh, because your laughter

Will be for my hands

Like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn

Your laughter must raise

Its foamy cascade,

And in the spring, love,

I want your laughter like

The flower I was waiting for,

The blue flower, the rose

Of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,

At the day, at the moon,

Laugh at the twisted

Streets of the island,

Laugh at this clumsy

Boy who loves you,

But when I open

My eyes and close them,

When my steps go,

When my steps return,

Deny me bread, air,

Light, spring,

But never your laughter

For I would die

-          Your Laugher, Pablo Neruda

Are you swooning yet? You should be. And if you’re a dude and you don’t admit this hit you where you live you A) are a pathological liar B) have never been in love. Check your iambic pentameter at the door and come at me bro.  

You may forget but

I tell you now: someone

In some future time

Will remember us

-          Sappho

If you don’t like Sappho I will fight you in a field. She’s the OG poet badass and the fact that her words are still that sharp several thousand years after she wrote them is something we should all aspire to.

And now, because I like to think of this as a safe space, one of my all time favorite poems. A little backstory here: when I was little there was this framed portrait my parent’s had that had this poem on it (turns out it was actually painted by one of my aunts or someone they knew? Not entirely sure, don’t really care). Before I could even read I would stare at that painted trees covered in snow, framed around the words (which themselves were painstakingly painted) and when it was read to me it was like a portal into that painted forest.

You know that feeling you had as a kid when you came in from playing in the snow and your mom made you hot chocolate? That was what it felt like to look at this picture.

So, without further ado: a magical super cool spell-poem from my childhood.

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

-          Stopping by Woods On A Snowy Evening.  Robert (motherfuckin’) Frost