These Poems
by June Jordan
These poems they are things that I do in the dark reaching for you whoever you are and are you ready? These words they are stones in the water running away These skeletal lines they are desperate arms for my longing and love. I am a stranger learning to worship the strangers around me whoever you are whoever I may become.
from Things That I Do in the Dark (1977) and from Directed by Desire. The Collected Poems of June Jordan.
Love these lines:
I am a stranger
learning to worship the strangers
around me
They really capture the verb-ness of poetry. Bringing it from poetry to poeming
This is definitely proper poetry. Especially that final disguised rhyme. Short, sweet, lovely, sad, old, depth, yet skeletal - says more than what's on the page.
9.75/10 from me. Buy me a bag of lemon sherbets and you can have the extra 0.25