Poems4TheSoul: Love, But…

"Ruin is what we need –

Despair is what we feed

Upon in poetry

A shock resets the nerves –

Helps remould the curves

Of written art

Catharsis helps portray –

Acting out a play

On expurgation

Tears or hidden fears

Release the bottled years

To ink a page:

The pen be our salvation."

- Mark R Slaughter

_____________________

"If you were coming in the fall,

I'd brush the summer by

With half a smile and half a spum,

As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,

I'd wind the months in balls,

And put them each in separate drawers,

Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,

I'd count them on my hand,

Subtracting till my fingers dropped

Into Van Diemen's land.

If certain, when this life was out,

That yours and mine should be,

I'd toss it yonder like a rind,

And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length

Of time's uncertain wing,

It goads me, like the goblin bee,

That will not state its sting."

- Emily Dickson

_____________________

"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."

- Langston Hughes