Really Good Poetry

I'm an awful poet. I admit it. I have trouble avoiding the word "Nantucket" when I write poetry. I'm not even that good a judge of poetry. The extent of my poetic education includes Dr. Seuss and the poems written by my Comp 103 professor to his pregnant wife about how sensuous she was late in her gestation. The latter has been blissfully blocked from my memory.

I was sitting in My Therapist's office two weeks ago and picked up a copy of "O" Magazine (Yes, that "O"). I flipped open to a poem that laid me out. as we say in Mayberry. When I was younger, we used to play Bible Roulette. It was like a cross between Magic 8 Ball and prophecy. Someone would ask a question and we'd flip the Bible open blindly and put a finger on the page. Often, we would slam the book shut due to the eeriness of the passage we'd fingered. An odd man had glommed on to our little music group once and insisted that he could contribute his tambourine skills to our ensemble. Bible Roulette resulted in some variation of "Send your tambourine players over the farthest mountain...." We stayed far away from Odd Steve and Bible Roulette from that moment.

Playing Oprah Roulette was a little more edifying, so I'm cheating today and giving you a portion of this poem by Ntozake Shange, a poet/playwright who penned "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide (When the Rainbow is Enuf)". I was first exposed to Ms. Shange as a high school student when someone presented a cutting from that poem-cum-play in a Forensics Tournament. I remember so clearly the piece began "There was...no air." I think Ms. Woman has found her air. So here's a little post-Valentine excerpt to get through the ordinary days that follow wine and roses:

"oh yes if i love truly" by Ntozake Shange

"what i've discovered in the relationships
where i'm most vulnerable (when i'm in love)
is that accepting the vulnerabilities of the other
is so hard
i need that person to be
maybe
some things he's not at that time
when i'm emotionally fragile
my images of my beloved
rarely include
his righteous anger or disappointment
indifference or incomprehension
i catch
myself
sometimes
before i wander off into my perfected version of
the man i love
that's not who he is
he may not even come close
that's all me
what i need
& that i must give myself without feeling cheated
that's not his job
making me happy is my job..."