poetry & tumblr

It's not that I dislike poetry, I just don't tend to think of it as something I love. (Although an argument could be made that things like tumblr tags are a poetry of their own, and I certainly spend plenty of time reading those.)

But there are certain poems I tend to think of, and want to re-read. Revenge, by Eliza Chavez ("rest assured, anxious America, you brought your fists to a glitter fight"), and Art is a Facebook status about your winter break, by b.e.fitzgerald ("Andy Warhol would have had the worlds weirdest vine account"), and that one about all the women in the world having a meeting in the bathroom that I can't find right now.

All of which is to say, Neil Gaiman posted a poem he read at a wedding, and it made me cry, and I thought I might want to find it again.

All I Know About Love, by Neil Gaiman

Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,
and not to be alone.

poetry part 2

Things I've learned about my poetry habits today:

1. I've shared the same poem/quote three times in three separate years, each time as if it was the first.

2. I once wrote a weird haiku about Michelle Obama and the Queen hugging?! ("I have no memory of this place.")

3. There were a few other poems I missed this morning, and I found that one I was thinking of about women meeting in the bathroom.

*This Vote Is Legally Binding, by T.Kingfisher
Yes, of course, all women know each other,
the way you always suspected.

*Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal, by Naomi Shihab Nye
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
this is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

*Sometimes it hurts when people scorn internet culture, by Shiv
It would mean a second by second update of
“I love you”
“I’m scared”
“Are you all right?”
“Stay close”
“Be brave”

*What You Can, by Hanne Blank
You did it while you dialed that phone number that time, and waited for “hello?”