Poetry Month Entry #1

Okay, in celebration of National Poetry Month, a first installment of some poetic verse. The first is a number poem about rain that I wrote with Cindy's sixth graders during Spring Break. Each line has the same number of words as the numbers in my phone number. I think it is more than time for the rain to stop. I don't know if it is symbolic or something, but some springtime sun would be wonderful. I'm so so tired of it being so wet and cold and grey. I need some warmth and sunshine to warm my spirits. The next was a new song (my favorite form of poetry) that made me happy the other day driving to school. And the last is one of the many poems of Langston Hughes that I love.

"Grey Skies"

Clouds fill up the sky
As if night creeps in slowly blocking the sun.
Playgrounds are abandoned for the shelter of the indoors
And the world outside patiently, quietly waits
For a single shard of sun,
For an end to all this gloomy
Rain.



"I Don't Want You to Go" by Carolyn Dawn Johnson

Monday mornin' is such a rush
Here it is again sneakin' up on us
This is the part you know I don't like
We say good-bye and then we kiss goodnight
I know it's one o'clock
And we said you'd be gone by ten
So much for those eight hours I swore that I'd get in

I know I should get some sleep
I'm at the beginnin' of another long week
But I don't want you to go
No I don't want you to go
I guess another minute wouldn't do no harm
Why not spend it in each other's arms
Cause I don't want you to go
No I don't want you to go

We always say just one more kiss
But it always seems to never end like this
A few dozen then a couple more
Before we know it it's after four
I know tomorrow my best friend will be my coffee cup
Cause here we go again
Watchin' the sun come up

Yeah, I know I should get some sleep
I'm at the beginnin' of another long week
But I don't want you to go
No I don't want you to go
I guess another minute wouldn't do no harm
Why not spend it in each other's arms
Cause I don't want you to go
No baby, I don't want you to go


"Prime" by Langston Hughes

Uptown on Lenox Avenue
Where a nickel costs a dime,
In these lush and thieving days
When million-dollar thieves
Glorify their million-dollar ways
In the press and on the radio and TV--
But won't let me
Skim even a dime--
I, black, come to my prime
In the section of the niggers
Where a nickel costs a dime.