Gwendolyn Brooks (1 Viewer)

LickTheStar

Sad Flower in the Sand
To the Young Who Want to Die

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April.
You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a lot of time. Death can
attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is
just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;
can meet you any moment.
You need not die today.
Stay here "” through pout or pain or peskyness.
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.

Graves grow no green that you can use.
Remember, green's your color. You are Spring.

___________________________________


I had this poem in my head all day at work and thought I'd post it... especially since I can't actually seem to find it in a collection of her works, no matter what bookstore I go into.

I only have it in print in an old copy of Poetry magazine that was published the week\month after she died back in 1999... So anyway, there it is. Dunno if anyone's a fan (I kind of am... at times).
 
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fine poem.

reminds me of a situation in a Buk-poem, where he is with a friend, who's drawing and the pen runs out of ink. Later when they sit by a drink, the fellow says something like "Maybe I'm going to kill myself." and Buk answeres: "Why? some day it'll happen anyway."

- not verbatim. and I dunno which poem it was. Maybe our rainman knows.
 
What is that one about We sing sin. We be cool. We shoot pool. We die soon?..I like that one...
And isn't there that Dorothy Parker poem about rope would work, and gas, and drowning...but...you might as well live?
 

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