Number 6 in the weekly poems written with the “Poetry in a time of Pestilence” group.
What did you do in the …?
A Golden Shovel using part of “Speech To The Young : Speech To The Progress-Toward” by Gwendolyn Brooks
We wrote for distraction and we’d say
“let’s meet for wine and gossip”, to
drink in words, to laugh at them
and to bless us, to crush sour grapes, to say
“another bottle”, to walk the city dark, to
find the last bar, the last resort, the
place for desperates and down-keepers,
to string out the night like Christmas lights, to coax the
right words, to praise the sun-slappers,
to empty ourselves and our souls, to overshare the
daily drama, berate the self-soilers,
the donkey-men, the lairs and pikers, to sift the
possibilities, drown out the harmony-hushers
decant our thoughts and Lord knows we even
hugged and held hands and danced, as if
that would be enough to save the world for you.
—
© Mike Hopkins 2020