Now here is a poem I really liked, from a local poetry contest sponsored by the Bay Guardian newspaper. This won second place in the "hip" division. There was also a "beat" division, but the poems there are a little dark. I like the poem because it is very romantic:
What is This Thing You call Kissing?
I believe in the red-lipped women
of Atlantis, in men who kiss
with their eyes open
I believe in messages in bottles,
cobalt blue sea glass,
white pine, ginseng and heartleaf,
sacred Indian burial grounds
I believe in engraving angels
in the first snow,
in the slow, steady motion
of glaciers
I believe in climbers who leave
their lives on Mount Everest
and I believe three prisoners swam
safely from Alcatraz to freedom
I believe in Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit,"
Eroll Flynn's "Robinhood"
but not Kevin Costner's
I believe in midnight basketball,
in girls who fly planes
and I believe in stealing home
I believe in the "Star Trek" episode
where the alien woman asks:
"What is this thing you call kissing?"
and Kirk demonstrates
I believe in the instant before orgasm
when you feel you're leaping
for a trapeze in mid-air
and I believe in the impala bounding
through Africa,
in Ulysses' return to Ithaca
I believe in the wind-shorn
prairie of the imagination
and I believe in this warming
breeze that lifts
me up, makes my heart billow
when you walk into the room
Jodie Appell
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