Free-Verse - Some Poems I Like

I had to read a few free-verse poems for my english class. In doing so I realized that I like this style of poetry the most. I also realized that I do not like E. E. Cummings at all. I googled some poems and I found these, so I thought I'd share. I really like them.

Washed Away

Nothing's changed except me and the facts

And the sadness I didn't mean to start.
But it feels different now you've said

It's wrong, and I still can't see your point.

And I think as water runs over my hands that

That's really all there is or can be.

The gold is wearing off the infamous ring

And something wears away from around my heart.

Copyright © 1997 by Katherine Foreman.

Connotation

Friends

Means sharing, bittersweet

A brand name of love. It is a tie for all time,

Longer than the shadows we forget

Yet shorter and better than life, or for some longer,

Stronger. It balances you, with a pole in

One hand and a rope in the other, you choose what to use it for.

It is forever.

Friends

Remembers everything anyone ever felt,

Holds it in a cubbyhole somewhere for next time
When it is spoken or thought, from kindergarten

Elation to maturing despair. No friend is ever

Alone in action or reaction, left

Without a silent commiserating presence of

Invisible brick, a personal wailing wall

For those who need its strength

And stability.

Friends

Is a loaded word and pointed. It limbos out from

Under walls, vaults barricades, threads mazes

To erect cellophane boundaries of its own.

It lets you see what could lie beyond

But that you gave up

When you spoke its name.

Copyright © 1996 by Katherine Foreman

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel

like I'm coming down with something,

something worse than any stomach ache

or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--

a kind of measles of the spirit,

a mumps of the psyche,

a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,

but that is because you have forgotten

the perfect simplicity of being one

and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.

But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.

At four I was an Arabian wizard.

I could make myself invisible

by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.

At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window

watching the late afternoon light.

Back then it never fell so solemnly

against the side of my tree house,

and my bicycle never leaned against the garage

as it does today,

all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,

as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.

It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,

time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe

there was nothing under my skin but light.

If you cut me I could shine.

But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,

I skin my knees. I bleed.

Billy Collins