can you tell me please

what makes a good poem? what makes a bad poem? what makes a good poet? i ask myself that when i search for poetry- i guess there is a part of me that just expects to just come across something wonderful when i search for poetry, instead of the same 20 names, all or mostly dead, writing in an old school rhyme or writing abt nature and snow and rosy cheeks and other things that i don't really care abt or can't actually understand/translate. there are so many poets and poems out there- who decides what the 100 greatest works of words are, and are they old and dead too?

what makes love so good (or even, so bad)? what makes us want to write abt love so much? i am tired of writing grrls long, sad love poems, none that i will ever show them, or admit to writing for them. i want someone to feed me love poems, and i want them to full of humor and happiness, and most importantly, love.

this poem isn't an example of the kind of poem that i want, but the first line made me lick my lips, and the first verse made me think abt something very personal that i had written a short while ago:

Movement Song

by Audre Lorde

I have studied the tight curls on the back of your neck

moving away from me

beyond anger or failure

your face in the evening schools of longing

through mornings of wish and ripen

we were always saying goodbye

in the blood in the bone over coffee

before dashing for elevators going

in opposite directions

without goodbyes.

Do not remember me as a bridge nor a roof

as the maker of legends

nor as a trap

door to that world

where black and white clericals

hang on the edge of beauty in five oclock elevators

twitching their shoulders to avoid other flesh

and now

there is someone to speak for them

moving away from me into tomorrows

morning of wish and ripen

your goodbye is a promise of lightning

in the last angels hand

unwelcome and warning

the sands have run out against us

we were rewarded by journeys

away from each other

into desire

into mornings alone

where excuse and endurance mingle

conceiving decision.

Do not remember me

as disaster

nor as the keeper of secrets

I am a fellow rider in the cattle cars

watching

you move slowly out of my bed

saying we cannot waste time

only ourselves.