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    AC Benus
  • AC Benus
  • Author
  • 06/23/2022
  • 171 Words
  • 354 Views
  • 5 Comments
Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 68. A Glorious Pride Poem

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The Grey Thread

 

My life is a grey thread,

A thin grey stretched out thread,

And when I trace its course, I moan:

How dull! How dead!

 

But I have gay beads.

A pale one to begin,

A blue one for my painted dreams,

And one for sin,

Gold with coiled marks,

Like a snake’s skin.

 

For love an odd bead

With a deep purple glow;

A green bead for a secret thing

That few shall know;

And yellow for my thoughts

That melt like snow.

 

A red bead for my strength,

And crimson for my hate;

Silver for the songs I sing

When I am desolate;

And white for my laughter

That mocks my dull fate.

 

My life is a grey thread

Stretching through Time’s day;

But I have slipped gay beads on it

To hide the grey.

—Elsa Gidlow,[i]

1923

 

 

 

 

[i] “The Grey Thread” Elsa Gidlow On a Grey Thread (Chicago 1923), p. 9

https://archive.org/details/OnAGreyThread/page/n9/mode/2up

 _

as noted
  • Love 4
Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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AC Benus
1 hour ago, JACC said:

Apparently simple, but so beautiful and powerful… thank you, going through sort of a dark gray phase myself, this poem is just uplifting. 

Thanks, JACC! I'm very fond of Gidlow's work. She formed the nucleus of an out women's artist community in the San Francisco Bay Area and was inspiring to thousands in the 1920s.

Thanks again 

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