I’ll launch this thread with a sea song for Midnight Fiddler, by the folksinger Cyril Tawney. She probably knows the song, and she certainly knows the feelings that inspired it:
Grey Funnel Line
Don’t mind the wind nor the rolling sea
The weary night never worries me
But the hardest time in a sailor’s day
Is to watch the sun as it fades away
CHORUS:
It’s one more day on the grey funnel line
The finest ship that sails the sea
Is still a prison for the likes of me
But give me wings like Noah’s dove
I’ll fly up harbor to the one I love
There was a time my heart was free
Like a floating spar on the open sea
But now that spar is washed ashore
It comes to rest at my real love’s door.
Every time I gaze behind the screws
Makes me long for St Peter’s shoes
I’d walk on down that silver lane
And take my love in my arms again
Oh Lord, if dreams were only real
I’d have my hands on that wooden wheel
And with all my heart I would turn her ’round
And tell the boys that we’re homeward bound
I’ll pass the time like some machine
Until blue water turns to green
Then I’ll dance down that walk on shore
And sail the Grey Funnel Line no more.
And sail the Grey Funnel Line no more.
It’s an obsession of mine,
to wander along in single-file with myself.
And I’ve always wondered
how I know I’m facing forward…
Because without a reference point,
who are we any of us to say
we’re sure we know where we’re going?
Now, I may cocoon myself in
clever words, mistresses of fancy
and not a trace of doubt
that you are definitely the one for me:
But strip all that away
and you’ll just find my arms,
cupping the sun in a fiery embrace,
bearing this cost I’ve always been willing to pay.
You are my crosshaired glory,
my double-tied focus,
oscillating troubles in orbits of truth.
And you always have been.
So I say to myself,
“You’re all I’ve got,”
Because in reality,
nothing is real anymore,
and that’s the damn whole of things,
any way you spin them.
Emi – you wrote that, didn’t you? It sounds like it was written by an old famous poet. Really. Except the last line doesn’t quite flow right. /constructive criticism
I wish I could forget
the laughter, the games
for everyone else has long forgotten
and I am left alone with the past
memories
I wish I were there
with you, with my best friend
I think of the thirty minutes
we sat in the familiar red dirt of home
and talked as if only a day had passed
I wish that the past were the present
we could laugh and talk
like we did for a day in the spring
like six years hadn’t passed
like we would be there forever.
I wish
but the wishes won’t come true
I’m left alone missing you
everyone
missing the past
Bitter chocolate on the back of my tongue
and songs of stolen kisses
eternal life’s for the old and dead.
Spinning logos
neat, designed by
human hands on the evening news?
Perfect faces
perfect voices
deep, solemn voices, insincere?
Somewhere a trumpet’s making joyous prrts,
the glint of rain
and sweet-smelling smoke its accompaniers.
Heaven’s for tomorrow,
I’m still watching the clouds.
Heaven’s for the wishers,
I’m a dancer in the sun.
Heaven’s for the dying,
I’m still living today.
List poetry… Uses lots of nouns in lists, and very few or no verbs. The idea is to create a feeling using only objects and items and their relation to the reader with as little action as possible. As far as I can tell, you don’t use a verb until line ten.
It tends to lead to eloquence, and I love how this one turned out.
we were a two-man band of thieves
stealing moments hearts and spotlights
falling into sunsweet oceans
glowing like the stars
we had no right to happiness
to joy to love
we had no right to each other
and we just laughed
stealing dances off the dance floor
keeping time to beats of breathless hearts
and they can’t stop watching us
and they can’t stop needing us
and they can’t stop wishing we weren’t gone
I posted this on the last thread, but felt like re-posting it. I think I have a title now ( Things I wish I could say)
Sometimes, when I’m reading
Lines just stick in my head
“inexplicable thingâ€
like lines of music
“you press down like salvationâ€
forever reverberating
“cut the ending, reverse the scriptâ€
against the limits of my mind.
They never go away
just quiet
then,the ache when I see her
and my stomach pluments
while my heart soars
And I know I love her
just not sure how
and I can’t quite think myself anymore
they return
the whispers in my ear
describing things unsaid
but things I wish I could say.
I’m so cold
always so cold
always so sensitive
so fragile
not mentally, but
physically
and never truely breaking
that it makes her smile
She’s the only person
I know who laughs about
kidney systs
but she always holds me
while she’s laughing.
I don’t want her to let me go
just want her to hold me forever
so I can hear her heart beating
and feel the vibrations
when she speaks.
I dream about her now,
on the rare occasions
when I can sleep
dream of danceing in the rain
and of her holding me.
I miss her so much
and I’ve never missed her before
maybe I’m fragile mentally too,
I feel that when I miss her.
We are not quite opposites
like infinity and zero
She is so strong on the outside
but so fragile inside
while I am fragile on the outside
and not strong on the inside
but stronger, not than her,
but than me
The void or the endlessness
we must decide
I must decide
which it will be.
Hurm, after studying Latin poetry, everything written since, say, 1920 seems very unpoetical to me now. “There’s no meaningful enjambment! Where’s the insightful synecdoche? Or the chiasmus? There could at LEAST be some hyperbaton around here.” *sigh*
ee cummings rocks. And I am the KGB of grammar. The rule goes, if you totally understand and have mastered the rules, that’s when you’re allowed to break them. ee cummings is allowed to be fantastic. Some random middle schooler who is using ee cummings as an excuse to write non-grammatical poetry is not.
A is for Anna, crushed by a tree
B is for Benny who choked on a pea
C is for Cristi sat on by a cow
D is for Dennis who died in Krakow
E is for Edward who jumped off a bridge
F is for Francis who ate too much porridge
G is for Garnet bitten by a snake
H is for Henry driven through with a stake
I is for Ingrid who was hit by a car
J is for Jonah, burnt by a star
K is for Kristen who fell out a window
L is for Liza who sucked at kendo
M is for Milly who stabbed herself neat
N is for Nora who just wouldn’t eat
O is for Ophelia who drank too much beer
P is for Petunia who cut off her ear
Q is for Quincy who died quick of shame
R is for Rodney who lost the game
S is for Sonny who was buried alive
T is for Tilda who forgot how to drive
U is for Ursula, dead in her sleep
V is for Victoria, eaten by a sheep
W is for William who collapsed under stress
X is for Xavier who lost a fatal game of chess
Y is for Yolanda, strangled by a thread
Z is for Zoe, shot in the head
With credit to Silver Lining, Princess_Magnolia, and bookgirl_me.
Yes. My mother found an old copy of that book (which is The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey, of course) and I was vastly disturbed by it. For those of you who have read A Mango-Shaped Space, it’s the same poem that starts off, “A is for Amy who fell down the stairs/B is for Basil assaulted by bears” that Mia and Jenna recite.
I love that song.
“Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid’ll eat Ivy too, wouldn’t you?” I believe on the nonsense lyrics, “wouldn’t you” is “wooden shoe”
Poetry assignment for biology (o.O) sparks incredible creative enthusiasm, along with a drawing of a human heart. I brought cookies to the party we had, and my ex-crush brought a guitar and wrote an entirely original song especially for the occasion. It was awesome.
Hey, won’t you be mine?
Anatomically correct valentine!
You make my blood turn to lava.
Starts out in my vena cava.
After it heads to the lungs, well, then,
My hemoglobin gets oxygen.
Without you, my artery plaque will get closest!
You’re all that I got to stop the atherosclerosis!
My blood is coming back through my atrium and ventricle,
But nothing I can think of will rhyme with ventricle,
Not even if I try it in a rhyming dictionary
So my blood is going through my body, ’round my capillaries,
And it does this whole thing a hundred thousand times per day,
Which is why I’m hecka grateful to you this Valentine’s Day.
I like to hear
all those things that you say
the things about love
and though I know there’s no way
that they’re about me
I pretend that today
when I tailed you and trailed you
you noticed.
I like to watch
when you smile and laugh
at jokes that I’ve made
and on my behalf
I know that it’s silly
I can do the math
but I imagine when I watch you
you notice.
I like to think
when you say my name
I like to think
it’s not a game
and I guess it’s true
I’ve only me to blame
for hoping, when I do all you want,
you’ll notice.
green salt water pull-pushing my body, different directions calling all at once. on top waves crash and foam like butterflies, droplets fly twinkling to collide with itself in larger form: rejoin, split again. bellow is an vast expanse seemingly still but always moving–currents drag me off for as long as breath holds, the tangents of our thoughts not enough to keep us afloat. salt stings and purifies, burning to become whole.
you are the seabirds wheeling overhead, screaming for a thousand things and for nothing at all. you are the wind driving them back and pushing them forth, ruffling the feathers of my mind and keeping my feet from ever touching ground, from ever landing to rest or sleep
every night a fitful dream.
you are overlapping words on a page and an abandoned motorway. the texture of leaves and the sound of breaking mirrors. I know if I open my eyes I will see faces before me, but they are not important: I can smell the seaweed bottom, sediments reversed, sunset-perfect skies crashing and scraping against the rocks.
we live on salty air and arguments, on laughter and badly-spoken lies. we are honeybees daring to cross the desert of our heads and can’t understand what the hell is on the sings we come across–who needs language when we all have bodies. who bothered to invent houses or clothes or the f****** wheel when we can run, create wind by moving and electricity from a single touch.
paper flutters away like hearts and I can’t stop scribbling in the sand before the shore as the waves are coming in. I am grass and ash and salt and metal, broken and beautiful as seen in the cracked reflection of the mirrored clouds.
I don’t know what to think of you, words collide like comets, nonsensical and strange
*If the “thanks a lot” sounded sarcastic or anything, it’s really not, but I know sometimes those things don’t translate well over the internet. It really makes me happy when people like my stuff
Yesterday night (or was it this morning?)
The clock blinked: 10:30 PM
Darkness settled over the city; the stars in the black sky faintly winking
Streetlights, dim pinpricks of light lit, shining onto roads where
cars crawled
trucks dawdled
people on buses slept
Inside homes, a remaining few were awake
engrossed in the TV -a movie, perhaps-
in books, magazines, Sunday’s newspaper
They yawned, and leaned over to switch off their lights
when all of a sudden
the black inky canvas of the night sky –lightened
Those who were awake
felt it jolt: the sky shuddered, turned a shade bluer
The clock blinked: 10:37 PM
Minutes later, a bird sung
Horns beeped, crowds amassed
and above the horizon a crown of light pink spread
growing wider until it covered most of the sky
illuminating the clouds who yawned, stretched between buildings
and a sliver of sun could be seen, peeking over the hill
It rose, strangely, into the air
-a sight seen every day by those who get up early enough
but strange, nonetheless, as now,
The clock blinked: 10:41 PM
By now, the sky was the lightest blue
a cool chilly breeze ruffled the morning (or was it night still?)
The clock blinks: 11:17 AM
It is night-time.
a blue-black bruise has spread to all four corners
of the sky
Some people are dressed for work, for school
some readying their pillows, brushing their teeth
This morning, last night, the sun rose
and nobody quite knows what to do
For that one safe haven week
you wanted me there.
I would talk and you would laugh
I was real, not a spare.
For that one safe haven week
it was an “us”.
I was part of the group
if there was you, me was a must.
What a sweet game.
Now, I’ve come back to the life.
and you’ve come back to them
and I’ve been hit with a knife
I can’t breathe, I feel betrayed
I can’t believe I thought it would stay
For that one safe haven week
there was no him.
But now we’re back to reality
and I’m stuck out on the rim.
For that one safe haven week
I finally fit in
I’d finally found the place where I belonged
And I’d finally found a friend.
What a pretty illusion.
Now, I’ve come back to the world
And you’ve come back to him,
and I’m stuck out in the cold
I can’t smile, I feel dead alive
and I can only die even more inside.
I can see
his arm around her
I can hear
my classmates flirt
And what I feel
is so close to longing
that it nears hurt.
I don’t need longevity
though it might be nice
I just need
somebody to be close to
somebody to make
me remember that
I am normal, but also
different, that I am
beautiful in a way
I need someone to
teach me
social norms to follow
as I break them
someone to teach me
what it feels like
to have your arm around
your crush even
when they’re watching
someone to teach me
how to realize
when I’m flirting
what it means to flirt on
purpose….
I just need
as the Beetles sang
somebody to love
in just a little way.
Can’t remember if I’ve said anything about this, but sort of recently I was published in a teen poetry magazine called Teen Ink. It’s not really one of my best, but I’m certainly not complaining about getting published! [Potentially identifying information retro-snipped. –Admin.]
Lately I haven’t been writing much. No inspiration…
That’s really cool! I’ve seen Teen Ink’s website, though not the magazine.
By the way, I recommend that the GAPAS snip the title of the poem, because I found it on the TI website, and there’s a bit more info on that page then you probably thought you were giving out… (To be exact, your full name, and your hometown.)
“Some whineing and then a nice conversation with my best friend”
I love being near her.
which is to be expected
I mean, she’s one of my best friends.
but at the same time
there are these moments
when my heart sinks to my stomach
and I just want to disappear.
it isn’t fair
we’ve done this before.
I’ve done this before.
and once more it’s
all my fault.
this is wrong.
not in general, but
with her.
has anyone had a crush
that has actually made them
happy?
I assume so.
but I haven’t.
It isn’t fair.
still.
It could be worse.
Nathan says “YOU want to date?”
with a look of sheer
incredulousness.
and I say “no. I
want to know that there are people
I COULD date. If I wanted to.
besides, it’s a GSA.
I still won’t know if
they’re like me or not.
though I suppose there is a
higher probability”
and he says “why is that?”
and I say “because
straight people don’t NEED
GSAs. No matter how
much they care about
social justice. Some
gay people,
myself included,
would really like to be accepted
by society. and also maybe
meet people similar to
themselves in some small way
in a safe place. We need
the GSAs. It’s nice that
they show up, but we need the GSA.
they don’t.”
“you totally want to date”
he concludes.
“well” I say. “do YOU want to date”
“I guess”
“then you’d better introduce me to your girlfriend”
“why? So you can steal her? I think not.”
“Nathan, I would never steal your girlfriend.
and if she’s dating you, she’s presumably,
at the moment, more intreseted in dudes.
and likely striaght. I’ve crushed on too many
straight people already.”
And what sucks is,
I currently am.
this is ****.
But High school starts soon.
relatively.
and High School has a
GSA.
29- Yay Silver Lining! I’ve seen Teen Ink… I’ll try and hunt down a copy!
Okay, this was written at roughly two in the morning, for reasons evident in the poem. It’s been completely unedited since then, so… yeah.
We’re lying on our backs with our phones in hand,
talking ’til late in the night.
Satellite winking in the starry sky,
messenger, messenger pretending to be stellar,
carry my smileys and words and thoughts
a thousand thousand miles away.
From here, my phone’s lighting up my room,
I can see the Big Dipper, and Orion’s smile.
From there, a thousand miles out of my touch,
I know you can see them too.
Miracles at half past ten,
I believe in kisses.
I wonder if you can see me
with your eyes closed
the way I see you tonight,
reflected on the shining screen before me
I think I can touch you
but you’re just a breath away.
Satellite, don’t abandon us now.
Whirl in the sky a thousand times
for every moonlit mile.
I’d like to think I’m looking at the same faint star
as you.
And when the clock strikes eleven eleven,
I know you’re sitting, phone in hand,
perfectly still, your eyes unopened.
I believe in prayers and miracles-
if I wish as you’re doing the same,
perfectly still, our eyes unopened,
wishing together a million times
from a thousand miles away-
We’re lying on our backs with our phones in hand,
talking ’til late in the night.
Planning for tomorrow and believing in today,
a miracle from a thousand miles away,
I can feel your hand, and I’ll wish with you
until the morning light.
30 Clare de Lune – I love that poem, I love poems like that.
Gray, White, A Table, A Refrigerator.
My sandals
are on the floor.
They are silver
and new
and reflect the gray light from the window.
On the kitchen floor
soles down
the toe of the left
just sitting on the toe of the right.
Straps still aloft
like my feet are still in them
standing shyly
a stranger on my kitchen floor.
They are the color of the Tin Man
so shiny and so dulled by the gray light.
My sandals on the kitchen floor
Do they wonder where I’ve gone?
Many thanks. You should read The Realm of Possibility, by David Levithan, it’s this amazing interconected story comprised primarily of poems like that, plus some songs/prose.
Thanks, everyone! 29.2– Oops, sorry about that. I had forgotten that it tells more information on the site (and, after checking, the magazine too). Thanks for snipping it though.
Darling Sweetheart Dearest
Darling
How I love to listen to you
talk to me, talk at me and I can’t always
tell the difference between
the two,
but I still listen
Sweetheart
It’s the days that pass by
so quickly (where did they go?
Where did you go?)
they are the ones that worry me
I slash dark ink across each box
on the calendar every 24 hours
Dearest
Does it make me cruel that sometimes
a tiny speck, the most minute
of molecules within me
liked it when you were sad so I could
wrap my arms around
you/your small body/my whole world
and comfort you?
Darlingsweetheartdearest
All these terms of endearment I
tack onto the end (beginning) of
your name, do they make the pain
a little more bearable?
Like perfume at a funeral,
maybe
…
Alice is crying
in the house next door.
I am alone here
But I can hear Alice cry.
Sweet baby.
Usually, children crying is upsetting
Or occasionally annoying.
But today as I hear Alice cry
I am happy.
I’m not happy that Alice is upset
And I pity Erin, her mother
who must now comfort her
But I am happy that she cried so I can hear her
Because now I know I’m not
entirely alone.
I spend too much time alone
and not enough with people
who actually understand me.
Sometimes I fear I will always be alone
always remain to everyone an
anomoly.
I have friends who understand
but I don’t see them half enough.
Last night I cried myself to sleep
with the memory of Molly
and the ICU and all the machines
working to keep her alive
but not keep her there.
I remember holding her hand
and smelling the hospital smells
of disinfectant and death
And I remember feeling truely lonely
for the first time.
She wasn’t there that day, when I went to say goodbye,
So instead I hold them both here
close to me, but I am still alone.
It is rare, now that I am not
alone.
Quath my befriended,
You see me dying,
Yet you eyes aren’t the least deceiving.
You show me the pity you with-hold.
My saddened heart then capsizes.
As you pass.
As you pass….
You take away my joyous memory.
The memory which holds practically everythng.
I beg of you, don’t pass me by.
(I know it’s not as long, nor deep as most…..But I’m going to add-on to it. I always keep the deep stuff to myself. Maybe that will change. Oh well(: )
As I sleep soundly in the night,
After all the caos of the world has ended,
Before the war of tomorrow,
Whenever you hear the bombs and screams,
You slowly learn to cover them with self satisfying lies.
When you are chatting with friends over tea,
While you think of what the world truly looks like,
‘Til that moment of lively truth,
As you begin to sneek a peek,
Your eyes deceive the madness.
After all the pain and deception,
When you feel as if you want to give up,
As you begin to sneek that peek,
You’ve told yourself too many times,
I say, there will always be remorse.
As the attempts to sleep capsize,
After the all of the caos has erupted,
Before the shadow of the past,
When the screams echo to you,
You will always know how to cover it up.
The last note rings through the air
then-
silence.
The orchestra stands as one
the audience claps
music of a different kind
thank you, the applause says,
the music was beautiful.
People cheer
as the conductor raises her arms
and the orchestra bows
thank you for coming,
thank you for listening so well
unspoken messages
in this carefully choreographed
song and dance
music and applause
bows and cheers
sometimes I wonder
who first orchestrated
a concert like this one
so that everyone knows their part
musicians and listeners
storytellers and captivated audience
who first wrote the music
and why?
I wrote this poem while at a concert at the park on Tuesday (free outdoor concerts for the win!) on a whim.
So I’ve gotten this idea to write a poem for each letter of the alphabet. Right now I have a few poems in a random order.
T is for Thief
You stole my life
You stole my friends
As you eased your way
out of the open window of
my living room
I was too tired to call for help,
for 911, for the police, and
anyway– you weren’t armed
with anything but an innocent smile
You told me that it was only
“borrowing”, and of course
you’d have all the valuables
back by three the next day
I stand on the lawn in my pajamas
and watch you dash through the streets
wearing your black and white stripes
like a swath of lies.
I was talking with Her
about when I came out
an incident that,
because of its suddeness
and absoluteness
is still sometimes painfull.
We were discussing
how much we hate
the school counseler
who is oblivious
and, who, when I came out
kept hunting me down
and caging me in her
too dark, too warm,
and WAY too small office
to “chat” with me
and “make sure no one’s bothering you,
that everything’s alright”
ma’am, the only person
who appears to give a
**** about my sexuality
would be you.
Everyone here
Isn’t wonderful, no,
but no one is explictly bothersome
they shun me
but no more than before
you don’t understand me at all, do you?
I tell Her that
I thought the counceler
thought I was mentally unstable.
Sometimes I worry that
myself.
She looks at me and says
“Can you balance on two feet?”
And I say “Of course”
to which she replies
“Then you’re stable”
I love Her.
which is exactly the problem
isn’t it?
Clare-Aww. I love your story/stream of consciousness poems. It feels like you know exactly what you’re talking about and so we know exactly what you’re talking about, too. If that makes sense.
Half an hour before, alive and dancing,
shouting and dresses
and the careful and tactical war
between the face and the makeup box.
Half an hour before, spun like a cobweb
from dreams and anticipation.
Agony:
directed towards shoes, towards earrings,
towards makeup and skirt and hair and wishes
built upon the kind of faith you can usually only get
in the most fundamentalist of churches.
Perhaps, in half an hour, we will speak in tongues.
Half an hour before, half an hour before,
telling each other fairy tales and prophecies
of disco-ball stars reflected on the ceiling,
of rolling rainbow lights and dim vision,
of dancing so hard that you lose your ID card
and the room spins.
Half an hour after, shriveled and bare,
eyelashes stuck together with mascara
and glitter running down the sink.
Half an hour after, feet sliding and sweaty in shoes,
the shock of cold water,
the hum of the fan.
Half an hour after, feet painful to walk in,
a leftover soda,
a groan and a sigh.
Things that were missed:
a favorite song, in favor of water,
a slow dance, built painstakingly out of hormones and dreams,
kisses, narrowly.
Half an hour after, and streaks of mascara,
and quick freezing rinses,
and quick-closing eyelids,
and somewhere deep under the surface of light-lying blankets
hiding beneath sleep-sodden dreams
is the memory of stars.
Everyone sees the laughter
the smile
the hyper child.
But you know her better.
You see the wild,
Wild desperation in her eyes.
Bordering on the verge
of hysterics.
You want to hug her
You want to hold her,
so she will know
that she is not alone.
You want her to laugh again
that beautiful, happy, laugh
but it’s gone, replaced
by a wild, hysterical
uncontrollably bitter laughter.
Random fact-
They did a study about depressed poets/ writers. They tend to use the word “I” much more than non-depressed writers, and even in normal language, they used “I” much more.
I’m on a journey
I’m looking for my purpose
I gotta prove to them
that I’m not a mistake
Gotta find a reason why
was I born to life like this?
Can’t you understand
that it’s all give and take
I’m on a journey through life
finding my way every day
fighting my way through the strife
why was I born this way?
I’m in the midst of all Life
running in the flowers
soaking up the sunshine
and it gives me power
I may be different
but the world is open
a light is shining
upon this new hour
I’m on a journey through life
now that I’ve found the way
I’ve overcome all the strife
I know who I am every day
I wrote this (I say I, but some small contributions were made by classmates) in a music class at camp. The idea of “why was I born this way” was my emo friend Mike, the rejected cheesy lyrics that aren’t in the song were written by my friend Z, many rejected verses that had “life” rhyming with “wife” from Z2, some lines that I edited out in this version but are in the “class version” came from S and A…. XD I guess I did most of it, at least for this version of it. Shame, F+H, shame.
The houses are boxes,
Well-constructed cardboard,
How do the people move?
Looking down, I recognize the town.
But it looks different from here.
The signs, the buildings-
I know where that is-I’ve seen that today-
But it’s flat and man-made.
Someone has done a very good job replicating all that largeness.
Into smallness.
The skyline is two-dimensional. Nothing moves on the skyline.
That must be where the world ends.
But the clouds are moving.
A red donut flies away, until it’s a black oval, a smudge on the sky
And I wouldn’t know unless I was watching it.
And I was.
Just wrote this. Haven’t edited at all. Probably pretty confusing because I was just writing what came into my head. Suggestions?
we are born with one foot on the accelerator,
speeding into the future where we’re not just four but
going on five, going on seventeen, going on thirty, going on eighty-eight
miles per hour so we can skip the playdates and the homework
and get to the time of our lives,
staying up late like the big kids who
are doing homework and want to just get to college where they can
party it up and dream about earning big money when
those executives are only dreaming of retirement
and when they get to ninety their bones are aching for a long sleep.
crank up the radio, drown out the world that’s here and now
and slam down the gas, drive into the future with enough force
to throw you into the next century with the whoop you once gave
on a roller coaster, back when
you were young enough to ride them and
too bad you didn’t get back in line, ride it again and again until
your hair was knotted from the wind and your stomach was in the tips
of your fingers and the world was tangible as the cotton candy you held in your nine-year-old fingers
because for a moment, it would only be a moment.
not a race.
not a step toward the future.
being where you were. how old you were. how old you are.
but you stumbled off the ride with a laugh like a summer storm. moved on. too much more to see.
why take a minute to slow down and look around?
the faster you careen towards the future,
the more it will come rushing at you with open arms
and screech of rubber on the road,
dust covering your today as you race down the firey runway of the future.
Writing a song. I know it sounds whiny, but with the music it sounds much better.
‘Holding You’
He says don’t know, I say let go
This thing’s fading fast\
I stand by and watch you fall slow
For her beautiful eyes
Want you to notice mine
Want you to find the time
To turn around and see
That girl you really want is me
CHORUS:
Holding you tonight
I know that I want to be
Holding you tonight
I just can’t help myself
Everything you say, everything you do
Everyone I see can’t compare to you
I can only go with what is right
He says love me, I say leave me,
And I see you everywhere in the back of my mind
But I can’t care just what you say
Got to follow what my heart is trying to find
(Chorus)
BRIDGE:
Every single day you see me in his arms, and
Every single day you fall under her charm
In every single way we are growing apart
But I hoped from the start, from the start….
That I’d be holding you tonight
I know that he’d hate that I’m
Holding you tonight
But I just can’t help myself
Everything you say, everything you do
Every time I try, I’m coming back to you
Why can’t you leave my love right where it fell, with you
Sometimes I go into a sort of poetic trance in which I murmur poems that just sort of materialize in my head, often late at night. The poems tend to be rather depressive, such as “speck in the universe”, my most recent one. Unfortunately, I have never able to remember much of them and write them down. Does anyone else do this?
No, but that’s interesting. Sometimes I just get bursts of songs that my mind makes up in my mind. It’s strange… And also, somehow I got the Zelda theme song stuck in my head this morning, which launched me into this long memoir about my experience with video games when I was younger. I was such a loser at Zelda. We had the Oracle of Seasons for Game Boy color. I couldn’t get past the first level, but I played it all the time. I think I still have it, but we sold the Game Boy. I’ll buy another one someday…
WAIT. THAT WAS SO OFF TOPIC.
What follows is my journal entry in English the other day for a Free Write. The substitute teacher recommended that we write about what was on our minds. It came out vaguely poetic, and I forget if there’s a better thread to post it on. I’ve edited a little since, but not a lot, so it’s a little rambling and not exactly polished. Oh well.
~~~
Bell rings. Trickle into the once-empty halls, volume rises to a roar, waves of noise and activity cascade every which way. Reverberate off the lockers, cascade into every inch of open space. Float upon the currents of freedom that tease you towards the open sea, so tauntingly close and yet: Allow yourself to be dammed once more into a narrow loch of classroom expectations.
Why would the salmon abandon endless ripples of blue for a futile swim upstream when it’s only to perish in his final moment of triumph? You may wonder why I am never still; do you wonder also why the caged lion paces? Peacocks are lucky. Their formal dresses come ready-made, tailored just for them, and who wouldn’t want to dance with such refined beauties? Chameleons are twice as lucky. They don’t have to be seen at all.
Bell rings. Trickle into the once-empty halls, volume rises to a roar…begin again.
If you repeat a hundred times (perhaps even one-eighty, if you’re daring), will you always get the same result?
I finally found myself a girl
who puts my thoughts into a whirl
Sending tsunamis through the great cosmic plains
sweeping up stars that never knew pain
tosses them aside, and it’s gone again
my thoughts’ll stay there, till they hear the refrain
and then they’ll remember to break free of their chains
but they remember too late
and she’s gone.
And I suppose I suppose
she’s the one who knows
me best
I guessed
her secrets
at last
and locked them in
my music jar
And she nestled in
with all my friends
And she’ll pretend
to listen when
they share their stories
and I’ll have to smile
and cry crocodile
Because I love her
She makes a silly mask
to hide her tears
as they run down her cheeks
but I see one smear
on the glass walls of my
My music jar.
If I had a choice
she’d be out with me
if I had my choice
we could all see
past the clouds on rainy days
to the silver blur skies above
if I had my choice
we’d be in love
I tip my music jar on its side
onto the grass
and I peer inside
my teardrops mix into the dew
as I take my final
look at you
I’ve worked so hard to keep you close
Now all I’ve got is a memory ghost
I hope someday
Now that I’ve set you free
that when my thoughts come back
You’ll still be waiting for me.
**********************
I don’t know about it. I like how it changes styles and meter a lot, but I’m not sure how much I like the overall style. Comments?
Just a poem I wrote the other day.
~~~~~
One Lone Bird
Yesterday, in the car
I saw
One
Lone
Bird
Sitting on a telephone wire.
I wondered,
Was it lost?
Did it have a family?
Friends?
Did it get left behind by
Progress?
I wanted to jump out of the car
And pat its head
And say,
It’s okay
You’re not the
Only
Lone
Bird.
~~~~~
Rhyming is too hard for me, so I usually do free-verse like this.
I like it! The only suggestion I have is to change “lone” in the second to last line to “lonely”, because then you get just a little bit of rhyming that makes it sound a bit nicer.
Something I scrawled out a few months ago that I’ve since forgotten about, rediscovered, and edited slightly. I’m sure I’ll continue modifying it–I rather dislike certain parts of it, and it has too much focus on Roman and Greek mythology.
The perpetual debate resumes,
Lunacy soothed by sightless extras
And presenting a certain Carny refinery
While a shell tears greedily at fog.
The minds regard each other with halfhearted contempt
And with polite disregard.
The one lives in a fenced backyard
While the other peers from storm drains.
A drunken walk, downcast stone eyes,
Clown paint and a mask
Ensure the temple of Athene
Undisturbed will rest.
The question clanked four times,
But now no serpents pass their lies here.
The lies play an opposite role,
Granting pleasantries to sword-bearing Greeks.
But inside the walls, a to-and-fro of ghostly forms
Kicks up enough dust to hide the stands in the autoagora
From the shadows of the shopkeepers.
I am a fly-trap too sensitive to catch sustenance:
A breath of air, snap close, wilt.
I am Isaac, I supply a ram of smoke and mirrors
In my self-famous and world-unseen disappearing act
From which I emerge after the crowds have dispersed,
The custodians swept, the lights long shot out.
My mind works like clockwork, precisely clicking and hewn
Carefully from haze. My thoughts shine out brilliance
While unseen in the dark.
I am Orpheus, Eurydice. Demeter, Persephone.
Caligari, the Somnabulist.
I remain in my cell, forced and willing.
It protects me, them.
This is Latium, this is Troy, this is the forbidden city.
A noose to save my life complements
Lungs that bring death.
(( Unhappiness is sometimes the most fresh inspiration.))
Hurt me once, shame on you.
Hurt me twice, shame me too.
Hurt me like tomorrow
Is just today again
Hurt me like you never thought
That I was once your friend
Hurt me like you’re hurting you
And erasing all your flaws
Hurt me like the pain inside
Is all you want to cause
Hurt me like you want to know
That our friendship was not true
Hurt me like I could forget
And come right back to you
Now you caused me pain
And turned my fears into reality
You made my heart to bleed
And hate is all that’s left of me
Now hurt me no more, dear
Because you won’t know me for long
While you atone in the grave you dug,
I’ll be walking tall and strong.
Given the assignment of writing a sonnet and explaining the difficulties faced in using the form…
Alone I lie here puzzled and confused
Poetry with many rules is quite hard
Often I’ve rhyme, stanza and such abused
Content to be a free-verse-writing bard
Not my fault to have not sooner started
Much other work had I in abundance
And puzzling applications outsmarted
Easily are not; mother was quite tense
But if a grade’s my goal, onward I’ll press
Count syllables on fingers line-by-line
Remember now the scheme (avoid a mess)
To have a sonnet in the end so fine
Methinks will be a most desirous treat
And now, at fourteenth line, I’ll remark “Sweet!â€
O KaiYves, whose troubles I know well,
fear not! for sonnet writing is a snap.
Ten syllables per line, and it’s not hell
to go like this: clap-clap clap-clap clap-clap.
Yeah, sometimes it can feel like a chore
to act like Shakespeare, sonnet-writing king,
but after some time, it is not a bore
and each line takes on quite a pleasant ring.
You find yourself now drumming to keep time.
It’s like marching band, tap-tap of the feet.
And having to end each line with a rhyme
Means your creativeness will not be beat.
Somehow, strangely, this my part I say.
One last thought, Kai: hope you got an A!
silver comets leaping
tails blazing with bright flame
mysterious space
Metal clinking, soft
Muted by cloth and fabric
Machines do not breathe
—————–
Spinning, whirling
Screaming, curling
Light and shadow
Turning me deaf
Arguing, asking
Giving, tasking
Light and shadow
With each breath
Mazes making in the mind
Like a child left behind
Turning to the end of days
Still everything will be the same
And you know it
Just don’t know it
Everyone talks
All the same
And you feel it
Just can’t seal it
And there’s nobody
To blame
When there’s nobody to blame
You need to ask yourself when
You ran away and lost them
And never found them all again
And the dancing and the singing
All the laughter and the bringing
Move from start to end and then
Everything begins again
Mazes making in the mind
Like a child left behind
Turning to the end of days
Still everything will be the same
Twirling water in the sink
We all care what people think
Lie to ourselves and lie to them
Eventually you’ll be condemned
Doom and death, they’re all the same
Not everybody has a name
Give us freedom, let us bleed
We don’t care if it makes us succeed
Mazes making in the mind
Like a child left behind
Turning to the end of days
Still everything will be the same
Now I end
Nobody cared
If I stop life
Right here or there
My blood is flowing, just inside
And I don’t even try to hide
If you won’t believe me here and then
It’ll eventually start all over again
Mazes making in the mind
Like a child left behind
Turning to the end of days
Still everything will be the same
It’ll start all over again
And maybe that time I’ll hide
But maybe sometime you will see
Maybe sometime you can see
Maybe sometime you will look
And see what’s inside
—–
So I just wrote up that song off the top of my head. I like it. Say what you will, haikus and songs are my refuge in writing.
Enc, I’m reading this because I ran into it and, because I’ve been reading about your life for the past few years and you, in turn, have been giving me advice on mine, and for that reason, hell yes, I care. *hugs*
This is a poem i wrote recently about my crush, making it an official crush (no crush is official until I find I have so much pent-up emotion energy to write a poem about it) It’s the first poem I’ve written in awhile. I think I’ll call it “I am as a Leaf”
it’s October. Fall is here
And I am as a leaf
in falling for her
drifting slowly towards the earth
partly feeling as though I’m flying
the wind on my face
falling allows some joy
it shows you what you would otherwise
not notice
the color of her lips, her cheeks,
the softness of her shirt, her hair
the kindness in her
the rhythm of her heartbeat
And yet, falling is still falling
not flying
not controlled
and as a leaf
I know not where I will land
for while I drift
there is the thought in the back of my mind
that though I am now so light,
borne on the air
eventually I shall hit the ground
and be crushed
under the extreme
spinning weight
of the cars
on the road.
Also, I shall now post a most fun vocal warm-up:
I sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock
in a pestilential prison with a lifelong lock
awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp, shock
from a cheap and chipper chopper on a big, black, block
I just wrote this in under five minutes, so I’m sorry it’s not very good.
What, where, when, how, who?
They cycle through our heads.
Where, when, how, who, what?
A monotonous drone.
When, how, who, what, where?
A buzz on the edge of sensation.
What is unimportant.
Where is too.
When is forever.
How is a mystery.
Who is the most important.
What could be anything.
Where needs little mention.
When is infinite.
We cannot know how.
But who eats us alive.
What is Who?
Where will we find it?
When will we find it?
How will we know?
I wish I could see the world
The way she does
Able to replicate what she sees
on the page in front of her
without so much of a thought.
It is her nature
And each drawing
is so beautiful
reflecting her beauty
sometimes the beauty of her form
sometimes the beauty of her thoughts
sometimes the beauty of her heart.
I want to express this to her
show her her beauty
but I cannot
I see the world in words
words inadequate for her
I cannot see as she does.
How Do They Call These “Crushes” Have They No Sense of Reality Whatsoever?
My mind is not a democracy.
It is a dictatorship.
I am it’s power-crazy ruler
and I would not have it any other way.
If I cannot control my head
what is there to control?
Welcome to mild OCD.
Hormones
are the insidious rebels
that run rampant
within the walled kingdom
of my mind
Slipping past the defenses,
the filters, the boarder guards
Shamelessly sneaking right into
the heart of the kingdom
they quickly and effeciantly set traps
wrought change with a fist
as iron as the one I use to rule.
Eventually, they begin the true attack
with alarming efficientcy
they plant the bomb that brings
the kingdom to it’s knees
undermines, and then removes
the control
changes the filters, both opening and closing the boarders
all the hard work
for organization, for control
is destroyed.
And the dictator sits crying in the rubble.
Then, of course, the dictator breaks into a grin
Because no dictator is sane
because my mind is too varied
to exist on only one plane of reality
And the dictator dances for joy
as she slowly begins to clean the rubble
once more creating order out of chaos
but this time
letting the chaos remain.
I wish you could see
What you’ve done to me
But you never will
You are blind to the biggest problem in my life
Even when I tell you everything
I pour out my soul to you
Except for one piece
I want to scream it to the sky
I want to bury it in the ground
I wan to set it free
Like a baby bird from a cage
That has longed, all its’ life, to take wing
But I can’t, won’t, don’t
Because every time
You tell me about her
And how you miss her
And how you need her
I delude myself into believing
That someday
You might talk about me
Like you talk about her
You can’t see
What you’ve done to me
And you never will
So I write it here
Like I write it every day,
Over and over.
Stream of Consciousness poetry I wrote a few minutes ago and have mixed feelings about:
I think I love you
even more every time
I see you I just
want to scream
with joy because you
are so perfect in
every way and every
thing you do makes
me die and I
think there’s no
way you could be
more amazing but then
again how else could it
be that every time I’m
with you I
love you new?
I absolutely love ‘The White Man’s Burden’ by Rudyard Kipling, having discovered it two days ago when our Humanities I class studied it. (We’re learning about India.)
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper–
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard–
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:–
“Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?”
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Ye dare not stoop to less–
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Have done with childish days–
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
And speaking of India, though it doesn’t really belong on this thread, the White Tiger is an amazing book. Maybe I’ll post about it on the correct thread if I stop becoming lazy enough to feel like it.
I think that poem is fantastically written. It would be one of my faves if I hadn’t had to analyze it in terms of “find absolutely every line in this poem that makes it racist”.
I wish there was something I could do to make your pain less painful.
I have felt pain, and I have hated it.
I have seen death, and I have feared it.
I have seen love, and I have been frightened for it.
I have lost myself inside myself, and I have mourned it.
I have lost myself outside myself, and I have mourned it.
I have ached, and it was bad.
But I have never felt your pain.
And I wish you didn’t have to.
My mind frightens me sometimes. For instance, a while ago this really weird song just sort of started playing in my head. It was in this creepy computer/robot/synthesizer voice, and it went like this:
I am on a mission
A mission to dominate
I am the source of evil
I am in your brain.
I AM IN YOUR BRAIN.
You an deny me
But I am still there.
You can fight me
But I will find you weaknesses.
I WILL TAKE CONTROL.
For you, my dear,
the world should halt its orbit
and welcome you with open arms
To you, my dear,
Good and evil both
will lay down their weapons
and bow.
When you hold me, my love,
the earth sings
and the universe is beautiful again.
Please never let me go.
Beauty I Feel:
Calm
is sitting in the forest
or by the sea
all alone
and closing your eyes
Happy
is surrounded by friends
feeling that who you are
and who they see you as
are one and the same.
Excited
is a million birds
flying through your body
and bidding you “jump”
and you listen
Safe
is when you hold me
surround me with your arms
and nothing could ever mar
the beauty I feel.
Binary Minds:
How much of life
is yes and no?
neat categories
little comfort zones
until suddenly the blinders come off
and you simply don’t fit?
Why must we put everything in boxes
with printed black and white labels?
So much of life
is taken as mutually exclusive
when none of it need be.
How many people have to recognize
that we don’t have words
don’t have labels
to describe who we are
before society stops trying
to label everyone and everything
it sees?
There is no one word
to describe any one part
of me.
Happy
is surrounded by friends
feeling that who you are
and who they see you as
are one and the same.
Very true. These make me envious of your life. Nice!
Thank you for envying my life. Throughout it I fear I have met more pity than envy, so it’s a pleasant reminder of how great my life really is right now to have people envy it. I am so incredibly lucky. And for the record, everyone kept telling me stories about high school that gave the impression it was for them a time to be endured the way one endures the plague, but I LOVE it.
Meaning
What it was set out to do.
The point of existence
The Meaning of Life:
Why we are here.
What we need to do.
Or is the Meaning of Life
What we do
To make meaning for ourselves?
Is the meaning of life
To find meaning?
Or is it
To live it?
Madness
Lack of sense
Lack of order
Infinite chaos.
That which lacks all meaning
It just
Is.
Or is it:
A deeper meaning
Through insanity
Can the sane be saved?
Are all our meanings
Madness?
And does our madness
Create meanings?
What is madness?
What is meaning?
Are they
The same?
Love Poem
The glare-y light of early morning
Reflecting off of soft skin that I have never touched.
That I have wanted to touch
During the short times
I see you.
During the short times
You don’t see me.
How you are always looking
In the other direction
Eye contact
Is limited, no
Not there.
Your beauty
(Though most would not call it that.)
Is as joyful to my eyes
As it is painful to my future.
So I must be content
Knowing
That I love you
And that you
Will never
Love me.
Unless I am lucky.
Unless I am fortune’s friend
Unless a strange twist of events
Brings us
Together.
Perhaps we will not love.
Perhaps we will simply be friends
Perhaps
Perhaps I’m dreaming too much.
Perhaps I’m not dreaming enough.
Haven’t posted here in… a long time. Here’s a simple song I scribbled out a couple of months ago, and a short prose-poem I’m not quite happy with (not sure I’m going to go back to it though) from the week before last.
_____
Give me a few minutes, and I’ll sing you a sad song
about a girl who longed for love but could only be alone
she smiled every day and painted on a happy face
and she laughed until she cried at the end of every day
with a head too full of words to ever properly explain
why she only ever feels human when it rains
and everything’s a mess, and she tries to make it right
but there’s not much she can do and not much longer she can hide
and all she wants is to be held but she can’t bear to be touched
with all her compulsions and obsessions and it all becomes too much
because she feels like she’s not always quite there
all the mixed-up feelings she just can’t bring herself to share
the little tics mental tricks she anchors herself with
but in the end
it’s just her voice
in the empty air
singing sad songs
singing away her cares
speaking in third person just to keep herself awake
she dissolves and crystalizes and she waits and she waits
so I’ll sing sad songs until I lose my voice
then sit and stare into space until I make the choice
to listen to my feelings, and then throw them out the door
there’s nothing I can do and nothing I want anymore
it hurts to be heartsick, but I’m afraid to not be alone
there’s too many places I haven’t been, too many I’ll never go
and somewhere in the distance
someone’s calling my name
and someday I’ll maybe listen
but I’m too afraid to change
I’ll watch them stand then turn away
and long after they’ve gone I’ll wish they stayed
so I’ll sit and watch the stars and pretend to be sane
and hope that if I wait enough that soon it’ll start to rain
because I’m just a contradiction, a heartsick dreaming girl
who keeps looking in the shadows for things that were never there
and one day I’ll realize where I’ve gone wrong
and I’ll sit down and sing
one more sad song.
___
Some days the wind just doesn’t stop blowing. It blows hair into tangles and leaves into frenzies. It turns water to froth and slowly drags away particles of your skin, grinding away at your flesh and waiting to taste bone. Some days the wind blows.
Some days the sun shines. It glows down on the world and waits and waits until enough sunbeams have scorched their way through space to beat against the surface. It watches you collapse in a dessert of broken glass and smoke. It waits until the last drops of water have fizzed into gas and escaped into the atmosphere, it waits until the surface cracks and sighs. Some days the sun shines.
Some days the rain pours. It washes against bared skin, trickling rivulets sliding down to tumble to the earth. It washes into the dirt and takes with it a snatch of your soul. It deceives as it comforts and smiles as dissolves into sores. Some days the rain pours.
Some days your words brush across my skin like the wind, and you smile at me like a sunbeam. Your words are like rain.
My notes
My notes
My notes
I fell asleep writing you
Sleep
I need more sleep
(Death to insomnia.
Death to polar bonds.
Death to my notes.)
O, notes
It’s not necessarily your fault
It’s just that Ms. Harkin’s voice puts me to sleep
Sleep
Sleep sounds nice right about now
But no
I am denied
Thanks to my notes
Stupid notes
[This was typed out at three in the morning (thanks to my science homework) and sent to my contacts who would care via text message. That’s why it’s so terrible. Ms. Harkin is my science teacher and she is Irish. Her voice is so odd and mangled that it shouldn’t put you to sleep but it does. This greatly amused my friends who have her.]
This isn’t exactly a poem, more like a glimpse into my brain, but I’ll post it here anyway.
Flitter. Blink. New day. Whispers. Sighs. Longing. Whispers in the night. Stone. Flight. Song of death. Silver crystals of blue light flicker behind the walls. Shattering screams fill the air behind the windows, behind the clouds, behind EVERYTHING until it all IMPLODES from the sheer FORCE of it all, because it IS, or at least it seems that way,or it doesn’t, but we’ll never know THAT for sure either, will we? Questions. ?. Just like that. That little squiggle and dot that’s supposed to go after every QUESTION IN THE ENTIRE FADING YET BRIGHTENING WORLD, or is it the universe? What ever it is, we’re just specks in it, thought we DON’T ALWAYS ACT LIKE IT. What makes people think they can “own” parts of the earth? WE belong to the earth, not the other way around! And in the End, maybe we’ll finally realize that! Hope. Just hope. Hope and wait.
okay, so please tell what you think of this. I have never written a poem that wasn’t for school, so i’m not expecting it to be good. But whatever, here it goes…
I try to run,
I try to hide,
but it keeps coming,
seemingly faster,
and faster every day.
At day,
slowly creeping at the edges of my mind.
At night,
loud in the long hours before sleep.
An assassin waiting for the strike.
The desperate beatings of a frantic heart.
A withered plant with no water.
The last drops of blood from an open wound.
All end the same,
with one beautiful word,
Death.
The word that ends every living being.
Death knows everything,
Death learns the knowledge of thousands of past lives,
of shining, brilliant lives.
Ask it any question,
Death will tell you.
For a price.
It ended quite differently than how it started… and i will soon meet death if I don’t do my homework…
The first half had me really wondering what you were running/hiding from, and it’s also interesting how much the perspective on Death turns around by the end. Well written, for a first effort.
I never thought
I woud be so happy
to take a math final,
though I love math.
But there you have it.
A too-long Thanksgiving break
with too little to do
and too much time to think.
So I thought about her
as the world became cloaked in white
first soft velvety folds
freezing to sharp-edged plaster.
I thought about her
as the cabin fever kicked in
I love my family
but not in large doses.
Seven days can be eternity
and I cannot help
to wonder if
she thought of me.
I was intrigued enough by the website Robert mentioned last night to join it and begin writing something. As I’ve vaguely mentioned elsewhere, I’m too perfectionist in my writing to be able to make anything of great length, such as a novel. So instead I began an anthology of poetry.
The third poem was more an intellectual exercise than any deep emotional pouring-out, but I quite like how it turned out. (The middle of the poem starts to sound like slam poetry, which was entirely unintentional but rather intriguing.) See if you can find all the patterns or decipher the meaning. (The title will only make sense in the context of the whole work.)
2, by Piggy
The warmth emanates in a slow,
Personal spring
Of former and future grandeur,
Of the God-made majesty that adorned
And gave life,
Of the god-making minds that
Meld the had-been with the have-been with the will-be
Out into eyes and faces of the
Attributionalized,
Or those who eye the former in adoration
Of their self-apparent godliness,
Perceiving not
The first maker, the slow warmth.
Piggy- You are obviously one of those thoughtful, deep, symbolical poets whose stuff doesn’t make sense until the reader is all like ohmygod it DOES. Someday students in English class will hate your guts.
So when I wrote this, it was meant to be a nice normal poem. And then it all of a sudden was kind of creepy, which was… um. Yeah. There’s the plot of a potential Buffy episode in there somewhere.
She looked in the mirror
didn’t like what she saw
it was passion unfiltered
and straight up and raw
so she hid from the mirror
she threw up an old mask
built the brick walls around her
no matter who asked
she would hide,
hide,
hide from the sight
of the girl in the mirror
who wasn’t all right.
She walked to her school
laughing at a joke
and the mask on her face
well, it tightened and choked
and her face it turned blue
just behind the white mask
and she wouldn’t tell no one
no matter who asked
she had to hide,
hide,
hide from the sight
of the girl on the sidewalk
who wasn’t all right.
She died there that day,
on the sidewalk alone
and the mask well it cut
through her blood and her bone
and she got up to join
all the masked human race
’cause the mask she’d been wearing
had eaten her face
she still hides,
hides,
hides from the sight
of the girl living her life
who isn’t all right.
Cat’s Eye- I guess I’m my own target audience. But I do have some pity for any other readers. I could have made that poem quite convoluted.
Hm, that reminds me. Has anyone read The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot? My literature teacher told me her theory: that Eliot and a few of his poet buddies got drunk one night and decided to write a piece of nonsense and pass it off as a poem. I’ve tried reading it, and I don’t think the theory is far off.
Anyway: Cat’s Eye, your poem, for some reason, sounds to me almost like a Johnny Cash song, though rather more grotesque. *tries to think of a more meaningful comment* *fails* *hits “Comment”*
in a perfect world,
there are no enemies,
because of that,
in a perfect world,
there are no allies,
everyone together.
No war.
No famine.
No racism.
No suicides.
No murders.
There is no war,
that word is not defined.
why is there a word for a fight,
that has no winner?
Deaths on both sides,
casualties and murders.
All for something,
everyone has forgotten,
long ago.
Who will fix this world now?
Who will change it for the better?
Will that person ever come?
In a perfect world,
there are no wars.
In a perfect world,
there are no allies,
because,
there are no enemies to ally against.
I thought about deleting it….. I suck at writing…. Like it? It was when my dad was talking about war and the wikileaks thing….
Every little thing
can change the future
it’s heads or tails
who will go back to get that forgotton thing
which one to chose on the menu
and who will be the next president
it all matters
we live in the present
we remember the past
but what do we do with the future?
we hope
we worry
we wait
we do not realize
that today was tomorrow yesterday
and we think about later
instead of now
we worry about tomorrow
without even knowing
if tomorrow will come
the thing is
that the future is uncertain
unknown
bendable
so why
can’t we be happy living now?
I don’t know any more
It’s like someone has tapped into my vein
with a hollow needle
and is laughing
as the life drains away.
I’m scared
because my life seems so close to perfect
and since I was eight
every time that has happened
someone has died
and from there everything just crashes.
I just crash.
Swirling from a classic painting
into abstraction
and finally settling for the surreal.
Why does life
have to be such a roller-coaster ride?
Sure the pain makes us stronger
but I don’t want to be strong anymore.
I just want to be happy.
Just want to fast-forward to the disney ending
cause every day I doubt it’s existence more
Please God, if you’re there,
Which I was once sure of one way
then sure of another
but now again I just don’t know,
Please God,
write my life a comedy
not a drama, not a tragedy,
a comedy.
But I guess it’s a bit late for that,
isn’t it?
SFTDP:
There is beauty in blood
and music in heartbeats
The force that pushes
pure life through my veins.
Pure life through her veins.
The soul is in the blood.
The life is in the blood.
Protected by layers of skin
and muscle and fat.
wrapped in it’s tissue as a package,
Never to be opened
without disaster.
I cannot hear my own heartbeat.
Cannot feel my own pulse
I have no certainty of the life inside me
until it spills
in pain and sorrow
and dries up
and is gone forever.
But I know it to there nonetheless
I hope it to be there
and so I go on breathing
everything good comes to an end
and that means everything bad comes to a
stop
the only thing that keeps going is time
and each breath is a breath we will never have the chance to take again
the truth it is impossible to reconcile
for how could we miss a moment on
laying in bed staring at the ceiling
reading the sports section of the newspaper
turning the lights on and off
instead of desperately focusing on the sensation of heart beating and lungs working
every sensation a sensation we will never ever get back
we only focus on the big things,
and if we didn’t our lives would be forced to
stop
because the thing about life is that there are no patterns
there is only going on
and everything is changing swirling never lasting
and the important thing to remember is
this too shall pass
and the important thing to remember is
you can’t be afraid of what hasn’t happened yet
and the important thing to remember is
don’t look back, don’t look down, don’t blink
and the important thing to remember is
once upon a time
my soul was free
free like a river
rushing to the anonymous sea
the body of water
that drowns all rational hearts
the sea was you.
once upon a time
I was blooming
a symbol of youth
a tall, long-legged
short haired
efflorescence
then fate plucked me from the earth
and handed me
to you.
once upon a time
there was no fate
and we were on the way
to our own destinies
our own decisions
our own existence
how I hate that we
were destined to meet!
for had I been born with the will
To skip the years of life
that have dwindled into
cold
heartbroken
actuality
our paths would never have
dreamed
of intertwining.
for to tell the truth
that I have followed you down the road
with the love
of years of cruel humanity
would be far more arduous
far more daunting
far more terrifying
I’ve never understood why the vast majority of adolescents who write poetry feel the need to do so sans capitalization. (This is directed at no one in particular. It’s just something I thought of.)
This is just me pulling stuff out of thin air, but capital letters seem more definite to me, more decisive and concrete, and a lot of teenage poetry seems to be trying to make sense of the gray areas and capriciousness of life. Also, sometimes if you’re aiming for a sort of onrushing rhythm capital letters can provide a stop when you don’t want one.
When I write poetry I simply don’t think about conventions such as punctuation, capitialization, or grammer unless it’s important to the thought or emotion as it’s formed in my head, if that makes any sense, which means that mostly it’s either random or has great significance or sort of both. It’s about the way the words look on the page, the shape they make, the rhythm. Also, I find that often stress is placed on capitals either mentally or acoustically: they have a different connotation and by capitializing or not capitializing I make use of that stress.
I pretty much agree with Lizzie here. Capital letters and punctuation, especially periods, feel like the marks of an organized, clear, complete sentence. Capital letters signify beginnings, periods signify endings. If there are neither capital letters nor periods, it feels more like the poetry was pulled out of the middle of something, like it’s part of an ongoing flow. It’s less neat and orderly.
It’s probably true that some beginning poets use lowercase just because they think it looks cool or because that’s the way poetry is supposed to look, but it’s a nice place to start at.
I’d just point out that poets have been creating absolutely incredible pieces of art for thousands of years without doing so in all lowercase. Even modern, free-verse poets. The technique just seems amateurish at best to me.
It seems as though you do hold me in lesser esteem for it, though, from the way you talk about your dislike for the method that I use. As far as being “amateurish” is concerned, I have never claimed to be a professional poet, nor even a remotely good one. My poetry is how I express myself. The method should have little to do with it. If you don’t like the way something is written, then don’t read it.
Also, if this shouldn’t be considered a matter of debate then don’t start one. It’s not fair to state a potentially offensive opinion and then be surprised at the ‘uproar’ from those on the other side of the fence. I respect your opinion and your right to defend it, but this is a thread where debate shouldn’t be necessary.
lol really? okay. i am just kind of exasperated, i don’t understand how it can seem like a good idea to tell people their work is “amateurish at best”
:/
you are certainly entitled to that opinion! but people have different opinions too. what other poets have been doing is immaterial to one’s choice to capitalize or not. sometimes doing things differently can be good. it does not invalidate the worth of a poem.
do you see how it can be insulting to someone? when after taking the time and going through the emotional process of writing a poem, the only thing they hear from you is something along the lines of: wow why do that, other better poems don’t so there’s no reason
it’s not even phrased as constructive, it’s condescending.
And I’d like to point out that a good portion of the point of art, (art not made to be sold/create a profit, that is) especially for teenagers, is to create something uniquely yours, something expressive to thoughts, emotions, experiences, something that no one can create but you, something you define and in that way make your mark on the world. Thus it doesn’t matter what artists have been doing for thousands of years, and certainly doesn’t matter what Piggy or anyone else thinks about the subject, because everything you create is yours and defined by you, no one else.
And poets have also been creating incredible pieces of art for thousands of years in all lowercase. Or all uppercase, especially when you consider that for most of those thousands of years, there was no such thing as lowercase or uppercase.
The technique can be amateurish if it’s applied amateurishly. Or it can be incredibly meaningful. It just depends on the skill of the poet, and the claim that it’s amateurish because it’s more recent (especially when capitalization itself is fairly recent compared to the timescale of poetry when you look at it) is disingenuous.
By the way, the Cicada with my poem in it came out.
When I die
Kill me quickly
So I won’t worry about death
Without you.
When you die
Kill me quickly
So I won’t worry about life
Without you.
I am not afraid of death
Simply afraid of pain
And I cannot imagine
Greater pain than to be alone
Nor greater comfort,
Greater joy,
Than to be with you.
All that which has a beginning
has an end.
that which has no end
has not a true beginning.
So I know that I will end
So I know that we will end
But I wish
I didn’t know it.
Golly. So many angry responses to an offhand comment that was meant with no malice whatsoever.
Axa- I said I found the technique amateurish, not the work itself. And I’m intensely aware of everyone’s right to their own opinions.
Clare de Lune- For other people’s opinions not mattering, you sure seem to have taken my comment personally. I highly encourage people to ignore what I say if they disagree with it.
Lizzie- I have in no way whatsoever claimed that purposeful disuse of capitalization is to me distasteful because of the timeframe in which it was first used. I couldn’t care less when it was first used.
Tesseract- I have never and will never claim that an opinion of mine is “right”.
Good heavens, you all are wound tightly concerning some matters. Have none of you noticed that I mean nothing entirely seriously? Sarcasm is at least several of my names. And as I said to agrrrfishi, de gustibus non est disputandum–concerning tastes, there is no debate. If I offended anyone, I apologize; I was just freely expressing my opinion.
Perhaps it would have been better taken if I had written it as a haiku?
“I somewhat dislike
Completely lowercase poems.
Just my opinion.”
i think axa hit it with “condescending.” you phrase opinions like these as snarky little quips that make you seem dismissive of everyone else’s thoughts and ideas. it’s rude and somewhat irritating, and the only effect of it i can see is to give yourself an air of smug superiority. if you don’t intend offense, phrase things in a less offensive tone.
and don’t try to cop out by claiming we shouldn’t take anything you say seriously, because you clearly meant what you said, if not the tone in which you said it. claiming you don’t mean anything seriously doesn’t give you a free pass to ignore the feelings of others. i’m not saying you intended offense, i’m just saying you probably didn’t put as much thought into how others would receive that comment as you should have.
sorry if i sound harsh, it just annoys me when people don’t seem to realize the consequences of their words and the feedback others gave you doesn’t seem to have sunk in.
Well, it’ll certainly be a stranger MB if you’re missing for any length of time. You’re a fixture here. Without you, it’d be like losing a tooth. There’ll be a hole where you’re supposed to be. I mean, there’s no one Piggyish enough to be Piggy except you.
I don’t know, I’d say that “I’d just point out that poets have been creating absolutely incredible pieces of art for thousands of years without doing so in all lowercase” is a pretty clear indication that you feel that some of its lack of validity comes from it being a recent innovation.
I know you’d never claim one of your opinions to be right, but from what I can tell you do seem to be fairly firmly set in your opinions, and being as good a debater as you are you often phrase them as, as ebeth said, “snarky little quips” because you know that you can argue rings around most people and end up with the higher ground in any following debate. You’re a very logical person and I know you know that no opinion is technically “right.” I was just looking for a one-syllable word and that was the best I could think of for the meaning.
I wasn’t taking your comment personally, it just seemed really condescending and rather unnecessary (and easy for people to take really personally, especially on this thread, and thus sort of insensitive) (I know you didn’t mean to offend anyone) and for that reason it annoyed me and thus the tone of my comment. All this as also just happened after my discussion on Acting class about what art is and what defines art so I was already thinking about what I posted regardless of the current conversation.
….but anyway. I’m calling it “Love Musings” and each poem is titled “Love Musings” and then the number; I, II, III, IV, V, and so on. It’s partially because one of my (older) friends challenged me that I don’t have the faintest clue what love is (which may be true, but I digress) and I’m doing this to show them that I do know something, at least, and partially because this is a subject that I’ve thought about a lot and find to be very interesting. But, again, I digress. I’m rambling now–and anyway, I thought I’d share some of the poems I’ve written so far that I like.
Love Musings I
Love; the ever changing
Life; Death, Light; Dark!
Love is–
Everything. Nothing.
Never the same; New, always
Love; the beast that, hidden
lies quietly within our Hearts–
But the truest love is that
which, in it’s beautiful complexity
cannot be defined
in Words.
Love Musings II
Colourful, multi-faceted
constantly shifting
like so many butterflies
gathering in the sunlight–
This is Love.
Painful, heartbreaking
ceaselessly aching
like so many wounds
inflicted by invisible demons
This, too, is Love.
Does the beauty outweigh
the Pain?
The sunlight
heals the wounds,
But–
someday
the warm, happy sunlight of Love
will leave you again
The darkness
re-opens the wounds; multiplies them
But–
always
the darkness will be vanquished
by the light of Love
This is is the circle.
This, truly, is Love.
Love Musings VI
What is Love?
Is it merely an idealized concept,
something impossible to find?
Is it simply
physical attraction
and nothing of the mind?
Was it created
only for survival
out of times we’ve left behind?
Was it imagined
by men of knowledge–
a dream with silver lined?
Or, perhaps
was Love created because of love–
a beacon in darkness,
brightly shined.
(Opinions please? These are my best from this project so far.)
First of all I love the poems and secondly I think that sounds like an amazing challenge and if you don’t mind I think I’ll modify it and create a project of my own. I could use a nice, calming, project.
To define art
is to kill a rainbow butterfly
and pin it to a box
just to create a neat, clean, label
To analyze art
is at first to peer at the butterfly
through a magnifying glass
making it all the more beautiful.
Yet to continue analysis
is to grab a scalpel and tweezers
and cut into the flesh
blood and guts and organs all pulsing
still beautiful
but nauseating,
in pieces, soon to die
never to live again.
To create art
is to find a butterfly
caged deep within
and let it soar free.
I’m inspired.
I hate when people analyze art. Kind of like analyzing literature, it bugs me when people try to see some sort of meaning that the artist never put there. Especially if the artist is dead and thus unable to comment.
What, then, is the purpose of art, if not to express some sort of meaning? Should art just be something pretty to look at? I myself wouldn’t denigrate art to that level. Without analysis, art is basically pointless, and the artist did all ens work in vain. I have a feeling that your opinion may change as you’re forced to analyze things in school.
Perhaps it’s just my INTP personality. But I don’t think any level of sincere analysis is “too much”. From the viewpoint of an artist, I would be honored and feel justified if someone were to peel back layer after layer trying to understand my work. If someone just looked at the surface, I’d be insulted.
Everything has a deeper meaning. To refuse to analyze it is to refuse to appreciate it.
Not sure how to reply to that.
And I am forced to analyze things in school, that’s partly why I hate doing it. It’s less about the emotions and thoughts one gets from art, and more about people forcing their own on other people and trying to say, “It’s about X”, when it could just as easily be about Y.
…sorry if that doesn’t make sense, I’m tired.
Middle school analysis can tend to be in the realm of “This is the right answer, there is no other interpretation”. Don’t pay attention to that. Teachers and classmates are wrong quite a lot. Two completely opposite analyses can each be valid as long as there is a solid argument and evidence to back it up.
Middle-school books do tend to be more simplistic, though. It’s not exactly the same analyzing The Golden Goblet than it is Catcher in the Rye. The only book I remember reading in middle school that I thought was actually worth my time was To Kill a Mockingbird, which immediately became one of my favorite books of all time. It’s a wonder middle school English doesn’t turn far more kids off to reading.
Same here.
I know some people who are reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian for their English class, and I’m really jealous. It sometimes seems like the books we read are picked for their ability to be analyzed rather than for their plot and writing quality.
(I’ll add that I’m currently in 9th grade and it’s still happening. Cormac McCarthy can go jump off a cliff)
I’m not saying that something has to be art to be worthwhile or enjoyable. For instance, I feel that Spongebob is enjoyable. But I hesitate to call it “art”.
Well, you may not be able to say “art is this-and-such”, but you are saying “this is art and that is not art.” This obviously has qualities that that does not, or vice versa, in order for you to include it in your mental “set of things that are art.” Those qualities are part of your definition of art.
In short, if you know what is not art, then you know what is art, and if you know what is art, you have at least some idea of what art is.
Rebecca- If you made a thread, the topic would die. That’s how it always works.
Cat’s Eye and Vendy- I really don’t have a definition for art, even though I can label things as “art” and “not art”. It’s the same concept everyone uses every day. For instance, what’s the definition of justice? Most people don’t have one. But they have no problems labeling things as “just” and “unjust”. And what is beauty? Not having a definition doesn’t stop us from calling things “beautiful”. This is why philosophers have been arguing about art for millennia. It evades definition. But that in no way means we are unable or unallowed to call things art.
“But I know it [referring to obscenity] when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that”
– Justice Potter Stewart
So what are your criteria for what makes art / not art? I’m not asking about philosophers over the millennia; I’m asking about what allows you specifically to declare something art or not art. And why do your criteria have validity?
Saying that something evades definition is a cop-out – I think the real issue is clashing definitions, not lack of such. I might not be able to define “justice” but I could give you a list of elements that form justice or not-justice, from which we could extract a definition.
I think Piggy is right that you don’t always need a definition to recognize something. (I’m not sure I could define a cat with any precision, but I usually know when I’m looking at one.)
Still, definitions have their uses, and they can be useful intellectual exercises. I usually break them down into parts: a generic part that tells the general category something belongs to, followed by a specific part that tells what makes it distinctive within that category. So within that framework, a work of art would be, let’s see…
Generic: “An object, performance, or communication…”
(All right so far? Let me know if I’ve missed something.)
Specific: “created (okay?) to (or does intention not matter?) evoke or express (“evoke” if the artist has an audience in mind; “express” if en does not) an emotional or intellectual reaction or an altered way of perceiving the world.”
I think Robert’s definition is pretty legit. I read somewhere (TV Tropes, I think) “Art isn’t about making you feel good. Art is about making you feel.” And often, when I’m writing poetry or stories or scripts, I think to myself that art is about saying something true, which you might not be able to say otherwise.
So the way I see it, I think (I’m feeling this out as I write), is that there are two components to art: truth and beauty. Some art says pretty things, or makes a pretty picture, or creates a pretty noise. Some art says true things, whether it’s through words, images, or sound. And some art says true things in a pretty way.
But the thing about art that’s pretty is that people are naturally hesitant to pick it apart. They see it as, like Clare said, “[killing] a rainbow butterfly and pinning it to a box just to create a neat, clean label.” And you can “peer at the butterfly through a magnifying glass, making it all the more beautiful”, which is the type of analysis you seem to be talking about, Piggy, or you can “grab a scalpel and tweezers and cut into the flesh, blood and guts and organs all pulsing… nauseating, in pieces, soon to die, never to live again.”
The point is that the butterfly is better understood when you dissect it, that you can now label it easily and sort it into various categories in the space of a few minutes, that you have now given the stuff that beauty is made of a name and a number, that butterfly study is now much neater and more organized. But the butterfly is still very dead.
So instead of pinning butterflies down and dissecting them piece by piece, removing their souls, let’s all become lepidopterists like Vladimir Nabokov and chase butterflies over hills!
Piggy, I know that the topic often seems to be played out by the time a thread happens. I guess what I was really asking was whether there was still enough life in this discussion to move it elsewhere, now that it’s jammed up against the nesting limitations.
I think it’s art.
Maybe if you don’t pick art apart, that’s okay. In 6th grade, we did this poetry unit and we learned all about metaphors and similes, parts of poems, why the author does this and that, and I hated it. However, saying that maybe van Gogh painted some of the flowers drooping because he was dying or something like that is okay, I think.
This makes me think of one of my favorite quotations:
“With more knowledge comes a deeper, more wonderful mystery, luring one on to penetrate deeper still. Never concerned that the answer may prove disappointing, with pleasure and confidence we turn over each new stone to find unimagined strangeness leading on to more wonderful questions and mysteries….” — Richard Feynman
I hate watching people try to find deep meaning in modern abstract art. At one museum I went to, a guy in a suit was gazing at a piece of a soda can on a stand and taking notes. I went up to him and asked why he was taking notes on a bit of metal, and he said “This isn’t a piece of metal. This is a representation of the artist’s soul. His very soul.” I mean, really! It was a piece of a tin can! You could still see the “Sprite” label!
Sorry. I should find a better place to put this rant.
Someone drops a gum wrapper on the ground at the contemporary art museum. Ten minutes later, a museum-goer sees it and stares at it for a few minutes, makes a sketch, and takes note on it. He goes over to the guide and says, “Excuse me, sir, shouldn’t there be a barrier around that sculpture?” The guide starts laughing and says, “I just watched you appreciate a gum wrapper for twenty minutes! What an idiot!”
The moral of the story is, I find a lot of modern art lazy.
You’re both dramatically overgeneralizing. Not all modern art is a literal piece of trash on a pedestal, (and I’m pretty sure you’re more disscussing contemporary art–art created in the last ten years–and not modern art, which I think is an era of art from around the middle or possibly the late twentieth century.) contemporary art can be a tree painted white with balloons for leaves blowing in the wind. Contemporary art can be crossing a bridge to a small slanted oval room to stare up at the sky in a frame, a forest of hot-glue strands each hand-made and set up specifically for the space surrounding it, a mural on the wall of a building. Contemporary art can be glass moulded on the bark of a tree, installations far larger and more complicated than ever, but contemporary art can also be a room half-full of balloons to run around in, a small dog and a large dog, a light periodically flipping on and off. Contemporary art can take years upon years of planning and work, can have incredible meaning, and much of what I’ve seen has this incredible sense of dynamics, never the same day to day, person to person, perspective to perspective.
Go to a good contemporary art museum sometime. Then come back and tell me it’s lazy.
One piece, I guess you could call it that, is the building itself. One whole wall of it is just glass, and you can look out upon the city and see the river and everything.
It’s more realistic that anything could ever be.
And I’ve loved it much more than I’ve liked some of the pieces there.
In all honesty I’m a fan of analyzing art. It becomes sort of a mind-boggling thing, and I find it fun, actually. However sometimes through analysis art loses some of its emotion for me, some of the visceral response becomes replaced by intellectual response, which is often not a good thing. I wrote the poem the way it’s written for that reason, the loss of emotion, and because I run in to people who read whatever they want into art and then insist they have the only correct answer. Part of the point, at least for me, is that there does not need to be one answer. Also, sometimes they can’t provide solid evidence….anything you want can be read into art, anything can be argued, as long as you can actually back it up.
But I’m not fond of defining art, of placeing parameters around it.
Analyzing art is great so long as it makes one think but is not taken too seriously. Only the artist can tell you what’s actually in the art, what it actually means, and often people forget that. They forget that what they find is speculation, sometimes strongly evidenced speculation, but still speculation.
I am so happy that this discussion occurred in response to my poem…I can’t even begin to describe how happy I am. Love you all!
It sounds like you have a problem specifically with bad analysis, not analysis in general. I don’t think anyone likes bad analysis.
Oftentimes the artist enself doesn’t have one “meaning” picked out for ens work; en wants there to be opposing analyses. I find that to be an amazing thing about art–it takes on a life of its own separate from its creator.
Well yes, bad analysis, analysis gone too far (some of which would otherwise be great analysis) and analysis that causes art to lose it’s emotional meaning, a lot of which can be phenomenal analysis.
I agree with the last line, however, sometimes, particularly with analysis that attempts to work religion into art after the fact, the analysis gets so far away from anything the author would have known or intended that it feels implausible and weak. There was a movement in between the 60s and the 80s (I can’t remember when) that with literary analysis attempted to “kill the author” in that the intentions of the author were not thought about in analysis. While this is a perfectly valid way to look at literature, I find it less interesting because with the author still in consideration one can look at subtextual messages, themes, and overall “points” to the book, which are still only speculation but really interesting to think about.
I guess actually I’d have to say that rather from art having a life “separate” from it’s creator I’d say art has a life independent from it’s creator—the life of the art and the life of the artist are very closely linked yet the life of the art still exists outside of that connection.
I’m running and it’s always right behind me, chasing me, reaching for me
I freeze for only a second and I have to start over from the beginning, a moment of unsureness ruining my escape
I start to get tired, my hands wavering, not grabbing what I asked them to
Why does it want me
I keep asking myself as I run over and over, doing the same task
Why is it chasing me, why is it hurting me, why can’t I win this
I’ve done this so many times now, repetition never winning
Glowing eyes and sharp teeth, I’m not even scared anymore
I’m running
But I have to win this
I need to get away, get away, run, I need to make my way out of here
Every time I try I lose to this-this thing
It’s not even fair, I’ve tried so hard, tried every trick, but it seems I can’t get away
No safe spots in this chase, no safe spots any time I try
I can’t win this stupid race against time
I’m running
Not even a branching maze, I must berate myself
I take the same path every time, the right path, the one I should take
And the few times I’ve run to a different path, I simply get caught faster
I’m so tired of this
I’m running
Let’s try this again
After all, what’s one more life
I’m not gonna see Game Over this time
——
Little bit of wacky freeform there. Someone playing a video game and never managing to win in this one race, no matter how much they try.
I tried to live my life happy
I tried to be carefree
I tried to see what you see
but I can’t see
I am blind
because
you
hurt me.
I wanted to start over
To say the lies were through
I simply want to let you know
How much one soul could do
To change your skewed perception
Of the life we all must lead
I tried to help you realize, but
you
hurt me.
She can never love you
Her heart can never feel
Her soul cannot discern between
Infatuation and what’s real
But I knew for so much time
That what burned inside my chest
Was love! and not a simple crush
and not just interest.
I tried to be your friend.
I tried to let it be
I tried my best to stop my heart
To hope that this would never start
Again and tear what’s left apart
but
you
hurt me.
Homer’s chronology
Won’t mean a thing
Four books in the past tense
To explain everything.
Telemachus leaves
Penelope grieves
(Actually, that’s what she does all throughout the story so forget about that.)
MEANWHILE
Odysseus sails
To tell all his tales.
THEN
Ithaca at last!
Heroes disguised.
AND
Athena flies off
Telemachus’s guide.
THEN
Everyone meets and I haven’t read the end.
What a crazy epic!
But it’s still really…Grand.
I cannot show my mother my wrist
scattered with the red half-moon marks left by my nails
She will not understand
that the pain allows me to be in control
even when I’m so far out of control
that I’ve lost myself.
I control the pain.
I control the emotions through my head by replacing them
the adrenaline rush to my brian.
I know it’s wrong
to hurt myself. I disappoint myself every time
because I was out of control enough to resort to this.
But I keep losing control, and I need the control
Sometimes it’s all I have.
I’m sure they could give me medicine
to lessen the need for control
and maybe to keep my emotions in control in the first place.
But I don’t want medicine.
The control allows me to create my art
my arguments, math, science, english…it all hinges on my need for control.
Once I lose that what will I have left?
Who will I be?
As for the emotions, as for the panic,
my brian is my brian
and once I surrender it to chemicals
I will not be myself.
I’ve worked too hard to be myself
to let meds destroy me.
My mother would be so disappointed,
if she saw this.
She would think she’s failed me.
She hasn’t failed me.
I have.
It’s a beautiful poem, but I’m still worried. I know it gives you control, and that control does help you, but the long and short of it is that you’re hurting yourself. I don’t want you to do that. *hugs*
You think I haven’t tried? This is a last resort. A horrible last resort, but a last resort nonetheless. My mind requires absolute control, and we can discuss why that is but it’ll take a few weeks and range from previous emotional trauma to OCD tendencies to just plain my-mind-works-differently-and-always-has.
I still am trying, though.
Look. You just got the Internet equivalent of a group hug. I, for one, know plenty about your neuroses, and hate seeing you do this.
Maybe we can’t do a whole lot, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean we’ll stop trying.
A man sat alone in his chair
Blue cubicle walls formed his lair
He searched his computer
But found not one suitor
For no matchmaking site deemed him fair.
[This belongs with the conversation about art, it follows comment 96.1.1.2.1.2.1.1.2.8. I’m posting it here because it got kind of long.]
Of course, it’s also possible to dissect a butterfly after it dies. There’s no cruelty in that, is there? And what about dung beetles? On the other hand, you can’t kill a rainbow, to use another popular trope for these sorts of discussions. Is the display any less beautiful if you know the science behind its making?
Beatrix Potter’s watercolors are very sweet, but the keen observations rendered in her drawings resulted from the numerous hours she spent dissecting animals.
How do authors create believable characters without metaphorically dissecting themselves and the people they know? Most writers of my acquaintance would agree that we’re something like vampires, feeding off the lives of other people (and ourselves, too).
After the Impressionists became popular, they were often derided for being too pretty and too pleasing. Yet the Impressionists were among the most analytical of artists.
Claude Monet made a painting of his wife on her death bed. “I found myself at daybreak at the bedside of a dead woman who had been and always will be dear to me. My gaze was fixed on her tragic temples, and I caught myself observing the shades and nuances of colour Death brought to her countenance. Blues, yellows, greys, I don’t know what. That is the state I was in. The wish came upon me, quite naturally, to record the image of her who was departing from us for ever. But before it occurred to me to draw those features I knew and loved so well, I was first and foremost devastated, organically, automatically, by the colours. Against my will, my reflexes took possession of me in an unconscious process, as the everyday course of my life took over. Like a draught animal working at the millstone. Pity me, my friend.”
To me that story epitomizes the moment of the artist, regardless of how one defines the artwork itself. Monet was as devastated by his art as by his loss and each contributed to the fullness of the other. He expressed his love and began his mourning even as he focused on the mechanics of painting.
Maybe I should just shut up, but I’ve gone this far…so I will add that for me making art is not about breaking things. Breaking is simply way too mild a word. Art is about shattering things, smashing them down to their bones, to their atoms, to their inner particles, to the space between — and then healing them back into a whole. (That last bit is important, though also the part that people are most likely to forget)
Lady B. is speaking as an artist, of course. I’m just a spectator. Offhand, however, I can’t think how analyzing a work of art — looking at it more carefully, finding out more about it — would ruin my ability to appreciate it. If I admired a painting, I don’t see any harm in knowing who painted it, when and in which country, something about the artist’s life, what the artist was trying to accomplish, what other artists influenced en, the techniques used to paint it, even the chemical composition of the pigments and glazes. I also wouldn’t mind thinking about why it affected me the way it did, or how it might have affected the people who first saw it. The same goes for music, literature, or any other type of art.
There is one exception: some of the “questions for discussion” we had for school assignments were pretty deadly. For example, when I was in seventh or eighth grade, we read short stories and had to identify each story’s theme. Every story, the teacher told us, had a theme — not more than one, but exactly one. The theme could be described in exactly one way, as a clause starting with the word “that.” We couldn’t say that the theme of a story was “friendship” or “betrayal.” Instead, for each story, we had to write a sentence that began “The theme of this story is that…”
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what the teacher wanted. I asked, “Is the theme like a moral?” No, the teacher said; a story doesn’t necessarily have a moral, but it does have a theme. It was frustrating, because there was supposed to be a right answer, and I wanted very much to get it, but I just couldn’t see it. Since then I’ve read hundreds of short stories, but I still don’t know what the teacher was driving at. To this day, if I were to read a story and then have to finish the sentence “The theme of this story is that _____________________,” I couldn’t do it.
(On the other hand, I don’t think I let that assignment spoil any stories for me. If I enjoyed them, I enjoyed them, and I was happy enough to think about them in other ways.)
I never understood the theme thing either. What was the point? Fortunately, I made it through five years of graduate studies in writing and literary theory without ever once being asked to identify a theme.
This conversation has given me an idea: could we make a thread for analyzing art? It would be sort of like the book club idea that failed, but more general. Every Sunday a work of art would be decided upon–a painting, a poem, a short story, a song, a movie, a sculpture. For the rest of the week we would discuss and analyze that work of art. The following Sunday the process would begin anew. Perhaps the pacing could be extended to every two weeks, if one week isn’t enough time.
This was originally going to be used in some writing I was doing- and I’m still going to use it, but it’s been postponed, so yeah… Thirteen years have come and passed
Sand is running down the hourglass
Time is a futile, fleeting thing
Can you hear them starting to sing?
Above the ticking of the clock
tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock
the sound
will resound
through cavern, hill, glade and glen
but we’ll all gather here again
before the singing…
stops
for thirteen years we’ve heard it sing
been driven mad by the crazy, wild ring
the last song of time
The thief’s reign of clocks and gears
mechanical whirligigs, grease, good cheer
will end tonight after thirteen journeys
seven attempts and too many stories
before the song ends you must recover the ring
or they’ll never ever sing
I don’t believe I’ve posted this here before. Apologies for the lack of line breaks; I wrote it to read out loud and I’m still trying to edit it into a more readable form.
On November 9, 1938, Jewish windows shattered across Germany and my grandfather woke in the night. Seven years old and he woefully watched as the Gestapo wrested his father from his mother’s arms; as a good-bye present they wrenched the phones from the walls. Arrested and in a cattle car to Buchenwald, he came home eighteen days later–the number of life for Opa Felix. On New Year’s Eve they were on a train to Switzerland (Happy Hanukkah). Three years later my grandfather started school in America. It was his fourth year in the first grade, an expert in stringing beads on cord, what they did in the first grade in Germany, in Adelboden, Geneva, in God Bless America. Land of opportunity: seven years later Grandpa was at an Ivy and my family had a chicken farm and a new life. Felix’s son Joachim, James, my grandfather, begot Eric begot Abby and here I stand today. Other kids learn about the Holocaust from history books, but for me it’s beads of my ancestors’ lives: papers and relics and medals and photos of dead relatives who didn’t get out in time. I’ve seen some of those medals, carried on a train by a man who thought metal and ribbon and the arm he lost for his country would save him from death by gas, by freezing, we don’t know how he died. The medals didn’t make it that far, taken from him and filed with his life in a drawer to be found by my generation as we search out the beads missing from our chains of history and add to them our own stories. A year ago I saw my first Holocaust movie and I cried (it would have been me in that shower room pounding at the doors and I would have been that smoke), I read my favorite book and cry (it would have been me marching down that street and scrambling for bread), I hear about the kids who painted a swastika on the house down the road and I cry (because I know it still could be me). Across the world we are turned to hating, not just Jews but Blacks and Muslims and homosexuals and everyone who is not us. And if we don’t get our **** together I hear there are still some barracks in Germany that we one day again may fill. Oseh shalom bimrumav, hu ya’aseh shalom, aleinu v’alkol yisrael v’imru amen, may God make peace for us, now, before the beads are scattered beyond repair, before we have another Holocaust of hatred on our hands, amen.
Staying in PJs
past 2pm
and watching movies on the computer.
plodding around the internet
reading entire book series
Skipping breakfast
Eating Ramen or leftovers when I’m hungry
Which isn’t till 1 at the earliest
playing guitar
Prowling the house
looking for something to do
blasting music
that my parents would raise their eyebrows at
not for profanity or explicitly
but because they don’t equate it with me.
This is me alone.
This is not who my parents know.
Not the girl they raised, the girl they
expect me to be.
They think they have me figured out.
In their own way they’ve forced me into a box
and though I push against the lid
the weight of their probable disappointment
is too much for me.
They think they know me better than I do.
They don’t know me at all,
don’t understand who I am
how I express myself
and why I express myself the way I do.
Fine with my sexuality
but unable to comprehend
why it was important for me to come out.
I told them I was sick of lying.
In reality, though,
I came out because
who I was inside
was so distant from who everyone saw outside
that a pit of snakes grew in my belly
and I retreated inside myself
to fight them, prevent them from eating me alive
and so did not live on the outside any more.
I was sick, not of lying, but of everyone assuming I was one person
when I knew I was another.
I am sick, not of lying, but of my parents assuming I’m one person
when i know I am another
Yet the box stays closed
and I ponder:
they don’t know me at all
how well
do I really know them?
The lives you never
Lived
The lives you lived
That were never lived
Or lived
And forgotten
The worlds you’ve missed
The times you
Cannot see
That reside among
The universe
Forgotten
Or the words
You never wrote
but never remember
The words your wrote
That never were
Listened to
The lives
That were never written
The words
By anybody
Even you.
Forgotten
For eternity
The lives
That were never written
The worlds you’ve missed
The times you
Cannot see
That reside among
The universe
Forgotten
Lived
The lives you lived
For eternity
The lives
That were never written
Lived
but never remember
The words your wrote
That never were
For eternity
The lives
That were never written
The words
That were lived
But left to
Even you.
Forgotten
The words
Cut and paste,
Cut and paste.
Not a world
Not a line
Not a life
For eternity
Vanish
From eternity
That reside among
The forgotten
The words
That are forgotten
The repeated lives
That were never lived
Or lived
And forgotten
Or the words
You never wrote
Or forgotten
The poem
The words
Cut and paste,
Cut and paste.
Not a world
Not a line
Not a life
Not a word
Forgotten
Forgotten
((An experiment to see just how linear or non linear my poems are. I wrote a short poem, and then copied and pasted pieces all around to mess up the flow. Does it still make sense?
You write. Not everyone who writes has skill with words, but people who write for fun generally do. People who are not skilled at something often don’t enjoy it very much.
Maybe people who actually know they aren’t skilled at something don’t enjoy it very much. Fanfiction writers who type Review Replies such as “omg ur just jealous of my riting skills!!!!!1 if u dont lyk it then dont read it duuuuuh also teh spellcheck is baised against me so their” usually aren’t aware that they’re bad writers.
And besides, I suspect that for bad fanfiction writers (and not just fanfiction! Stephenie Meyer shows every sign of loving writing), the reason they write isn’t quite the same as the reason others write. I, personally, write because I enjoy having created something good. If it makes people feel an emotion they wouldn’t have felt otherwise, or think a thought they wouldn’t have thought otherwise, I feel like I’ve succeeded.
Bad writers don’t seem to write for an audience. Okay, good writers don’t need to write for an audience either, but what the reader will think is usually included at least a little, if they’re going to share it with a larger audience. Bad writers just go “dont like dont read” and click “post”. The pleasure for them isn’t in having created something new, it’s in having something for themselves. That didn’t make sense but it’s the closest I can get.
There’s some pithy quote I wish I could remember, but ti goes something like this: Wise men are aware of their lack of knowledge, fools think they are brilliant because they cannot see that there is so much more to learn.
So yeah, I think you’re exactly on target there.
Wow. Thanks. This is sort of embarrassing…
Thing is, though, I can’t tell my good poems from my less-than-good poems, so I sort of assume they’re all less-than-good. What makes my poems good? It’s sort of bugging me cause I can’t tell.
You make your emotions clear, and your style — I’m not sure how to describe it – let’s say “stream of consciousness” style is very good. There isn’t really any poem of yours on this thread that I don’t like. Your poems don’t rhyme, but they don’t need to. Actually, after reading your poems, rhyming seems sort of shallow.
Disclaimer: Radiant_Darkness is not a poetry critic and his opinions should not be relied upon often. Or at all.
AN ODE TO THE EARTH
When you think about it I mean really think about it
the universe is nothing but
dark
cold
lifeless
empty space.
There are colorful beautiful
pinkandgreenandblue nebulae miracles
floating through the darkness without a hint of twitch/motion or word/sound
without a breath of heartbeat inside them
part of the endless field of starry tapestry shining nothing
and have you ever looked up at the sky on a clear night and thought
“we are so small insignificant humble specks of dust breaths of air nothing are we”
just a tiny spinning dot in a tiny spinning system in a tiny spinning galaxy in a huge empty/cold/dark/lifeless universe?
It is true. I have seen it.
I have seen, too, a firework, bursting across the night sky.
Colorful beautiful
redandgoldandgreen pyrotechnic miracles
exploding through the darkness declaring there is twitch/motion and word/sound
screaming out defiance against the silence of the stars
sparks leaving bright trails along the great celestial tapestry
only lasting for a burst of a quarter of a second before drifting itself into smoke along the wind
such a bright blazing fire in a cold starry sky
against all odds against alll expectations against the empty/cold/dark/lifeless universe.
I, who think in words,
cannot describe you in words.
It’s not that I don’t know you
I know you well.
I can talk about you
about your cats and who you were in Crucible and your older brother and your dislike of English 9 and your love of art and the beautiful swirling designs you draw and the hands you draw so well and your smile, such an amazing smile it is, a gift, and your hair cut short and how quiet you are until you start talking.
But I cannot describe that smile
or your voice
or even your hair.
I cannot describe how I feel when you hold me
my head against your shoulder
breathing in the scent of you
I cannot describe that scent
my head against your soft, plaid, shirt
When I see you, gravity lessens
when you hold my hand, it is impossible to be truly unhappy
And when you hold me, I feel safe
and ineffable.
And when my mother asks me what you are like
All I can think of is that ineffable feeling
and you become ineffable.
Snow
Light storm clouds
roll overhead
too light for thunder
but not ignored
the temperture dips
the sun is hidden
the road ices over
and white flakes fall
like pices of heavan
rare
special
perfect
for seconds
I am in awe
as the snow falls
carpeting the world
in bright
clean
white.
Press play
the winter wonderland
is only perfect
clean
bright
for seconds.
Stomped
Thrown
Kicked
Melted.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I shall resist the urge to be a spelling Nazi and just compliment you on the poem. I love that feeling too, where everything’s so perfectly white and frozen. Seems sort of like a private moment.
What is love?
There is no guideline, no rule book
“you’ll know” they say
but when I was young
what I thought love was
is so very different from what love is now.
So love grows with us, within us
a shifting form felt not inside our mind
but in the pit of our bellies
in listening to heartbeats and wondering
how ours still sound the same
when they feel so different,
so changed.
When I see her my heart leaps
and I am effervescent
when she holds my hand my mind jumbles
and has not the coherence to be afraid
and when she holds me
I am infinite
my soul stretched across the bounds of time
in connection with all souls from the dawn of humanity to its end
in connection with all souls who felt love
We’ve so much time ahead of us
being but 14 for me, 16 for her
She may not be “the one”
But that does not mean I do not love her.
I may not know what love is
but right now, I love her.
Perhaps I do not love her in the same way that I would love her
had we met in a decade and fallen in love by our definition
at that time.
But right here, right now
by love as I know it in this moment,
I love her.
you know this spot in the conversation
spilling your bag of words
why do you try to impress them upon her skin?
she’ll shrug them off like raindrops to the linoleum
they’ll land in puddles for you to mop up
to swallow again.
maybe this time she’ll listen.
Sometimes I wish that I could read people’s thoughts
And not go through
the pain
of guessing
and second-guessing
of interpreting
and re-interpreting
their actions and meanings
Sometimes I wish that I could see people’s emotions
And know
whether they laughed
because it was funny
or because it was me
Sometimes I wish that I could just ask people
if it is purely platonic
or if it’s more
Sometimes I wish that I would know
if ten years from now
they would remember me
as the one who got away
or as a piece of dust
present but inconsequential
and unrelated to their lives
or not at all
Sometimes I wish that my wishes would be granted
And that all will be well
And that no pain is permanent
Sometimes I wish
(may appear to be slightly short; however, it is longer than life in my eyes)
The song is you.
With the noterity of our past
I can’t subsist without his flattery.
He thinks it’s all innocuous,
Yet the pain does not escape.
He flouts me, doubts me,
But can’t live without me.
As the neonate cries,
The pain learns to gently subside.
I only wish he knew,
The song was always you….
Running and running
and staying the same
waiting and waiting
no one calls my name;
I’m tired of crying
the world is dying
and falling around my feet
but I don’t really mind
Anymore
the wind blows in my face
I can’t breathe
can’t remember why this had to
Happen
the cold bites at my bare fingers
but I don’t notice
I’m watching the cold sun
rise and set
set and rise
watching the world
crumble to dust
everything’s gone.
Tears
freezing in my eyelashes
as my fingers turn to ice,
just like yours would have
if you had tried to take your life that night.
Except my fingers will warm
eventually
and yours would have never been warm again.
But time keeps moving
the world never stops.
The wind doesn’t care, love.
can’t see your face
or hear your name
knowing things will never be the same
when the race is run, for life’s a game
and it starts with your heart
and plays with your mind
and then once you’ve been trapped for years
you find
that the only way to reach the end’s
when you stop
when I stop
when we stop
In this moment
I cannot tell
if my heart is exploding
or shrinking.
And I am filled with longing
with tangible absence
yet I am unsure
what this moment lacks
I wonder if I have a soul
and if so, if it has flown off
to live my dreams
to satisfy the longing.
Perhaps in doing so
it has left me with a gaping void
to be filled solely by its presence
to be filled as I live my dreams
and find my soul.
“Running Low”
As a pen runs low on ink
the once smooth glide across the paper
rustles and scratches like leaves in fall
trodden upon by children off to school.
As a soul runs low on emotion
what once flew on silver wings
with the blessing of the sun
retreats into a cave so dark
that not even loose shadows of form
are visible on its walls.
As a river runs low on water
the once powerful current
becomes so weak it cannot
carry but a leaf.
As a heart runs low on love
it drains the pen of ink
the soul of emotion
and the river of water
until the whole wide world
is caught in empty
deathly
stillness.
Yet the heart still beats
and you go on living
wondering wide-eyed
at the grey hell
beneath your feet.
“Error in Communication”
Error in communication
flashes the computer screen
Error in communication
beats my heart
when I cannot work up the nerve
to tell my family
the important thoughts of mine
for fear of their response
Error in Communication
breathes my lungs
when I do not tell her
what’s in my heart
for shyness
Error in communication
step my feet
when they do not understand.
Error in communication
Error in communication
Bang, bang!
Look at you all sitting there
Listening, but you don’t care.
I know you hear me rant and rave,
Shut up here inside my grave-
Let me out, let me out!
Clang!
Shut up, you, you’re not so strong,
You’re annoying, class is long-
Cease your bawling, ever crawling,
You belong inside your grave,
We’ll ignore you rant and rave!
Clank clank!
What makes you say things like that?
You would know if you were trapped!
Every day, for a whole hour-
Just let me out, you have the power!
Crash!
You’re not worthy to be free,
Making noise, distracting me!
What would you wreak if you were out?
Troll, remain and stew in doubt.
Rattle bang!
You wench, you girl, you make me burn!
You’re here; release me, take your turn-
Don’t make me sit and simmer here,
While I wait for freedom to appear!
Clink clink clink!
You are just where you belong,
To release you would be wrong!
I’ll never heed your woeful howls-
Heating up this old school’s bowels!
radiator!
I won’t let you out!
If you ever watched
People playing a game
Not invited
Not included
But still smiling, still enjoying
You might see something hanging there
At the edge of your vision
Watching you
Someone watching you
If you ever wondered
Why the sky was blue
Sitting in the middle of a field
Staring at the sky
Daydreaming
You might see something glimmering
At the edge of your vision
You might notice that
Someone is watching you
If you ever laughed
Loud, with you head thrown back
At a bad joke
Or a look on a friends face
Or anything of importance
You might see someone watching
At the edge of your vision
Some who’s alway watching you
And if you ever asked Why,
Why are you watching me?”
They will answer, Because no matter what you do
You are happy,
No matter what you do
You sparkle
The Face in the Window
A bike whips down the dusty road
The girl with the red hair races by again
You remember the day
Two years ago
When she rode
Around the gritty corner
Like a slow-motion action scene
Out of a movie in the old movie theater
That you like to sneak into
You can see it
All over again
The bike leans too far
The pedal scrapes against the ground
And you wince
As time speeds up and the bike spins off into a ditch
The girl of now has raced by
But you are stuck back in time
Fixed in place by that window
Again
You see the girl of then disentangle herself
And fall to the ground again
Clutching her ankle
You know it’s broken
You heard it in town a few weeks after the accident
But it’s not her pain that makes you wince
In your mind you see
Her face
Turned up to the window
The second story window that you sat at
That you sit at
You can see her see you
And you’re frozen
Because you know you can’t help
You want to
You can’t
You know you never could have helped
And you turn away from the window
Just as you did then
To her
You are just a face in the window
A ghost
That nobody remembers
Which is good
Of course
You’re not supposed to be in here
But nobody ever rents this house
And so you are here
Every day
And every night
Sleeping on the bed in the spare room
Sitting at the desk after school
How you get away with living across town
From your parents
You don’t know
The girl’s trouble’s aren’t your own
The only thing you owe to her is that
She didn’t report you
And so you don’t bother
After all, to her,
You are just a face in the window.
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, –
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain –
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: – Do I wake or sleep?
I’m terrified.
Terrified that one day
someone will say to me
“You need meds to take that away”
I don’t mind the thought of it’s absence,
simply it’s removal. I have had it all my life
the numbing, gripping panic
the need for control.
These things are not how I define myself
yet they have slowly leaked into all aspects of me
I am interwoven
so I fear that tugging one ugly strand of my mind
will bring the rest of me crashing down
falling to oblivion.
All I have is my mind
flawed or not, it is mine
Mine! I say.
My precious.
I am Golem and it is all I have
huddled in the dark cave of the world
my precious and I.
Now I am threatened to have my mind taken away
but my mind itself.
I especially like the turn of phrase “ugly strand of my mind.”
One thing I should point out, though, is that “Golem” is the animated-by-holy-words automaton of Jewish folklore and “Gollum” is the person famous for “My precious.”
One day I will die.
Have lifeless marble eyes,
have no motion,
no emotion.
No fear,
happiness,
sadness,
or shock,
they will all,
dissipate,
like snow in the blazing sun.
Today,
I will live.
The snow is falling.
The shining sun,
yet to emerge.
For post 108.1.1.1.1.1 – I think I fit in the bad writers category, except I like making things, not just for myself…… ?
it would be easier
if I didn’t know
had no clue how you are.
it would be easier
if we’d never met
and I’d known you from afar.
it would be easier
if you hadn’t barged
one day into my world
and left it to
come crashing down
and watched it all unfurl.
it would be easier
if you would
show up
at my front door
could lift me up
and twirl me
all around my kitchen floor
it would be easier
if you just see
how happy I’d make you
how much I care
and just how much
my heart is going through
and if I had known
when we first met
the pain of being friends
I would have turned
around and brought
such good times
to an end.
it would be easier
if for one moment
you could see
that the girl you wish for
the one you want
still sleeps
inside of me
but I’m not easy,
nor are you
and so it has to be.
An Object In Motion (I’m experimenting with applying slightly (slightly being the key word) more rigid forms)
An object in motion
stays in motion.
Simple.
Unless acted upon by an outside force.
Complicated.
When I was born
My life was set in motion
Simple.
But every person I meet, every word I read
Every life that touches mine is an outside force.
Complicated.
In the beginning the loom of the fates
was neat and clean, each strand separate
Simple.
Fifteen years later all that’s left is a gigantic snarl
strands wrapped around each other, denser than my brain itself
Complicated.
As anyone versed in textiles knows, when the knot is bad enough
It is inevitable that some strands be cut.
Simple.
But which strands to choose?
Which strands to salvage?
Complicated.
The glass was full but now it is half empty.
What used to entertain me, now puts me to sleep.
Stacks of paper loom before my eyes.
Whenever I finish, they always reappear.
The same papers, essays.
But the information has been wiped from my mind.
I laboriously redo them.
Continuing for infinity.
Each time with less care.
The cycle continues.
Never stopping.
My glass has been emptied.
Only a few drops left.
(my hate of school) Anyway, I hate school, and writing for school. I don’t mind doing it for fun though. And if I keep doing it, maybe someday I will be good. (hopefully) My mom wants to send me to a shrink…
I really like the first line…rhythm would be better though in my opinion if it was “the glass was full but now half empty” That could just be me. The wonder of poetry is that grammar can be forgone for the sake of rhythm or consonance or sound just in general.
I’ll launch this thread with a sea song for Midnight Fiddler, by the folksinger Cyril Tawney. She probably knows the song, and she certainly knows the feelings that inspired it:
Grey Funnel Line
Don’t mind the wind nor the rolling sea
The weary night never worries me
But the hardest time in a sailor’s day
Is to watch the sun as it fades away
CHORUS:
It’s one more day on the grey funnel line
The finest ship that sails the sea
Is still a prison for the likes of me
But give me wings like Noah’s dove
I’ll fly up harbor to the one I love
There was a time my heart was free
Like a floating spar on the open sea
But now that spar is washed ashore
It comes to rest at my real love’s door.
Every time I gaze behind the screws
Makes me long for St Peter’s shoes
I’d walk on down that silver lane
And take my love in my arms again
Oh Lord, if dreams were only real
I’d have my hands on that wooden wheel
And with all my heart I would turn her ’round
And tell the boys that we’re homeward bound
I’ll pass the time like some machine
Until blue water turns to green
Then I’ll dance down that walk on shore
And sail the Grey Funnel Line no more.
And sail the Grey Funnel Line no more.
I just saw this. And no, I didn’t know the song, but I’m remedying that right now. I want to learn it.
It’s an obsession of mine,
to wander along in single-file with myself.
And I’ve always wondered
how I know I’m facing forward…
Because without a reference point,
who are we any of us to say
we’re sure we know where we’re going?
Now, I may cocoon myself in
clever words, mistresses of fancy
and not a trace of doubt
that you are definitely the one for me:
But strip all that away
and you’ll just find my arms,
cupping the sun in a fiery embrace,
bearing this cost I’ve always been willing to pay.
You are my crosshaired glory,
my double-tied focus,
oscillating troubles in orbits of truth.
And you always have been.
So I say to myself,
“You’re all I’ve got,”
Because in reality,
nothing is real anymore,
and that’s the damn whole of things,
any way you spin them.
-A
Hey, remember this? Sorry I never replied.
We long to linger
For memory’s sake
We long to linger
-A
Eighteen miles away from here
I could watch everyone disappear
I could be eighteen miles up in the sky
Eighteen miles and flying high.
Eighteen miles away
Eighteen miles away
Shine the sun and fade the gray
Eighteen miles away.
3- Our little replies! I remember!
For memory’s sake
We must let go
For memory’s sake
A short poem I created on my Magnetic Poetry calendar! It’s very hard to make cohesive sentences with that thing.
Remember me like lightning
like weather
and wind
Dream of me, then
my love
when change
falls hard
upon the road of life
Endless Morrows
Upon our parting, do not cry,
For I promise on the morrow
We shall meet again, my dear
And do away with sorrow
A million billion stars for you
I blow from sweaty palm
And wait in silent solitude
For the kiss of brand-new dawn
And so the endless dreamers
Lie wake to endless sleep
And when the endless ends
The endless ones do weep
We have yet to come to this:
A concept clear and stark
An idea born from the silence
An idea born from the dark
Upon our meeting, let us sing
For it is now the morrow
Our voices shall spill o’er the land
And my love you can forever borrow
Emi – you wrote that, didn’t you? It sounds like it was written by an old famous poet. Really. Except the last line doesn’t quite flow right. /constructive criticism
Thank you! Yes, I wrote that. And about the constructive criticism, I know it is.
I wish I could forget
the laughter, the games
for everyone else has long forgotten
and I am left alone with the past
memories
I wish I were there
with you, with my best friend
I think of the thirty minutes
we sat in the familiar red dirt of home
and talked as if only a day had passed
I wish that the past were the present
we could laugh and talk
like we did for a day in the spring
like six years hadn’t passed
like we would be there forever.
I wish
but the wishes won’t come true
I’m left alone missing you
everyone
missing the past
We must let go
This is not ours
We must let go
-A
Bitter chocolate on the back of my tongue
and songs of stolen kisses
eternal life’s for the old and dead.
Spinning logos
neat, designed by
human hands on the evening news?
Perfect faces
perfect voices
deep, solemn voices, insincere?
Somewhere a trumpet’s making joyous prrts,
the glint of rain
and sweet-smelling smoke its accompaniers.
Heaven’s for tomorrow,
I’m still watching the clouds.
Heaven’s for the wishers,
I’m a dancer in the sun.
Heaven’s for the dying,
I’m still living today.
I… Really like this. I have to admit; I’ve always been partial to list poetry and the kind of chaos it breeds. But still, this stands out.
Mind if I use the line ‘Heaven’s a dance for the wishers’ in something?
-A
No prob. Use whatever you want, I’ll be very flattered.
Um, quick question: what is list poetry, exactly?
List poetry… Uses lots of nouns in lists, and very few or no verbs. The idea is to create a feeling using only objects and items and their relation to the reader with as little action as possible. As far as I can tell, you don’t use a verb until line ten.
It tends to lead to eloquence, and I love how this one turned out.
-A
Oh, cool. Thanks! (for both the explanation and the compliment)
we were a two-man band of thieves
stealing moments hearts and spotlights
falling into sunsweet oceans
glowing like the stars
we had no right to happiness
to joy to love
we had no right to each other
and we just laughed
stealing dances off the dance floor
keeping time to beats of breathless hearts
and they can’t stop watching us
and they can’t stop needing us
and they can’t stop wishing we weren’t gone
I very much like this one.
Thank you.
Heh, I was actually aiming for a happy poem, but I guess I’m involuntarily depressing.
what if
(you say)
this isn’t
what it should be?
what if
(you think)
I’m making a mistake?
what if
(i know)
you don’t love
any part of me
and we’re swimming in limbo
almost there
but not quite
but maybe
(i hope)
you chose me
maybe
(i wish)
you want me
maybe
(i shout)
you love me
what if we are dreaming the same dream?
what if we are more than what we believe?
What if poems were wishes that could actually come true?
Absolutely beautiful.
Thanks! ^.^
Seconded.
I posted this on the last thread, but felt like re-posting it. I think I have a title now ( Things I wish I could say)
Sometimes, when I’m reading
Lines just stick in my head
“inexplicable thingâ€
like lines of music
“you press down like salvationâ€
forever reverberating
“cut the ending, reverse the scriptâ€
against the limits of my mind.
They never go away
just quiet
then,the ache when I see her
and my stomach pluments
while my heart soars
And I know I love her
just not sure how
and I can’t quite think myself anymore
they return
the whispers in my ear
describing things unsaid
but things I wish I could say.
Beyond the rain
beyond failure
beyond distress
beyond sorrow
there is a cloud
Beyond the clouds
beyond regrets
beyond frustration
beyond despair
there is a star
Beyond the stars
beyond dreams
beyond efforts
beyond hope
there is nothing
Beyond the nothing
there is nothing
nothing goes on forever
everything is far behind
Happy?
Infinity and Zero:
I’m so cold
always so cold
always so sensitive
so fragile
not mentally, but
physically
and never truely breaking
that it makes her smile
She’s the only person
I know who laughs about
kidney systs
but she always holds me
while she’s laughing.
I don’t want her to let me go
just want her to hold me forever
so I can hear her heart beating
and feel the vibrations
when she speaks.
I dream about her now,
on the rare occasions
when I can sleep
dream of danceing in the rain
and of her holding me.
I miss her so much
and I’ve never missed her before
maybe I’m fragile mentally too,
I feel that when I miss her.
We are not quite opposites
like infinity and zero
She is so strong on the outside
but so fragile inside
while I am fragile on the outside
and not strong on the inside
but stronger, not than her,
but than me
The void or the endlessness
we must decide
I must decide
which it will be.
Hurm, after studying Latin poetry, everything written since, say, 1920 seems very unpoetical to me now. “There’s no meaningful enjambment! Where’s the insightful synecdoche? Or the chiasmus? There could at LEAST be some hyperbaton around here.” *sigh*
Yep, I’m a philistine.
You think you’re a philistine? I really enjoy e.e.cummings. There, now all the grammar obsessed will eat me.
No, I am grammar-obsessed and I love ee cummings. So one less grammar-obsessed to eat you now.
*hug*
ee cummings rocks. And I am the KGB of grammar. The rule goes, if you totally understand and have mastered the rules, that’s when you’re allowed to break them. ee cummings is allowed to be fantastic. Some random middle schooler who is using ee cummings as an excuse to write non-grammatical poetry is not.
My friend Erin wrote this song…
Ohhh
I want to work at SeaWorld
It would be so cool
I want to work at SeaWorld
And clean the dolphin pool
I don’t care what the job is
Easy, hard or fun
I want to work at SeaWorld
Even though fish weigh like a ton
SeaWorld has lots of money
Though I would work for free
They should get me to sell their stuff and then they can pay me
I want to work at SeaWorld
Preferrably with whales
I want to work at SeaWorld ’cause almost everywhere else fails.
A is for Anna, crushed by a tree
B is for Benny who choked on a pea
C is for Cristi sat on by a cow
D is for Dennis who died in Krakow
E is for Edward who jumped off a bridge
F is for Francis who ate too much porridge
G is for Garnet bitten by a snake
H is for Henry driven through with a stake
I is for Ingrid who was hit by a car
J is for Jonah, burnt by a star
K is for Kristen who fell out a window
L is for Liza who sucked at kendo
M is for Milly who stabbed herself neat
N is for Nora who just wouldn’t eat
O is for Ophelia who drank too much beer
P is for Petunia who cut off her ear
Q is for Quincy who died quick of shame
R is for Rodney who lost the game
S is for Sonny who was buried alive
T is for Tilda who forgot how to drive
U is for Ursula, dead in her sleep
V is for Victoria, eaten by a sheep
W is for William who collapsed under stress
X is for Xavier who lost a fatal game of chess
Y is for Yolanda, strangled by a thread
Z is for Zoe, shot in the head
With credit to Silver Lining, Princess_Magnolia, and bookgirl_me.
And some credit to Edward Gorey, too, I think.
Yes. My mother found an old copy of that book (which is The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey, of course) and I was vastly disturbed by it. For those of you who have read A Mango-Shaped Space, it’s the same poem that starts off, “A is for Amy who fell down the stairs/B is for Basil assaulted by bears” that Mia and Jenna recite.
I just lost the game.
Then you can read the alternate version…
“R is for Rodney who wanted Darwin award fame”
And my classmates think I can be morbid….
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divy. A kiddly divey too, wouldn’t you?
I love that song.
“Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid’ll eat Ivy too, wouldn’t you?” I believe on the nonsense lyrics, “wouldn’t you” is “wooden shoe”
No, no, you have it all wrong….Edward was bungee jumping and his cord failed. I was there. Oh, and Ophelia DROWNED. In beer, perhaps, but she drowned.
JK.
Poetry assignment for biology (o.O) sparks incredible creative enthusiasm, along with a drawing of a human heart. I brought cookies to the party we had, and my ex-crush brought a guitar and wrote an entirely original song especially for the occasion. It was awesome.
Hey, won’t you be mine?
Anatomically correct valentine!
You make my blood turn to lava.
Starts out in my vena cava.
After it heads to the lungs, well, then,
My hemoglobin gets oxygen.
Without you, my artery plaque will get closest!
You’re all that I got to stop the atherosclerosis!
My blood is coming back through my atrium and ventricle,
But nothing I can think of will rhyme with ventricle,
Not even if I try it in a rhyming dictionary
So my blood is going through my body, ’round my capillaries,
And it does this whole thing a hundred thousand times per day,
Which is why I’m hecka grateful to you this Valentine’s Day.
I like to hear
all those things that you say
the things about love
and though I know there’s no way
that they’re about me
I pretend that today
when I tailed you and trailed you
you noticed.
I like to watch
when you smile and laugh
at jokes that I’ve made
and on my behalf
I know that it’s silly
I can do the math
but I imagine when I watch you
you notice.
I like to think
when you say my name
I like to think
it’s not a game
and I guess it’s true
I’ve only me to blame
for hoping, when I do all you want,
you’ll notice.
I really love this poem.
you remind me of the ocean
green salt water pull-pushing my body, different directions calling all at once. on top waves crash and foam like butterflies, droplets fly twinkling to collide with itself in larger form: rejoin, split again. bellow is an vast expanse seemingly still but always moving–currents drag me off for as long as breath holds, the tangents of our thoughts not enough to keep us afloat. salt stings and purifies, burning to become whole.
you are the seabirds wheeling overhead, screaming for a thousand things and for nothing at all. you are the wind driving them back and pushing them forth, ruffling the feathers of my mind and keeping my feet from ever touching ground, from ever landing to rest or sleep
every night a fitful dream.
you are overlapping words on a page and an abandoned motorway. the texture of leaves and the sound of breaking mirrors. I know if I open my eyes I will see faces before me, but they are not important: I can smell the seaweed bottom, sediments reversed, sunset-perfect skies crashing and scraping against the rocks.
we live on salty air and arguments, on laughter and badly-spoken lies. we are honeybees daring to cross the desert of our heads and can’t understand what the hell is on the sings we come across–who needs language when we all have bodies. who bothered to invent houses or clothes or the f****** wheel when we can run, create wind by moving and electricity from a single touch.
paper flutters away like hearts and I can’t stop scribbling in the sand before the shore as the waves are coming in. I am grass and ash and salt and metal, broken and beautiful as seen in the cracked reflection of the mirrored clouds.
I don’t know what to think of you, words collide like comets, nonsensical and strange
but you remind me of the sea.
Oh gosh. That is breathtaking…You are one of my favourite poets, Jade.
Thanks a lot. I’ve made a few alterations to it since I wrote it, but nothing major.
*If the “thanks a lot” sounded sarcastic or anything, it’s really not, but I know sometimes those things don’t translate well over the internet. It really makes me happy when people like my stuff
Random spew. Not quite right. The thought’s not quite all in it and part’s still in me so maybe we’ll see. Later.
The Day the Sun Rose at Night
Yesterday night (or was it this morning?)
The clock blinked: 10:30 PM
Darkness settled over the city; the stars in the black sky faintly winking
Streetlights, dim pinpricks of light lit, shining onto roads where
cars crawled
trucks dawdled
people on buses slept
Inside homes, a remaining few were awake
engrossed in the TV -a movie, perhaps-
in books, magazines, Sunday’s newspaper
They yawned, and leaned over to switch off their lights
when all of a sudden
the black inky canvas of the night sky –lightened
Those who were awake
felt it jolt: the sky shuddered, turned a shade bluer
The clock blinked: 10:37 PM
Minutes later, a bird sung
Horns beeped, crowds amassed
and above the horizon a crown of light pink spread
growing wider until it covered most of the sky
illuminating the clouds who yawned, stretched between buildings
and a sliver of sun could be seen, peeking over the hill
It rose, strangely, into the air
-a sight seen every day by those who get up early enough
but strange, nonetheless, as now,
The clock blinked: 10:41 PM
By now, the sky was the lightest blue
a cool chilly breeze ruffled the morning (or was it night still?)
The clock blinks: 11:17 AM
It is night-time.
a blue-black bruise has spread to all four corners
of the sky
Some people are dressed for work, for school
some readying their pillows, brushing their teeth
This morning, last night, the sun rose
and nobody quite knows what to do
That’s a nice poem, and I like the last line. Did it actually happen?
No, of course not! That would be scary…
For that one safe haven week
you wanted me there.
I would talk and you would laugh
I was real, not a spare.
For that one safe haven week
it was an “us”.
I was part of the group
if there was you, me was a must.
What a sweet game.
Now, I’ve come back to the life.
and you’ve come back to them
and I’ve been hit with a knife
I can’t breathe, I feel betrayed
I can’t believe I thought it would stay
For that one safe haven week
there was no him.
But now we’re back to reality
and I’m stuck out on the rim.
For that one safe haven week
I finally fit in
I’d finally found the place where I belonged
And I’d finally found a friend.
What a pretty illusion.
Now, I’ve come back to the world
And you’ve come back to him,
and I’m stuck out in the cold
I can’t smile, I feel dead alive
and I can only die even more inside.
And I’ve written another one. I’m in a poem mood today…
Well, it’s true that I need you
and it’s true that you’re my light
and it’s true that you’re the one
I think about at night
Well, what isn’t true, my dear
is that I tell you all.
I keep my secrets divvied up
so there’s never far to fall.
Well, it’s true that I love you
and I trust you more than me
and it sure is true that without you
there wouldn’t be much to see.
But what isn’t true, my love,
is that you know who I am.
I invest my hardships equally
so there’s always a place to land.
I can see
his arm around her
I can hear
my classmates flirt
And what I feel
is so close to longing
that it nears hurt.
I don’t need longevity
though it might be nice
I just need
somebody to be close to
somebody to make
me remember that
I am normal, but also
different, that I am
beautiful in a way
I need someone to
teach me
social norms to follow
as I break them
someone to teach me
what it feels like
to have your arm around
your crush even
when they’re watching
someone to teach me
how to realize
when I’m flirting
what it means to flirt on
purpose….
I just need
as the Beetles sang
somebody to love
in just a little way.
Beatles. Sorry.
Clare, you’re beautiful in EVERY way.
Exactly what Magnolia said. *hugs*
thanks guys. *hugs*
Can’t remember if I’ve said anything about this, but sort of recently I was published in a teen poetry magazine called Teen Ink. It’s not really one of my best, but I’m certainly not complaining about getting published! [Potentially identifying information retro-snipped. –Admin.]
Lately I haven’t been writing much. No inspiration…
Congratulations! *claps*
That’s really cool! I’ve seen Teen Ink’s website, though not the magazine.
By the way, I recommend that the GAPAS snip the title of the poem, because I found it on the TI website, and there’s a bit more info on that page then you probably thought you were giving out… (To be exact, your full name, and your hometown.)
Thanks, Errata.
You’re welcome.
“Some whineing and then a nice conversation with my best friend”
I love being near her.
which is to be expected
I mean, she’s one of my best friends.
but at the same time
there are these moments
when my heart sinks to my stomach
and I just want to disappear.
it isn’t fair
we’ve done this before.
I’ve done this before.
and once more it’s
all my fault.
this is wrong.
not in general, but
with her.
has anyone had a crush
that has actually made them
happy?
I assume so.
but I haven’t.
It isn’t fair.
still.
It could be worse.
Nathan says “YOU want to date?”
with a look of sheer
incredulousness.
and I say “no. I
want to know that there are people
I COULD date. If I wanted to.
besides, it’s a GSA.
I still won’t know if
they’re like me or not.
though I suppose there is a
higher probability”
and he says “why is that?”
and I say “because
straight people don’t NEED
GSAs. No matter how
much they care about
social justice. Some
gay people,
myself included,
would really like to be accepted
by society. and also maybe
meet people similar to
themselves in some small way
in a safe place. We need
the GSAs. It’s nice that
they show up, but we need the GSA.
they don’t.”
“you totally want to date”
he concludes.
“well” I say. “do YOU want to date”
“I guess”
“then you’d better introduce me to your girlfriend”
“why? So you can steal her? I think not.”
“Nathan, I would never steal your girlfriend.
and if she’s dating you, she’s presumably,
at the moment, more intreseted in dudes.
and likely striaght. I’ve crushed on too many
straight people already.”
And what sucks is,
I currently am.
this is ****.
But High school starts soon.
relatively.
and High School has a
GSA.
29- Yay Silver Lining! I’ve seen Teen Ink… I’ll try and hunt down a copy!
Okay, this was written at roughly two in the morning, for reasons evident in the poem. It’s been completely unedited since then, so… yeah.
We’re lying on our backs with our phones in hand,
talking ’til late in the night.
Satellite winking in the starry sky,
messenger, messenger pretending to be stellar,
carry my smileys and words and thoughts
a thousand thousand miles away.
From here, my phone’s lighting up my room,
I can see the Big Dipper, and Orion’s smile.
From there, a thousand miles out of my touch,
I know you can see them too.
Miracles at half past ten,
I believe in kisses.
I wonder if you can see me
with your eyes closed
the way I see you tonight,
reflected on the shining screen before me
I think I can touch you
but you’re just a breath away.
Satellite, don’t abandon us now.
Whirl in the sky a thousand times
for every moonlit mile.
I’d like to think I’m looking at the same faint star
as you.
And when the clock strikes eleven eleven,
I know you’re sitting, phone in hand,
perfectly still, your eyes unopened.
I believe in prayers and miracles-
if I wish as you’re doing the same,
perfectly still, our eyes unopened,
wishing together a million times
from a thousand miles away-
We’re lying on our backs with our phones in hand,
talking ’til late in the night.
Planning for tomorrow and believing in today,
a miracle from a thousand miles away,
I can feel your hand, and I’ll wish with you
until the morning light.
Too Fond:
I am too fond of books
and it has addled my brain
or, perhaps, my brain is addled
and so I am too fond of books.
Maybe both.
She is too fond of her stories
and it has made her crazy.
Or, perhaps, she is crazy
and so she is too fond of her stories
Maybe both.
I am too fond of her
and it is making me lonely
or, perhaps, I am lonely
and so I am too fond of her.
Maybe both.
30 Clare de Lune – I love that poem, I love poems like that.
Gray, White, A Table, A Refrigerator.
My sandals
are on the floor.
They are silver
and new
and reflect the gray light from the window.
On the kitchen floor
soles down
the toe of the left
just sitting on the toe of the right.
Straps still aloft
like my feet are still in them
standing shyly
a stranger on my kitchen floor.
They are the color of the Tin Man
so shiny and so dulled by the gray light.
My sandals on the kitchen floor
Do they wonder where I’ve gone?
Many thanks. You should read The Realm of Possibility, by David Levithan, it’s this amazing interconected story comprised primarily of poems like that, plus some songs/prose.
Thanks, everyone! 29.2– Oops, sorry about that. I had forgotten that it tells more information on the site (and, after checking, the magazine too).
Thanks for snipping it though.
Darling Sweetheart Dearest
Darling
How I love to listen to you
talk to me, talk at me and I can’t always
tell the difference between
the two,
but I still listen
Sweetheart
It’s the days that pass by
so quickly (where did they go?
Where did you go?)
they are the ones that worry me
I slash dark ink across each box
on the calendar every 24 hours
Dearest
Does it make me cruel that sometimes
a tiny speck, the most minute
of molecules within me
liked it when you were sad so I could
wrap my arms around
you/your small body/my whole world
and comfort you?
Darlingsweetheartdearest
All these terms of endearment I
tack onto the end (beginning) of
your name, do they make the pain
a little more bearable?
Like perfume at a funeral,
maybe
…
wow. That poem is quite simply spectacluar. wow.
Thank you. Many of your poems constitute the same reaction from me!
Alone in tears
Alice is crying
in the house next door.
I am alone here
But I can hear Alice cry.
Sweet baby.
Usually, children crying is upsetting
Or occasionally annoying.
But today as I hear Alice cry
I am happy.
I’m not happy that Alice is upset
And I pity Erin, her mother
who must now comfort her
But I am happy that she cried so I can hear her
Because now I know I’m not
entirely alone.
I spend too much time alone
and not enough with people
who actually understand me.
Sometimes I fear I will always be alone
always remain to everyone an
anomoly.
I have friends who understand
but I don’t see them half enough.
Last night I cried myself to sleep
with the memory of Molly
and the ICU and all the machines
working to keep her alive
but not keep her there.
I remember holding her hand
and smelling the hospital smells
of disinfectant and death
And I remember feeling truely lonely
for the first time.
She wasn’t there that day, when I went to say goodbye,
So instead I hold them both here
close to me, but I am still alone.
It is rare, now that I am not
alone.
Those are sad poems…. :'( Brilliant, though.
Friend t’wor Foe?
Quath my befriended,
You see me dying,
Yet you eyes aren’t the least deceiving.
You show me the pity you with-hold.
My saddened heart then capsizes.
As you pass.
As you pass….
You take away my joyous memory.
The memory which holds practically everythng.
I beg of you, don’t pass me by.
(I know it’s not as long, nor deep as most…..But I’m going to add-on to it. I always keep the deep stuff to myself. Maybe that will change. Oh well(: )
Mask of the Madness
As I sleep soundly in the night,
After all the caos of the world has ended,
Before the war of tomorrow,
Whenever you hear the bombs and screams,
You slowly learn to cover them with self satisfying lies.
When you are chatting with friends over tea,
While you think of what the world truly looks like,
‘Til that moment of lively truth,
As you begin to sneek a peek,
Your eyes deceive the madness.
After all the pain and deception,
When you feel as if you want to give up,
As you begin to sneek that peek,
You’ve told yourself too many times,
I say, there will always be remorse.
As the attempts to sleep capsize,
After the all of the caos has erupted,
Before the shadow of the past,
When the screams echo to you,
You will always know how to cover it up.
The life withing me burns bright
Glowing like a firefly
Burning up the night
The party makes the darkness die
The life within me is fading fast
Like the last embers of a fire
I wait for it to fade at last
Staring out the window at a lonely church spire
The life within me has gone away
Scattered like a sand castle at high tide
I did not expect it to happen today
I expected a longer ride.
The life within me was never there
A facade I hid behind
I never gave anything- I had nothing to share
In the unknowable recesses of my mind
Amazing poetry as usual. I like the first two stanzas the best, I think.
The last note rings through the air
then-
silence.
The orchestra stands as one
the audience claps
music of a different kind
thank you, the applause says,
the music was beautiful.
People cheer
as the conductor raises her arms
and the orchestra bows
thank you for coming,
thank you for listening so well
unspoken messages
in this carefully choreographed
song and dance
music and applause
bows and cheers
sometimes I wonder
who first orchestrated
a concert like this one
so that everyone knows their part
musicians and listeners
storytellers and captivated audience
who first wrote the music
and why?
I wrote this poem while at a concert at the park on Tuesday (free outdoor concerts for the win!) on a whim.
I recall already telling you this, but it’s great.
Thanks! I edited it a bit since you saw it, to make it flow better.
So I’ve gotten this idea to write a poem for each letter of the alphabet. Right now I have a few poems in a random order.
T is for Thief
You stole my life
You stole my friends
As you eased your way
out of the open window of
my living room
I was too tired to call for help,
for 911, for the police, and
anyway– you weren’t armed
with anything but an innocent smile
You told me that it was only
“borrowing”, and of course
you’d have all the valuables
back by three the next day
I stand on the lawn in my pajamas
and watch you dash through the streets
wearing your black and white stripes
like a swath of lies.
Stability
I was talking with Her
about when I came out
an incident that,
because of its suddeness
and absoluteness
is still sometimes painfull.
We were discussing
how much we hate
the school counseler
who is oblivious
and, who, when I came out
kept hunting me down
and caging me in her
too dark, too warm,
and WAY too small office
to “chat” with me
and “make sure no one’s bothering you,
that everything’s alright”
ma’am, the only person
who appears to give a
**** about my sexuality
would be you.
Everyone here
Isn’t wonderful, no,
but no one is explictly bothersome
they shun me
but no more than before
you don’t understand me at all, do you?
I tell Her that
I thought the counceler
thought I was mentally unstable.
Sometimes I worry that
myself.
She looks at me and says
“Can you balance on two feet?”
And I say “Of course”
to which she replies
“Then you’re stable”
I love Her.
which is exactly the problem
isn’t it?
Clare-Aww. I love your story/stream of consciousness poems. It feels like you know exactly what you’re talking about and so we know exactly what you’re talking about, too. If that makes sense.
Half an hour before, alive and dancing,
shouting and dresses
and the careful and tactical war
between the face and the makeup box.
Half an hour before, spun like a cobweb
from dreams and anticipation.
Agony:
directed towards shoes, towards earrings,
towards makeup and skirt and hair and wishes
built upon the kind of faith you can usually only get
in the most fundamentalist of churches.
Perhaps, in half an hour, we will speak in tongues.
Half an hour before, half an hour before,
telling each other fairy tales and prophecies
of disco-ball stars reflected on the ceiling,
of rolling rainbow lights and dim vision,
of dancing so hard that you lose your ID card
and the room spins.
Half an hour after, shriveled and bare,
eyelashes stuck together with mascara
and glitter running down the sink.
Half an hour after, feet sliding and sweaty in shoes,
the shock of cold water,
the hum of the fan.
Half an hour after, feet painful to walk in,
a leftover soda,
a groan and a sigh.
Things that were missed:
a favorite song, in favor of water,
a slow dance, built painstakingly out of hormones and dreams,
kisses, narrowly.
Half an hour after, and streaks of mascara,
and quick freezing rinses,
and quick-closing eyelids,
and somewhere deep under the surface of light-lying blankets
hiding beneath sleep-sodden dreams
is the memory of stars.
Everyone sees the laughter
the smile
the hyper child.
But you know her better.
You see the wild,
Wild desperation in her eyes.
Bordering on the verge
of hysterics.
You want to hug her
You want to hold her,
so she will know
that she is not alone.
You want her to laugh again
that beautiful, happy, laugh
but it’s gone, replaced
by a wild, hysterical
uncontrollably bitter laughter.
I tried writing rhyming poetry last night. It ended up like a strange combination of Edgar Allen Poe and Dr. Seuss.
In the dark, a shadow lies
Without claws, or teeth, or eyes
It’s only way of killing you
Is to look at all you lies
Lies you told yourself were true
Lies you really never knew
Lies that really must be had
Lies that grew- and grew- and grew
That you were sane when you were mad
That you were good when you were bad
The shadow takes the lies, you see
Takes them away, now don’t be sad
It thinks it’s helping you to be
What you hide away from me
It takes your lies and thinks “Hooray!”
It believes that you are free
So lives the shadow, so they say
Leave it, live another way
But remember, some time it will arise
The shadow will find you one day.
*applauds* I like this poem.
Thank you.
Random fact-
They did a study about depressed poets/ writers. They tend to use the word “I” much more than non-depressed writers, and even in normal language, they used “I” much more.
Who’s “they”? (The “they” who did the study, that is.)
Not sure- but it was in New Scientist, a (reputable) science magazine my Dad gets.
Heh. I use “you” more often than “I” in my poetry. XD
…wait. That’s not true. I started using more “I”s than “you”s recently. Huh.
I’ve got two songs almost completed! Whee!
Journey
I’m on a journey
I’m looking for my purpose
I gotta prove to them
that I’m not a mistake
Gotta find a reason why
was I born to life like this?
Can’t you understand
that it’s all give and take
I’m on a journey through life
finding my way every day
fighting my way through the strife
why was I born this way?
I’m in the midst of all Life
running in the flowers
soaking up the sunshine
and it gives me power
I may be different
but the world is open
a light is shining
upon this new hour
I’m on a journey through life
now that I’ve found the way
I’ve overcome all the strife
I know who I am every day
I wrote this (I say I, but some small contributions were made by classmates) in a music class at camp. The idea of “why was I born this way” was my emo friend Mike, the rejected cheesy lyrics that aren’t in the song were written by my friend Z, many rejected verses that had “life” rhyming with “wife” from Z2, some lines that I edited out in this version but are in the “class version” came from S and A…. XD I guess I did most of it, at least for this version of it.
Shame, F+H, shame.
“Vertigo”
The houses are boxes,
Well-constructed cardboard,
How do the people move?
Looking down, I recognize the town.
But it looks different from here.
The signs, the buildings-
I know where that is-I’ve seen that today-
But it’s flat and man-made.
Someone has done a very good job replicating all that largeness.
Into smallness.
The skyline is two-dimensional. Nothing moves on the skyline.
That must be where the world ends.
But the clouds are moving.
A red donut flies away, until it’s a black oval, a smudge on the sky
And I wouldn’t know unless I was watching it.
And I was.
Just wrote this. Haven’t edited at all. Probably pretty confusing because I was just writing what came into my head. Suggestions?
we are born with one foot on the accelerator,
speeding into the future where we’re not just four but
going on five, going on seventeen, going on thirty, going on eighty-eight
miles per hour so we can skip the playdates and the homework
and get to the time of our lives,
staying up late like the big kids who
are doing homework and want to just get to college where they can
party it up and dream about earning big money when
those executives are only dreaming of retirement
and when they get to ninety their bones are aching for a long sleep.
crank up the radio, drown out the world that’s here and now
and slam down the gas, drive into the future with enough force
to throw you into the next century with the whoop you once gave
on a roller coaster, back when
you were young enough to ride them and
too bad you didn’t get back in line, ride it again and again until
your hair was knotted from the wind and your stomach was in the tips
of your fingers and the world was tangible as the cotton candy you held in your nine-year-old fingers
because for a moment, it would only be a moment.
not a race.
not a step toward the future.
being where you were. how old you were. how old you are.
but you stumbled off the ride with a laugh like a summer storm. moved on. too much more to see.
why take a minute to slow down and look around?
the faster you careen towards the future,
the more it will come rushing at you with open arms
and screech of rubber on the road,
dust covering your today as you race down the firey runway of the future.
That was awesome. *claps*
Thanks Aggie!
Aughh, I had no copy of this besides what was on here! Can this be changed back?
Yes, don’t worry. It’s a plugin that’ll be reverted to normal tomorrow.
Writing a song. I know it sounds whiny, but with the music it sounds much better.
‘Holding You’
He says don’t know, I say let go
This thing’s fading fast\
I stand by and watch you fall slow
For her beautiful eyes
Want you to notice mine
Want you to find the time
To turn around and see
That girl you really want is me
CHORUS:
Holding you tonight
I know that I want to be
Holding you tonight
I just can’t help myself
Everything you say, everything you do
Everyone I see can’t compare to you
I can only go with what is right
He says love me, I say leave me,
And I see you everywhere in the back of my mind
But I can’t care just what you say
Got to follow what my heart is trying to find
(Chorus)
BRIDGE:
Every single day you see me in his arms, and
Every single day you fall under her charm
In every single way we are growing apart
But I hoped from the start, from the start….
That I’d be holding you tonight
I know that he’d hate that I’m
Holding you tonight
But I just can’t help myself
Everything you say, everything you do
Every time I try, I’m coming back to you
Why can’t you leave my love right where it fell, with you
He says don’t know
I say let go
Sometimes I go into a sort of poetic trance in which I murmur poems that just sort of materialize in my head, often late at night. The poems tend to be rather depressive, such as “speck in the universe”, my most recent one. Unfortunately, I have never able to remember much of them and write them down. Does anyone else do this?
No, but that’s interesting. Sometimes I just get bursts of songs that my mind makes up in my mind. It’s strange… And also, somehow I got the Zelda theme song stuck in my head this morning, which launched me into this long memoir about my experience with video games when I was younger. I was such a loser at Zelda. We had the Oracle of Seasons for Game Boy color. I couldn’t get past the first level, but I played it all the time. I think I still have it, but we sold the Game Boy. I’ll buy another one someday…
WAIT. THAT WAS SO OFF TOPIC.
What follows is my journal entry in English the other day for a Free Write. The substitute teacher recommended that we write about what was on our minds. It came out vaguely poetic, and I forget if there’s a better thread to post it on. I’ve edited a little since, but not a lot, so it’s a little rambling and not exactly polished. Oh well.
~~~
Bell rings. Trickle into the once-empty halls, volume rises to a roar, waves of noise and activity cascade every which way. Reverberate off the lockers, cascade into every inch of open space. Float upon the currents of freedom that tease you towards the open sea, so tauntingly close and yet: Allow yourself to be dammed once more into a narrow loch of classroom expectations.
Why would the salmon abandon endless ripples of blue for a futile swim upstream when it’s only to perish in his final moment of triumph? You may wonder why I am never still; do you wonder also why the caged lion paces? Peacocks are lucky. Their formal dresses come ready-made, tailored just for them, and who wouldn’t want to dance with such refined beauties? Chameleons are twice as lucky. They don’t have to be seen at all.
Bell rings. Trickle into the once-empty halls, volume rises to a roar…begin again.
If you repeat a hundred times (perhaps even one-eighty, if you’re daring), will you always get the same result?
I really like this.
Thanks!
(self-deleted rant about my English teacher’s written comments on this…Maya Angelou does NOT own caged animal metaphors, thank you very much)
Poem I wrote…
I finally found myself a girl
who puts my thoughts into a whirl
Sending tsunamis through the great cosmic plains
sweeping up stars that never knew pain
tosses them aside, and it’s gone again
my thoughts’ll stay there, till they hear the refrain
and then they’ll remember to break free of their chains
but they remember too late
and she’s gone.
And I suppose I suppose
she’s the one who knows
me best
I guessed
her secrets
at last
and locked them in
my music jar
And she nestled in
with all my friends
And she’ll pretend
to listen when
they share their stories
and I’ll have to smile
and cry crocodile
Because I love her
She makes a silly mask
to hide her tears
as they run down her cheeks
but I see one smear
on the glass walls of my
My music jar.
If I had a choice
she’d be out with me
if I had my choice
we could all see
past the clouds on rainy days
to the silver blur skies above
if I had my choice
we’d be in love
I tip my music jar on its side
onto the grass
and I peer inside
my teardrops mix into the dew
as I take my final
look at you
I’ve worked so hard to keep you close
Now all I’ve got is a memory ghost
I hope someday
Now that I’ve set you free
that when my thoughts come back
You’ll still be waiting for me.
**********************
I don’t know about it. I like how it changes styles and meter a lot, but I’m not sure how much I like the overall style. Comments?
I love it. The whole “music jar” concept.
Originally it was jar of hearts, but turns out that’s already a song.
SR-That’s very sweet and sad. Good job!
Just a poem I wrote the other day.
~~~~~
One Lone Bird
Yesterday, in the car
I saw
One
Lone
Bird
Sitting on a telephone wire.
I wondered,
Was it lost?
Did it have a family?
Friends?
Did it get left behind by
Progress?
I wanted to jump out of the car
And pat its head
And say,
It’s okay
You’re not the
Only
Lone
Bird.
~~~~~
Rhyming is too hard for me, so I usually do free-verse like this.
I like it! The only suggestion I have is to change “lone” in the second to last line to “lonely”, because then you get just a little bit of rhyming that makes it sound a bit nicer.
Something I scrawled out a few months ago that I’ve since forgotten about, rediscovered, and edited slightly. I’m sure I’ll continue modifying it–I rather dislike certain parts of it, and it has too much focus on Roman and Greek mythology.
The perpetual debate resumes,
Lunacy soothed by sightless extras
And presenting a certain Carny refinery
While a shell tears greedily at fog.
The minds regard each other with halfhearted contempt
And with polite disregard.
The one lives in a fenced backyard
While the other peers from storm drains.
A drunken walk, downcast stone eyes,
Clown paint and a mask
Ensure the temple of Athene
Undisturbed will rest.
The question clanked four times,
But now no serpents pass their lies here.
The lies play an opposite role,
Granting pleasantries to sword-bearing Greeks.
But inside the walls, a to-and-fro of ghostly forms
Kicks up enough dust to hide the stands in the autoagora
From the shadows of the shopkeepers.
I am a fly-trap too sensitive to catch sustenance:
A breath of air, snap close, wilt.
I am Isaac, I supply a ram of smoke and mirrors
In my self-famous and world-unseen disappearing act
From which I emerge after the crowds have dispersed,
The custodians swept, the lights long shot out.
My mind works like clockwork, precisely clicking and hewn
Carefully from haze. My thoughts shine out brilliance
While unseen in the dark.
I am Orpheus, Eurydice. Demeter, Persephone.
Caligari, the Somnabulist.
I remain in my cell, forced and willing.
It protects me, them.
This is Latium, this is Troy, this is the forbidden city.
A noose to save my life complements
Lungs that bring death.
This is a poem I like.
“Southbound on the Freeway”
May Swenson
A tourist came in from Orbitville,
parked in the air, and said:
The creatures of this star
are made of metal and glass.
Through the transparent parts
you can see their guts.
Their feet are round and roll
on diagrams–or long
measuring tapes–dark
with white lines.
They have four eyes.
The two in the back are red.
Sometimes you can see a 5-eyed
one, with a red eye turning
on the top of his head.
He must be special-
the others respect him,
and go slow,
when he passes, winding
among them from behind.
They all hiss as they glide,
like inches, down the marked
tapes. Those soft shapes,
shadowy inside
the hard bodies–are they
their guts or their brains?
(( Unhappiness is sometimes the most fresh inspiration.))
Hurt me once, shame on you.
Hurt me twice, shame me too.
Hurt me like tomorrow
Is just today again
Hurt me like you never thought
That I was once your friend
Hurt me like you’re hurting you
And erasing all your flaws
Hurt me like the pain inside
Is all you want to cause
Hurt me like you want to know
That our friendship was not true
Hurt me like I could forget
And come right back to you
Now you caused me pain
And turned my fears into reality
You made my heart to bleed
And hate is all that’s left of me
Now hurt me no more, dear
Because you won’t know me for long
While you atone in the grave you dug,
I’ll be walking tall and strong.
Love that last stanza. You go, girl.
Oh no, Aggie…is this about Red/Blue/yellow? *hugs* That’s such an awesome poem.
Yup, and some other stuff too…but thanks.
Given the assignment of writing a sonnet and explaining the difficulties faced in using the form…
Alone I lie here puzzled and confused
Poetry with many rules is quite hard
Often I’ve rhyme, stanza and such abused
Content to be a free-verse-writing bard
Not my fault to have not sooner started
Much other work had I in abundance
And puzzling applications outsmarted
Easily are not; mother was quite tense
But if a grade’s my goal, onward I’ll press
Count syllables on fingers line-by-line
Remember now the scheme (avoid a mess)
To have a sonnet in the end so fine
Methinks will be a most desirous treat
And now, at fourteenth line, I’ll remark “Sweet!â€
O KaiYves, whose troubles I know well,
fear not! for sonnet writing is a snap.
Ten syllables per line, and it’s not hell
to go like this: clap-clap clap-clap clap-clap.
Yeah, sometimes it can feel like a chore
to act like Shakespeare, sonnet-writing king,
but after some time, it is not a bore
and each line takes on quite a pleasant ring.
You find yourself now drumming to keep time.
It’s like marching band, tap-tap of the feet.
And having to end each line with a rhyme
Means your creativeness will not be beat.
Somehow, strangely, this my part I say.
One last thought, Kai: hope you got an A!
It actually helps a lot to have ten fingers, because you can count out the syllables neatly.
silver comets leaping
tails blazing with bright flame
mysterious space
Metal clinking, soft
Muted by cloth and fabric
Machines do not breathe
—————–
Spinning, whirling
Screaming, curling
Light and shadow
Turning me deaf
Arguing, asking
Giving, tasking
Light and shadow
With each breath
Mazes making in the mind
Like a child left behind
Turning to the end of days
Still everything will be the same
And you know it
Just don’t know it
Everyone talks
All the same
And you feel it
Just can’t seal it
And there’s nobody
To blame
When there’s nobody to blame
You need to ask yourself when
You ran away and lost them
And never found them all again
And the dancing and the singing
All the laughter and the bringing
Move from start to end and then
Everything begins again
Mazes making in the mind
Like a child left behind
Turning to the end of days
Still everything will be the same
Twirling water in the sink
We all care what people think
Lie to ourselves and lie to them
Eventually you’ll be condemned
Doom and death, they’re all the same
Not everybody has a name
Give us freedom, let us bleed
We don’t care if it makes us succeed
Mazes making in the mind
Like a child left behind
Turning to the end of days
Still everything will be the same
Now I end
Nobody cared
If I stop life
Right here or there
My blood is flowing, just inside
And I don’t even try to hide
If you won’t believe me here and then
It’ll eventually start all over again
Mazes making in the mind
Like a child left behind
Turning to the end of days
Still everything will be the same
It’ll start all over again
And maybe that time I’ll hide
But maybe sometime you will see
Maybe sometime you can see
Maybe sometime you will look
And see what’s inside
—–
So I just wrote up that song off the top of my head. I like it. Say what you will, haikus and songs are my refuge in writing.
In nice
Several-word lines
Almost anything
Looks like poetry
Including
Rush
Limbaugh.
Who are you?
You’re reading this, I know you are.
Why are you reading this?
Random browsing?
Or do you care?
Who do you care about?
Me?
Why?
You don’t know who I am.
You don’t know what I feel
Right now.
Nobody knows that.
I don’t really know that.
I can’t feel myself.
I know I’m here.
I think I know I’m here.
I hope I know I’m here.
I wish I knew what I meant.
The words on this page
Mean as much as everything to me.
They make as have as much meaning
They fit together
Like a jigsaw made from a thousand different puzzles.
Is that who I am?
Is that what you care about?
Is that who you are?
Is that what we all are?
Does nobody fit with themselves?
~~~~~~~
Written recently. I sort of had a bit of a logical crisis. I still agree with the conclusion I drew.
I read it just to come over here and be able to say I care
Enc, I’m reading this because I ran into it and, because I’ve been reading about your life for the past few years and you, in turn, have been giving me advice on mine, and for that reason, hell yes, I care. *hugs*
Thank you. *hug*
You remind me a lot of one of my friends… she’s really nice, lesbian, one of my best friends, and really good at seeing when I’m sad.
*hugs both of you*
This is a poem i wrote recently about my crush, making it an official crush (no crush is official until I find I have so much pent-up emotion energy to write a poem about it) It’s the first poem I’ve written in awhile. I think I’ll call it “I am as a Leaf”
it’s October. Fall is here
And I am as a leaf
in falling for her
drifting slowly towards the earth
partly feeling as though I’m flying
the wind on my face
falling allows some joy
it shows you what you would otherwise
not notice
the color of her lips, her cheeks,
the softness of her shirt, her hair
the kindness in her
the rhythm of her heartbeat
And yet, falling is still falling
not flying
not controlled
and as a leaf
I know not where I will land
for while I drift
there is the thought in the back of my mind
that though I am now so light,
borne on the air
eventually I shall hit the ground
and be crushed
under the extreme
spinning weight
of the cars
on the road.
Also, I shall now post a most fun vocal warm-up:
I sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock
in a pestilential prison with a lifelong lock
awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp, shock
from a cheap and chipper chopper on a big, black, block
Your warmup is from Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta “The Mikado.” (We GAPAs believe in giving credit where credit is due.)
Which is, indeed, fun. Being the only person under 50 in the audience(apart from my brother) was not.
Cool. Had no idea where it was from, although I assumed it was from either a literary of theatrical production. Thanks!
I just wrote this in under five minutes, so I’m sorry it’s not very good.
What, where, when, how, who?
They cycle through our heads.
Where, when, how, who, what?
A monotonous drone.
When, how, who, what, where?
A buzz on the edge of sensation.
What is unimportant.
Where is too.
When is forever.
How is a mystery.
Who is the most important.
What could be anything.
Where needs little mention.
When is infinite.
We cannot know how.
But who eats us alive.
What is Who?
Where will we find it?
When will we find it?
How will we know?
I wish I could see the world
The way she does
Able to replicate what she sees
on the page in front of her
without so much of a thought.
It is her nature
And each drawing
is so beautiful
reflecting her beauty
sometimes the beauty of her form
sometimes the beauty of her thoughts
sometimes the beauty of her heart.
I want to express this to her
show her her beauty
but I cannot
I see the world in words
words inadequate for her
I cannot see as she does.
I know I’m not dreaming,
When I tell you that l feel
No one else in the world
Could make me feel so real
Even though the world
Is against my every move
I’m sure of something new
And that there’s nothing left to prove
So hold me every night,
Kiss me in the rain,
Tell me I’m the one
And run with me again,
I’ll let you save my life
If you let me say your name
I know I’m changed for life
And you’re the one to blame
Oh, I’ll never be the same,
No, I’ll never be the same
How Do They Call These “Crushes” Have They No Sense of Reality Whatsoever?
My mind is not a democracy.
It is a dictatorship.
I am it’s power-crazy ruler
and I would not have it any other way.
If I cannot control my head
what is there to control?
Welcome to mild OCD.
Hormones
are the insidious rebels
that run rampant
within the walled kingdom
of my mind
Slipping past the defenses,
the filters, the boarder guards
Shamelessly sneaking right into
the heart of the kingdom
they quickly and effeciantly set traps
wrought change with a fist
as iron as the one I use to rule.
Eventually, they begin the true attack
with alarming efficientcy
they plant the bomb that brings
the kingdom to it’s knees
undermines, and then removes
the control
changes the filters, both opening and closing the boarders
all the hard work
for organization, for control
is destroyed.
And the dictator sits crying in the rubble.
Then, of course, the dictator breaks into a grin
Because no dictator is sane
because my mind is too varied
to exist on only one plane of reality
And the dictator dances for joy
as she slowly begins to clean the rubble
once more creating order out of chaos
but this time
letting the chaos remain.
The last two stanzas are my favorite – especially the line about the dictator “crying in the rubble”. It’s very evocative imagery.
I love the metaphors!
I wish you could see
What you’ve done to me
But you never will
You are blind to the biggest problem in my life
Even when I tell you everything
I pour out my soul to you
Except for one piece
I want to scream it to the sky
I want to bury it in the ground
I wan to set it free
Like a baby bird from a cage
That has longed, all its’ life, to take wing
But I can’t, won’t, don’t
Because every time
You tell me about her
And how you miss her
And how you need her
I delude myself into believing
That someday
You might talk about me
Like you talk about her
You can’t see
What you’ve done to me
And you never will
So I write it here
Like I write it every day,
Over and over.
I love you
Stream of Consciousness poetry I wrote a few minutes ago and have mixed feelings about:
I think I love you
even more every time
I see you I just
want to scream
with joy because you
are so perfect in
every way and every
thing you do makes
me die and I
think there’s no
way you could be
more amazing but then
again how else could it
be that every time I’m
with you I
love you new?
I absolutely love ‘The White Man’s Burden’ by Rudyard Kipling, having discovered it two days ago when our Humanities I class studied it. (We’re learning about India.)
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper–
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard–
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:–
“Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?”
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Ye dare not stoop to less–
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Have done with childish days–
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
And speaking of India, though it doesn’t really belong on this thread, the White Tiger is an amazing book. Maybe I’ll post about it on the correct thread if I
stop becoming lazy enough tofeel like it.I think that poem is fantastically written. It would be one of my faves if I hadn’t had to analyze it in terms of “find absolutely every line in this poem that makes it racist”.
Another poem I wrote:
Empathy
I wish there was something I could do to make your pain less painful.
I have felt pain, and I have hated it.
I have seen death, and I have feared it.
I have seen love, and I have been frightened for it.
I have lost myself inside myself, and I have mourned it.
I have lost myself outside myself, and I have mourned it.
I have ached, and it was bad.
But I have never felt your pain.
And I wish you didn’t have to.
My mind frightens me sometimes. For instance, a while ago this really weird song just sort of started playing in my head. It was in this creepy computer/robot/synthesizer voice, and it went like this:
I am on a mission
A mission to dominate
I am the source of evil
I am in your brain.
I AM IN YOUR BRAIN.
You an deny me
But I am still there.
You can fight me
But I will find you weaknesses.
I WILL TAKE CONTROL.
A few new poems of mine:
The Earth Sings:
For you, my dear,
the world should halt its orbit
and welcome you with open arms
To you, my dear,
Good and evil both
will lay down their weapons
and bow.
When you hold me, my love,
the earth sings
and the universe is beautiful again.
Please never let me go.
Beauty I Feel:
Calm
is sitting in the forest
or by the sea
all alone
and closing your eyes
Happy
is surrounded by friends
feeling that who you are
and who they see you as
are one and the same.
Excited
is a million birds
flying through your body
and bidding you “jump”
and you listen
Safe
is when you hold me
surround me with your arms
and nothing could ever mar
the beauty I feel.
Binary Minds:
How much of life
is yes and no?
neat categories
little comfort zones
until suddenly the blinders come off
and you simply don’t fit?
Why must we put everything in boxes
with printed black and white labels?
So much of life
is taken as mutually exclusive
when none of it need be.
How many people have to recognize
that we don’t have words
don’t have labels
to describe who we are
before society stops trying
to label everyone and everything
it sees?
There is no one word
to describe any one part
of me.
Happy
is surrounded by friends
feeling that who you are
and who they see you as
are one and the same.
Very true. These make me envious of your life. Nice!
Thank you for envying my life. Throughout it I fear I have met more pity than envy, so it’s a pleasant reminder of how great my life really is right now to have people envy it. I am so incredibly lucky. And for the record, everyone kept telling me stories about high school that gave the impression it was for them a time to be endured the way one endures the plague, but I LOVE it.
Meaning and Madness
Meaning
What it was set out to do.
The point of existence
The Meaning of Life:
Why we are here.
What we need to do.
Or is the Meaning of Life
What we do
To make meaning for ourselves?
Is the meaning of life
To find meaning?
Or is it
To live it?
Madness
Lack of sense
Lack of order
Infinite chaos.
That which lacks all meaning
It just
Is.
Or is it:
A deeper meaning
Through insanity
Can the sane be saved?
Are all our meanings
Madness?
And does our madness
Create meanings?
What is madness?
What is meaning?
Are they
The same?
Love Poem
The glare-y light of early morning
Reflecting off of soft skin that I have never touched.
That I have wanted to touch
During the short times
I see you.
During the short times
You don’t see me.
How you are always looking
In the other direction
Eye contact
Is limited, no
Not there.
Your beauty
(Though most would not call it that.)
Is as joyful to my eyes
As it is painful to my future.
So I must be content
Knowing
That I love you
And that you
Will never
Love me.
Unless I am lucky.
Unless I am fortune’s friend
Unless a strange twist of events
Brings us
Together.
Perhaps we will not love.
Perhaps we will simply be friends
Perhaps
Perhaps I’m dreaming too much.
Perhaps I’m not dreaming enough.
Haven’t posted here in… a long time. Here’s a simple song I scribbled out a couple of months ago, and a short prose-poem I’m not quite happy with (not sure I’m going to go back to it though) from the week before last.
_____
Give me a few minutes, and I’ll sing you a sad song
about a girl who longed for love but could only be alone
she smiled every day and painted on a happy face
and she laughed until she cried at the end of every day
with a head too full of words to ever properly explain
why she only ever feels human when it rains
and everything’s a mess, and she tries to make it right
but there’s not much she can do and not much longer she can hide
and all she wants is to be held but she can’t bear to be touched
with all her compulsions and obsessions and it all becomes too much
because she feels like she’s not always quite there
all the mixed-up feelings she just can’t bring herself to share
the little tics mental tricks she anchors herself with
but in the end
it’s just her voice
in the empty air
singing sad songs
singing away her cares
speaking in third person just to keep herself awake
she dissolves and crystalizes and she waits and she waits
so I’ll sing sad songs until I lose my voice
then sit and stare into space until I make the choice
to listen to my feelings, and then throw them out the door
there’s nothing I can do and nothing I want anymore
it hurts to be heartsick, but I’m afraid to not be alone
there’s too many places I haven’t been, too many I’ll never go
and somewhere in the distance
someone’s calling my name
and someday I’ll maybe listen
but I’m too afraid to change
I’ll watch them stand then turn away
and long after they’ve gone I’ll wish they stayed
so I’ll sit and watch the stars and pretend to be sane
and hope that if I wait enough that soon it’ll start to rain
because I’m just a contradiction, a heartsick dreaming girl
who keeps looking in the shadows for things that were never there
and one day I’ll realize where I’ve gone wrong
and I’ll sit down and sing
one more sad song.
___
Some days the wind just doesn’t stop blowing. It blows hair into tangles and leaves into frenzies. It turns water to froth and slowly drags away particles of your skin, grinding away at your flesh and waiting to taste bone. Some days the wind blows.
Some days the sun shines. It glows down on the world and waits and waits until enough sunbeams have scorched their way through space to beat against the surface. It watches you collapse in a dessert of broken glass and smoke. It waits until the last drops of water have fizzed into gas and escaped into the atmosphere, it waits until the surface cracks and sighs. Some days the sun shines.
Some days the rain pours. It washes against bared skin, trickling rivulets sliding down to tumble to the earth. It washes into the dirt and takes with it a snatch of your soul. It deceives as it comforts and smiles as dissolves into sores. Some days the rain pours.
Some days your words brush across my skin like the wind, and you smile at me like a sunbeam. Your words are like rain.
Some days I can’t scream for the pain.
*should be “your words taste of rain” in the second one.
This is so sad, very pretty though. I love your poetry
Thanks! It’s been a while since I posted any of it.
ODE TO NOTES
My notes
My notes
My notes
I fell asleep writing you
Sleep
I need more sleep
(Death to insomnia.
Death to polar bonds.
Death to my notes.)
O, notes
It’s not necessarily your fault
It’s just that Ms. Harkin’s voice puts me to sleep
Sleep
Sleep sounds nice right about now
But no
I am denied
Thanks to my notes
Stupid notes
[This was typed out at three in the morning (thanks to my science homework) and sent to my contacts who would care via text message. That’s why it’s so terrible. Ms. Harkin is my science teacher and she is Irish. Her voice is so odd and mangled that it shouldn’t put you to sleep but it does. This greatly amused my friends who have her.]
This isn’t exactly a poem, more like a glimpse into my brain, but I’ll post it here anyway.
Flitter. Blink. New day. Whispers. Sighs. Longing. Whispers in the night. Stone. Flight. Song of death. Silver crystals of blue light flicker behind the walls. Shattering screams fill the air behind the windows, behind the clouds, behind EVERYTHING until it all IMPLODES from the sheer
FORCEof it all, because it IS, or at least it seems that way,or it doesn’t, but we’ll never know THAT for sure either,will we?Questions. ?. Just like that. That little squiggle and dot that’s supposed to go after every QUESTION IN THE ENTIRE FADING YET BRIGHTENING WORLD, or is it the universe? What ever it is, we’re just specks in it, thought we DON’T ALWAYS ACT LIKE IT. What makes people think they can “own” parts of the earth? WE belong to the earth, not the other way around! And in the End, maybe we’ll finally realize that! Hope. Just hope. Hope and wait.okay, so please tell what you think of this. I have never written a poem that wasn’t for school, so i’m not expecting it to be good. But whatever, here it goes…
I try to run,
I try to hide,
but it keeps coming,
seemingly faster,
and faster every day.
At day,
slowly creeping at the edges of my mind.
At night,
loud in the long hours before sleep.
An assassin waiting for the strike.
The desperate beatings of a frantic heart.
A withered plant with no water.
The last drops of blood from an open wound.
All end the same,
with one beautiful word,
Death.
The word that ends every living being.
Death knows everything,
Death learns the knowledge of thousands of past lives,
of shining, brilliant lives.
Ask it any question,
Death will tell you.
For a price.
It ended quite differently than how it started… and i will soon meet death if I don’t do my homework…
The first half had me really wondering what you were running/hiding from, and it’s also interesting how much the perspective on Death turns around by the end. Well written, for a first effort.
Wow, that’s really good!
I never thought
I woud be so happy
to take a math final,
though I love math.
But there you have it.
A too-long Thanksgiving break
with too little to do
and too much time to think.
So I thought about her
as the world became cloaked in white
first soft velvety folds
freezing to sharp-edged plaster.
I thought about her
as the cabin fever kicked in
I love my family
but not in large doses.
Seven days can be eternity
and I cannot help
to wonder if
she thought of me.
I was intrigued enough by the website Robert mentioned last night to join it and begin writing something. As I’ve vaguely mentioned elsewhere, I’m too perfectionist in my writing to be able to make anything of great length, such as a novel. So instead I began an anthology of poetry.
The third poem was more an intellectual exercise than any deep emotional pouring-out, but I quite like how it turned out. (The middle of the poem starts to sound like slam poetry, which was entirely unintentional but rather intriguing.) See if you can find all the patterns or decipher the meaning. (The title will only make sense in the context of the whole work.)
2, by Piggy
The warmth emanates in a slow,
Personal spring
Of former and future grandeur,
Of the God-made majesty that adorned
And gave life,
Of the god-making minds that
Meld the had-been with the have-been with the will-be
Out into eyes and faces of the
Attributionalized,
Or those who eye the former in adoration
Of their self-apparent godliness,
Perceiving not
The first maker, the slow warmth.
Piggy- You are obviously one of those thoughtful, deep, symbolical poets whose stuff doesn’t make sense until the reader is all like ohmygod it DOES. Someday students in English class will hate your guts.
So when I wrote this, it was meant to be a nice normal poem. And then it all of a sudden was kind of creepy, which was… um. Yeah. There’s the plot of a potential Buffy episode in there somewhere.
She looked in the mirror
didn’t like what she saw
it was passion unfiltered
and straight up and raw
so she hid from the mirror
she threw up an old mask
built the brick walls around her
no matter who asked
she would hide,
hide,
hide from the sight
of the girl in the mirror
who wasn’t all right.
She walked to her school
laughing at a joke
and the mask on her face
well, it tightened and choked
and her face it turned blue
just behind the white mask
and she wouldn’t tell no one
no matter who asked
she had to hide,
hide,
hide from the sight
of the girl on the sidewalk
who wasn’t all right.
She died there that day,
on the sidewalk alone
and the mask well it cut
through her blood and her bone
and she got up to join
all the masked human race
’cause the mask she’d been wearing
had eaten her face
she still hides,
hides,
hides from the sight
of the girl living her life
who isn’t all right.
Tis brilliant.
Thank you!
Cat’s Eye- I guess I’m my own target audience. But I do have some pity for any other readers. I could have made that poem quite convoluted.
Hm, that reminds me. Has anyone read The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot? My literature teacher told me her theory: that Eliot and a few of his poet buddies got drunk one night and decided to write a piece of nonsense and pass it off as a poem. I’ve tried reading it, and I don’t think the theory is far off.
Anyway: Cat’s Eye, your poem, for some reason, sounds to me almost like a Johnny Cash song, though rather more grotesque. *tries to think of a more meaningful comment* *fails* *hits “Comment”*
in a perfect world,
there are no enemies,
because of that,
in a perfect world,
there are no allies,
everyone together.
No war.
No famine.
No racism.
No suicides.
No murders.
There is no war,
that word is not defined.
why is there a word for a fight,
that has no winner?
Deaths on both sides,
casualties and murders.
All for something,
everyone has forgotten,
long ago.
Who will fix this world now?
Who will change it for the better?
Will that person ever come?
In a perfect world,
there are no wars.
In a perfect world,
there are no allies,
because,
there are no enemies to ally against.
I thought about deleting it….. I suck at writing…. Like it? It was when my dad was talking about war and the wikileaks thing….
I think it’s awesome.
Every little thing
can change the future
it’s heads or tails
who will go back to get that forgotton thing
which one to chose on the menu
and who will be the next president
it all matters
we live in the present
we remember the past
but what do we do with the future?
we hope
we worry
we wait
we do not realize
that today was tomorrow yesterday
and we think about later
instead of now
we worry about tomorrow
without even knowing
if tomorrow will come
the thing is
that the future is uncertain
unknown
bendable
so why
can’t we be happy living now?
I like that one, great.
81.1- really? thanks.
I don’t know any more
It’s like someone has tapped into my vein
with a hollow needle
and is laughing
as the life drains away.
I’m scared
because my life seems so close to perfect
and since I was eight
every time that has happened
someone has died
and from there everything just crashes.
I just crash.
Swirling from a classic painting
into abstraction
and finally settling for the surreal.
Why does life
have to be such a roller-coaster ride?
Sure the pain makes us stronger
but I don’t want to be strong anymore.
I just want to be happy.
Just want to fast-forward to the disney ending
cause every day I doubt it’s existence more
Please God, if you’re there,
Which I was once sure of one way
then sure of another
but now again I just don’t know,
Please God,
write my life a comedy
not a drama, not a tragedy,
a comedy.
But I guess it’s a bit late for that,
isn’t it?
SFTDP:
There is beauty in blood
and music in heartbeats
The force that pushes
pure life through my veins.
Pure life through her veins.
The soul is in the blood.
The life is in the blood.
Protected by layers of skin
and muscle and fat.
wrapped in it’s tissue as a package,
Never to be opened
without disaster.
I cannot hear my own heartbeat.
Cannot feel my own pulse
I have no certainty of the life inside me
until it spills
in pain and sorrow
and dries up
and is gone forever.
But I know it to there nonetheless
I hope it to be there
and so I go on breathing
everything good comes to an end
and that means everything bad comes to a
stop
the only thing that keeps going is time
and each breath is a breath we will never have the chance to take again
the truth it is impossible to reconcile
for how could we miss a moment on
laying in bed staring at the ceiling
reading the sports section of the newspaper
turning the lights on and off
instead of desperately focusing on the sensation of heart beating and lungs working
every sensation a sensation we will never ever get back
we only focus on the big things,
and if we didn’t our lives would be forced to
stop
because the thing about life is that there are no patterns
there is only going on
and everything is changing swirling never lasting
and the important thing to remember is
this too shall pass
and the important thing to remember is
you can’t be afraid of what hasn’t happened yet
and the important thing to remember is
don’t look back, don’t look down, don’t blink
and the important thing to remember is
stop
once upon a time
my soul was free
free like a river
rushing to the anonymous sea
the body of water
that drowns all rational hearts
the sea was you.
once upon a time
I was blooming
a symbol of youth
a tall, long-legged
short haired
efflorescence
then fate plucked me from the earth
and handed me
to you.
once upon a time
there was no fate
and we were on the way
to our own destinies
our own decisions
our own existence
how I hate that we
were destined to meet!
for had I been born with the will
To skip the years of life
that have dwindled into
cold
heartbroken
actuality
our paths would never have
dreamed
of intertwining.
for to tell the truth
that I have followed you down the road
with the love
of years of cruel humanity
would be far more arduous
far more daunting
far more terrifying
than to never
have known you
at all
I’ve never understood why the vast majority of adolescents who write poetry feel the need to do so sans capitalization. (This is directed at no one in particular. It’s just something I thought of.)
This is just me pulling stuff out of thin air, but capital letters seem more definite to me, more decisive and concrete, and a lot of teenage poetry seems to be trying to make sense of the gray areas and capriciousness of life. Also, sometimes if you’re aiming for a sort of onrushing rhythm capital letters can provide a stop when you don’t want one.
Also everyone loves E. E. Cummings.
That’s e.e. cummings
Actually, Cummings wrote to his French translator that he preferred the capitalized version.
When I write poetry I simply don’t think about conventions such as punctuation, capitialization, or grammer unless it’s important to the thought or emotion as it’s formed in my head, if that makes any sense, which means that mostly it’s either random or has great significance or sort of both. It’s about the way the words look on the page, the shape they make, the rhythm. Also, I find that often stress is placed on capitals either mentally or acoustically: they have a different connotation and by capitializing or not capitializing I make use of that stress.
I pretty much agree with Lizzie here. Capital letters and punctuation, especially periods, feel like the marks of an organized, clear, complete sentence. Capital letters signify beginnings, periods signify endings. If there are neither capital letters nor periods, it feels more like the poetry was pulled out of the middle of something, like it’s part of an ongoing flow. It’s less neat and orderly.
It’s probably true that some beginning poets use lowercase just because they think it looks cool or because that’s the way poetry is supposed to look, but it’s a nice place to start at.
All right, okay, understood. However, I think that sometimes, punctuation can interrupt the flow of a free verse poem.
I’d just point out that poets have been creating absolutely incredible pieces of art for thousands of years without doing so in all lowercase. Even modern, free-verse poets. The technique just seems amateurish at best to me.
I’m sorry that my technique is disappointing to you, but it’s aesthetically pleasing to me and I use it.
I don’t hold you at any lesser regard for using it. De gustibus non est disputandum.
It seems as though you do hold me in lesser esteem for it, though, from the way you talk about your dislike for the method that I use. As far as being “amateurish” is concerned, I have never claimed to be a professional poet, nor even a remotely good one. My poetry is how I express myself. The method should have little to do with it. If you don’t like the way something is written, then don’t read it.
Also, if this shouldn’t be considered a matter of debate then don’t start one. It’s not fair to state a potentially offensive opinion and then be surprised at the ‘uproar’ from those on the other side of the fence. I respect your opinion and your right to defend it, but this is a thread where debate shouldn’t be necessary.
oh piggy
Oh Axa. Lady Lowercase herself.
lol really? okay. i am just kind of exasperated, i don’t understand how it can seem like a good idea to tell people their work is “amateurish at best”
:/
you are certainly entitled to that opinion! but people have different opinions too. what other poets have been doing is immaterial to one’s choice to capitalize or not. sometimes doing things differently can be good. it does not invalidate the worth of a poem.
do you see how it can be insulting to someone? when after taking the time and going through the emotional process of writing a poem, the only thing they hear from you is something along the lines of: wow why do that, other better poems don’t so there’s no reason
it’s not even phrased as constructive, it’s condescending.
and i’m not looking to start an argument, i am just explaining myself :/ so sorry if that seemed unnecessarily curt but it is very frustrating
And I’d like to point out that a good portion of the point of art, (art not made to be sold/create a profit, that is) especially for teenagers, is to create something uniquely yours, something expressive to thoughts, emotions, experiences, something that no one can create but you, something you define and in that way make your mark on the world. Thus it doesn’t matter what artists have been doing for thousands of years, and certainly doesn’t matter what Piggy or anyone else thinks about the subject, because everything you create is yours and defined by you, no one else.
And poets have also been creating incredible pieces of art for thousands of years in all lowercase. Or all uppercase, especially when you consider that for most of those thousands of years, there was no such thing as lowercase or uppercase.
The technique can be amateurish if it’s applied amateurishly. Or it can be incredibly meaningful. It just depends on the skill of the poet, and the claim that it’s amateurish because it’s more recent (especially when capitalization itself is fairly recent compared to the timescale of poetry when you look at it) is disingenuous.
This is a haiku I wrote.
IT FEELS GREAT TO BE
RIGHT, BUT PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THE
FEELINGS OF OTHERS.
By the way, the Cicada with my poem in it came out.
When I die
Kill me quickly
So I won’t worry about death
Without you.
When you die
Kill me quickly
So I won’t worry about life
Without you.
I am not afraid of death
Simply afraid of pain
And I cannot imagine
Greater pain than to be alone
Nor greater comfort,
Greater joy,
Than to be with you.
All that which has a beginning
has an end.
that which has no end
has not a true beginning.
So I know that I will end
So I know that we will end
But I wish
I didn’t know it.
Golly. So many angry responses to an offhand comment that was meant with no malice whatsoever.
Axa- I said I found the technique amateurish, not the work itself. And I’m intensely aware of everyone’s right to their own opinions.
Clare de Lune- For other people’s opinions not mattering, you sure seem to have taken my comment personally.
I highly encourage people to ignore what I say if they disagree with it.
Lizzie- I have in no way whatsoever claimed that purposeful disuse of capitalization is to me distasteful because of the timeframe in which it was first used. I couldn’t care less when it was first used.
Tesseract- I have never and will never claim that an opinion of mine is “right”.
Good heavens, you all are wound tightly concerning some matters. Have none of you noticed that I mean nothing entirely seriously? Sarcasm is at least several of my names. And as I said to agrrrfishi, de gustibus non est disputandum–concerning tastes, there is no debate. If I offended anyone, I apologize; I was just freely expressing my opinion.
Perhaps it would have been better taken if I had written it as a haiku?
“I somewhat dislike
Completely lowercase poems.
Just my opinion.”
i think axa hit it with “condescending.” you phrase opinions like these as snarky little quips that make you seem dismissive of everyone else’s thoughts and ideas. it’s rude and somewhat irritating, and the only effect of it i can see is to give yourself an air of smug superiority. if you don’t intend offense, phrase things in a less offensive tone.
and don’t try to cop out by claiming we shouldn’t take anything you say seriously, because you clearly meant what you said, if not the tone in which you said it. claiming you don’t mean anything seriously doesn’t give you a free pass to ignore the feelings of others. i’m not saying you intended offense, i’m just saying you probably didn’t put as much thought into how others would receive that comment as you should have.
sorry if i sound harsh, it just annoys me when people don’t seem to realize the consequences of their words and the feedback others gave you doesn’t seem to have sunk in.
I’m bad at communication. I do try to improve myself, but so far it apparently hasn’t worked. Maybe I’ll take a break from MB for a while.
Bye, guys. I’ll be back in a while. Probably around Christmas.
Well, it’ll certainly be a stranger MB if you’re missing for any length of time. You’re a fixture here. Without you, it’d be like losing a tooth. There’ll be a hole where you’re supposed to be. I mean, there’s no one Piggyish enough to be Piggy except you.
Yes, come back soon!
I don’t know, I’d say that “I’d just point out that poets have been creating absolutely incredible pieces of art for thousands of years without doing so in all lowercase” is a pretty clear indication that you feel that some of its lack of validity comes from it being a recent innovation.
As people said, the issue here is one of tone.
I know you’d never claim one of your opinions to be right, but from what I can tell you do seem to be fairly firmly set in your opinions, and being as good a debater as you are you often phrase them as, as ebeth said, “snarky little quips” because you know that you can argue rings around most people and end up with the higher ground in any following debate. You’re a very logical person and I know you know that no opinion is technically “right.” I was just looking for a one-syllable word and that was the best I could think of for the meaning.
I wasn’t taking your comment personally, it just seemed really condescending and rather unnecessary (and easy for people to take really personally, especially on this thread, and thus sort of insensitive) (I know you didn’t mean to offend anyone) and for that reason it annoyed me and thus the tone of my comment. All this as also just happened after my discussion on Acting class about what art is and what defines art so I was already thinking about what I posted regardless of the current conversation.
I have recently started a project. Gosh.
….but anyway. I’m calling it “Love Musings” and each poem is titled “Love Musings” and then the number; I, II, III, IV, V, and so on. It’s partially because one of my (older) friends challenged me that I don’t have the faintest clue what love is (which may be true, but I digress) and I’m doing this to show them that I do know something, at least, and partially because this is a subject that I’ve thought about a lot and find to be very interesting. But, again, I digress. I’m rambling now–and anyway, I thought I’d share some of the poems I’ve written so far that I like.
Love Musings I
Love; the ever changing
Life; Death, Light; Dark!
Love is–
Everything. Nothing.
Never the same; New, always
Love; the beast that, hidden
lies quietly within our Hearts–
But the truest love is that
which, in it’s beautiful complexity
cannot be defined
in Words.
Love Musings II
Colourful, multi-faceted
constantly shifting
like so many butterflies
gathering in the sunlight–
This is Love.
Painful, heartbreaking
ceaselessly aching
like so many wounds
inflicted by invisible demons
This, too, is Love.
Does the beauty outweigh
the Pain?
The sunlight
heals the wounds,
But–
someday
the warm, happy sunlight of Love
will leave you again
The darkness
re-opens the wounds; multiplies them
But–
always
the darkness will be vanquished
by the light of Love
This is is the circle.
This, truly, is Love.
Love Musings VI
What is Love?
Is it merely an idealized concept,
something impossible to find?
Is it simply
physical attraction
and nothing of the mind?
Was it created
only for survival
out of times we’ve left behind?
Was it imagined
by men of knowledge–
a dream with silver lined?
Or, perhaps
was Love created
because of love–
a beacon in darkness,
brightly shined.
(Opinions please? These are my best from this project so far.)
Lovely. I especially like the second one.
First of all I love the poems and secondly I think that sounds like an amazing challenge and if you don’t mind I think I’ll modify it and create a project of my own. I could use a nice, calming, project.
“The Butterfly” by me.
To define art
is to kill a rainbow butterfly
and pin it to a box
just to create a neat, clean, label
To analyze art
is at first to peer at the butterfly
through a magnifying glass
making it all the more beautiful.
Yet to continue analysis
is to grab a scalpel and tweezers
and cut into the flesh
blood and guts and organs all pulsing
still beautiful
but nauseating,
in pieces, soon to die
never to live again.
To create art
is to find a butterfly
caged deep within
and let it soar free.
I’m inspired.
I hate when people analyze art. Kind of like analyzing literature, it bugs me when people try to see some sort of meaning that the artist never put there. Especially if the artist is dead and thus unable to comment.
What, then, is the purpose of art, if not to express some sort of meaning? Should art just be something pretty to look at? I myself wouldn’t denigrate art to that level. Without analysis, art is basically pointless, and the artist did all ens work in vain. I have a feeling that your opinion may change as you’re forced to analyze things in school.
Perhaps it’s just my INTP personality. But I don’t think any level of sincere analysis is “too much”. From the viewpoint of an artist, I would be honored and feel justified if someone were to peel back layer after layer trying to understand my work. If someone just looked at the surface, I’d be insulted.
Everything has a deeper meaning. To refuse to analyze it is to refuse to appreciate it.
Not sure how to reply to that.
And I am forced to analyze things in school, that’s partly why I hate doing it. It’s less about the emotions and thoughts one gets from art, and more about people forcing their own on other people and trying to say, “It’s about X”, when it could just as easily be about Y.
…sorry if that doesn’t make sense, I’m tired.
Middle school analysis can tend to be in the realm of “This is the right answer, there is no other interpretation”. Don’t pay attention to that. Teachers and classmates are wrong quite a lot. Two completely opposite analyses can each be valid as long as there is a solid argument and evidence to back it up.
Middle-school books do tend to be more simplistic, though. It’s not exactly the same analyzing The Golden Goblet than it is Catcher in the Rye. The only book I remember reading in middle school that I thought was actually worth my time was To Kill a Mockingbird, which immediately became one of my favorite books of all time. It’s a wonder middle school English doesn’t turn far more kids off to reading.
Same here.
I know some people who are reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian for their English class, and I’m really jealous. It sometimes seems like the books we read are picked for their ability to be analyzed rather than for their plot and writing quality.
(I’ll add that I’m currently in 9th grade and it’s still happening.
Cormac McCarthy can go jump off a cliff)I never saw a purple cow;
I never hope to see one;
but I can tell you anyhow;
I’d rather see than be one!
That’s not art.
oh piggy.
Oh Vendaval.
The direction of this argument amuses me.
How do you know? It’s still everything.
What?
“Everything has a deeper meaning. To refuse to analyze it is to refuse to appreciate it.”
How do you determine what is art?
It may not be art but I still like it.
I’m not saying that something has to be art to be worthwhile or enjoyable. For instance, I feel that Spongebob is enjoyable. But I hesitate to call it “art”.
If I had a definition for art, I would have given it by now. Philosophers have been bickering about it for quite some time now.
You must have some sort of definition of art, if you declared something to not be art.
I “must”? In what way?
Well, you may not be able to say “art is this-and-such”, but you are saying “this is art and that is not art.” This obviously has qualities that that does not, or vice versa, in order for you to include it in your mental “set of things that are art.” Those qualities are part of your definition of art.
In short, if you know what is not art, then you know what is art, and if you know what is art, you have at least some idea of what art is.
Do we need a thread on this topic?
Rebecca- If you made a thread, the topic would die. That’s how it always works.
Cat’s Eye and Vendy- I really don’t have a definition for art, even though I can label things as “art” and “not art”. It’s the same concept everyone uses every day. For instance, what’s the definition of justice? Most people don’t have one. But they have no problems labeling things as “just” and “unjust”. And what is beauty? Not having a definition doesn’t stop us from calling things “beautiful”. This is why philosophers have been arguing about art for millennia. It evades definition. But that in no way means we are unable or unallowed to call things art.
“But I know it [referring to obscenity] when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that”
– Justice Potter Stewart
So what are your criteria for what makes art / not art? I’m not asking about philosophers over the millennia; I’m asking about what allows you specifically to declare something art or not art. And why do your criteria have validity?
Saying that something evades definition is a cop-out – I think the real issue is clashing definitions, not lack of such. I might not be able to define “justice” but I could give you a list of elements that form justice or not-justice, from which we could extract a definition.
I think Piggy is right that you don’t always need a definition to recognize something. (I’m not sure I could define a cat with any precision, but I usually know when I’m looking at one.)
Still, definitions have their uses, and they can be useful intellectual exercises. I usually break them down into parts: a generic part that tells the general category something belongs to, followed by a specific part that tells what makes it distinctive within that category. So within that framework, a work of art would be, let’s see…
Generic: “An object, performance, or communication…”
(All right so far? Let me know if I’ve missed something.)
Specific: “created (okay?) to (or does intention not matter?) evoke or express (“evoke” if the artist has an audience in mind; “express” if en does not) an emotional or intellectual reaction or an altered way of perceiving the world.”
How is that for a first try?
I think Robert’s definition is pretty legit. I read somewhere (TV Tropes, I think) “Art isn’t about making you feel good. Art is about making you feel.” And often, when I’m writing poetry or stories or scripts, I think to myself that art is about saying something true, which you might not be able to say otherwise.
So the way I see it, I think (I’m feeling this out as I write), is that there are two components to art: truth and beauty. Some art says pretty things, or makes a pretty picture, or creates a pretty noise. Some art says true things, whether it’s through words, images, or sound. And some art says true things in a pretty way.
But the thing about art that’s pretty is that people are naturally hesitant to pick it apart. They see it as, like Clare said, “[killing] a rainbow butterfly and pinning it to a box just to create a neat, clean label.” And you can “peer at the butterfly through a magnifying glass, making it all the more beautiful”, which is the type of analysis you seem to be talking about, Piggy, or you can “grab a scalpel and tweezers and cut into the flesh, blood and guts and organs all pulsing… nauseating, in pieces, soon to die, never to live again.”
The point is that the butterfly is better understood when you dissect it, that you can now label it easily and sort it into various categories in the space of a few minutes, that you have now given the stuff that beauty is made of a name and a number, that butterfly study is now much neater and more organized. But the butterfly is still very dead.
So instead of pinning butterflies down and dissecting them piece by piece, removing their souls, let’s all become lepidopterists like Vladimir Nabokov and chase butterflies over hills!
Piggy, I know that the topic often seems to be played out by the time a thread happens. I guess what I was really asking was whether there was still enough life in this discussion to move it elsewhere, now that it’s jammed up against the nesting limitations.
All right, I’m fine with a new thread. Darn nesting limits.
I think it’s art.
Maybe if you don’t pick art apart, that’s okay. In 6th grade, we did this poetry unit and we learned all about metaphors and similes, parts of poems, why the author does this and that, and I hated it. However, saying that maybe van Gogh painted some of the flowers drooping because he was dying or something like that is okay, I think.
Ooooh Piggy.
Ohhhhhhhhhhh Jadestone.
This makes me think of one of my favorite quotations:
“With more knowledge comes a deeper, more wonderful mystery, luring one on to penetrate deeper still. Never concerned that the answer may prove disappointing, with pleasure and confidence we turn over each new stone to find unimagined strangeness leading on to more wonderful questions and mysteries….” — Richard Feynman
I hate watching people try to find deep meaning in modern abstract art. At one museum I went to, a guy in a suit was gazing at a piece of a soda can on a stand and taking notes. I went up to him and asked why he was taking notes on a bit of metal, and he said “This isn’t a piece of metal. This is a representation of the artist’s soul. His very soul.” I mean, really! It was a piece of a tin can! You could still see the “Sprite” label!
Sorry. I should find a better place to put this rant.
Someone drops a gum wrapper on the ground at the contemporary art museum. Ten minutes later, a museum-goer sees it and stares at it for a few minutes, makes a sketch, and takes note on it. He goes over to the guide and says, “Excuse me, sir, shouldn’t there be a barrier around that sculpture?” The guide starts laughing and says, “I just watched you appreciate a gum wrapper for twenty minutes! What an idiot!”
The moral of the story is, I find a lot of modern art lazy.
You’re both dramatically overgeneralizing. Not all modern art is a literal piece of trash on a pedestal, (and I’m pretty sure you’re more disscussing contemporary art–art created in the last ten years–and not modern art, which I think is an era of art from around the middle or possibly the late twentieth century.) contemporary art can be a tree painted white with balloons for leaves blowing in the wind. Contemporary art can be crossing a bridge to a small slanted oval room to stare up at the sky in a frame, a forest of hot-glue strands each hand-made and set up specifically for the space surrounding it, a mural on the wall of a building. Contemporary art can be glass moulded on the bark of a tree, installations far larger and more complicated than ever, but contemporary art can also be a room half-full of balloons to run around in, a small dog and a large dog, a light periodically flipping on and off. Contemporary art can take years upon years of planning and work, can have incredible meaning, and much of what I’ve seen has this incredible sense of dynamics, never the same day to day, person to person, perspective to perspective.
Go to a good contemporary art museum sometime. Then come back and tell me it’s lazy.
The ICA is a great one.
One piece, I guess you could call it that, is the building itself. One whole wall of it is just glass, and you can look out upon the city and see the river and everything.
It’s more realistic that anything could ever be.
And I’ve loved it much more than I’ve liked some of the pieces there.
*late to discussion*
In all honesty I’m a fan of analyzing art. It becomes sort of a mind-boggling thing, and I find it fun, actually. However sometimes through analysis art loses some of its emotion for me, some of the visceral response becomes replaced by intellectual response, which is often not a good thing. I wrote the poem the way it’s written for that reason, the loss of emotion, and because I run in to people who read whatever they want into art and then insist they have the only correct answer. Part of the point, at least for me, is that there does not need to be one answer. Also, sometimes they can’t provide solid evidence….anything you want can be read into art, anything can be argued, as long as you can actually back it up.
But I’m not fond of defining art, of placeing parameters around it.
Analyzing art is great so long as it makes one think but is not taken too seriously. Only the artist can tell you what’s actually in the art, what it actually means, and often people forget that. They forget that what they find is speculation, sometimes strongly evidenced speculation, but still speculation.
I am so happy that this discussion occurred in response to my poem…I can’t even begin to describe how happy I am. Love you all!
It sounds like you have a problem specifically with bad analysis, not analysis in general. I don’t think anyone likes bad analysis.
Oftentimes the artist enself doesn’t have one “meaning” picked out for ens work; en wants there to be opposing analyses. I find that to be an amazing thing about art–it takes on a life of its own separate from its creator.
Well yes, bad analysis, analysis gone too far (some of which would otherwise be great analysis) and analysis that causes art to lose it’s emotional meaning, a lot of which can be phenomenal analysis.
I agree with the last line, however, sometimes, particularly with analysis that attempts to work religion into art after the fact, the analysis gets so far away from anything the author would have known or intended that it feels implausible and weak. There was a movement in between the 60s and the 80s (I can’t remember when) that with literary analysis attempted to “kill the author” in that the intentions of the author were not thought about in analysis. While this is a perfectly valid way to look at literature, I find it less interesting because with the author still in consideration one can look at subtextual messages, themes, and overall “points” to the book, which are still only speculation but really interesting to think about.
I guess actually I’d have to say that rather from art having a life “separate” from it’s creator I’d say art has a life independent from it’s creator—the life of the art and the life of the artist are very closely linked yet the life of the art still exists outside of that connection.
I’m running
I’m running and it’s always right behind me, chasing me, reaching for me
I freeze for only a second and I have to start over from the beginning, a moment of unsureness ruining my escape
I start to get tired, my hands wavering, not grabbing what I asked them to
Why does it want me
I keep asking myself as I run over and over, doing the same task
Why is it chasing me, why is it hurting me, why can’t I win this
I’ve done this so many times now, repetition never winning
Glowing eyes and sharp teeth, I’m not even scared anymore
I’m running
But I have to win this
I need to get away, get away, run, I need to make my way out of here
Every time I try I lose to this-this thing
It’s not even fair, I’ve tried so hard, tried every trick, but it seems I can’t get away
No safe spots in this chase, no safe spots any time I try
I can’t win this stupid race against time
I’m running
Not even a branching maze, I must berate myself
I take the same path every time, the right path, the one I should take
And the few times I’ve run to a different path, I simply get caught faster
I’m so tired of this
I’m running
Let’s try this again
After all, what’s one more life
I’m not gonna see Game Over this time
——
Little bit of wacky freeform there. Someone playing a video game and never managing to win in this one race, no matter how much they try.
you
hurt me.
I tried to make it better and
you
hurt me.
I tried to live my life happy
I tried to be carefree
I tried to see what you see
but I can’t see
I am blind
because
you
hurt me.
I wanted to start over
To say the lies were through
I simply want to let you know
How much one soul could do
To change your skewed perception
Of the life we all must lead
I tried to help you realize, but
you
hurt me.
She can never love you
Her heart can never feel
Her soul cannot discern between
Infatuation and what’s real
But I knew for so much time
That what burned inside my chest
Was love! and not a simple crush
and not just interest.
I tried to be your friend.
I tried to let it be
I tried my best to stop my heart
To hope that this would never start
Again and tear what’s left apart
but
you
hurt me.
Homer’s chronology
Won’t mean a thing
Four books in the past tense
To explain everything.
Telemachus leaves
Penelope grieves
(Actually, that’s what she does all throughout the story so forget about that.)
MEANWHILE
Odysseus sails
To tell all his tales.
THEN
Ithaca at last!
Heroes disguised.
AND
Athena flies off
Telemachus’s guide.
THEN
Everyone meets and I haven’t read the end.
What a crazy epic!
But it’s still really…Grand.
Control
I cannot show my mother my wrist
scattered with the red half-moon marks left by my nails
She will not understand
that the pain allows me to be in control
even when I’m so far out of control
that I’ve lost myself.
I control the pain.
I control the emotions through my head by replacing them
the adrenaline rush to my brian.
I know it’s wrong
to hurt myself. I disappoint myself every time
because I was out of control enough to resort to this.
But I keep losing control, and I need the control
Sometimes it’s all I have.
I’m sure they could give me medicine
to lessen the need for control
and maybe to keep my emotions in control in the first place.
But I don’t want medicine.
The control allows me to create my art
my arguments, math, science, english…it all hinges on my need for control.
Once I lose that what will I have left?
Who will I be?
As for the emotions, as for the panic,
my brian is my brian
and once I surrender it to chemicals
I will not be myself.
I’ve worked too hard to be myself
to let meds destroy me.
My mother would be so disappointed,
if she saw this.
She would think she’s failed me.
She hasn’t failed me.
I have.
I just want to say that I think all your poems are amazing.
Seconded.
Thank you.
I almost cried. This is very… what’s-the-word… evocative.
That means a lot to me, actually. Not making you cry, of course, but transferring emotion through my poems. I was crying when I wrote it.
Wow, that’s really good!
It’s a beautiful poem, but I’m still worried. I know it gives you control, and that control does help you, but the long and short of it is that you’re hurting yourself. I don’t want you to do that. *hugs*
You need to find a better way to control yourself.
You think I haven’t tried? This is a last resort. A horrible last resort, but a last resort nonetheless. My mind requires absolute control, and we can discuss why that is but it’ll take a few weeks and range from previous emotional trauma to OCD tendencies to just plain my-mind-works-differently-and-always-has.
I still am trying, though.
Look. You just got the Internet equivalent of a group hug. I, for one, know plenty about your neuroses, and hate seeing you do this.
Maybe we can’t do a whole lot, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean we’ll stop trying.
I appreciate it. I really do.
I’m not particularly pleased with the arrangement either.
The Accountant.
A man sat alone in his chair
Blue cubicle walls formed his lair
He searched his computer
But found not one suitor
For no matchmaking site deemed him fair.
This is why I don’t write poetry more often.
[This belongs with the conversation about art, it follows comment 96.1.1.2.1.2.1.1.2.8. I’m posting it here because it got kind of long.]
Of course, it’s also possible to dissect a butterfly after it dies. There’s no cruelty in that, is there? And what about dung beetles? On the other hand, you can’t kill a rainbow, to use another popular trope for these sorts of discussions. Is the display any less beautiful if you know the science behind its making?
Beatrix Potter’s watercolors are very sweet, but the keen observations rendered in her drawings resulted from the numerous hours she spent dissecting animals.
How do authors create believable characters without metaphorically dissecting themselves and the people they know? Most writers of my acquaintance would agree that we’re something like vampires, feeding off the lives of other people (and ourselves, too).
After the Impressionists became popular, they were often derided for being too pretty and too pleasing. Yet the Impressionists were among the most analytical of artists.
Claude Monet made a painting of his wife on her death bed. “I found myself at daybreak at the bedside of a dead woman who had been and always will be dear to me. My gaze was fixed on her tragic temples, and I caught myself observing the shades and nuances of colour Death brought to her countenance. Blues, yellows, greys, I don’t know what. That is the state I was in. The wish came upon me, quite naturally, to record the image of her who was departing from us for ever. But before it occurred to me to draw those features I knew and loved so well, I was first and foremost devastated, organically, automatically, by the colours. Against my will, my reflexes took possession of me in an unconscious process, as the everyday course of my life took over. Like a draught animal working at the millstone. Pity me, my friend.”
To me that story epitomizes the moment of the artist, regardless of how one defines the artwork itself. Monet was as devastated by his art as by his loss and each contributed to the fullness of the other. He expressed his love and began his mourning even as he focused on the mechanics of painting.
Maybe I should just shut up, but I’ve gone this far…so I will add that for me making art is not about breaking things. Breaking is simply way too mild a word. Art is about shattering things, smashing them down to their bones, to their atoms, to their inner particles, to the space between — and then healing them back into a whole. (That last bit is important, though also the part that people are most likely to forget)
Lady B. is speaking as an artist, of course. I’m just a spectator. Offhand, however, I can’t think how analyzing a work of art — looking at it more carefully, finding out more about it — would ruin my ability to appreciate it. If I admired a painting, I don’t see any harm in knowing who painted it, when and in which country, something about the artist’s life, what the artist was trying to accomplish, what other artists influenced en, the techniques used to paint it, even the chemical composition of the pigments and glazes. I also wouldn’t mind thinking about why it affected me the way it did, or how it might have affected the people who first saw it. The same goes for music, literature, or any other type of art.
There is one exception: some of the “questions for discussion” we had for school assignments were pretty deadly. For example, when I was in seventh or eighth grade, we read short stories and had to identify each story’s theme. Every story, the teacher told us, had a theme — not more than one, but exactly one. The theme could be described in exactly one way, as a clause starting with the word “that.” We couldn’t say that the theme of a story was “friendship” or “betrayal.” Instead, for each story, we had to write a sentence that began “The theme of this story is that…”
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what the teacher wanted. I asked, “Is the theme like a moral?” No, the teacher said; a story doesn’t necessarily have a moral, but it does have a theme. It was frustrating, because there was supposed to be a right answer, and I wanted very much to get it, but I just couldn’t see it. Since then I’ve read hundreds of short stories, but I still don’t know what the teacher was driving at. To this day, if I were to read a story and then have to finish the sentence “The theme of this story is that _____________________,” I couldn’t do it.
(On the other hand, I don’t think I let that assignment spoil any stories for me. If I enjoyed them, I enjoyed them, and I was happy enough to think about them in other ways.)
I never understood the theme thing either. What was the point? Fortunately, I made it through five years of graduate studies in writing and literary theory without ever once being asked to identify a theme.
This conversation has given me an idea: could we make a thread for analyzing art? It would be sort of like the book club idea that failed, but more general. Every Sunday a work of art would be decided upon–a painting, a poem, a short story, a song, a movie, a sculpture. For the rest of the week we would discuss and analyze that work of art. The following Sunday the process would begin anew. Perhaps the pacing could be extended to every two weeks, if one week isn’t enough time.
That sounds cool! Seconded!
This was originally going to be used in some writing I was doing- and I’m still going to use it, but it’s been postponed, so yeah…
Thirteen years have come and passed
Sand is running down the hourglass
Time is a futile, fleeting thing
Can you hear them starting to sing?
Above the ticking of the clock
tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock
the sound
will resound
through cavern, hill, glade and glen
but we’ll all gather here again
before the singing…
stops
for thirteen years we’ve heard it sing
been driven mad by the crazy, wild ring
the last song of time
The thief’s reign of clocks and gears
mechanical whirligigs, grease, good cheer
will end tonight after thirteen journeys
seven attempts and too many stories
before the song ends you must recover the ring
or they’ll never ever sing
I don’t believe I’ve posted this here before. Apologies for the lack of line breaks; I wrote it to read out loud and I’m still trying to edit it into a more readable form.
On November 9, 1938, Jewish windows shattered across Germany and my grandfather woke in the night. Seven years old and he woefully watched as the Gestapo wrested his father from his mother’s arms; as a good-bye present they wrenched the phones from the walls. Arrested and in a cattle car to Buchenwald, he came home eighteen days later–the number of life for Opa Felix. On New Year’s Eve they were on a train to Switzerland (Happy Hanukkah). Three years later my grandfather started school in America. It was his fourth year in the first grade, an expert in stringing beads on cord, what they did in the first grade in Germany, in Adelboden, Geneva, in God Bless America. Land of opportunity: seven years later Grandpa was at an Ivy and my family had a chicken farm and a new life. Felix’s son Joachim, James, my grandfather, begot Eric begot Abby and here I stand today. Other kids learn about the Holocaust from history books, but for me it’s beads of my ancestors’ lives: papers and relics and medals and photos of dead relatives who didn’t get out in time. I’ve seen some of those medals, carried on a train by a man who thought metal and ribbon and the arm he lost for his country would save him from death by gas, by freezing, we don’t know how he died. The medals didn’t make it that far, taken from him and filed with his life in a drawer to be found by my generation as we search out the beads missing from our chains of history and add to them our own stories. A year ago I saw my first Holocaust movie and I cried (it would have been me in that shower room pounding at the doors and I would have been that smoke), I read my favorite book and cry (it would have been me marching down that street and scrambling for bread), I hear about the kids who painted a swastika on the house down the road and I cry (because I know it still could be me). Across the world we are turned to hating, not just Jews but Blacks and Muslims and homosexuals and everyone who is not us. And if we don’t get our **** together I hear there are still some barracks in Germany that we one day again may fill. Oseh shalom bimrumav, hu ya’aseh shalom, aleinu v’alkol yisrael v’imru amen, may God make peace for us, now, before the beads are scattered beyond repair, before we have another Holocaust of hatred on our hands, amen.
This is beautiful… It’s so poignant.
Thanks
Not of Lying:
Staying in PJs
past 2pm
and watching movies on the computer.
plodding around the internet
reading entire book series
Skipping breakfast
Eating Ramen or leftovers when I’m hungry
Which isn’t till 1 at the earliest
playing guitar
Prowling the house
looking for something to do
blasting music
that my parents would raise their eyebrows at
not for profanity or explicitly
but because they don’t equate it with me.
This is me alone.
This is not who my parents know.
Not the girl they raised, the girl they
expect me to be.
They think they have me figured out.
In their own way they’ve forced me into a box
and though I push against the lid
the weight of their probable disappointment
is too much for me.
They think they know me better than I do.
They don’t know me at all,
don’t understand who I am
how I express myself
and why I express myself the way I do.
Fine with my sexuality
but unable to comprehend
why it was important for me to come out.
I told them I was sick of lying.
In reality, though,
I came out because
who I was inside
was so distant from who everyone saw outside
that a pit of snakes grew in my belly
and I retreated inside myself
to fight them, prevent them from eating me alive
and so did not live on the outside any more.
I was sick, not of lying, but of everyone assuming I was one person
when I knew I was another.
I am sick, not of lying, but of my parents assuming I’m one person
when i know I am another
Yet the box stays closed
and I ponder:
they don’t know me at all
how well
do I really know them?
Forgotten
The lives you never
Lived
The lives you lived
That were never lived
Or lived
And forgotten
The worlds you’ve missed
The times you
Cannot see
That reside among
The universe
Forgotten
Or the words
You never wrote
but never remember
The words your wrote
That never were
Listened to
The lives
That were never written
The words
By anybody
Even you.
Forgotten
For eternity
The lives
That were never written
The worlds you’ve missed
The times you
Cannot see
That reside among
The universe
Forgotten
Lived
The lives you lived
For eternity
The lives
That were never written
Lived
but never remember
The words your wrote
That never were
For eternity
The lives
That were never written
The words
That were lived
But left to
Even you.
Forgotten
The words
Cut and paste,
Cut and paste.
Not a world
Not a line
Not a life
For eternity
Vanish
From eternity
That reside among
The forgotten
The words
That are forgotten
The repeated lives
That were never lived
Or lived
And forgotten
Or the words
You never wrote
Or forgotten
The poem
The words
Cut and paste,
Cut and paste.
Not a world
Not a line
Not a life
Not a word
Forgotten
Forgotten
((An experiment to see just how linear or non linear my poems are. I wrote a short poem, and then copied and pasted pieces all around to mess up the flow. Does it still make sense?
Yup. Still makes sense. Though I’d say that’s more to do with your skill with words than the linearillness (probably not a word….) of your poems.
Me? Skill with words?
Whenever I read my poems, it feels like I’m just reading words someone barfed up onto a page. Which is sort of what I do. Or a monologue.
You write. Not everyone who writes has skill with words, but people who write for fun generally do. People who are not skilled at something often don’t enjoy it very much.
That was… fairly deep.
(Though I have to say that’s not really true about fanfiction.)
Maybe people who actually know they aren’t skilled at something don’t enjoy it very much. Fanfiction writers who type Review Replies such as “omg ur just jealous of my riting skills!!!!!1 if u dont lyk it then dont read it duuuuuh also teh spellcheck is baised against me so their” usually aren’t aware that they’re bad writers.
And besides, I suspect that for bad fanfiction writers (and not just fanfiction! Stephenie Meyer shows every sign of loving writing), the reason they write isn’t quite the same as the reason others write. I, personally, write because I enjoy having created something good. If it makes people feel an emotion they wouldn’t have felt otherwise, or think a thought they wouldn’t have thought otherwise, I feel like I’ve succeeded.
Bad writers don’t seem to write for an audience. Okay, good writers don’t need to write for an audience either, but what the reader will think is usually included at least a little, if they’re going to share it with a larger audience. Bad writers just go “dont like dont read” and click “post”. The pleasure for them isn’t in having created something new, it’s in having something for themselves. That didn’t make sense but it’s the closest I can get.
There’s some pithy quote I wish I could remember, but ti goes something like this: Wise men are aware of their lack of knowledge, fools think they are brilliant because they cannot see that there is so much more to learn.
So yeah, I think you’re exactly on target there.
((I just wanted to say, since I have been reading this thread for the better part of an hour, Clare de Lune, your poetry is amazing.))
I know! And she’s so prolific! We’re so lucky to have her!
Wow. Thanks. This is sort of embarrassing…
Thing is, though, I can’t tell my good poems from my less-than-good poems, so I sort of assume they’re all less-than-good. What makes my poems good? It’s sort of bugging me cause I can’t tell.
You say true things.
You make your emotions clear, and your style — I’m not sure how to describe it – let’s say “stream of consciousness” style is very good. There isn’t really any poem of yours on this thread that I don’t like. Your poems don’t rhyme, but they don’t need to. Actually, after reading your poems, rhyming seems sort of shallow.
Disclaimer: Radiant_Darkness is not a poetry critic and his opinions should not be relied upon often. Or at all.
AN ODE TO THE EARTH
When you think about it I mean really think about it
the universe is nothing but
dark
cold
lifeless
empty space.
There are colorful beautiful
pinkandgreenandblue nebulae miracles
floating through the darkness without a hint of twitch/motion or word/sound
without a breath of heartbeat inside them
part of the endless field of starry tapestry shining nothing
and have you ever looked up at the sky on a clear night and thought
“we are so small insignificant humble specks of dust breaths of air nothing are we”
just a tiny spinning dot in a tiny spinning system in a tiny spinning galaxy in a huge empty/cold/dark/lifeless universe?
It is true. I have seen it.
I have seen, too, a firework, bursting across the night sky.
Colorful beautiful
redandgoldandgreen pyrotechnic miracles
exploding through the darkness declaring there is twitch/motion and word/sound
screaming out defiance against the silence of the stars
sparks leaving bright trails along the great celestial tapestry
only lasting for a burst of a quarter of a second before drifting itself into smoke along the wind
such a bright blazing fire in a cold starry sky
against all odds against alll expectations against the empty/cold/dark/lifeless universe.
This, too, is real.
Fiery volcanoes erupting,
magma flowing,
fire bursting,
boiling.
The red sun.
Deep craters,
scars from past wars,
covered,
pale white,
in ice.
The small moon.
Fire and ice,
water and soil,
beauty and ugliness,
The mighty Earth.
Comments, please?
Ineffable
I, who think in words,
cannot describe you in words.
It’s not that I don’t know you
I know you well.
I can talk about you
about your cats and who you were in Crucible and your older brother and your dislike of English 9 and your love of art and the beautiful swirling designs you draw and the hands you draw so well and your smile, such an amazing smile it is, a gift, and your hair cut short and how quiet you are until you start talking.
But I cannot describe that smile
or your voice
or even your hair.
I cannot describe how I feel when you hold me
my head against your shoulder
breathing in the scent of you
I cannot describe that scent
my head against your soft, plaid, shirt
When I see you, gravity lessens
when you hold my hand, it is impossible to be truly unhappy
And when you hold me, I feel safe
and ineffable.
And when my mother asks me what you are like
All I can think of is that ineffable feeling
and you become ineffable.
That is my favorite word for a reason. (And Aziraphale has only a bit to do with it, I swear)
Snow
Light storm clouds
roll overhead
too light for thunder
but not ignored
the temperture dips
the sun is hidden
the road ices over
and white flakes fall
like pices of heavan
rare
special
perfect
for seconds
I am in awe
as the snow falls
carpeting the world
in bright
clean
white.
Press play
the winter wonderland
is only perfect
clean
bright
for seconds.
Stomped
Thrown
Kicked
Melted.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( Oh well. I enjoy it while it lasts. XD)
I shall resist the urge to be a spelling Nazi and just compliment you on the poem. I love that feeling too, where everything’s so perfectly white and frozen. Seems sort of like a private moment.
Ooh, very nice Pie Girl!
I agree.
Love as I know it
What is love?
There is no guideline, no rule book
“you’ll know” they say
but when I was young
what I thought love was
is so very different from what love is now.
So love grows with us, within us
a shifting form felt not inside our mind
but in the pit of our bellies
in listening to heartbeats and wondering
how ours still sound the same
when they feel so different,
so changed.
When I see her my heart leaps
and I am effervescent
when she holds my hand my mind jumbles
and has not the coherence to be afraid
and when she holds me
I am infinite
my soul stretched across the bounds of time
in connection with all souls from the dawn of humanity to its end
in connection with all souls who felt love
We’ve so much time ahead of us
being but 14 for me, 16 for her
She may not be “the one”
But that does not mean I do not love her.
I may not know what love is
but right now, I love her.
Perhaps I do not love her in the same way that I would love her
had we met in a decade and fallen in love by our definition
at that time.
But right here, right now
by love as I know it in this moment,
I love her.
“What is love?
Baby, don’t hurt me
Don’t hurt me
No more”
I had to; I am never able to read or hear the words “What is love?” without thinking of that song.
*mauls Piggy*
you know this spot in the conversation
spilling your bag of words
why do you try to impress them upon her skin?
she’ll shrug them off like raindrops to the linoleum
they’ll land in puddles for you to mop up
to swallow again.
maybe this time she’ll listen.
Typo gnome? you, not your, in the fifth line, if you would be so kind. thanks!
Sometimes I wish
Sometimes I wish that I could read people’s thoughts
And not go through
the pain
of guessing
and second-guessing
of interpreting
and re-interpreting
their actions and meanings
Sometimes I wish that I could see people’s emotions
And know
whether they laughed
because it was funny
or because it was me
Sometimes I wish that I could just ask people
if it is purely platonic
or if it’s more
Sometimes I wish that I would know
if ten years from now
they would remember me
as the one who got away
or as a piece of dust
present but inconsequential
and unrelated to their lives
or not at all
Sometimes I wish that my wishes would be granted
And that all will be well
And that no pain is permanent
Sometimes I wish
Don’t we all?
The Song Is You
(may appear to be slightly short; however, it is longer than life in my eyes)
The song is you.
With the noterity of our past
I can’t subsist without his flattery.
He thinks it’s all innocuous,
Yet the pain does not escape.
He flouts me, doubts me,
But can’t live without me.
As the neonate cries,
The pain learns to gently subside.
I only wish he knew,
The song was always you….
Beautiful. I love the rhyming in the 6th/7th lines.
I love it. *gives thumbs up*
Running and running
and staying the same
waiting and waiting
no one calls my name;
I’m tired of crying
the world is dying
and falling around my feet
but I don’t really mind
Anymore
the wind blows in my face
I can’t breathe
can’t remember why this had to
Happen
the cold bites at my bare fingers
but I don’t notice
I’m watching the cold sun
rise and set
set and rise
watching the world
crumble to dust
everything’s gone.
Tears
freezing in my eyelashes
as my fingers turn to ice,
just like yours would have
if you had tried to take your life that night.
Except my fingers will warm
eventually
and yours would have never been warm again.
But time keeps moving
the world never stops.
The wind doesn’t care, love.
Marvelous as always, Fireh. I loved how it was written; in that, I was able to visualize every line.
Really? Thanks!
Dreadfully sad, but dreadfully beautiful.
I can’t think
can’t breathe
can’t look
(stop)
I can’t wake
can’t start
I’m shook
(stop)
can’t see your face
or hear your name
knowing things will never be the same
when the race is run, for life’s a game
and it starts with your heart
and plays with your mind
and then once you’ve been trapped for years
you find
that the only way to reach the end’s
when you stop
when I stop
when we stop
I was kind of on a roll yesterday, so….
“Soul”
In this moment
I cannot tell
if my heart is exploding
or shrinking.
And I am filled with longing
with tangible absence
yet I am unsure
what this moment lacks
I wonder if I have a soul
and if so, if it has flown off
to live my dreams
to satisfy the longing.
Perhaps in doing so
it has left me with a gaping void
to be filled solely by its presence
to be filled as I live my dreams
and find my soul.
“Running Low”
As a pen runs low on ink
the once smooth glide across the paper
rustles and scratches like leaves in fall
trodden upon by children off to school.
As a soul runs low on emotion
what once flew on silver wings
with the blessing of the sun
retreats into a cave so dark
that not even loose shadows of form
are visible on its walls.
As a river runs low on water
the once powerful current
becomes so weak it cannot
carry but a leaf.
As a heart runs low on love
it drains the pen of ink
the soul of emotion
and the river of water
until the whole wide world
is caught in empty
deathly
stillness.
Yet the heart still beats
and you go on living
wondering wide-eyed
at the grey hell
beneath your feet.
“Error in Communication”
Error in communication
flashes the computer screen
Error in communication
beats my heart
when I cannot work up the nerve
to tell my family
the important thoughts of mine
for fear of their response
Error in Communication
breathes my lungs
when I do not tell her
what’s in my heart
for shyness
Error in communication
step my feet
when they do not understand.
Error in communication
Error in communication
Bang, bang!
Look at you all sitting there
Listening, but you don’t care.
I know you hear me rant and rave,
Shut up here inside my grave-
Let me out, let me out!
Clang!
Shut up, you, you’re not so strong,
You’re annoying, class is long-
Cease your bawling, ever crawling,
You belong inside your grave,
We’ll ignore you rant and rave!
Clank clank!
What makes you say things like that?
You would know if you were trapped!
Every day, for a whole hour-
Just let me out, you have the power!
Crash!
You’re not worthy to be free,
Making noise, distracting me!
What would you wreak if you were out?
Troll, remain and stew in doubt.
Rattle bang!
You wench, you girl, you make me burn!
You’re here; release me, take your turn-
Don’t make me sit and simmer here,
While I wait for freedom to appear!
Clink clink clink!
You are just where you belong,
To release you would be wrong!
I’ll never heed your woeful howls-
Heating up this old school’s bowels!
radiator!
I won’t let you out!
A Reason
When I see you
with him
smiling
laughing
holding hands
My heart stops.
I want to be happy because you are happy.
It doesn’t work that way.
I want to move on and find someone else.
It doesn’t work that way either.
Because my heart stops
for a reason.
Hurrah for spontaneous poetry!
Sparkle
If you ever watched
People playing a game
Not invited
Not included
But still smiling, still enjoying
You might see something hanging there
At the edge of your vision
Watching you
Someone watching you
If you ever wondered
Why the sky was blue
Sitting in the middle of a field
Staring at the sky
Daydreaming
You might see something glimmering
At the edge of your vision
You might notice that
Someone is watching you
If you ever laughed
Loud, with you head thrown back
At a bad joke
Or a look on a friends face
Or anything of importance
You might see someone watching
At the edge of your vision
Some who’s alway watching you
And if you ever asked Why,
Why are you watching me?”
They will answer,
Because no matter what you do
You are happy,
No matter what you do
You sparkle
The Face in the Window
A bike whips down the dusty road
The girl with the red hair races by again
You remember the day
Two years ago
When she rode
Around the gritty corner
Like a slow-motion action scene
Out of a movie in the old movie theater
That you like to sneak into
You can see it
All over again
The bike leans too far
The pedal scrapes against the ground
And you wince
As time speeds up and the bike spins off into a ditch
The girl of now has raced by
But you are stuck back in time
Fixed in place by that window
Again
You see the girl of then disentangle herself
And fall to the ground again
Clutching her ankle
You know it’s broken
You heard it in town a few weeks after the accident
But it’s not her pain that makes you wince
In your mind you see
Her face
Turned up to the window
The second story window that you sat at
That you sit at
You can see her see you
And you’re frozen
Because you know you can’t help
You want to
You can’t
You know you never could have helped
And you turn away from the window
Just as you did then
To her
You are just a face in the window
A ghost
That nobody remembers
Which is good
Of course
You’re not supposed to be in here
But nobody ever rents this house
And so you are here
Every day
And every night
Sleeping on the bed in the spare room
Sitting at the desk after school
How you get away with living across town
From your parents
You don’t know
The girl’s trouble’s aren’t your own
The only thing you owe to her is that
She didn’t report you
And so you don’t bother
After all, to her,
You are just a face in the window.
Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, –
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain –
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: – Do I wake or sleep?
I’m terrified.
Terrified that one day
someone will say to me
“You need meds to take that away”
I don’t mind the thought of it’s absence,
simply it’s removal. I have had it all my life
the numbing, gripping panic
the need for control.
These things are not how I define myself
yet they have slowly leaked into all aspects of me
I am interwoven
so I fear that tugging one ugly strand of my mind
will bring the rest of me crashing down
falling to oblivion.
All I have is my mind
flawed or not, it is mine
Mine! I say.
My precious.
I am Golem and it is all I have
huddled in the dark cave of the world
my precious and I.
Now I am threatened to have my mind taken away
but my mind itself.
I especially like the turn of phrase “ugly strand of my mind.”
One thing I should point out, though, is that “Golem” is the animated-by-holy-words automaton of Jewish folklore and “Gollum” is the person famous for “My precious.”
Oops. My spelling is atrocious at best. I meant Gollum.
last line should be “by my mind itself” sorry!
I usually don’t try to rhyme with my poetry, but I figured I might as well see if I can. It’s kind of an ABCB pattern, if that exists (B lines rhyme).
In My Eyes
If you could see inside me
I wonder what you would find
Because hiding behind my bangs
There is a soul in my eyes
Look through my eyeliner
Look beyond the times I lied
If you saw straight through me
You’d see a soul in my eyes
It’s not always present
But you can see it when I cry
When I don’t have to remind you
Of the soul in my eyes
I hope it lasts forever
I hope it never dies
There is no denying
The soul in my eyes
If you could see inside me
I know what you would find
Because hiding behind my bangs
There is a soul in my eyes
Are my poems better or worse with rhyming? I can’t tell.
One day I will die.
Have lifeless marble eyes,
have no motion,
no emotion.
No fear,
happiness,
sadness,
or shock,
they will all,
dissipate,
like snow in the blazing sun.
Today,
I will live.
The snow is falling.
The shining sun,
yet to emerge.
For post 108.1.1.1.1.1 – I think I fit in the bad writers category, except I like making things, not just for myself…… ?
it would be easier
if I didn’t know
had no clue how you are.
it would be easier
if we’d never met
and I’d known you from afar.
it would be easier
if you hadn’t barged
one day into my world
and left it to
come crashing down
and watched it all unfurl.
it would be easier
if you would
show up
at my front door
could lift me up
and twirl me
all around my kitchen floor
it would be easier
if you just see
how happy I’d make you
how much I care
and just how much
my heart is going through
and if I had known
when we first met
the pain of being friends
I would have turned
around and brought
such good times
to an end.
it would be easier
if for one moment
you could see
that the girl you wish for
the one you want
still sleeps
inside of me
but I’m not easy,
nor are you
and so it has to be.
An Object In Motion (I’m experimenting with applying slightly (slightly being the key word) more rigid forms)
An object in motion
stays in motion.
Simple.
Unless acted upon by an outside force.
Complicated.
When I was born
My life was set in motion
Simple.
But every person I meet, every word I read
Every life that touches mine is an outside force.
Complicated.
In the beginning the loom of the fates
was neat and clean, each strand separate
Simple.
Fifteen years later all that’s left is a gigantic snarl
strands wrapped around each other, denser than my brain itself
Complicated.
As anyone versed in textiles knows, when the knot is bad enough
It is inevitable that some strands be cut.
Simple.
But which strands to choose?
Which strands to salvage?
Complicated.
I love her
Simple.
But the world is
Complicated.
The glass was full but now it is half empty.
What used to entertain me, now puts me to sleep.
Stacks of paper loom before my eyes.
Whenever I finish, they always reappear.
The same papers, essays.
But the information has been wiped from my mind.
I laboriously redo them.
Continuing for infinity.
Each time with less care.
The cycle continues.
Never stopping.
My glass has been emptied.
Only a few drops left.
(my hate of school) Anyway, I hate school, and writing for school. I don’t mind doing it for fun though. And if I keep doing it, maybe someday I will be good. (hopefully) My mom wants to send me to a shrink…
SFTDP
I meant to put the period after hopefully, I don’t want to go to a shrink.
…good (hopefully). My….
I really like the first line…rhythm would be better though in my opinion if it was “the glass was full but now half empty” That could just be me. The wonder of poetry is that grammar can be forgone for the sake of rhythm or consonance or sound just in general.
Ah! Yeah, it would be better that way, thanks for the comment!
GAPA’s, could there be a Poems and Songs, v. 2011 thread made please?
It is 2011. My brain just exploded.
I know the feeling.
How the time flies…
Weird.