Because life would be worse without verse.
Continued from version 2010.
Patience, Please
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Because life would be worse without verse.
Continued from version 2010.
To kick it off, a New Year’s poem by Thomas Hardy (the contradancers out there should appreciate this especially):
“At the Entering of the New Year”
Our songs went up and out the chimney,
And roused the home-gone husbandmen;
Our allemands, our heys, poussettings,
Our hands-across and back again,
Sent rhythmic throbbings through the casements
On to the white highway,
Where nighted farers paused and muttered,
“Keep it up well, do they!”
The contrabasso’s measured booming
Sped at each bar to the parish bounds,
To shepherds at their midnight lambings,
To stealthy poachers on their rounds;
And everybody caught full duly
The notes of our delight,
As Time unrobed the Youth of Promise
Hailed by our sanguine sight.
Options
There are always options.
There is always a way out.
There is always a way to escape the pain.
To get away
to retreat
to dodge
to duck
to run.
There are always options.
Some options can only work once.
Sometimes once is enough.
Sometimes there are no good options.
But there are always options.
And if it gets to the point
where it is more than I can bear
I know what I can do
And maybe what I will do.
Because there are always options.
Do I get the meaning of my poems across well enough? I can’t tell.
Yeah, it makes sense. I wish I was that optimistic.
I just wrote a poem in spanish about Lenin. It’s painfully bad. I think it may be the worst I’ve ever written…*shudders* Now, to the point:
Stop:
Stop
They tell you
Stop and think
But I am always thinking
every moment of every day
my head is never silent
So Stop
I tell you
Stop thinking
See what happens in the silence.
Or maybe stop speaking.
(Ooh, you’ve got me thinking! Tall order at this time)
The hardest: To stop dreaming. I love the poem. No matter what you say about it being terrible. I love it.
It wasn’t this poem she said was terrible. It was the one is Spanish about Lenin, which she didn’t put on the blog.
NEW THREAD YAY
IT MAKES MY DAY
A masterpiece.
Callooh Callay!
Curious Ramblings I
What is it about us
that gives us this altered sense
So much more aware of her presence
of her movements
without thought
It’s like I’ve turned into a time bomb
diffused only by being with her
At the end of the day if I haven’t seen her enough
my entire body aches with longing and snakes crawl in my stomach
I get the sense with her
just by knowing she’s near, not even seeing
that I’ve never gotten before
and that is addictive
I search for when it is gone
always to turn up empty-handed
and stuck inside my self
There are those who can pull me out of myself
but not without effort, without pain
with her though,
she extends an arm and I clasp her hand
gently pulling back to reality
“Curiosity”
I got an idea and ran.
“mother, what is a funeral like?â€
sorry my darling, i can’t say
“what about uncleâ€
i cannot say
my darling, one day
you will go to
a funeral
my darling, one day
you can answer
the questions
but but but
mother only smiled
grabbed her darling
till dinner was ready
and mouths were full
she went to a funeral
one day
it was her mother’s
finally
finally she went to see
she marched up the church steps
into the mass
but she could not see a thing
her tears blurred it all.
she smiled
“mother, what is a funeral like?â€
my darling, i can’t say
And now a pantoum.
“Red Pens”
Red Pens-correcting tests
Blue Pens-making answers
Bullies beating pests
My mind, a tap dancer
Blue Pens-making answers
Faltering, waiting, doubting
My mind, a tap dancer
Wandering, laughing, shouting
Faltering, waiting, doubting
Never quite sure
Wandering, laughing, shouting
Taking quite a detour
Never quite sure
The Places it could take me
Taking quite a detour
Cities, Forests, Undersea
The Places it could take me
The work I’ve done so well
Cities, Forests, Undersea
Just waiting for that bell
The work I’ve done so well
I want it to pay off so badly
Just waiting for that bell
Wandering around, sadly
I want it to pay off so badly
There is a place I can go
Wandering around, sadly
I’m sure I will know
There is a place I can go
I go to a school right now
I’m sure I will know
One day I’ll leave, I vow
I go to a school right now
Bullies beating pests
One day I’ll leave, I vow
Red Pens-correcting tests.
Randomness I came up with while walking home: A Perfect World.
I dreamed I lived
In a perfect world
The sky was blue
The clouds like towers
Stretching upward to
Infinity
I dreamed of a world
The people were kind
Knew their flaws
Knew that despite our differences
That we were
All
Human
That nothing could separate
Us from each other
And I dreamed I loved.
I wake.
Silence-shattering alarm
Jolts me from sleep
Wake up, wake up
It’s time
To go.
I walk through my day
Slowly, deliberately
Knowing that at any moment
It could
All
Fall
Apart
The people who
Don’t care
Will never know
That I dreamed
I loved.
Wonderful. I haven’t read any of your poems in so long, I’d nearly forgotten you wrote…..
Awww, thanks.
I had too. It was a random idea, and lacking anything better to do on a half-hour walk, I ran with it.
I am ignoring the terrible pun in your post (terrible in a good way…sarcasm equivelant)
This is beautiful.
Lives
Life so fast
Gone in minutes
Buzzing from person to person
Never resting
And then it vanishes
Like a flame
Snuffed out
Leaving ashes
And darkness.
Life so slow
Moments lasting years
Nothing happening
Nothing changing
Nothing being done
Static boredom
And then it finally comes to an end
In a slow and painful death
And the only remnants are
A coffin and a gravestone.
Life everlasting
Moments of love
Lasting years
The life we want to live
And when it ends
We have the memories
And love
The only thing we lose
Is a future.
Wonderful, Enc.
“I am not an aardvark.
or am I? perhaps I am.
aardvarks are so cool.”
I didn’t actually write this, but I found it in a program for an MIT production of “Guys and Dolls”. It was so awesome that I had to put it here.
This is pretty much the best thing.
If you changed “I am” to “I’m,” it would be a haiku, which it seems to want to be.
Hello, THF! Happy birthday plus one!
Balance of opposites
Without death we would not have life
for death defines life.
If we did not dream we would not know what is real
for the sleeping lack of reality defines the waking world
Without delirium we would not have sanity
it is the moments we are not sane that show us when we are
Without despair there would be no joy
it is the greatest pain that causes us to appreciate happiness
If we did not desire we would not know when we are satisfied
It is the hunger that allows us to be full.
Without destruction there would be nothing complete
we do not build if the building is standing
And without destiny we would have no freedom
it is servitude that shows us when we are free.
We define in opposites
We talk in music
We think in emotion
and we feel with our whole soul
opening ourselves up to the world
and letting the universe fill us up
until we break.
(inspired by Neil Gaimen’s “The Sandman” series.)
SFTDP:
Pain beauty
My lips fracture like the desert
covering themselves in their own blood
blood lipstick
My eyes have grown deep blue
with lack of sleep
exhaustion eye shadow.
My checks are flushed pink
scalded by the sun
sunburn blush
My face is on fire with pain
Yet as I look in the mirror I am beautiful
And I realize I am more comfortable
more myself
than I would be in a dress and makeup.
The cost of beauty
as society sees it.
I know how you feel. But I can’t imagine your pain.
This is from the fairy tale “The Juniper Tree”:
My mother, she slew me
My father, he ate me
My sister, Marlene
Gathered my bones
Tied them in silk
For the juniper tree.
Tweet, tweet, what a fine bird am I!
I usually don’t try do write songs, but this poem kind of started rhyming and becoming verses. I just went with the flow.
Heartbreaker
You’re not the classic heartbreaker
Though you’re pretty and vivacious
You’ve got other weapons
You’re kind, positive, loquacious
You’re not the classic heartbreaker
But you’re a heartbreaker all the same
For the rupture in my heart
You’re the only one to blame
Heartbreaker, heartbreaker
You’ve killed me from my core
Heartacher, heartacher
Do you have a heart anymore?
You’re the worst kind of heartbreaker
I can’t even hate you
The harder I try, the harder I fall
I can’t even say, “Adieu”
You’re the worst kind of heartbreaker
Look at me as proof
My pain is so bad it’s visible
And yet you stay aloof
Heartbreaker, heartbreaker
You’ve killed me from my core
Heartacher, heartacher
Do you have a heart anymore?
If you had a heart then you would finish what you started
If you had a heart then you would finish what you started
If you had a heart then you would finish what you started
If you have a heart, then FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED!
Heartbreaker, heartbreaker
You’ve killed me from my core
Heartacher, heartacher
Do you have a heart anymore?
If you had a heart then you would finish what you started
If you had a heart then you would finish what you started
If you had a heart then you would finish what you started
If you have a heart then FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED!
I’m not much of a songwriter, I know.
After my brother forced me to listen to the “Sunny D and Rum video more times than I can count, I had to suppress the urge to begin this post with, “Hello, I’m going to be doing an original song, that I wrote.” It took all of my willpower.
I like this a lot.
Thanks. Sorry if my poems seem a little single-minded — the one I’m about to post was going to be a happy poem without even mentioning her but I just started writing a line that included her and then another and another until the main idea got lost and the other, more sad idea emerged. If I can remember it, I might post the happy one. Not that I’m good at writing happy poems.
I sold another poem, by the way.
Congratulations!
The Queen of Carthage
by Louise Glück
Brutal to love,
more brutal to die.
And brutal beyond the reaches of justice
to die of love.
In the end, Dido
summoned her ladies in waiting
that they might see
the harsh destiny inscribed for her by the Fates.
She said, “Aeneas
came to me over the shimmering water;
I asked the Fates
to permit him to return my passion,
even for a short time. What difference
between that and a lifetime: in truth, in such moments,
they are the same, they are both eternity.
I was given a great gift
which I attempted to increase, to prolong.
Aeneas came to me over the water: the beginning
blinded me.
Now the Queen of Carthage
will accept suffering as she accepted favor:
to be noticed by the Fates
is some distinction after all.
Or should one say, to have honored hunger,
since the Fates go by that name also.â€
Some would contest that it is more brutal to love than to die.
is that the point though
actually she pretty much says that in the next two lines :/
The Opposite of Just Right
I stand outside in weather that is
Too cold
In my boots that are
Too big
With a shovel that is
Too rusted
Shoveling snow which is
Too plentiful
We go inside
And boil water which takes
Too long
And when it’s done the tea is
Too hot
I look at my father who is
Too strict
My mother who is
Too tired
And as I drink
I think
of you.
Too beautiful
Too perfect
And though the weather will get warmer
Though my feet will grow bigger
Though rust can be removed
Though snow will melt
Though the water will boil
Though the tea will cool
Though my father will mellow
Though my mother will rest
You will still be
Too much
for me.
Me with my eyes
Too revealing
Of the feelings
Too strong
With my heart
Too broken
And my soul
Too weak.
Does anyone think I should get rid of the ‘that is’ and the ‘which is’ parts? I wasn’t sure about putting those in.
13.1.1 — the happy version was the same until the line, “and as I drink”. It instead had
“My life
Too worthless”
It skipped forward until “And though the weather will get warmer” which was “But the weather will get warmer” and all the “though”s were “but”s.
Then after the “though/but” section, “And my life doesn’t seem so worthless after all.” I can type it out if anyone wants to read it.
So last night I kept waking up with lines of poetry stuck in my head and I couldn’t sleep until I wrote them down. Tell me what you think!
Comedy Night
NBC has this wonderful thing called comedy night
In all honesty I only like two of the shows
But because of NBC’s
“Comedy night done right”
My dad and I collage together our own comedy nights
Mom goes upstairs
she doesn’t like comedy night
I don’t know why
And Dad and I turn on the TV
and hold the kittens
and laugh
laugh away what is left unsaid
we lose ourselves in the laughter
Laugh away the awkwardness of growing up
we are ageless in the laughter
Laugh away the pain in the world
We are carefree in the laughter
Laugh away what is left unsaid
Say I love you in the laughter.
[Censored]
[censored] is the way I feel when they look at me
for they have cut away bits of my brain
leaving only what they wish to see
[censored] is how I think when I see her
for I snip away pieces of my thoughts
The ones that are true but viewed as impure
[censored] is how I talk when I’m around them
Slicing words off the tip of my tongue
Sliding my emotions into the stifling dress’s hem
[censored] is how I see when I can’t take it
forcing the pain and misery of the world
too much to deal with, I cast it in to oblivion’s pit
[censored] is how I write
when I know who’ll be reading
eliminate what is just for me, it isn’t worth the fight
[censored] is how I feel when they look at me
for they have cut away bits of my brain
leaving only what they wish to see.
Like a King on a Chessboard
Like a king on a chessboard
surrounded by enemies
devoid of his queen
abandoned by his army
I stand
Like a king on a chessboard
most of my moves
will put me in check
Like a king on a chessboard
the few moves I can make
are inadvisable
impractical
and fighting the inevitable
So,
like a king on a chessboard
I surrender.
“statuesque”
those words, isn’t he just so
yes, “a greek god, i maintain”
and so on. heartbeats beyond
all comprehension of the word. show me
happiness? “one of the most _____ _____ I have
ever had the pleasure of–”
meeting? seeing?
reconsidering? my selfishness astounds even me.
give me three words and the first two don’t count.
the wind enfolds
scape: gently
kisses
{the branches’ withered hands
extending in the bright
mist-cold
droplets beading
at their
outstretched
fingertips
pads twisted toward the sky-}
and curls around
{the brave s[pr]ing pops
tendrils reaching
dusted in white}
frost-coats the hills that roll into forever as do my eyes
and encloses the beauty the lone the desolate
snug in the muffled silence
by SBF
Some of my formatting was lost. It should read,
frost-coats the hills
that roll into forever
as do my eyes
and encloses the beauty
the lone
the desolate
snug in the muffled silence
your charcoal spheres turn:
as do i.
i see the flat plane
in relief,
s i n k i n g into
your cavity (though small)
is perfect, angular,
symmetrical and
lovely: when I
slump into your
chest we form
a simple
right triangle.
and then another,
as i shift my feet
pulse
and rock forth
a swiveling
lullaby.
by SBF
Serene
Her breath curls before her in a lazy spiral, warming the air before her chapped lips. Rubbing her pink hands together-regretting her hasty departure which left her without mittens-she stretches out on the vast white ground, staring upward. Faint white outlines drift across the pale blue canvas of the sky, illuminating the drifting flakes drawing closer.
She closes her eyes, and feels the icy touch of snowflakes on her cheek. Her limbs are slowly frosting over in the snow-her fingers isolated, growing numb. Disrupting the serene sheet, she shifts to her side and flutters her eyelids, aware of every exquisite shard seeping into her existence. She places her cheek to the cool, pale surface, and looks out at the land coated in white.
It is a white plain, stretching out as far as she can see, only broken by the trees capped with snow-each bough a delicate balance, the snow’s weight heavy upon their branches. Her gaze follows the soft shift of each pine’s offshoots-with each gust of wind, white flecks are lightly borne aloft, coiling down to the damp field. Every filmy crystal drifts in frail glory, only to meld into the boundless white extending into the distance. A regret, she thinks, and yet a triumph: they become one, all a small contribution to the beauty of the whole.
Sighing, she smooths down her wool overcoat, the coarse hairs rubbing against her frozen palms. She inhales the crisp cold air, breathing in the minty taste of winter. Her ears have grown pink in the cold, absorbing the muffled silence.
A snowflake lands beside her eyelash, and she stares- an ethereal tapestry, slowly melting into the earth below. She places her finger on it, and instantly regrets it: the beauty is gone, turned into a drop of water on her icy digit. She licks it off.
The sun looks down on the tranquility, and smiles, peering between the icy clouds. She averts her eyes, ice melting into her lashes, and a tear mixes with the sky-water dripping from her lids.
She rests, and her body melts into the earth’s.
A snowy corona, white droplets rest in a halo above her hair. Her face is coated with a thin layer of snowflakes, gradually parting and trickling into the snow. Gently parted, her lips are ice, and her hand is reached out as if to touch a snowflake.
by SBF
It’s not quite a poem, but is it close enough?
I want someone who will fight for me
in spite of me
and do all that is right
for me.
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove-
the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,
the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun
and the Sungod wiped from sight the day of their return.
Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
start from where you will – sing for our time too.
Isn’t that great?
Not in English.
Myself, I like the Aeneid.
Hic Hammone satus rapta Garamantide nympha
templa Iovi centum latis immania regnis,
centum aras posuit vigilemque sacraverat ignem,
excubias divum aeternas, pecudumque cruore
pingue solum et variis florentia limina sertis.
Isque amens animi et rumore accensus amaro
dicitur ante aras media inter numina divum
multa Iovem manibus supplex orasse supinis…
I glurgled when I analyzed these lines. So incredibly poetic (especially the second line there)–and yet it’s describing someone who’s “crazy of spirit and inflamed by bitter Rumor” and who goes on to basically trash talk Jupiter–right to his face. “‘…famamque fovemus inanem.'” (“‘…and we favor your empty fame.'”) Iarbas is quite a character.
Et iam nox umida caelo
praecipitat suadentque cadentia sider somnos.
that was my favorite, I think.
Piggy…I would have appreciated that more if it was in English. I don’t read Ancient Greek so what’s the point of posting it here?
Have you guys heard The Bagel, by David Ignatow?
I stopped to pick up the bagel
rolling away in the wind,
annoyed with myself
for having dropped it
as if it were a portent.
Faster and faster it rolled,
with me running after it
bent low, gritting my teeth,
and I found myself doubled over
head over heels, one complete somersault
after another like a bagel
and strangely happy with myself.
Vision:
I look at my arm and it’s all I see
so I wonder how
in my short sleeves
it’s been three months
and no one sees it.
Sometimes I am glad
it’s shameful, it is.
A mark of broken
proof that I’ve actually lost it
not crazy in the good way, crazy in the scary
But mostly I am confused
I have tried so long not to be invisible anymore
have I failed in this too?
I am lost.
No one sees me and yet I see myself
no one hears me and yet I cry
no one knows my pain and yet it is there, it is real
All my life they’ve warned me
not to dig myself into holes
But holes aren’t so bad
people can throw down a rope
tie around your waist, pull you up.
In a hole you can still see the light.
But I have dug myself
a pit of hell
where
no
light
shines
save the afterthought of a glimmer
that I desperately cling to
praying it’s the end of a rope.
A song, wrote it just now. Goes much better with the music I have for it in my head and the rhymes are a lot better to the tune than just read straight out. So pick something to read it to I guess.
***
there’s something to be said for the ones we leave behind
a trail of broken hearts and paper scraps
an echo in your mind
there’s something to be said for the days we can’t let go
the ones we leave behind but can’t erase
like footprints in the snow
and someday I will fall, and someday I will fly
just throw myself up off the ground and soar into the sky
someday, perhaps, I’ll think back and wonder why
a taste on my lips I can’t quite place
a melancholy wine
don’t ask me why I still see your face
in the shattered surface of the mirror I dropped last week
or why I recall your voice
with the splash of rain or laughter from the street
now I know I never loved you and I know I never will
I’d be surprised if you remembered my name
if you remember me still
and I know that there’s nothing to these train-wreck thoughts
but the distant sound of rain and glass
light-battered moths
and someday I will swim, and someday I will dive
just throw myself into the sea and be swept off by the tide
and someday, perhaps, I’ll think back wonder why
a fleeting tune I cannot place
an imprint in my mind
and I know that you’re out there
in a place too far for me to ever guess, to ever reach
and I don’t know why it matters
when I know it’s something I’ll never really seek
…
there’s something to be said for the moments we let slip away
blurs of faces, desperately clinging to
wishing they had stayed
there’s things to think about in tortured silence during those dark nights
whispered names upon your lips, beneath your skin
wonderings of falls and flight
and somedays it burns, but somedays just a broken key
dusty emotions linger even in emptiness of sky and the cluttered depths of sea
somedays, always, I think back, and wonder at what might be
and maybe someday if it rains hard enough
you’ll remember me.
This deserves to be pink.
And now it is. =bows=
-A
The Wrong Decision
Break my heart and break my bones
I reject the calls from your cellphone
You gave me your love, but it was a loan
I’m not paying interest, so go back home
Take my heart and take my life
You’ve stolen everything, but I still have a knife
It will relieve me from this pain and strife
It will relieve me from my life
You act like you want to fight
Well, at the dead of night
We’ll go out when there’s no light
And you can beat me with all your might
I’d like to think that I don’t care
But even though you were the master, I the mare
I still remember your fingers running through my hair
I still miss you, as you lurk in your lair
If you were a flower, you’d be a rose
Thorns surround you, as everyone knows
But I fell for you, and it was me you chose
And now I lie here, writing this prose
And now you are dressed in your prettiest clothes
And now you strike your prettiest pose
And your kisses find me, the ones that you blow
I turn away, my body goes
Yet my mind stays, and for a second I stop
Then I realize, you reap boys like crops
You’re just readying your scythe for another chop
But I duck into the nearest shop
I buy you a rose, because that’s what you are
I’ll never learn, and I never stray far
My mind is held by my heart’s jail bars
So I keep thinking of you, as I sit in the car
And the next day when I’m in your embrace
And we look at each other, I examine your face
In a beauty contest, you’d win first place
And as we walk along the water, at a very slow pace
I know I’ve made the wrong decision.
Again.
This is sad because it’s true. Except some of it is figurative.
Lesson:
If you have a choice
Choose love
Then again,
if you do not have a choice,
choose not to choose
or simply choose
not to use
the power of the beating
muscle
that rests beneath your ribs.
but, do not
over use
the love
you’ve abused
and spread to so many
a woman like me
for when you find
that each extended line
of heart and soul has
withered and died
on both ends
results in apathy
apathy
unending,
enduring,
misery
Most nights
I sit at home alone
Engulfed by the silence
and my petrified phone
afraid to hear
your voice on the line
but afraid not to hear it
and wait for all time
for however I lie
and protest them and claim
that it sickens me
simply to hear your name
still I can remember
your laugh in my ear
that rings me in circles
until baffled and quiet
I hear you clear
and I see your smile
your eyes are fair
and I
can touch you
again, my dear.
Lesson:
If you have a choice,
choose love
But
If you have no choice,
run
as fast
as you can.
I have become invisible
people see me only when I see them
only when I want to be seen
never when I need to be seen
The entire world is ignoring me
believing me when I say I’m fine
not once second-guessing
I should be happy they trust me
but I’m lying.
What do they expect me to say?
I can’t tell them what’s wrong cause I don’t know
And when I’ve told them I don’t know
that’s when they don’t believe me.
They are all so worried about me already
I cannot go anywhere without “You okay?”
because of yesterday when I lost it front of them.
I don’t deserve their worry so I hide myself
take my panic and confusion
hide it where they won’t see
because they don’t look.
The corset’s been off over an hour
but I still can’t breathe.
I
am
a
invisible.
A Thank You Haiku
Radiant_Darkness wrote this
In his gratitude
When I read my post
I found a bad bad mistake
Prize should have been place
Not sure what to do
I appealed to the gnomes
Thanks for fixing it
5-7-5 ALL THE WAY!!!
I mean:
Did you perhaps see
that all the lines of the post
were five-seven-five?
Temptations
The scars on my arm are faded
and I fight to keep them that way
but they did help
and that counts for something
doesn’t it?
Because there is pain inside me
I keep it bottled up but it’s there
it’s not the pain you get from falling and hitting your knee
it’s worse
I don’t have better options
but it would be worse to reopen my wounds
and with it the other problems I had
because even a doctor’s medicine has side effects
But I still have a knife
And I still have the pain
And I still have temptations
This poem is literally stained with blood… so you can guess how it turned out.
I’m not proud of myself.
hang in there. I’m trying to and I hate myself for having to try in the first place, but a good friend told me that I did not generate the panic, and that I didn’t hate her and she had done the same and that made me feel a lot better.
Do you do therapy for it? Second time I’ve had to… (not second session, but I hadn’t had therapy for a while… until today)
Nope. Last time I’ve had any sort of therapy was completely unrelated and I was nine. I probably should, though…
*hugs* Please don’t hurt yourself again.
Seconded.
Thirded. We love you, don’t hurt yourself.
I’m sorry if this is too long, y’all, but oh my god this is AMAZING. My brother wrote it with a friend yesterday and it made me laugh so hard I fell over. The two of them sent it as a submission to our school’s literary magazine, and… yeah.
Poetry
I am so sublime
my emotions have such value
that everyone wants to hear about them
My pain
which is bittersweet
is worth its weight in gold
I am so creative
like a unicorn
splashing in the sun rays of conflict
I once used colons
now I use
semicolons
When I cry at night
my tears coalesce into
my perfect haikus
I think in natural images
like those of pale penguins
and salmon writhing in agony
The shadow
flickered to and fro
like the licking of the flames in my heart
The aura of suffering
exuded by myself
is very dark and mysterious
Let me paint you a picture
of survival, resilience,
and pain
I cannot rhyme
but I can meditate
on the musing of the tears running down my soft cheek
Black and White
Fire and Ice
Good and Evil
I speak not in words
but in subtle sounds
which sound like words
A man and a woman are one
a man and a woman and a blackbird
get it on
Thus death is life
and life is death
and the suffering becomes the sufferer
The complexity
of my soul
loses itself in the forest of despair
I have hurt so bad
and suffered so long
that I am practically a suffragist
Emily Dickenson
Sylvia Plath
and my soul
All around me are blackberries
they are an invasive species
which has become impossible to eradicate
Their juices drip down my throat
like the nectar
of one hundred hummingbird feeders
I feel a pain
more incising
than any other pain that has ever been felt before
Life
is a cat
who barks like a dog
The letters become the words
that become the sentences
that become the agony
of my soul
SFTDP, but this is AMAZINGLY FUNNY. But at the same time, very well written. Semicolons… creative unicorns…
I am so doing something like that for English. Once I get the idea solidified, I’m attempting to write a Stealth Parody of William Blake.
Bad poem… this was kind of spontaneous.
I am a speck of dust
floating
in the glow
of a streetlamp
at night
I am a vast ocean
circling
encompassing
engulfing
the world
I am dreaming
wondering
daring
hoping
knowing.
Temporary
Sleep is temporary
though sometimes I wish it wasn’t
Seasons are temporary
as is the weather they bring
though I can’t seem to shake
the black cloud hanging over my head
Happiness is temporary
this I know all to well
Love is temporary
though it doesn’t seem like it
Pain is temporary
because I can make it stop
temporarily
until it starts again
worse than before
Life is temporary
a fact I have thought about
many times
Everything is temporary
Except death
which is absolute
final
eternal
forever
and inescapable
but not unembraceable
which is another thing
I should probably think less about
Reminds of something one philosipher once said, “nothing is certain in life except death and taxes”. Good poem
That was Benjamin Franklin. Not quite a philosopher, but he did write various things of that nature.
Benjamin Franklin was a philosopher.
In a way. I’d describe him more as a scientist, political theorist, and statesman, though he was also a satirist, writer, and all-around Cool Dude.
Recite that to a psycologist and see what they do.
Beautiful poem, though!
Thanks. It’s the product of not doing math homework.
Spelling Test
Four and four years ago
The tests were spelling and easy
And never grew harder
Because I could already read.
That was the middle
Of the easiest school years of my life
Like a giggle or a cuddle in a puddle.
Like fiddle music covered with fur.
Four years ago
I had to write sentences using spelling words
But poems are more fun.
What have I done to deserve knowing all of you?
You who hold me when I cry
and don’t ask questions I can’t answer
You who get worried about but try not to show it
(you fail but I appreciate it)
You who simply accept that I need to cry again
and go out of your way so that I have everything I need.
You who know what I’m going through
know it’s hard
and promise to be there for me.
You who don’t mind my hugs and tell me that one day I will create this department.
you who always smile when you see me
and take my idiosyncrasies and celebrate them
You who promise you won’t leave me
even though in eight months you’ll be in college.
You who call me beautiful and kind and tell me it isn’t my fault.
You who get mad at me while you clean my bleeding arm
telling me your worried, I need to stop hurting myself.
You who will never know how much I need you
how much you have influenced my life
You who don’t know that I love you in my own way.
We are a family, this department.
And when you are are gone I will miss you with all my heart.
*is happy for Clare*
I wish I could play my therapist this song (of course, I take “blood on my hands” much more literally than the song probably meant it).
Blood On My Hands
by The Used
You felt the coldness in my eyes,
It’s something I’m not revealing.
Though you got used to my disguise,
You can’t shake this awful feeling.
It’s the me that I let you know,
Cause’ I’ll never show,
I have my reasons.
I hate to say that I told you so,
But I told you so.
There’s blood on my hands like the blood in you.
Some things can’t be treated so,
Don’t make me,
Don’t make me be myself around you.
Straight from your eyes it’s barely me.
Beautifully so disfigured.
This other side that you can’t see,
Just praying you won’t remember.
Feel the pain that I never show,
I hope you know,
It’s never healing.
I hate to say that I told you so, but I told you so.
There’s blood on my hands like the blood in you.
Some things can’t be treated so,
Don’t make me,
Don’t make me be myself around you.
Straight from your eyes it’s barely me
Beautifully so disfigured.
This other side that you can’t see,
Just praying you won’t remember.
There’s blood.
There’s blood.
There’s blood, blood, blood.
There’s blood on my hands like the blood in you.
Some things can’t be treated so,
Don’t make me,
Don’t make me be myself around you.
There’s blood on my hands like the blood in you.
Some things can’t be treated so,
Don’t make me,
Don’t make me be myself around you.
There’s blood!
I have often myself thought “Out damn spot, out I say.” (kudos to those who understand the reference) for much the same reason. I think that if I ever have a total mental breakdown (more than usual) I’ll just end up repeating that over and over again….
Between Dreams:
What dreams may come
what dreams do come
Which are the important ones?
which ones are the future
which ones are the past?
When am I sleeping?
when do I wake
yet keep dreaming?
Which ones are real,
which ones are fake?
What does my heart say?
What does my head
a head for reality
a heart for the wishing
But which is more important?
The world as it is
or the world as it could be?
my world, mine alone
or the one that I share?
What dreams are true
and what dreams are possible?
what dreams do I want
what dreams should I want?
How do you pick between the worlds ?
How do you choose between dreams?
By the way, I’m thinking of writing a poem a day for awhile. Don’t worry, I’ll only post the really good ones.
I approve! There should be more Clare-poetry in the universe!
Seconded.
Thanks!
In AP Brit Lit, we had to write a response poem in the style of the Cavalier poets…
‘Without Substance’
Had we but world enough and time
galactically with you then I’d
depart the Earth. We’d skyward climb
were Hubble’s field where my heart lied.
Had we not flesh but stars for eyes,
composed ourselves of nova dust
so faint, I’d break my Earthly ties
But gravity’s a chain unjust.
And might our orbits’ paths align
as transiting this solar plane
we’d spin as planets, numbered nine,
were one’s position to regain.
Then, if a particle were missed
and all my calculations wrong,
so no material’d exist
then endlessly we’d float along.
I really like this poem.
Invictus in my Brain and You in my Heart
.
I knew you were there even when I couldn’t think my own thoughts
“Out of the night that covers me”
I felt a hand on my back and without seeing knew it to be yours
“Black as the Pit from pole to pole”
So instead of twitching away I let it rest there
“I thank whatever gods may be”
I could not fix me, but perhaps you could.
“For my unconquerable soul.”
.
Hey, you whispered soft and clear, brushing my hair away
“In the fell clutch of circumstance”
and sat down behind me, leaning me back into your arms
“I have not winced nor cried aloud”
Hey. It’s alright I’m here for you now, everything’s okay
“Under the bludgeonings of chance”
I kept my eyes covered but leaned further into your shoulder
“My head is bloody, but unbowed.”
.
In a room full of people, hoping none would see,
“Beyond this place of wrath and tears”
I pretend to be fine and you tightly wrap your arms around me
“Looms but the Horror of the shadeâ€
myself slowly returning as I concentrate on reciting the poem I memorized
“Yet the menace of the yearsâ€
It speaks to me being in control, you to the lack of control being okay.
“Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.â€
.
But I am afraid. I’m terrified. It’s going away, though, because of you.
“It matters not how strait the gateâ€
As the speaker takes the stand I’m almost better. I lift my head, manage a smile.
“How charged with punishments the scrollâ€
You smile back, smile with your eyes and hold me even tighter
“I am the master of my fateâ€
I’m in control again, and I take your hand with the intention of never letting go.
“I am the captain of my soul.â€
.
“I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.â€
I’m so glad she can help you.
Forget
I’ve got to find some way to forget
To forget the pain
To forget the agony
To forget you
To forget all the things I hate about myself
like your lipstick on my cheek
like my blood splattered across the floor
like my eyes
which never wear the mask
I put on the rest of me
But how can I forget?
I can wash my face
but it won’t erase the memory
I can clean the blood
but the scars will remain
And I can’t change my eyes
no matter how hard I try
And if there is some way to forget
I’ve forgotten it.
Dreams
dreams are either beautiful or horrible
One filled with tears, stress, blood and hate
the other with happiness and peace
What does it say that one is set tommorow
and the other years from now?
What reflection on my soul is it
that I dream of the fear and pain and confusion
magnified a billion times with razor blades thrown in
in a way that could happen at any time,
while the happiness I dream of is so far future set
that it is hardly a blur?
All I see now, as I close my eyes
is panic and the sharp iron red
of my own life-force
as it leaks out of me
with each passing dream.
Colors
My life can be summarized in colors
like the black
of my clothes
the only color I’ll ever wear
the black
of my hair
combed down to conceal my eyes
the black
of your heart
evil
horrendous
like the red
of the cuts
which seem to be increasing in number
the red
of your lips
giving me nightmares
even though I love them
when I’m with you
the red
of my anger
raw
needing to be let out
like the blue
of my mood
although that’s somewhat of an understatement
the blue
of the sky
uncaring
insensitive
unloving
like the yellow
of my cowardice
afraid to tell her
and afraid to break away
from you
like the orange
of fire
burning inside me
ignited easily
but hard to put out
like the green
of life
which ends in winter
the green
of my book
where I’m supposed to write down my thoughts
my deepest feelings
everything
but I ignore
like the purple
of the streaks in my hair
symbolizing my one victory over my parents
however shallow it may seem
like the white
of the scars
which I hope fade
but get replaced by new ones faster
the white
of your lies
until you add them together
and realize it was all a scam
the colors
of my life
painted on the nothingness.
…
I think you need a hug.
I understand that nothing I write will ever compare to the stuff that Clare de Lune and Radiant_Darkness and everyone else on here does, but I have decided to post my Random Acrostics (a.k.a. the margins of my Humanities notes) here. What’s life without whimsy?
Ululating
Nefarious
Instigated
Brobdingnagian
Rotund
Ornate
Waffle
////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Penultimate
Oobstinate
Litany
Ill-advised
Terse
Iteration
Colossal
Sitcom
Nice. These made me laugh
Although, note: saying that your writing does not compare to someone else’s immediately before posting it lowers its quality.
Don’t underestimate yourself.
I agree with RD. Everyone has something that just comes naturally for them. For me that’s words. For most of my friends that’s drawings, pictures. Even if poetry isn’t your natural thing, you are just as capable of writing amazing poetry as anyone else, you might just have to work harder at it than those for whom words come naturally.
I wasn’t really trying for amazing, just goofy. But thanks.
Never Forget
I remember watching
stunned and uncomprehending
as you walked away
your words
lingering in the air
you used to say you’d
never leave
but here I am
and where are you?
Never forgetting
Never forgotten
I remember the exact words
the last words
you spoke to me.
I’ll never forget you.
But you’ve forgotten me.
It’s a bit rough. But I think it’s okay.
It’s not just okay. It’s beautiful!
Really?
Yes.
Thanks, you guys!
Yes!
These are two poems I wrote loosely based on Nobody by Shel Silverstein:
Nobody loves me
Nobody cares
Nobody hugs me
Nobody shares
Nobody helps me
When I start to cry
Nobody comforts me
When I’m feeling shy
Nobody seems
To care enough
To help me up
When I drop my stuff
Nobody wants
To ever be mine
This is a broken
Valentine
And the other one:
Someone will love me
Someone will care
Someone will hug me
Someone will share
Someone will help me
When I start to cry
Someone will comfort me
When I’m feeling shy
Someone will seem
To care enough
To help me up
When I drop my stuff
Someone will want
To always be mine
This is a healing
Valentine
Aww!
These are cute! I like that the second one is kind of encouraging the first one. (?)
They’re meant to be opposite poems. One’s depressing and one’s happier.
Very nice, LBK.
The world around me
follows rules, patterns.
But human life does not.
The world around me is fair
life
life is not fair. For anyone.
It is not fair that I live in the wondrous place I do
with parents who aren’t always excellent but try
when halfway across the world
a girl my age no doubt lives without parents
raising her siblings
not able to be herself without justified fear of physical harm.
That isn’t fair.
And it’s not fair that my friend’s coming-of-age rite
was prepared for all her life, a simple ceremony
calm, beautiful, finite
whereas mine was first questioning
then coming out
then staying out
and now watching blood drip down my arm
knowing that my mind snapping
will be the next part of my rite.
I don’t want to deal with this
there are no rules, no patterns, no justice to human life
the world is beautiful through the rules, the patterns,
especially when they’re hard to find
but humanity
has no rules
and so is horribly ugly.
No advice or judgment here. But the thought of you amazing MBers deliberately damaging yourselves grieves me more than I can say.
I will agree with that. I know it’s hard, Clare, but I’ve seen it happen. Once was too many times. We love you.
GAPAs, is there a way to automatically pie/thumbs up someone’s post? Like, they post it and it immediately gets a pie? Because I’ve pied/liked/whatever pretty much every single one of Clare’s poems.
An Autopie function? I’m afraid not.
Don’t you want to put in a little effort to show how much you appreciate her poetry? Or do you really want to be lazy in giving compliments?
Are we feeling a bit high-strung today, Piggy?
Anyway, it wasn’t a serious question. It was a compliment. I’m saying that I like her poetry (duh) a lot. I guess it was too subtle.
I know it wasn’t a serious question. It wasn’t a serious answer. I guess mine was too subtle as well.
yay misunderstandings
Guess it’s to be expected on a blog that seeks guidance by asking “what would Kokopelli do?”
It’s kind of ironic because I was doing the thing you were criticizing me for not wanting to do.
Even if there were, wouldn’t that take the fun out of it?
Many thanks to all of you.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to post on this thread for awhile though. It’s pretty clear that you care about me, which would be good except that I can’t take more people caring about me right now…too many do and I feel like it’s suffocating me…more people caring means more people worrying, more people I can disappoint.
I don’t worry that you’ll disappoint me. I worry that you’ll disappoint yourself. I don’t care about you because I think you need guidance to avoid the wrong path in life. I care about you because I can’t imagine what it would be like for you not to be cared about.
As long as you’re happy, I’ll never be disappointed in you. If we’re suffocating you, and you’re not happy, then I’m disappointed in myself. I don’t care about you because you need to be guided one way or the other. I care about you because you are, I believe, my friend.
I agree with Cat’s Eye. You won’t disappoint us, because we understand.
Don’t worry. I don’t care about you.
Thanks all of you. I consider you my friends, most definitely. You guys aren’t suffocating me, I’m suffocating myself. That sounds cliche but it’s really true….this is all in my head. It’s real, but still just in my head.
Which makes it scarier, I think.
I think that would make it less scary. If the problem’s in your head, the solution is as well.
But I should be able to control my head, and I can’t control this. It’s like I , the very essence of me, temporarily leaves every now and then. I don’t know who I am any more; am I the calm happy person, or the amalgam of depressive fear. and because it’s in my head no one else can see it, not really, it’s like i’m trapped in an opaque box drowning and those around me can sort of hear that something’s wrong but don’t actually know what or how to fix it.
You can control it. You just haven’t figured out how. What you’re going through isn’t going to be easy to overcome, but it is possible. Don’t give up. We’re rooting for you.
Piggy, I just kind of want to marry you. You always say what I’m thinking, but in a much better way than I can articulate.
He’s mine.
Alone
An island
in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
A clearing
among the thriving wildlife
A cloud
floating in isolation
Me
more alone
than any of them
pretending I am not.
But I can’t pretend much longer
not when I’m with people every day
every hour
but when I really need someone
who’s there?
Not you.
Not her.
Not anyone.
So I turn to the friend who has never abandoned me
though I wish I didn’t have to
because it pays a steep price
a dark red price
and I wish that I could find a cheaper way out.
But you make me feel worse
and there’s nowhere else to go
so as long as I can’t find anyone
I will always be bleeding and alone.
Sometimes
I curse myself for being weak
for giving in
to the constant pain
for adding more pain,
for disappointing my friends
who thought I could do better.
But I never cut,
I’m not that weak yet.
I think of the scars on your arms, love
and I promise myself that will never happen
and I promise to try to make you stop, love
Because it hurts me
when you bleed.
And sometimes
I find myself looking at something sharp
with a strange look in my sad eyes
but I don’t let me cut
I won’t let you cut either, love
I won’t let you die
I’ll stay strong for you.
((I think I’m just a horrible judge of my own work or something. I always think it’s rough or kinda bad, and you guys will be like “I like it!” and stuff. XD That just amuses me, I don’t know why. I wrote this poem with Clare, R_D, and specifically one of my IRL friends who cuts and has tried to commit suicide, in mind.))
I appreciate it. Thanks.
I don’t cut myself, though, I scratch myself until I bleed. the only appreciable difference is that it only happens when I’m emotionally completely out-of-control, I probably couldn’t take the initiative to get a sharp object when I’m like that…I can barely think, barely move, and I can’t stand it anymore, it has to stop, so I scratch myself until it does.
Well, that and no one would connect the marks with self-harm even if they noticed them. Right now, with a clear mind, I’d say that’s a bad thing.
Oh.
That’s… Not very good. *choklit*
I read this last night.
The reason I didn’t immediately reply is because I cried. You’re a very good poet, Fireh.
Literally cried? Wow.
Am I really a good poet? *self_doubt* You and Clare and many others are much better than I, in my opinion. I’m just kinda meh.
Well, I cry more easily than most, but still.
As for poetry, you’re at least as good if not better than me.
Thanks!
I shall take that as a very high compliment, as you’re a really good poet.
Same here–both the crying and Fireh having equivalent/ better poetry than I
A nonsense poem for all.
…
The Rhinoceros
The rhinoceros has crescent horns
Which rest upon its head-
The rhinoceros has crescent horns
Which fill people with dread.
Last night the rhino, in his pen,
About to go to bed,
Saw as he lay down to sleep
A subtle flash of red.
The zookeeper was tired and
Had not for days been fed-
His keys fell from his loosened belt
And then away he tread.
The rhino, sensing a quite nice
Opportunity, sped
Upon his three-toed feet he moved
Stopping to grab some bread.
My uncle, very far away,
Tossed within his bed;
He had realized he hadn’t bought
The gourmet platter spread.
He quickly hopped into his car,
And this is what he said:
“How terrible this must occur
The week my mother’s wed.â€
Suddenly his car broke down,
So he became a ped-
Estrian. He moped along
And for a ride he pled.
The rhino, wandering down Main
Street, saw a flash of red-
He thought it was the zookeeper,
To the market he fled.
5th Avenue was quite crowded,
So my uncle instead
Took Main Street, where a grocery
Was there- he walked ahead.
He thought he saw a small croissant,
But was sadly misled-
The rhinoceros has crescent horns,
That’s why my uncle’s dead.
Get it? He thought it was a croissant!
I wrote this for English. I received mixed reactions.
I think it’s amusing.
I. Love. This.
That was amazing! We just had to write an animal poem for english too, although I did mine in about 10 minutes and it was absolutely terrible.
Words On A Page
Words on a page
happy sad angry calm
writing poems,
writing prose
Words on a page
you me alone together
missing you,
missing everyone
Words on a page
good bad lost found
losing courage,
losing hope
Words on a page
cold warm dark bright
hating this,
hating that I have to stay alive
Words on a page
hello goodbye alive dying
please don’t go,
please, never die.Â
((It’s kind of repetitive. But I actually like this one.
I think it has an interesting rhythm, at least. Feedback appreciated.))
Wow… This is really nice. It’s giving me interesting mental images, and that’s usually a good thing.
I’m loving the second lines of each stanza.
What about them?
They’re all oxymorons!
Their awesomeness.
Next time you pass a westward facing window
And it’s around the time the sun is sinking
I want you to look out and see the red glow
And this is what I want you to be thinking:
The clouds, they have no sorrow for the crimson.
The sun, it suffers not to spill its hues.
The blackened silhouettes of trees may darken
the skyline, and they have but nought to lose.
Next time you feel a redder state of mind,
And it’s around the time your heart is sinking
I want you just to take the chance to find
A calmer place amidst your frantic thinking.
Your skin is much more fragile than the tree bark.
Your lungs are smaller than the atmosphere.
Your retinas cannot see in winter night’s dark.
But red sunrise will mark the light is near.
more Louise Glück because i love her poetry
The Triumph of Achilles
In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him;
they wore the same armor.
Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted—
their source is the survivor,
the one who was abandoned.
What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to his loss?
In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal.
A Monstrous Manifesto by Catherynne Valente
If you are a monster, stand up.
If you are a monster, a trickster, a fiend,
If you’ve built a steam-powered wishing machine
If you have a secret, a dark past, a scheme,
If you kidnap maidens or dabble in dreams
Come stand by me.
If you have been broken, stand up.
If you have been broken, abandoned, alone
If you have been starving, a creature of bone
If you live in a tower, a dungeon, a throne
If you weep for wanting, to be held, to be known,
Come stand by me.
If you are a savage, stand up.
If you are a witch, a dark queen, a black knight,
If you are a mummer, a pixie, a sprite,
If you are a pirate, a tomcat, a wright,
If you swear by the moon and you fight the hard fight,
Come stand by me.
If you are a devil, stand up.
If you are a villain, a madman, a beast,
If you are a strowler, a prowler, a priest,
If you are a dragon come sit at our feast,
For we all have stripes, and we all have horns,
We all have scales, tails, manes, claws and thorns
And here in the dark is where new worlds are born.
Come stand by me.
Ooh! This is so fun!
It seems like something that might be printed in the back of an underground rebellion pamphlet.
This reminds me of Shel Silverstein’s “If you are a dreamer, come in” poem.
*stands up*
Shel Silverstein is amazing.
Lately, I’ve been finding the song “we Are The World” great material for parodies.
I wrote this one in comic book form, And intend it to be a little music video,but before I procede I need to do this: SPOILER!SPOILER! STAR TREK SPOILER! BEST OF BOTH WORLDS PART 2 AND POSSIBLY LATER SPOILER! POSSIBLY FIRST CONTACT SPOILER!
“We are The Borg”
There comes a time (In the Star Trek future)
When all the world (Sector 001)
Must come together as one computer
Chorus: We are the Borg
(anyone who has a good rhyme please suggest a line for this spot. Thanks!)
There’s no one who can save the day (Cut to destroyed star fleet-fleet)
So you should give in (Resistance is Futile!)
Its a choice you’re making
So were sending out our sub space transmission
lets try to make a borgier day just you and me
(Musical interlude, clips from BOB worlds, First contact etc.)
We are the Borg
It’s a choice were giving
Join us now, or we’ll blow up the place you live in
It’s your world were breaking
You’d look great with a headlight (Locutus has one! It’s totally a headlight. Watch the episode again, and you will not be able to stop laughing, epecially in the scary parts when you see it like that.)
Lets try to make a borgier day just you and me…
Truly, spectacularly, and intuitively awesome.
Why thank you so much! It took me a long time to get up the courage to post that, and I’m glad that someone liked it!
Most places have parakeets
Ponies, puppies, and puffins
What we had was more
We had the beloved dragons
We rode on their backs
Free as the wind
We fed them our fish
And watched as they grinned
But time passed and soon
They were wild once more
Dragons burned up our houses
Ate all the wild boar
So we strike them down
Watch them fall from the sky
And remember, with sad smiles
The times long gone by
Hollow words echo softly
Ringing in our ears
Sorrow, long and deep
Overshadowed by fears
Most places have mice
Mosquitoes or falcons
What we have is more
We have the dreaded dragons.
Did you write this from personal experience?
If you mean from watching a movie, then…yes. *fangirl hearts*
[Title of (a rather pointless, yet interesting (hopefully)) poem]
If you’re reading this, hello.
I’m glad you spent the time to read this.
But you’re probably not reading this.
So you won’t notice if I
bank vault
But if you are reading this
Then I’m dreadfully sorry that I
bank vault
And once again.
But I’m still sorry.
Not just for
bank vault
But for everything else.
Every moment where I could have helped
but didn’t.
Every moment where I couldn’t have helped
and didn’t
Did it hurt you as much as it hurt me?
You don’t
(although,
It would help if you did
It would help
But I doubt you did.
I would love it if you did
To know I’m not alone
Alone in this world
alone being who I am)
Have to answer that
something i find interesting: about half of the lyrics to the Ra Ra Riot song “Dying is Fine” are taken from ee cummings’ poem “dying is fine)but Death”
i think i probably mentioned that before, but here it is anyway
dying is fine)but Death
?o
baby
i
wouldn’t like
Death if Death
were
good:for
when(instead of stopping to think)you
begin to feel of it,dying
‘s miraculous
why?be
cause dying is
perfectly natural;perfectly
putting
it mildly lively(but
Death
is strictly
scientific
& artificial &
evil & legal)
we thank thee
god
almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life!the sin of Death
Leave Me
Leave me here
don’t try to stop me
for too many years
you’ve left me to be
alone with my greatest fears
and now something’s broken inside
eating away at my heart
creating a pain to deep to hide
but the blood creates a painful art
the blood that drips slowly,
trickling down my arm
if I’m so “lowly”
then why cause me such harm?
Leave me now
it’s not like you even care
I still don’t see how
no one sees through this mask I wear
no one else ever saw past the mask
that hides my pain
you never thought to ask
you never thought of it again
and if I died today
would the world know?
you’d have never seen the way
that I danced in the snow
and I laughed and I cried
and I know that you don’t care anymore
but a part of me died
when you turned and walked out the door
So leave me behind
go on, leave me to die
you broke my mind
but still you wonder why
and the blood drips down steadily
glistening brightly and I
would die now, readily
but you don’t understand, you
broke me to pieces and
you were the only one who
I knew like the back of my hand
at least I used to, I thought so
but you’ve betrayed me all around
now I don’t know you anymore, no
now I’m falling apart without a sound
and I know that you’ll always
leave me.
(Feedback, as usual, is appreciated. I am really bad at judging the quality of my own work.)
As usual, your poetry is beautiful. But please, please don’t hurt yourself again. I don’t care if it’s hypocritical of me to say it. Don’t do it.
(I thought I posted a reply to this. Where’d it go?)
Your comment went to the spam filter, and we left it there. Graphic descriptions of injuring a living creature — whether it’s a cat, a baby, or yourself — don’t enhance this thread, IOHO.
Agreed. Hypocrites unite.
she is the girl
who loves to laugh
and a simple smile
from any passer by
can make
her whole day
meaningful
If you feel that you are
f
a
l
l
i
n
g
down, she will
reach beneath your pain
and sorrow
to pull you back up
and she apologizes
constantly,
for she is always
the one who says, “I’m sorry,”
even when
nothing
is her fault
even if she feels like
the scum of the earth
the lowest creature
alive
the most worthless of all
who feel the pain
of life,
she would never
let you know
because she does not want
to add to your
burden
this is the girl who sacrifices
to make others happy
while they, in turn
drive her away,
keep her down,
and still expect
kindness from her
when, really,
she has nothing more
inside
to give
to them.
and so,
this is the girl who
is afraid
of love
because she has
already lost
so
much.
I still have this feeling
And it’s wielding, unyielding
The need to express,
To suppress,
To impress,
But I digress, I am
Still dancing around
Skirting this feeling of
Love and obsession
Sick, whole oppression
And every day I’m feeling
Complicated, frustrated
Unappreciated
Because of people like you, who
Are still smiling that plastic smile
Grinning that manufactured guile
Living a false identity, and all the while
You are simply two people:
One is who you act
The way you attract
The way you use and abuse
You take for granted that you are,
a woman
Special and singular
But instead, you confuse
That precious power of life,
The gift that’s standing
In your own shoes
To be something
That you can have forever
And still, the other you
The smart, the sensible,
The one in retention, and
Lest we forget
The one that you constantly mention
But never regard
Is the little girl inside
The one who played house
The one who loved animals
Who, once a week,
Wore a leotard to
Her dance class
Looked with wonder and
Held her mother’s hand
Soared away like
The grand creation that she
Was
Is
And could be
This was the child who loved God
Who practiced what she preached
Who reached for the stars
And then even a little farther
And what of her?
Has she been hidden
Lost under the need to suppress?
To express her need
For love and attention
And please, pay no mention
To that outgoing, underdressed,
Ready to do what she must
To take a name
From all the rest
Simply for the chance to
Satisfy, for once
The chance to be
The special one
The better one
The moment that you’ll watch the
Taunted and teased
Lonely and diseased
Unhappy girl inside simply float away
Where she will no longer be
The lost one
Is this where I will find
That you and I are still alike?
If I search beneath
My ideas of life on the surface
And delve into my
Real, unsullied purpose
Will I find that
Behind your false exterior
We share wishes and dreams?
Hopes that seem
Beyond reason
That stay constant
And does not change
By mind, by matter, by season,
By cycle of life or the tides
Of those people who come and go
Who leave us broken
and tear our souls
who leave us oppressed
and plastic, and cold
Who make us alike, because
we have no purpose
we are simply here
walking alone
our only thoughts, our friends
our dark embrace as home.
I can’t stand reading this thread. Frequent posters keep writing about hurting themselves. First of all, I’m very squeamish and don’t particularly like reading about blood, but that’s a selfish reason. It disgusts me that people would hurt themselves. I know some people think it’s good that people are open and acknowledge their problems. I think people need to stop writing about cutting on MuseBlog. In my mind, all this poetry-writing and sharing experiences is slowly making us accept that people cut. Well, it’s not acceptable. If you cut yourself you need to get help – no ifs, ands, or buts. There is someone in the world who knows what you need and will help you to stop. Nothing good – NOTHING – can come from self-injuring. On MuseBlog we support people when they have problems, but some problems need more than faceless people on the Internet offering sympathy. If you have a cutting problem, GET HELP. We can’t do much more to help you and now you need to find the true desire to stop. Please.
Erm, yes, I agree with you. I just read the thread and am upset by the amount of depressed and morbid feelings. If you force a smile on your face, soon it will stick.
Look. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. You can’t force people to write what you want them to write.
Is that a reply to my post or to Jakob’s post? I never said I wanted people to stop writing poetry about cutting. Writing can be therapeutic. I’m just saying, we can support you on MuseBlog but there’s only so much we can do, and you need help.
To Jakob’s post. I don’t have that much of a problem with yours.
I don’t really think that’s quite how it works…
SUPER AGREE with the cutting part.
But sometimes, unhappy is how I feel, and that’s what I write about in my poetry. If that’s not readable to everyone else I’ll gladly stop posting them, I don’t mind.
Please don’t, I don’t mind reading about unhappiness in general.
I completely agree. I can definitely understand the need to write poetry about it, but I agree that I’d prefer for you not to post it. Sad poetry in general is different, at least for me, and I certainly don’t mind you posting that (though if someone disagrees, I think you should at least mention that it’s depressing before you post it–but again, that’s IF someone disagrees. Personally, I don’t have a problem with it. I still want you to post them, though, unless nearly EVERYONE disagrees with me), but please not about self-mutilation.
I just hate to hear about people I know and love hurting themselves. Plain and simple. I’m glad all of you feel comfortable enough to tell us about it, but please, please don’t hurt yourselves.
I am morbid. I sometimes feel depressed. But I am completely unable to see how hurting myself could possibly make it better. In any situation. Any.
No one should be comfortable with cutting themselves.
I just want to say that while I disagree with some of the thoughts in the comments on this post– no one wants anybody to force a mask on their face and pretend to be happy, or hide themselves because they think we’ll reject who they actually are– I do support the main thought, which is if you’re cutting, get help, and though I have nothing but sympathy and pity for those of you who harm yourselves, it is not in any way okay that you do. Please, please, get better. It hurts me to see you like this.
Agreed. Personally, I don’t mind reading the poetry and hearing about the pain behind it, but I don’t want anybody I care about to be hurting themselves, and that includes all of you. You’re all fantastic, brilliant people and you need to stop harming yourselves and figure out how amazing you really are.
I don’t want you to pretend. I don’t want you to hide. If posting sad poetry helps you, go ahead and post it. We’re listening. We’re here for you. We’ll do anything we can. But we can’t do everything, and sad poetry isn’t going to solve everything. Find an adult you trust. Talk to them. Get help. Defy gravity. Be the wonderful person you are inside. Stop hurting yourself.
We believe in you.
Despite being someone who posted about cutting on MB (though limits her poetry to mindless acrostics), I agree with the getting-help-quick-because-people-on-the-internet-can’t-do-much-more-than-tell-you-that.
But, but but but, I find Clare and R_D’s poetry very moving. It worries me a lot, but poetry can be a beautiful way to express feelings.
So. Undecided. I am not sure why I am posting this.
PoPo.
Agreed.
I also posted on MB about cutting, so I know that it feels like a good safe place to talk about it. We don’t want people to be afraid to talk about things, but we don’t want you to keep having the same problems over and over and never fixing them.
If you need a place to talk, we will listen, but we’d really rather you write some more pleasant poems! ;]
I can’t write poetry about myself without mentioning cutting. It’s part of who I am right now. It’s not a part I like, but it’s a part of me.
SFTDP (hit comment instead of preview)
And I am getting help. Just not competent help. I don’t decide what therapist I go to.
But I can’t just force a smile on my face. Not to be mean or anything, but it’s easy to talk about quitting when you haven’t had to quit. As someone who has cut, quit, and resumed cutting again, the hardest thing I have ever done in my life was stop hurting myself. The hardest thing I can think of doing right now is quit.
Poetry is the way I express myself. I don’t talk about it at school. I don’t talk about it with my parents, even though they know. Poetry releases the bottled-up feelings inside me, the things I need to get out. If you guys want, I’ll stop posting my poems. But I won’t stop writing them.
Any possibility of changing therapists? The rapport between you and en can be an important part of healing. Indeed, some studies suggest it may be the most important part. Of course, sometimes it takes time and more than a little patience to build rapport.
My parents like this guy, because he got me to stop once. The problem is, I started again. And whereas before, I did everything he wanted, this time, I’m only doing what I feel comfortable doing. Because I don’t think it will help.
Oh. SFTDP. I started writing my comment before those two comments came up. Sorry.
I agree that you should try to change therapists. If you can’t then you need to tell your current therapist that he isn’t helping. Tell him exactly what it is that he does that upsets you. Make a list and hand it to him if you can’t say it to his face.
He won’t be mad at you. Therapists are trained to work with people and if he isn’t communicating or doing his job well then I’m sure he will want to know so he can act differently around you.
It’s good that you aren’t just doing things that he tells you to do now. You have to do things because you want to, and he can help push you. You’ll have to be uncomfortable sometimes, but on account of your own effort, not in trying to please your therapist.
I quit once for almost an entire summer, then I started cutting again. About a year after that I stopped. It took about another year for the urge to be completely gone, but now it’s great. I’m not exaggerating, it’s actually great!
We like having you post your poems on here, and if it helps then we want you to write more! It just really makes us sad to see you hurt yourself and we want you to stop. (and some of us know how hard it is)
(the second part of the post goes for everyone! not just R_D)
Oh, no-one’s asking you to stop writing them. That’s perfectly fine and probably constructive. I don’t mind that, and I certainly hope no-one else does, because that’s just kind of… interfering. Too interfering.
You say you can’t write poetry about yourself without mentioning cutting, but actually, you have. Some are on this thread. I mean, you can go ahead and not post the poems about cutting here, but we all still want the other poems, even if they are depressing. You’re an excellent poet, and I do still want to read your poems, or at least some of them.
If your therapist isn’t helping you at all, isn’t there any way you could request a different one? I don’t mean a specific different one; you said you couldn’t, and even if you could, your choice would be entirely based on first impressions, so it wouldn’t make much of a difference, anyway, unless you’re great at that sort of thing; still, surely you can start going to someone different? I did it once with a doctor that I didn’t particularly like, and it worked out well, and with something like therapy, it’s really important that the 2 of you like each other (in my opinion, anyway), because otherwise, very little can really be accomplished.
I Will
I will
look to the light
Laugh at the darkness
The madwoman locked in the closet
need never be let out
There is evil inside me, I know
I will
Push it away
Keep it at bay
Accept that it’s there
but I will
never
ever
let it control me
For I am
myself and myself only
I will
choose who I am
monster or man
demon or angel
I choose
And I will choose the right
So help me God
Kind of rough, I know, but it reflects my general attitude towards life.
Good for you
Oh, but being evil is such fun…Alert! Alert! Depressing alert! Alert! Alert! Depressing alert! Alert! Alert! Depressing alert! (but no cutting)
Nightmare
Life is a dream
(a nightmare)
floating along the clouds
(in the thick of a storm)
riding the waves
(nearly drowning)
walking along the paths
(already lost)
Life is a gamble
(a risky one)
taking chances
(missing opportunities)
rolling the dice
(snake-eyes)
counting on luck
(and having it fail you)
Life is a belonging
(a burden)
with you everywhere
(weighing you down)
empowering you
(hurting you)
strengthening you
(weakening you)
Life is a dream
(a nightmare)
and eventually
we’ll all wake up
I like this one!
It has a nice flow and it whispers to me.
(maybe it got spammed because of all the parentheses)
I like the parentheses, but maybe the computer doesn’t.
I love the message in parentheses, how you can read one line, but not get the full meaning. I also love the ambiguous ending. No matter if you read the light poem or the dark poem, the ending is identical.
Most of the poetry I write is about dreams, if only because they have more possibilities than reality.
GAPAs, why did my post not appear? I can’t see why it would be spammified.
Never mind.
I’ve begun writing a poetical autobiography. Just to track it all in my head, make sense of it. It starts when I was 8, so while still upsetting is less recent and therefore probably better to post here.
So, first three! Depressing, a bit…well, sad. I don’t know about actually depressing, not that dark, as the I’m half narrating of my 8-year-old self and the world was still all bright and beautiful.
Christmas Eve:
“Mom has gone to the hospital to stay with Molly.
Molly’s very sick”
“Will she get better?”
At eight years old that is how the world was
No thought of death
just the vague, theoretical knowledge
that the sick don’t always get better.
“I hope so. We’ll have to keep her in our prayers.”
Right. Okay. My worry faded to slight discomfort.
Molly was a good person.
Her kids needed her, so did her husband
We all loved her.
Surely God would see the logic
and let her stay with us.
The day drug on
trudging into the darkness of anticipatory boredom
laced with faint fear.
It was Christmas Eve
and Mom wasn’t home.
Frozen:
Mommy took me to visit her.
Our footsteps echoing down the clean, white halls.
Harborview Intensive Care Unit
The air smelt disgustingly clean.
I had been told she was very sick
Sudden Cardiac Arrest
I had been told she wasn’t conscious.
Yet I entered her room
and froze.
A thousand monitors beeping beside her
her hair tousled and splayed across the pillow
a shock of color in the all-consuming whiteness.
She was too pale
and made no motion, not even to breathe
a machine did that for her.
“Clare”
mama called, seeing my fear.
“here, hold her hand”
and I did, as I had done so many times.
I had known this woman all my life, a friend of my mother’s
Her hand was too cold.
“how bout you tell Molly what you got for Christmas”
That seemed trivial but what else could I do?
So I told her about the scooter Santa Claus brought
Thanked her for the dress she and mom had found
asked her to get better soon
and left.
my footsteps sounding hollow now.
After that, I didn’t pray for Molly.
Molly was dead already, I could feel it,
I prayed for a miracle
and cried myself to sleep each night.
Things Forgotten:
God must have been really busy that week
He let Molly die.
And the last time I had seen her truly alive
I had forgotten to hug her goodbye.
I’m crying. This is beautifully written, but, well, sad. Even though I’ve heard the story before, and never met this woman.
Me too. It’s beautiful.
Uh, it’s called Outlines, and it’s reproduced here exactly the way I wrote it in History, so keep that in mind. *shuffles away nervously*
She draws ink pictures on her arms
and shows me worlds I’ll never know
I’d kill to see inside her head
I can imagine it must glow
and whether she is by my shoulder
or we’re miles and miles apart
I’d like to write love on her arms
I’d draw ink pictures on her heart
she keeps her secrets to her chest
believes there’s nothing there to see
there’s just a thing she ought to do
there’s just a girl she ought to be
there is a span of ink and skin
there is a heart about to break
there is a head whose path I’ll walk
there is a girl whose hand I’ll take
we’ll pluck our stars out from the sky
two fires waiting for a spark
two shadows blending into night
ink pictures dancing in the dark
I love the last stanza particularly, and “two fires waiting for a spark” especially.
great job! spur of the moment/clandestine poetry is always the most satisfying
WOW. I love the last verse.
Gorgeous.
This is great, Cat’s Eye! I really, really like it.
It seems to me like you notice the little things about this girl. And I like your rhyme scheme.
Beautiful.
Okay, more autobiography….I promise it just STARTS sad. It gets happy, really it does. I love my life. But I was shaped by the sadness.
Jumping in the center:
Holding hands and jumping in a circle
chanting age-old nursery rhymes
dark-haired girl spinning in the center
her short curls bouncing as she smiles.
End of the rhyme and she points her finger
you, then rubs her shoulder for a second
The smile flickers for an instant.
gaggle of giggling girls cover it’s lack
Now it’s your turn and you take the center
The rhyme begins, you close your eyes.
Close your eyes and you’re jumping in the center
Jumping in the center for the very last time.
That was Siri:
Sometimes the memories hurt but it’s better than not remembering.
First day of school, first friend made–that was Siri
Serene and kind–that was Siri
beautiful bouncing dark ringlets–that was Siri.
I remember when her mother took her from school early
because they needed to x-ray her hurting shoulder.
“Probably just a sports injury.”
I remember when our teacher told us she had cancer
and Siri brought her care-worker to explain to us what that would mean.
I remember the tangible fear in the room.
I remember those curls slowly falling from her head
and how infrequently she came to class
I remember the tubes into her nose and stomach.
I remember how hard she had to work to breathe
and how she got so thin her eyes appeared increased in size
yet she was as serene and happy as always–that was Siri
I remember re-doing her room for her
make-a-wish couldn’t so we all pulled together and did
I remember them telling us perhaps she was better.
But then they went to check. One last MRI
a week before my birthday.
No. It’s not gone. It’s worse then ever.
They told us there was nothing else to do.
I remember sitting on the porch with her dad
because she needed to sleep when I came to visit.
Her mom gave me a hug when I left, thanked me for coming.
Next week, I said, I’ll come back.
Next week she was gone.
peaceful, they said, in her sleep surrounded by family.
I cried my eyes dry that evening.
She was gone and I hadn’t said goodbye.
I see her in the stars at night.
That last line is going to stay with me.
Same here. The whole thing is powerful, but the last line will make me remember it.
What a sad poem. It’s beautiful, Clare. Keep writing more of these.
People say,
“You know
That restaurant
On the corner
By [self-snipped. A bookstore] ?
The food’s good there. You should try it.”
I smile
And nod.
Because it’s true—
The food is exquisite.
Right?
I watch them think for a while, then,
“Oh!
Didn’t your mother
Work there?”
But I make up some hasty excuse
And run away.
As I watch them shrug
And continue on their way
I feel
Sad.
Because that restaurant’s “glory days” are over—
At least for me.
It used to be amazing, didn’t it?
Didn’t it.
I
Miss
It.
I thought it was better
When it was
Cracked floor tiles
Stepping on green—
Only green.
Elvis-themed bathrooms
Swinging doors
Rock music blaring from speakers
Way too loud.
Sitting at the counter
Doing homework
Watching—
The neon pink
Flamingo.
The chili pepper Christmas lights.
The pink-haired, pierced cook—
Chris—
As he pulls a pizza out of the brick oven.
Greasy, oily, thin crust pizza.
It was the best pizza
In the world.
(At least, it was to me.)
Good bread
Dipped in olive oil
And salt.
That was good, too.
So was the Doodles Noodles.
The smell of sweat and oil and I-don’t-know-what, but it was warm and comforting
My mother came home every night smelling like that.
The steep stairs
Cruddy and damp
Which led down—
And every time, my dad would hit his head on the ceiling
The angles were all crazy down there.
The basement
Of containers and plastic wrap and extra salt
And that stupid
Fake
Rat
Which scared everyone
On a regular basis
Because no-one knew where it would show up next
And because it had
Glowing
Red
Eyes.
It terrified me.
But I raced myself in the basement anyway
Even though
The floor was slanted.
The walk-in freezer
Smelling of cold
And meat.
Up the stairs outside
In the back
To the room above.
Watching the world go by through the big window
On a cushy chair
Seeing—
Evan’s video games.
People running through the parking lot.
[city].
As my mother made copies—
Of menus—
Typed up in Oak Street.
That was the font they used
And it was her handwriting.
And later, sneaking in through the back fence
And waiting tables—
But only friends.
More often, it was setting tables.
With candles and sugar packets and oil and small plates and napkins
With those cold, silver napkin rings.
It was good…
A good place.
Something happened.
It became a Respectable Establishment
With, I don’t know, soft music
Normal bathrooms—
And a wood floor.
disgusting
my mother doesn’t work there anymore.
And I’ve only been in there once
In four years—
And that was because I was thirsty.
It smelled wrong.
Sometime I will
Open my mouth
And words will
Escape
Fly free across the sky
As I breathe
Fully
Not pulled down by
Anything
Because I think I might be able
To breathe
If I didn’t care
What
They
Thought
But I guess I do
Or why am I
Not
Opening
My
Mouth?
This is really good. You really make your feelings visible.
I’m trying out a new poetic style vaguely inspired by e e cummings.
FEEDBACK, PLEASE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
light
alll i ever could see
vanished
from my vision
as it goes out of the world
when light, can be what
i see
is gone
but ears tell a story
separated from my
light eyes
i hear a moment
in the darkness
a sound
a shadow in the corner?
hiding to me?
what is that i hear?
but nothing
so tell myself
but my
mind eyes
make it real
but thinking
and the light day
i cannot wake
i fall into
i leave this world and
say goodbye to light and
SLEEP
SLEEP
sleep
sleep
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So what did you think?
It’s rambly and nonsensical, but I can still get meaning out of it. I like
I think this poem is lovely, yet I think what matters is whether you feel this style represents yourself. It’s totally great if you are trying it out for fun, just don’t use it for pretenses.
Sorry, just saying.
Anyway, I think it’s wonderful…and I am SO NOT CONTRADICTORY AT ALL.
Challenging yourself to write in different poetic styles is actually a great way to enrich your voice and grow creatively. It will also enhance how you think about what you write, the content as well as the form.
Eh, I like this style because it’s what most simulates my thought process. I have the next sentence already thought before I finish the first.
And I like minimalism
Rebel
The system confines me
I am restrained
From doing what I want
What feels right
So I will
Break free
Break loose
Break the chains
Cut the cords
Laugh in the face of authority
Become a free spirit
I’m in history class
And this is the moment to rebel
It is the day
The hour
The minute
To show them all who I truly am
And how sick I am of all their silly rules
I will shatter all their preconceived notions
Of who they thought I was
So I quickly reach up
Put a Mento in my mouth
And chew it
Right there in class
Take that, establishment!
This poem was actually inspired by the true event of a perfect student’s sudden desire to do something crazy. Extraordinary, I know.
The Chestnut Stone
I remember when we were kids
you were pretty and girly
I was a dorky tomboy
but still, we were best friends
almost sisters.
I remember when I finally had to tell you
that I was moving away
how we sat on the floor
talking and comparing our rock collections
I remember
you had a rock in your collection
that had broken in half
(it looked like a chestnut)
one half was dark brown
the other was a lighter hue
you gave me the darker piece
and kept the lighter piece
and our hands clenched tightly around them
as we promised
that as long as we had the rocks
and remembered our promise
we’d be best friends forever
we were two halves of a perfectly shaped whole
we were like sisters
and now
we’ve grown apart
you’ve grown into boys, gossip, and makeup
and I’ve grown into books, writing, and music
sometimes it’s hard to remember
that once we were so close
but still
I keep my half of the chestnut rock
by my side almost always
I remember our promise
and I’ll keep it as long as my mind remains intact
so now I sit here
with my fingers tightly clenched around this rock
wondering if you still have the other half
wondering if you remember our promise
wondering if we are still best friends,
two halves of a perfect whole.
One word. Amazing. And sad. Wait… 3 words.
I’m tempted to show it to her, to see if she remembers or not.
Amazing and sad? I meant for it to be sad, and as usual I can’t really say if I think it’s amazing or not.
Just take it for granted that your poetry is amazing. Because it is.
This comment has made me genuinely happy for the first time in a week. Thank you!
My pleasure.
autobiography:
Every Death has a Song:
Every death has a song.
A song that I cannot hear without crying.
Every death leaves a hole
never filled, simply patched.
Every death adds to the nightmare.
The one I never talk about but always happens.
Sometimes only once a month.
Sometimes every time I close my eyes.
Every psychologist has a couch
and a box of tissues.
and a notepad.
Mine also had a view of a beautiful lake.
Often, I would stare past the doctor and just look at the lake.
The first appointment the day after Siri died.
Then about once a week for a year.
I only stopped hating it when I didn’t need it anymore.
Every person is needed in invisible ways
suddenly visible by their absence.
I never realized how much Siri protected me
until that protection was gone.
I should have known it wouldn’t last, me and the popular group
Even at that age I was different.
After fighting them turning against me for as long as I could
I never spoke to them again.
Nine years old.
No friends.
Nightmares
Never been so alone.
Crying in the car. moisture rolling off my face.
wanting to be dead
What’s the point? What’s the point?
Mom fed up and yelling.
Every death sings in its horrible beauty.
but the world wasn’t beautiful anymore.
Where was God?
I no longer pray to him.
I scream.
This made me feel… I don’t know… scared. But in an incredibly-provoking-Clare-poetry way.
Exactly.
By the way, the last two lines stuck in my head all day.
More autobiography. It’s happy too. I know. You thought the day would never come…..:)
Lila:
Same old school.
New set of eyes.
I can see people I used to know sitting where they always have
and I sit as far away from them as possible.
The cafeteria smells as it always has
of food with too much grease microwaved for our lunch.
Loud as always, everyone talking all at once.
I sit with one friend left.
Then looking for a place to sit I see Lila.
I remembered she had been in advanced math with me
Now in my class. She was new last year, halfway through.
I too was new last year, halfway through,
only I didn’t just move here from California.
“Hey!â€
“Do you want to sit with us?â€
Did that just come out of my mouth?
Well. She looked lonely too and nice and mom said to make friends.
“Um. Okay.â€
Odd, how that works.
How quickly you can unknowingly lose all your friends
and how quickly you can unknowingly make a friend
better than the lot of them put together.
4th grade.
Somehow, I made a friend.
A friend that stayed.
D’awwww.
Finally, some happiness. I love your sad poetry, but it makes me, well, sad.
I think that there should be genres of haiku. Nature haiku, people haiku, blunt haiku…
Augustus Caesar
Ruled in the Pax Romana.
Livia killed him.
Random poem-ish thing that I wrote out of boredom.
The blank page
Stares at me
Taunting, teasing
Saying “Think!”
“Find a brilliant idea! Don’t you have some?
Your thoughts, your dreams, just write them down!”
But I can’t write on command.
Creativity won’t come when called.
and just how fragile is this brilliance
silver cities human networks
flames cupped by a hand from the night wind
growing, growing, gone
and just how fragile is this brilliance
against the idle cruelty of the gods
the spinning starry galaxies
offering no modicum of justice
and just how fragile is this brilliance
sand castles against the tide
a trick of possible impossibilities
spinning cobweb dreams to be torn
and just how fragile is this brilliance
a floating wisp of candle smoke
a lump of misshapen sand
to why we grieve why we despair
and just how fragile is this brilliance
the morning mist on the new cobweb
extinguished the flame not extinguished the fire
a sand castle rebuilt again and again
and just how fragile is this brilliance
a whispered no against the rushing tides
how though shaken and broken against the wind
a hopeless battle still shouting defiance
and just how brilliant
is this fragility
*likes, but can’t pie*
H. P. Lovecraft’s birthday is coming up on the 15th. I am in the process of writing a filk song in his honor, set to the tune of Bob Dylan’s “Times They are A-Changing.” Here’s what I have so far:
It’s two-thousand-twelve and the stars have come right,
The ghouls in the marsh howl to welcome the night
And the cultists of Cthulhu cry out in delight
For payment of dues they’ve been earning:
So load your revolver and stay out of sight,
For the Old Ones are returning.
Ye men who have woken from terrible dreams,
And found that you’ve charted out ungodly schemes
Then carried your plans to the furthest extremes,
Don’t try to find what you’ve been learning;
For the Great Race of Yith pays no heed to your screams,
And the Old Ones are returning.
Come scientists, researchers, heed my refrain;
Don’t study the glyphs on the Antarctic plain
And don’t read any books that might stir-fry your brain,
‘Cause the fires on the mountain are burning:
Look over your shoulder and you might go insane,
For the Old Ones are returning.
Come folklorists traveling near and afar,
If a local approaches, don’t get in his car;
If the maps on the stones match a dark, distant star,
Don’t think about what you’re discerning,
Or the Mi-go might make off with your brain in a jar,
For the Old Ones are returning.
The lands long forgotten now rise with a roar,
The Deep Ones chant prayers on the black ocean floor,
And don’t ask what’s knocking at your bedroom door,
The fabric of spacetime is churning;
You shouldn’t have read from the Mad Arab’s lore,
For the Old Ones are returning!
In other news, yesterday morning, my town looked like something straight out of Lovecraft.
And have I mentioned the multiple unidentified stains on the brick walls of my school? I’m sure they’re soda or something, but I can’t help but hope they’re the blood of those who dared to read the Necromicon.
Whoever can identify the three stories referenced in the middle three stanzas gets a cookie. (The first and last are more generic.)
LOVE FOREVER
At my high school, the school newspaper published our notices of colleges that had accepted us. Mine read “M.I.T., Caltech, Swarthmore, Miskatonic U.” People probably figured it was my backup school.
oh my god you are my favorite too
There was a one-day sale shirt that was for Miskatonic U online and I couldn’t get it and it was TRAGIC.
I would imagine by now that would be the only way they’d get new students. Either that or their financial aid arrangements are very generous.
Anyone who willingly attends Miskatonic deserves what’s coming to en.
That said, anyone who willingly attends Miskatonic probably already knows that, and doesn’t care.
I love the third verse!!! That’s my favorite Lovecraft book. It made me very happy that I live in Boston, because I memorize the subway stops, never thinking that it was a sign of insanity. That book made me permanently afraid of the red line.
once I saw a brilliant parody of that book called “the arctic express” It was a combination of Lovecraft, and the polar express!
It’s beautiful, POSOC. Only one thing is missing. How about replacing
with
?
That’s a good idea.
(current, not in autobiography timeline)
I am made:
My mind is made of flammable cobwebs
intricate and beautiful connections,
but ignite a single area
and all will burn to disintegration
My emotions are made of wet clay.
Pummel them constantly and all is well
but let them dry out
and when you pummel they will crack.
My heart is made of tempered glass.
tap it lightly, you’ll do it no harm,
but drop it from a great height
and it will shatter.
My soul is made of music
the music of all of us, all souls.
Do what you will. You cannot hurt music.
You can only add another part to the symphony.
Broken
This is who I am
I won’t change myself
can’t you accept me
for being who I am?
This is what I am
I won’t try to hide it
you can’t call me broken
just because I am whole
This is where I belong
I won’t leave it behind
you can’t drive me out
when I’ve finally found home
This is how I got here
broken, betrayed, scarred by your words
why did you have to break me
for not giving in?
Gorgeous and painful.
I know how you feel…
((Does this count as a triple post? If so, sorry.))
sometimes i want to
scream out loud
i want to f l o a t
on each passing cloud
i want to dance like the moonlit reeds
and soar and glide
like the falling leaves
i want to LAUGH, i want to cry
i want to talk and wonder why
i want to hurt, i want to bl e e d
i want to help, i want to nEEd
i want to run and shout and
sing!
i want to try out
everything.
….
(I was in an unexpectedly good mood today. My poems aren’t usually happy or rhyming.)
I really like this poem! You capture emotion beautifully!
I haven’t been writing much lately. I don’t know why. Writer’s block, I guess. Anyway, I couldn’t think of a title for this poem. Here it is:
Wrap your arms around me
Hold me tight like you’re a noose
When you’ve wrapped your arms around me
I’m not sure I want to be loose
It’s hard to see your problems
Your beauty is unmarred
The only problem is
My fragile arms are scarred
You took my lonely heart
And made it bitter cold
Life is a brutal poker game
And I’m about to fold
Now watch the blood drip down my arm
You did this to me, you know you’re wrong
And on your face you show alarm
But deep down, you knew it all along
So drown me with you’re fake sympathy
All those lines that you’ve rehearsed
But kissing my wounds won’t make them better
It will only make it worse
Get away from me, you fiend
I’m not taking part in this chase
The truth is that my bloody knife
Hurts half as much as your pretty face
Feedback appreciated. Do the meanings of my poems get lost when I try to rhyme? I can’t tell.
The number of syllables doesn’t exactly match up in your rhyme scheme…But it’s a very self-aware poem. I like the second and third stanzas.
The only good thing about my EQEG is that she inspires poetry.
What does that stand for? (By the way, I do really like the poem; I don’t think the meaning is lost at all, nor is it in your other rhyming poems).
Evil Quasi-Ex Girlfriend
“There goes my future ex-girlfriend…”
“That girl’s such a prize.
Yes she is.”
I’m so glad I have an ex-girlfriend who’s only evil on occasion and then in the “enjoying-your-embaressment” evil way.
I do it all because I’m evil.
Wow, I seem to have Voltaire on the brain. Good thing, I think.
Is it a good thing or a wonderfully bad thing? I was just checking the R&R thread and now I have “Coming Out For Christmas” stuck in my head…
I dramatically edited some of my autobio. poems (Thanks so much to everyone who’s commented on those by the way…your input and reactions are really helpful to me) so this next one, while in that timeline, might not make as much sense:
What Sort of God
When I was little God was simple.
Be good and He won’t punish you,
Be good and He’ll answer your prayers.
When I was little life and death were simple.
Life was good. Death was punishment.
Only the old and the sinners died.
So how to explain the deaths of Molly and Siri?
They were young and good.
They’ve gone to heaven, I knew.
So perhaps that wasn’t punishment?
But what about their families?
What about me?
The families were good. I had tried so hard to be good.
And their absence was punishment.
They told me that death was part of God’s plan.
That He works in mysterious ways.
That their deaths were for a reason.
What reason?
What reason could possibly warrant them dying as they did?
That wasn’t fair.
And what sort of God
could not answer the prayers of the countless
of Molly and Siri.
What sort of God
could not save one beautiful girl?
I was not ready for the world to be complicated yet.
So I kept it simple.
There, then.
God does not exist.
I don’t remember any of my childhood existential crises, probably because I had no reason to really think about God and en’s existence/nonexistence. You did, and I’m sorry.
But it definitely makes sense, because it’s something everyone’s probably thought at some point. It’s why I’m leaning towards the atheist side of things.
your post reminded me–as it is in an autobio. timeline sometime’s it’s confusing what of the poems carry into the future (my present) and what remain in the past. This one remains in the past.
This is part existential poetry, part elegy, it seems.
This poem is so excellently written; it evokes thoughts and emotions effortlessly. It lets the reader know how you feel. Feel what you feel, even. It’s a bit sad, but a masterpiece.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Empty
Empty night, empty heart
I am alone
Broken
Defeated
Left behind by people so eager to move on
Ignored
Forgotten
A phantom in a crowd that is always one step ahead
I can sympathize with the moon
Being surrounded by stars,
It may never seem lonely
But it’s all just an act
Because it knows there’s no one to talk to
No one who will listen
No one who even cares
It’s a hard, glittering truth
And I hate myself for believing it.
I care.
I’m not a good poet, but I was randomly inspired to write a poem. I know it isn’t very good, but…
“Fall”
I want to run.
I want to leap.
And go soaring through the sky.
I want to dance with falling leaves,
To spread my wings and fly.
I want to whisper
With the wind
And the sing with chirping night.
I want to perch among the ripe fruit-trees,
And join birds on southward flight.
I want to race
The glowing moon
Across the spangled heavens.
To crouch among the tiny creatures
Rustling in their little dens.
I want to flow
Through the night air,
Alongside early chill.
And to be one with everything
As I most surely will.
No, I like it, especially the dancing-with-falling-leaves part.
You can rhyme and not lose the quality. Better than me
Thanks.
I actually started off trying not to rhyme. But I for some reason can’t seem to write a non-rhyming poem, so I gave up. And I seriously doubt it’s better than your poetry…
It’s definitely not a bad thing here. You manage to do it without it seeming awkward or forced.
Unless it comes to me in bursts of inspiration, I can’t rhyme. At all.
Lovely! So much more developed than my poem with a similar meaning.
Panic Attack
Tense, nervous
pressure building up under my skin
like a tightly coiled spring
I’m holding on tight
I’m scared to see what might happen if IÂ
let go
would I explode?
The slightest touch
bumping into people in a crowdÂ
puts me on edge;
someone brushes past
and I start to twitch
tiny uncontrollable movements
my lungs freeze up
I think I’ve forgotten how to breathe
twitchÂ
twitch
don’t panicÂ
breathe
BREATHE
someone taps on my shoulder
I whirl around
my heart is pounding
going into overdrive
what is air?
I vaguely register that you are asking if I am alright.Â
of course I’m not
IÂ
can’t
breathe
can you see me twitching?
losing controlÂ
to the emptiness taking over my mind
I’m pretending to laughÂ
at your joke
but I can’t feel anything
and in the back of my mind
I dimly note to myselfÂ
this is my fourth panic attack
in as many days.Â
How come the best poets on MuseBlog have panic attacks? You guys shouldn’t have to go through this.
I think part of the correlation between poetry and insanity is thus:
Some good poetry (though not all) is good because it is pure, raw, unbridled and uncontrolled emotion barely captured on a page. Panic attacks, (as well as actually insanity in some forms) is raw, pure, uncontrollable emotion….negative emotion, yes, but if one can capture emotion that strong and unbidden in poetry one can capture most emotions easily.
I’ve always been the person asking “are you okay?”. And no matter how obviously you’re not, I’d still love to hear a “yes” that was truthful.
I just submitted a poem to a writing contest for extra credit. I guess its a bit too late for feedback, but I’m gonna post it anyway. Its loosely based on Fiddler on the Roof, which was on my mind when I was writing it.
Fiddler, fiddler, why doth thou play?
Doth thou think the woes of life all go away
With but a song played through the day?
If tradition be thy rock, thy shield
A look on life that you must wield
Why be it such a precarious perch?
Does it bring you the happiness that you search?
So now I tell you so, the traditions you all know,
Will come unwound, be lost, never found
To make way for the new.
I tried to slowly transition from Old English words to a more modern text as the poem went on, but I don’t know how well I did with that
The transition is an interesting idea. One point: you’re using the third person verb form (doth) in a second person address. The correct form is “dost.” Second point: you’re using a form from Middle/Early Modern English. Old English would be “þu dest.”
I tried to use dost in Word, but it red-lined it, and it didn’t for doth, so I figured I’d go with doth.
Ach. Word.
Not in autobiography timeline. This is because I ran up 69 flights of stairs today
{TITLE}
Searing pain course through my legs
the sweltering air grows ever-thicker in my lungs
Another forty flights and I’ll be there
I round the corner and pause.
I see your picture, placed in this blasted stairwell.
Reach out a hand, touch your face.
I’m doing this for you, you know
But that’s only part of the truth.
I do this for you, Ezra, and Molly and Siri
I do this for the family you’ve left behind
I do this for the countless people who could be you
I do this for me.
For me, so I feel some of the pain
you felt, some of the pain
your family feels. Lessen the guilt.
To make me feel a little worthier of my beating heart.
I do this so that one day no one will have to do this again
My head begins to swim with dizziness
and my hand brushes the ground
I should have taken my iron today
My lungs burn another breathfull of sweat-soaked air.
I push myself ten stories higher and am done
Pushed out of the stairwell and into the claustrophobic mass of people
we run for one reason
we run so that one day no one will ever have to do this again.
THIS. IS. AMAZING/BEAUTIFUL! And so powerful, too!
Scream
Take all the rage inside of you
package it in you lungs
and scream it to the wind
Take all the pain inside of you
bundle it in your diaphragm
and scream it to the sea.
Take all the lonesomeness you feel
roll it inside your chest
and scream it to the earth.
Let it out.
Let it go.
scream,
SCREAM
SCREAM for all the times no one listens
SCREAM for when they do not see
SCREAM for all of the frustration
SCREAM for me.
Now let me scream another scream
a scream of longing but of joy
let me scream it to the skies.
let me SCREAM
I love you so
won’t you please come home soon?
You need a hug.
I second shadowfire. And this reminds me of a line from a song by A Thorn For Every Heart (only the best band ever to walk the earth*), Worthless.
Scream out!
Till your lungs fill up with blood
*in my humble opinion
I’m sure it’s a good song, but it doesn’t sound like a very good idea.
We are worthless, we are numb
We are reckless, we are young
We are everything you aren’t
We are worthless, we are lost
I Have Nothing Better To Say, So I Am Talking About the Weather
Winter will leave eventually
But it’s not leaving
Spring was supposed to Come
But its Flight was delayed
Migrating Birds Everywhere
are Making U-turns
My spring shopping
Will have to wait in the Closet
They say that March
Goes in like a Lion
And Out like a Lamb
But the Lion is putting up a fight
The damp, cold air among the petals
Is an Oxymoron
Pollen congealing everywhere
Is sickly yellow ice
I didn’t write these (as if! Ha!), but they’re two of my favorite poems and are, in my opinion, absolutely gorgeous.
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
by e. e. cummings
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
and snow everywhere carefully descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not ever the rain,has such small hands
One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
ee is always perfect (in my opinion)
One Art was one of the first poems (if not the first) that my professor used last semester as an intro to our poetry-based class. Love the rhythm.
I won’t let you down, love
No matter how much I tear myself down, you
will always be there to build me up
And someday I’ll be strong again
So I can catch you
if you fall
When I fly away
I won’t leave you, no,
never
But I’ll take you with me
We’ll soar together
and conquer the world,
hand in hand
I just have to find you first.
This is a poem that kind of describes the way I feel about most of the people I’ve had squishes on or wanted to be friends with even though they preferred to move me consistently. >,>
[Untitled]
I watch
you from across the room
I wish
I were brave enough to speak out
I know
that you would never feel the same
I fall
for you harder every time you speak
I wish
you would come to me and say
“I understand
exactly how you feel”
I watch
as you slowly drift further away
I am
slowly falling apart
I cry
because truth hurts
I know
you wil never even see
I am
the constant shadow
I love
you.
Critique would be nice. My dad wants me to write and try to publish a poetry book, and I want to as well, so I’m working on it. xD
Lucky… my dad thinks I will never get anything published. Or my friend (I am helping her publish a novel… if she can type a manuscript first. She types slower than anyone I know.)
Anyway, great poem and good luck publishing a book of poems.
I… actually really like this one.
Reflections
let’s be
you and I
the only reflections
two sweet imperfections
as far as the eye
can see
let’s be
me and you
a swirl of convictions
half-truth and half-fiction
all tender and new
just we
and if all the dreams that we form
should fall
and if we discover this world
is all
then let’s be
the only reflections
impossible exceptions
that neither one quite understands
yes, let’s be
the only reflections
without the corrections
just love written over our hands
let’s be
you and me
the only reflections
two sweet imperfections
still learning how to
be free
Ooh! I like this!
It’s so happy and light feeling. :]
Current:
Drowning in my Dreams
I’m trying to pretend I’m alright.
again.
each day it works a little less.
Tommy’s taken to checking my wrists.
Today at Ultimate I had the worst headache
and I kept forgetting things right afterwards
had to retrace the steps of time
frightened that a minute was gone.
I should not have worn my black converse today
My girlfriend has the same pair
so every time I looked at my feet I remembered
that she is far away and gone.
Because of this I balanced books on my head all day
keeps your eyes up
forces your mind to do something mindless
I laughed too much to keep from crying.
I read brainlessness now
because my brain keeps reminding me
that I’m losing it.
Going, going, gone.
Please someone save me from drowning
Save me from drowning in my dreams and insanity.
Please.
I care about you, but I feel like you know that, and I’m not really sure what that’s doing at that point… (Not going to stop telling you that though.)
You’re cool, and you write awesome poetry and I occasionally say awesome things about your poetry to my friends while calling you “my friend who lives in Seattle” because “my Internet friend” is not really something most people get. I believe in you in the same way I believe in fedoras and beat-up Converse: a fact, and an awesome one.
Yay Clare!
Clare lives in Seattle? I live in Seattle!
There seem to be a lot of ‘Bloggers turning up in Seattle these days. *waves from the other side of the state*
Thanks, Cat’s Eye. You are remarkably awesome.
SBF lives in Seattle? Awesome! I love it here, you?
It’s amazing. I love it so very much (even though I haven’t semi-permanently lived in another place ever).
So… I have a haiku for you all!
We so excited,
It is almost Friday night,
We gonna party!
Hang on…This isn’t from that terrible song on Youtube by…Rebecca Black, I think it was? I found out about it yesterday. *groans* I didn’t make it through the whole thing.
In no way will I ever consider this piece of ever-living crap as literature or song of any kind.
What beautiful poetry.
I saw these comments in the recent comments bar and was reminded to go look up “Prom Night” by Rebecca Black on Youtube. I shut it off halfway through the song. The lyrics are even more inane than “Friday” and the vocals are totally painful.
“Celine, we could do this all day.
We could move to Alaska and make our own electricity from the rowing machine. We could have a cow.
You could row and I could milk the cow.”
“And we could have sled dogs.”
“Of course! To take us places. It would be really cold. We’d have to have a fireplace. Oh, and we could make microwave popcorn!
Jiffy Pop!”
“And we’d power the refrigerator with rowing!”
“And in the summer we could grow our own food. That would be the life.”
“It would be.”
But here we are under the florescent lighting. I believe Sophia-
With a rowing machine, we could do that.
It’s out of her mind. It’s only in my mind.
My Heart is Full of Woe
My heart is full of woe
Frigid like the snow
Yet fiery, like a sto–
vetop at 2-O-O
Paddling shall I go
In my Misery Canoe
As life doth ebb and flow
And rush around me so
Free spirit like Thoreau
No ordinary Joe
Lafonda, Krieg, or Mo
No lines shall I toe
So scared, much like a doe
Yet fierce, a warrior crow
Life is no cookie dough
No scrumptious Oreo
(Note: This is not in ANY WAY supposed to be a mockery, judgment, or dismissal of anyone’s poetry, feelings, or problems. I’m being extremely flippant about myself. So please, laugh along with me, and tell me what a splendid poet I am.)
You are a splendid poet.
What a splendid poet you are.
Oh, now, don’t make me blush. *blushes*
Great poem!
I can’t seem to write without rhyming these days. Oh well. Anyway, here it is. Note: the me in the first stanza are her (EQEG), all the rest me.
So tell me
Hold me
hold me
you plead for attention
look at me
look at me
you need the attention
rip me
rip me
with your words and your actions
cut me up
cut me up
as you strive for perfection
use me
use me
I thought you were so kind
confuse me
confuse me
manipulate my mind
buy me
buy me
with you hugs and kisses
control me
control me
with your whines and hisses
blind me
blind me
to your deceit and lies
hold me down
hold me down
with invisible ties
tell me
tell me
I know I was a fool
so tell me
so tell me
Was I ever more than your favorite tool?
AGH the first attention should be affection. Fixers?
AGH. with your hugs and kisses.
Can anybody fix it?
This is unrestrained, unbridled rage. Some bottled up, some just now. I wrote this really, really quickly. About a minute ago.
Madness
To think
I used to think of you
as a friend
To think
I used to think
you deserved my respect
Prejudice is ugly
which you may find out sometime
while you hide behind your
assumptions
your stereotypes
your IDIOCY
I despise people like you
hate you
with every bone in my emo body
with every ounce of my Korean frame
but then again
you don’t care
because I’m Korean and emo
I’m worthless
because of my beliefs
I’m useless
I pity you
because you may never find out
that your prejudice
hurts you more than me
because in the long run
you’ll be a sorry, sorry human being
who drove away all their friends
because the friends didn’t look the same
or act the same
you’ll be that
and I won’t
despite my
Korean
emo
self
despite those deficiencies
To think
that I will ever be on or above the same plane as you
madness, right?
The best part is you can substitute anything for “Korean” and “emo” and it still works, so it’s good for any type of prejudice.
This was the prompt: ‘A writing challenge for all of you sharing my UNvacation: The UNphoto… DESCRIBE a photo you didn’t take, or a photo you imagine taking, or a photo you wish you have. Tell a story behind the description. Consider this the “thousand words” challenge because, we know, words ARE more powerful than pictures. Given this is a typical fly-by-night YWP challenge, our initial offerings for the best one is…a GIANT BAG of M&Ms (peanut or plain).’
I won the plain bag with the following, spoken in dead silence, pacing in front of the stage just under the lights… Looking directly in the eyes of the person it’s about.
(Their piece won the peanut bag immediately afterward.)
-A
(also current)
Literary dreams
the mark of an author
a poet
a thinker
are dreams so insane
so alice-in-wonderland
that you must wonder
what goes on in their
subconscious.
For the author dreams up plot
the poet, evocative phrases,
the thinker, thoughts to ponder.
This leads to dreams of defeating evil santas
or running from giant trees
or the universe exploding.
Colorful, fast-paced, untraceable dreams.
I wish I could dream.
I suck at poetry, but….
INVISABLE
They do not see me
Because there’s nothing to see
They do not hear me
because there’s nothing to hear
They do not ramember me
Because there’s nothing to remember me
They do not know me
Because there’s nothing to know
They do not awknowlwdge me
Because I’m not there
Do you know the song “I’m still here” by John Rzeznik? It sounds sort of like what I think you might be trying to say.
Is that the one from Treasure Planet?
Someone whispered words I did not catch
in a dusty room.
The air, the air was dry,
bone-dry and crackling
as your tongue swept across cracked lips.
Words were bouncing down,
a rain of letters
tumbling from the mouths lost in the crowds,
the halls,
the doorway-frames
while hungry eyes searched for faces,
for water. There was sound. There was light.
There was dry air and dust.
I forgot to pay attention, then,
to what was being voiced
in my absent-mindedness did not pull meaning from sound
as I sat in silent patience
hands folded, curled like dead leaves
waiting to fall
waiting to be buried in the snow.
I forgot to listen to what you said.
There was dry air and dust,
and then there was not even
not even the moisture of sentences
or fragments
to combat it.
Bones were creaking, snapping
as shadow-fingers tapped and tugged
at the corners of your mouth,
your eyes,
stroking hair to gray-brown threads
nibbling on our dehydrated dreams
and in the middle of your word, I fear,
in the midst of a half-daydream thought
I forgot to be here
to be now
and I went
part of me drifted among the dirt-drowned ships
and skeletons of fishes waiting buried
in the sand
I don’t remember where I went
But the air was dry, was dust, was sand
and you were talking
you were asking
perhaps for water
but in my absence, I,
I did not,
I did not hear.
Oh I feel the emotion in this so well. I love the imagery as well, especially “dirt-drowned ships”
I really love this and what it evokes.
For Me, In Remembrance of You.
Sing a song for me.
Sing so that I may hear your voice, in this instant.
And preserve it, play it in my head forever.
One last, solemn plea.
Dance a dance with me.
Dance so that I may feel your body against mine, in this instant.
And remember it. Trace the ghosts of pressure when you’re gone.
As I hide from the storm in cliff’s rocky lee.
Hold my hand, for me.
Hold it so that I may memorize the back of your hand, know it as I know my own.
And grasp it when the rest of you is far away and gone.
I hold you to me to set me free.
I do this in the remembrance of you.
More deserving in my own bible than God’s son.
For you, your very being, is a miracle to me.
And in capturing bits of you I hope to let you go free.
How beautiful…
once again we’re not at war
not at war
not at war
once again we’re not at war
and i want to write about myself
but what is myself if not america
i feel as if my skin is sewn into her
this is me
being an idealist
and what if there is a myself in another world whose lips have been kissed
kissedkissed
hovering on the edge of deathsleep that is me
poetry is only a way of organizing hope
words are power
like hearts coming out of an eyedropper
i don’t know if i can still believe in all the things i ought to believe in
i am an angel
and there are two scabs on my arm which are fading which is why i i will neverever post this poem
for you clare and you r d i cant let you get close
because you are the things i ought to believe in
give me pizazz words are just a way of dancing around heartthoughts
i am actually in despair
they say repression is bad
but i say everyone needs secrets
and i havent been happy in months not once which is why i will neverever post this poem
for errata and piggy and everyone who doesn’t enjoy it i need you to
i could say i need you to so i can prove that i can too if i want
that too is one of the things i ought to believe in
giving a filter about misspellings is the tool of liars
i keep having to take down all these masks but masks make me human
and i don’t want to be human any more
i just want to touch the scabs on my arm
and stop telling myself such pretty stories because they’re not true they’re just what makes me human
I don’t want to be human.
But I have to, because I’m not entirely sure what else I’m expected to do with my life.
Normality comes like a flood. I like grabbing control of myself
No. That’s a lie. I absolutely hate grabbing control of myself, but it’s necessary, because like I said, I don’t know what else to do. Without getting normality back, I can’t do all the things that normal people do, and I really do want to be normal, because that’s the sort of thing a normal person would want.
It was nice to get this out of my system.
That up there was was was was was such a lie.
was was was was was waswaswaswaswaswas
brokenrecordbrokenrecord
with
two
scratches
on itttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
Your poetry is wonderful.
The content of your poetry makes me want to give you a hug.
We’ll both get over it soon, I’d say to you.
Both take what has snapped, what is broken, and try to fix it.
I showed my arm to Hannah
told her I hated myself because of what I’d done.
She said, “Do you hate me?”
and I said, “Of course not!”
“Then you shouldn’t hate yourself because I’ve done the same thing.”
I couldn’t argue with that logic.
I’ve seen Hannah’s panic attacks, held her through them.
They are worse than mine.
This gives me hope that I will, too, break this habit.
She did.
What people fail to understand is that this is an addiction.
Not to the pain, but to the power
the control the pain grants me over my head, my body.
That, like any addiction, it is hard to stop.
I dream of that power now, but manage to stop in the clarity of daylight.
I see sharp objects and imagine…
then stop. Say, “thank god I’m in an okay mood today.”
and guiltily run from the scene of my thoughts.
We can do this, all of us.
It will not be easy. It will not be soon.
But we can be here for each other
as we find another way to have power
a way that doesn’t scar.
I know it will not be easy
But I believe in all of us,
even in myself.
Two posts: one lighter, one darker.
For english classs we had to write a lyrical poem, talking about our feelings and having no story and using metaphors. Here’s mine:
Things Don’t Always Seem So Clear
Things don’t always seem so clear
The window fogs up sometimes,
gets splattered with rain,
gains chips and cracks.
Sticks and stones may break my bones
(and windows)
But words will never hurt me
(though I am not a window)
(a window is me)
(but I am not a window)
(which way, José?)
It hurts an awful lot
when the occupant hammer hammer bangs
against their sturdy white house.
They can never break their houses
but they can chip windows.
Sometimes windows are stained glass
painting the light that drifts through them
But paint can be washed
and windows are just windows (not me)
and if you throw a rock at a window
it will shatter and coll
apse
Windows are fragile
susceptible to both stones and words
so the colors may turn black
and the windows may show rain
if taunted and tainted
The beginning of the end
of the occupant
of the sturdy white house.
A house of cards teeters and fa
lls
So the occupant throws it away, out the window
for the outside world to see
Ashamed, yet proud
of a failure.
As the cards are thrown back in through the window
with words painted on them in red
(paint?)
the window EXPLODES
Things don’t always seem so clear
And the second one. I had an ortho appointment right around lunch today, so I left my lunch in my mom’s car so I wouldn’t have to carry it around needlessly. Unfortunately I usually eat a little of my lunch at break, and I didn’t eat breaksfast today, so… it wasn’t fun. Very hungry and very bored in English class. Does ‘hoedown’ count as a type of poetry?
FAMISHED FREE-VERSE
I have been in English class
starving
My stomach is intermittently
growling
I left my lunch in my mom’s car
waiting
For me to come get it while my mouth is
aching
Like the orthodontists are vultures
attacking
Their silver instruments
clacking
My gums and teeth
screaming
As I sit in the chair
dozing
Because I am very
bored.
(which is why I am
writing)
HUNGRY HAIKU
awfully hungry
stomach loudly gurgling
want to eat something
LAMENTING-NO-FOOD LIMERICK
Today I am awfully famishing
My stomach wants food for its ravishing
But my lunch is not here
And the reality I fear
Is that my hunger I will not be banishing.
HUNGER HOEDOWN
At break today I didn’t have my lunch
I just really needed a few things to munch.
But regrettably my lunch is away so far
It is mired hopelessly in my mother’s car!
Possibly Helpful Slash Enjoyable Feedback:
This is really cool! You think literally, like me, & your metaphors are all… Solid. Smooth. Not sure how to describe them. Like ’em, though. Definitely nice diction, and the spacing is cool; you know which parts I’m talking about. Criticism… I tend to stay away from parentheses that exist solely to comment on what I’ve just written. My rule: If it advances the poem – and this usually means that it is its own separate statement or line or thought, not [too] related to those directly before or after – then it’s fine.
Prattle:
Sticks and stones may break my bones/
But chains and whips excite me
All I could think of when I read that line…
-A
Thank you! I really really hate writing metaphors, actually, but if I get a good one then I have to restrain myself from making absolutely no sense. I guess I just added the parantheses because I thought it fit and I generally like the effect they add?
Oh… that song. XD
Today I read it, was a success!
Someone asked me if I took the line from that song. I’d never actually listened to it before Gradster’s comment, and I made it halfway through before I got too annoyed.
My Champlain College Young Writer’s Conference (you should totally all go, anyone living in the New England area) submission:
(Right-side up on the single page I was allotted…)
‘Pronouns want me to choose what I

Extrapolate.
They says I choose to take my chances with

Some of this everyday oddity.
I disagree. I mean,

Take this option of a bass beat

Emotion-tion-tion-Motion-tion-tion…

Pentatonically speaking,

I can be a killer on the sidewalk,

Shades of doubt atop my bridge.

But these sin-glasses are tinted rosy red;
Baby, you’re all I need to hear in the silence

Before it strikes a chord.
It’s a long-lost friend

Who I used to use to use

Day in, day out.

This is as nonspecific as any

Signifying simple sibilant sign

Can possibly be.

And I- I. Ubiquitous. All you know
-
I know you know, I know.

Endlessly ephemeral,

These words echo out

Shout out, take me out-

Outdo yourself in self-reverence.
P.S. I do want you to know

I am lucid.

I just don’t want

Me coming along for the ride.’
(And upside-down, kitty-corner with the first…)
‘These days it makes me cry to think of all that I have now that I didn’t, before. I guess sometimes you just take for granted the things that make you great; make your taking things for granted pale in reciprocal significance… I know it sounds odd, but bear with me, my misbegotten chorus of a waiting audience. I have a commonality to share.
See, there’s a well-deserved calm to knowing just exactly how you’ll feel every time a handful of notes echo into the edge of your aural range, and there’s a value to stopping for a second and adding something to what you thought was perfect. And, damnit, there’s a time for seeing people as they truly are. Knowing their form like you know your own. There’s a moment to bear your soul as your skin because your soul is your skin in that particular way that suggests a closeness to all that is right… Indulge me. Let me fuse myself to your skin by way of smelting touch.
But in the meantime, let me talk for a minute about this being involuntary… It has always been true that I would give myself over to my own fiery angels and rise anew, but I wasn’t this desperate, then. So nothing is new in some ways, but in others, no one will ever quite find me again. Everything was lost, so I made a new everything to replace the old one. In other words, when I found my meaning again, I was clearing space I’d just filled. Piles and heaps… And stacks, especially.
In the end it comes down to knowing that I won’t let you take away the knowledge I have and always have had… That I still can’t tell why we’re all here and most of the time it hurts, but it’s worth it. That truth will always come. And, finally, that I will undress you with a glance in a half-second, but take my time when I’m using my fingers.
That your love will be safe with me.’
-A
This is great! I really like it.
Lately I’ve been nostalgic
wishing for for the past
Days when I saw the world
through rose colored glasses
until you crushed them to powder
with your fist
Bringing me to my knees
with a forgotten almost kiss
You gave me a purpose
incited the chase
led me to believe that
I meant more to you
than simply another face
But to skim the blotted surface
of memories that I
hastily stuffed away
and to pull out my broken pencils
and to write this about you
Is an indefinite cycle
of uncertainty
and surely my words will be
scribbled
uneven
unable
to distinguish
the real from
the
imagined
I don’t want to start this again
Because if I let my memories
take over my realities
you will resurface, and
I will find myself
running around the neighborhood
searching for your features
in a night that has no face
in a time that has no end
in a world that has no pain
you know that those nights
much like my emotions
are a long-passed, seldom recalled
extinct breed of luxury
(It’s only because
they’ve been stolen from me)
A confession?
I am so afraid.
that I will never
feel again
I will never
be needed again
I will never
be wanted again
because you
aren’t there
to reach inside
and pull from me
the instinctive need that
I can’t get to on my own
you stole my instructions
I am unsure of how
to fall
to work
to love
to live
to move on
but to live like this, it’s hopeless
so I’m going to try
I’ll take these pages
and place them away
close them up inside me,
my little message in a bottle
set them afloat in
the ocean of my heart
and watch them float away
goodbye
I was in an oddly political mood this morning, so I wrote this.
People Scare Me.
People scare me.
Not individually, but as a whole.
Something in me hopes that each individual has a version of morality
And, for most of them, for the most part,
This morality forbids them from doing anything truly heinous.
But put these people in a group
And the morality in each of them gets swallowed by the wind,
The group has no morality.
And, in this country,
With our democracy, our power-to-the-majority
The group is more powerful than any other force.
So what happens when that group declares me sub-human
And uses it’s power to take my rights away?
My rights, as an individual, even as a member of a group, are melted.
This is what majority rule allows us to do.
For all it’s fairness, all it’s equality,
It can fairly be unfair
Justly be unjust
Equally banish equality
Is that what our society wants?
To be forever hypocritical
Saying all men are created equal
Then turning around and screaming “NO”
When two men ask for their rights. Their rites.
The rights and rites granted to all other men.
Is that what our society wants?
To have groups demand to be left alone
With all their rights
But then consider it their right
to demand my rights be taken from me?
They say that people are afraid of what they do not understand.
I have seen the truth in this.
Yet, I was less afraid of people
Less sure of what terrors they are capable of
When I did not understand what they are trying to do.
People scare me.
People scare me too.
Really really loved it!
(super nitpicky, please ignore: its not it’s.)
Nitpicky is good! Thanks, Zinc.
Perfection
Nobody’s perfect
I hear all the time
I’d never met anyone who was perfect
So I believed it
then
I met you.
Nobody’s perfect
I thought to myself
examining you from the corner of my eye
there’s got to be a flaw
somewhere
somehow
I just haven’t found it yet
Nobody’s perfect
I told myself
drilled it in
hammered it deep
Because if you weren’t perfect
there was still a chance
you’d settle for less than perfection
Nobody’s perfect
I found hard to believe
the first few months we spent together
But the only problem with you was me
And I didn’t go into that
Nobody’s perfect
helped me through
the first few months we spent apart
It wasn’t my fault
We were doomed from the start
but those words didn’t help much
Nobody’s perfect
now I know for a fact
after spending time with and without you
but I’ve found hope
relief, strength
and perhaps
I’ve found someone perfect at last.
Sunset. Written impulsively just now.
…
there is an ellipse
on the line and it is
yellow.
we see it together, leaning back
in the feathered tickly and the
wet and the soft.
we see it together, limbs
intertwined stretch
and loose in the dew.
we see it together, languidly
touching and shadows
for once still.
let it not be imagined, let it not
be a star.
for once let us just give to our eyes
and rest in mindlessness and
beauty.
so we stay
egg yolk drifts on the horizon
and your back arches
and there is smiling.
Words
Words in my head
tumultuous, angry words
I open my mouth to speak
and there is no sound
Words that I think
sad, nostalgic words
sometimes I want to cry
but no tears flow
Words unspoken
refusing to leave my mind
my brain speaks a different language
and my thoughts won’t speak aloud.
i am sick and still smiling. you may
think i am the person you see in my words
and the frame you see
in gym class in my bright blue shorts,
but do you see the mess of laundry when i reach
the door?
you do not see the disheveled eyes when you
comment on my reputation during that
free period when i got called a bitch,
you do not see the slump when i hear that bit of gossip and people sigh and people sneer,
or you choose to
ignore?
why would anyone know that
i am an ill
i am an
ill
i am
an ill
and i am staunchly masking the hurt
which shows up on my arms.
i am not a dead i am not
a dead thing i am a person and you do not see
you see my legs when i am running
and you do not see the tears
and you see
i am sick and smiling
I think you need a hug. *hugs*
Oh dear. *huggle and choklit*
Soes. I wrote this, but not from my viewpoint – from the viewpoint of my friend. A lot of this makes sense to me, though – but I am not too sad. Do not feel sad for me. Feel sad for her. I’m trying to help her through this.
Please tell your friend that there are many of us that would like to give her a hug.
Your friend is in need of very many hugs and squid.
I will give her your hugs and squid. Thank you.
-117 I can’t say I know exactly how you feel, but I know how it feels to be looked at and not seen. I wish I could help.
Warning: This is kinda intense. Do yourself a favor and turn back now.
I am not who I am.
Am I?
I don’t know who I am.
Who am I?
Emotions.
Why emotions?
Swirling confusion.
Why so unstable?
Sometimes feel too violently.
More often feel nothing at all.
Am I smiling?
Why am I smiling?
I’m not angry.
So why am I yelling?
Tears tears tears.
Hide hide hide!
Can’t let them see,
have to be tough.
Never used to cry.
Memories.
Pain.
Memories are pain.
Distraction! The only way.
Distract from the memories.
Distract from ME.
I don’t care! I don’t care!
Anger. Hatred. Loathing.
Turn it around.
Hate to stop hurting.
Saved by anger.
At myself?
Stop thinking!
I wish I didn’t care…
I think we share part of the same brain.
Really? That’s kind of… disturbing. If you had said that about any other subject matter, that would have made me happy, but…
I’m not asking for much,
really,
just someone to be with
to hold me
cuddle with me
on the davenport
at one in the afternoon
to kiss me on the nose
to frolick
win me a teddy bear
name a star for me
(and I, one for him)
to whisper a secret
in my ear
that’s meant for no one else
to run and shout
and jump like we were
crazy
but we don’t care
to count the red cars
to protect me from
the monsters under my bed
to comfort me
when the wind hows
and my bones ache
to be with me
when I am so alone
when it feels so dark
to be the man
to light a candle
and come right after me
to dance in the rain
like we were the last
boy and girl
who ever
loved
not much.
just him.
Oops! That should be, “when the wind howls”. Sorry!
This is wonderful.
Thank you, that means a lot!
I really like it!
Impulse: Song (not very good)
sometimes i scream
just to hear the echo
sometimes
i cry
to know that i can
sometimes i wonder where i’m going
and i run that way
without a plan
and i stare up at the darkness
your frame etched below my mind
and i wonder where i’m going
and wonder what i’ll find
and i close my eyes and press you tight to the small of my back
and i don’t want to stay behind
in my head i pretend
that you have some shred of feeling
that the trail of broken hearts
are just in my mind
and i stare at the sky and wonder who are you now
and your finger traces my spine
i don’t know what i will
do tomorrow or next week
but i know your touch
won’t wash away
and i look at the curved shadow on your cheekbone
and know i have nothing to say
and i stare up at the darkness
your frame etched below my mind
and i wonder where i’m going
and wonder what i’ll find
and i close my eyes and press you tight to the small of my back
and i don’t want to stay behind x2
sometimes i scream
just to hear the echo
{More poetry for my class. Day two: ballads.}
Today, perhaps, we’ll say hello
To all the people, as they go
Through their day, near and far
By train or plane or boat or car.
They do not think much, they just do
What they are told, without a clue
They are just puppets, sent to perform
With no other thought than to conform.
This is where we start our story
Of one of the puppets, in her false glory
Controlled by her marionette with his brilliant mind
Doing as he says, to his true feelings blind.
Puppets come, puppets leave
Puppets can be lead to believe
Anything that they have seen
Puppet souls can seem clean.
Her name was Louise, with bright red hair
Her countenance was known to be fair
But for her safety she felt no fear
Trusting Andre, her conductor dear.
Andre was quiet, gentle but firm
In all manner of subjects he was greatly learned
But puppetry, as we can see, was his forte
And forever with him Louise wanted to stay.
They traveled to exotic lands
To show those peoples what the hands
Were capable of, when high up above
A puppet danced for their creator’s love.
Puppets come, puppets leave
Puppets can be lead to believe
Anything that they have seen
Puppet souls can seem clean.
Andre once had many friends
With them he’d travel the foreign bends
Until one day an argument arose
And he was left all alone with his fire-haired rose.
It was cold and dry and windy that night
But a fire Andre enabled to burn bright
Regretfully shaving slivers off her limbs
Louise didn’t care, as long as it was him.
The two wandered for days upon days
This land, it seemed, was just a maze
Until they reached the exit, which was present at
136 Etoille Lane, a woman’s flat.
Puppets come, puppets leave
Puppets can be lead to believe
Anything that they have seen
Puppet souls can seem clean.
The woman, wise beyond her years, had a name: Noelle
Of men’s feelings she knew quite well
But Andre enchanted her, and the reverse was the same
Leaving Louise with nothing left to claim.
Because, as they had been together over the years
She had watched him smile and cry and smile through tears
In those circumstances you too would come to adore
The person who caused your limbs to soar.
But perhaps the puppets think differently
They are not human, as you can see
Made by humans to look nearly the same
But have wooden hearts too easy to tame.
Puppets come, puppets leave
Puppets can be lead to believe
Anything that they have seen
Puppet souls can seem clean.
Foolish Louise did not give up hope
She waited and waited, refusing to mope
Or think Andre had forgotten her, even after years went by
And she forgot the look of the blue, blue sky.
While time went by, Louise never saw day
Andre had given up puppetry and filed her away
He had a family now, a beautiful wife
And three little girls; this now was his life.
Still Louise waited, and waited more
For Andre to remember who he loved more
She was quite convinced he felt the same way
She didn’t know of his family and every night she’d pray.
Puppets come, puppets leave
Puppets can be lead to believe
Anything that they have seen
Puppet souls can seem clean.
But one fateful day her prison door gave a creak
She grew instantly alert, was Andre here to meet?
But it wasn’t Andre, it’s was little Elise
Searching for a place in a game of hide and seek.
Louise saw first her Andre’s big brown eyes
But then noticed, with a keening cry
Noelle’s luxurious, long blonde hair
Present on her visitor there.
Louise felt rage fill every joint, every groove
And she found her strings were not necessary to move.
She stumbled up, and with a staggering gait
Made her way to the girl; for Elise it was too late.
Puppets come, puppets leave
Puppets can be lead to believe
Anything that they have seen
Puppet souls can seem clean.
Leaving behind her work all done
Louise searched for three, two, and one
Renee and Fleur next, to the angels they went
In the fervor of her search her anger never spent.
Noelle was last, left in the foyer
Just as Andre came home: imagine his horror
His whole family slain, his life driven to the brink
All by a toy he didn’t know could think.
In his grief he seized the doll
And bashed her up against the wall
Pieces fell all over the red, red floor
But Louise did not care, Noelle was no more.
Puppets come, puppets leave
Puppets can be lead to believe
Anything that they have seen
Puppet souls can seem clean.
Her bleak life ended in the cooking fire
To Andre she felt not a hint of ire
But the poor man had lost everything
There was nothing left for him to cling.
The moral is to think before you act
Keep old toys sealed away, far in the back
They don’t mean any harm to you
But death will come to those they do.
It’s gruesome, yes, but this isn’t just gore
This story tells us something more
Don’t love those who control you completely
Because for all parties there shall come misery.
Puppets come, puppets leave
Puppets can be lead to believe
Anything that they have seen
Puppet souls can seem clean.
My God, this poem is long.
I feel like sonnetting.
“Love through the Eyes of an Owl”
The creatures start by glancing up and down,
Sizing up their future partner’s form
While each puts on the other’s head a crown
And all I smell’s a great hormonal storm.
But then the dance begins, a burst of glee
And perspiration from adrenaline.
The mating calls, ridiculous to me,
Clearly hold some meaning deep within.
So off they amble, clutching hand in hand
(Though I myself can hardly picture why),
While in their chests their beating hearts expand
Until the two release a single sigh.
Inexplicably, they call this “love”
And parade it to a tired owl above.
Poetry is always
Deep,
Longing,
Hurt,
Desperate,
Passionate,
Overwhelming.
Imagine, if you will, a creature who lives in a world of poetry.
Each morning, the creature–let’s call it a Merklon–sits up in its nest of
Tears and
Knives and
Love and
Darkness and
Fields full of gentle flowers whose petals sing a silent melody to the rising sun and
Screaming.
The Merklon glances over at its Merklon mate, which it
Hates and
Adores and
Worships and
Fears and
Longs for and
Wishes were dead, immortal, itself.
The Merklon then finds itself a meal of
Bones and
Sunbeams and
Soft hair from a girl nearly forgotten and
Words and
Uncertainty and
Wings.
The Merklon finds that it is with its Merklon friends, and begins talking with them about
Illness and
Clouds which obscure the faint moon like a blindfold and
Blood and
Snow and
Smiles and
Marionettes.
The Merklon notices that, having been with its Merklon friends for quite a while, the sun is setting, and it walks back to its nest, looking at the
Desolation and
Nightmares and
Strawberries and
Emotions which are both indescribably sweet and reprimandingly heavy and
Pencils and
Death.
The Merklon curls up in its nest, next to its Merklon mate, and imagines
Pieces of paper which hold the true secret to love and
Glass and
Terror and
Mountains and
Eyes and
Fragility.
The Merklon wishes it could sleep.
Life is sometimes
Deep,
Longing,
Hurt,
Desperate,
Passionate,
Overwhelming,
Simple.
I’m worried that the meaning of this poem might be mistaken for the exact opposite of what was intended. My advice: don’t overanalyze.
I don’t think I overanalyzed, but just in case I did so automatically–which I tend to do–what did you mean? I think I know, but apparently I could be completely wrong.
It’s pretty pointless if I just tell the world what I meant.
It is? How? We won’t appreciate your poem any less just because we’re sure of the meaning.
I took it as ‘poetry contains a wide variety of things both mundane and profound–things that make up life itself.”
I took it as, “Poetry contains a wide variety of things, but all are complicated, deep, and supposed to be interesting. Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes it isn’t. If life were always like that, our feelings would be very magnified, and even mundane things would be important, and we’d never be apathetic–or maybe we would, every once in a while, but we’d have strong feelings about our seemingly all-encompassing apathy. Life isn’t always like that, though, because people don’t write poems about things that aren’t imortant to them. We just capture the major moments.”
…Which is basically the opposite of what you said. Did I overanalyze, or is that just a bad summary? I can’t tell.
Yours is a lot closer to my original intent than FF’s, and more detailed than mine.
Side note: the lines that start with lowercase letters are actually part of the previous lines. The blog software just wrapped them to the next line.
(Can’t help pointing out that the idea that poetry ought to be profound, emotionally-driven, and/or self-expressive is fairly recent on the historical timeline — as well as somewhat culturally bound. It’s still a minority species amongst all poetry that has been written. That aside, I like the poem.)
Yes, that’s actually one of the main points I was decrying. There’s much more to life and to poetry than what current society seems to think.
See, now when I try to figure out what this poem means, I endlessly second-guess myself.
Tried to translate Matryoshka, a Vocaloid song. What I did was listen to the original (in Japanese) with english subtitles, and took my own look at it.
a message I’ve put too much thought into
maybe it’ll reach somebody, who can say
I know that I’ve always been this way
just a rebuilt, crazy Matryoshka doll
a silent package, sung by a headache
the clock keeps ticking, but the hands are still at four
but you must make sure not to tell a thing
or the world will turn upside down
ah, I guess I’m broken now
pull out all the memories, throw them all away
ah, how I’ve wished to know
how deep the darkness goes
and if you please, you just keep dancing more and more
Kalinka? Malinka? just play the new chord
all these feelings – what should I do?
can’t you tell me? just spare a bit of time
loud and clear now – 524
Freud? Keloid? just hit the right key
and everything is just to laugh at
hurry up and dance – like the idiot you are
clap your hands, not too childish
and watch this completely insane tune
and definitely, I don’t care either way
the warmth of the kind world melted away
you and me could have a rendezvous?
a rendezvous? perhaps a rendezvous?
or we could go out on a hopping adventure
with a twisted step (1, 2, 1, 2)
ah, I’m ready to explode
can you catch every part of me?
ah, and with both your hands
just catch me for me
um, well
listen for now, it’s quite important
Kalinka? Malinka? please pinch my cheek!
it’s just that I cannot control myself
so should we do more fantastic things?
pain, it hurts, but just can’t cry
Parade? Marade? just clap some more now
wait, you say; please just wait
before our numbers drop to only one
you and me could have a rendezvous?
a rendezvous? perhaps a rendezvous?
or we could go out on a hopping adventure
with a twisted step (1, 2, 1, 2)
(ah, ah) down with a sickness?
(ah, ah) just show me your song!
(ah, ah) see how today
I’m still a torn-up, crazy Matryoshka doll
(hey, hey, hey)
if you please, just keep dancing more and more
Kalinka? Malinka? just play the new chord
all these feelings – what should I do?
can’t you tell me? just spare a bit of time
loud and clear now – 524
Freud? Keloid? just hit the right key
and everything is just to laugh at
hurry up and dance – now hit the floor
I’m not sure if this really counts, but the song’s originally in Japanese; so I looked at a few translations and created my own…
I was listening to this song about an hour ago.
MIND CONNECTION
yay
Is my translation decent and interesting?
Oh, yes, definitely! I haven’t even heard the original song, so maybe I can’t judge very well, but I love those lyrics. Maybe I’ll look up the song.
Oh, do. the Vocaloids are really cool.
“Oh God” by Michelle Tea
[The Beautiful: Collected Poems (Manic D Press, 2004). I do not intend to infringe and so on]
spilling water from my back,
you call and i come.
that exhausted walk to reach you
breathless and no i didn’t run
to see you, i’ve been smoking
too much, same thing.
another awkward hug in the car
as my face smashes your cheek
that i can feel it leaving now
is the saddest, a beautiful eruption
you could have picked it off the tree
and chowed
but you weren’t hungry.
feeling it dying away all day
much worse than the straining
against the leash, another gorgeous
thing that should not have happened,
gone again.
Today I ate a donut.
It was round
and it tasted good.
.
It did not
explode on my tongue. There
was no epiphany.
.
I ate it and thought,
This is good.
.
It was a donut.
That is all.
BRAVA!!!!!! *standing ovation*
In all seriousness, I like it.
For anyone who has ever considered suicide:
Dorothy Parker–Resumé
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Much as I think suicide is one of the most serious subjects there is, I smiled when I read that. Thank you.
Depressing poem:
I don’t recall what I did that day.
Likely I read my picture books, played with my stuffed dinosaurs, enjoyed the time off from preschool.
Probably a normal 4-year old’s day. I can’t quite remember. Why should I?
I should remember
Because on that day, a terrible thing happened in a faraway place. I saw nothing, didn’t even know until years later.
Everyone around me must have known. They acted normal rather than break my fragile world. I enjoyed the unexpected free time while a nation wept.
Even at 4, I would have wanted to watch cartoons. How did they stop me from turning on the TV?
I would have seen the smoke.
We will never forget.
How can you forget what you didn’t know in the first place?
Wow, that was dark ..
Very poignant.
I never thought about that. I was 2. I would have wanted to play with my parents and talk to them about happy things (I’ve an advanced vocabulary, so yes, I would have been able to have long conversations at the time). They wouldn’t have wanted to. I’m not sure how they’d have distracted me, but I hope they did, because if they’d snapped at me and stayed away, I might’ve gotten really upset. I can’t stand the thought of being bothered about something so trivial on a day when something so terrible happened.
…In short, that was very evocative!
So I was watching the Doctor Who Season 1 finale and I wrote Dalek emo poetry.
*is bombarded with pies*
i write this poem because no one knows my pain
i beg the world to listen to my suffering and anguish
but they ignore my cries
DO NOT IGNORE DO NOT IGNORE
and black tears drip from my eggbeater gun
they are signs of my inner screams
or maybe just a sign that i need to be cleaned
but probably a sign of my inner screams
the world wants me to conform to its outdated and painful ideals
BUT DALEKS DO NOT TAKE ORDERS
(except from other daleks)
(and davros, him too)
and no pain can compare to the singularity of my loneliness
my soul spreads black wings around my heart
and all i ever wanted to do
was exterminate the pain
If you play with fire,
you’ll get burned,
a lesson that
was easily learned,
you’d think that
after being burnt
I’d stay away
and avoid hurt
but the fire calls me,
pulls me close,
even though I know I’ll be
burnt yet again.
—
I love metaphors so much. No, I’m not a pyromaniac, it’s just a metaphor for other things. Critique is welcome.
We’re doing a poetry unit in English, which would be great save the really specific and vaguely annoying prompts we must follow. This is my happy poem. The prompt was to take an intense relationship and turn it in describe it via metaphor.
I Can Fly
The first time I saw you
was a bird being born.
Young, weak, slicked wet
walking on shaking legs, no thought of flight
That was us.
Later, as we spoke,
the bird grew to a toddler-bird.
Dry feathers now.
Able to stand but not walk.
Conscious of flight,
yet thinking only that flight is impossible.
Could never happen, best not to think of it.
Best not to be disappointed.
That was us.
Months later,
Halloween or just before.
The bird strolled confidently around the nest.
Ruffling its feathers inside my stomach.
Perhaps, it thought of flight,
Just maybe, if I try,
It’s not impossible to fly.
I have felt the winds’ warm embrace.
It feels as though it wishes this, wishes me to soar,
I can do this.
The bird strode confidently to the edge of the nest
but looking down set its heart all aflutter
Doubt solidified in its mind.
But it closed its eyes
thinking, Perhaps I can fly,
and leapt anyway.
That was us.
That was me, handing you a poem I wrote.
Walking away, couldn’t watch your face.
Yet you found me, smiling wrapped me in your arms.
Not certain, but close.
That was the bird,
stretching its wings to the hug of the wind.
Not positive but close.
Incredulous, wondering, I can fly?
That was us.
A few days later,
days of hugs and half-answered questions
I asked you to Winter Ball,
and you said, “Absolutely.â€
And the bird,
the bird flapped its wings
rising above the earth
screaming for joy,
screaming, I CAN FLY!
Heart beating,
I can fly
as pure adrenaline soaked its veins
That was us.
Winter ball,
Swirling with your hand in mine.
resting my head aside of yours,
the bird danced on the wind,
twisting and turning
never tiring,
anticipation running through head.
I can fly, think of where I can go.
Where I can fly, what I can do.
The world at its feet.
That was us.
Now, the bird surveys its dominion,
the realm of all things possible.
Comfortable with flight,
it periodically swoops to the ground
driven by a curiosity, a thought of “What ifâ€
Exploring, still, not going much of anywhere,
but preparing, any day now,
and happy as it is.
Any place in the world to choose,
it must make each choice wisely, and for this
it is tentative.
But its confidence slowly grows.
That is us.
That is us,
my head against your heart,
your arms around me,
and mine around you.
That is us.
Watching as our baby bird
slowly grows into a Blue Heron
in all its beauty, all its majesty.
That is us.
That is us.
And this is my sad poem. Prompt: relate shoes to death without using any direct form of the word “death”
Give What You Take
You who take what you’re given and give what you take.
They told me you might not get better.
But I was nine, so I didn’t believe them.
The day we went to visit you, in the ICU,
I was wearing new shoes.
Purple Mary Jane sneakers with black soles
The hospital had white walls
and the sadness radiating off the people waiting there
made me ashamed not to be so sad.
So I spent my time
staring at my shoes
until the colors ran together.
The hospital smelt of disinfectant.
The terminally ill smell artificial,
like the absence of life.
We were walking to your room.
So many people, so busy, constantly off to attempt to save someone
It hurt to look at them, in their ordered chaos, so I stared at my shoes.
The sound they made as they hit the ground
will echo intangibly forever in my ears
smack combined with new-sneaker squeak on tile.
We found you
and you were so pale, so not you
your hand was so cold
that I knew you were already gone.
Again I looked down at my shoes only
to find them unrecognizable through tears.
That was the last time I wore those shoes.
That was the last time I saw you.
You who take what you’re given and give what you take.
Frustrated
I can see it on the horizon
that land which is promised to those who seek it
the worthy, the strong
I thought I was worthy
I thought I could reach it
I have become trapped in a mathematical problem
each distance is halved and halved again
that between our doorways
your armspan
your eyes when you turn away from me
when you go the other way instead of speaking
I thought we could both live here
not touching
but side by side. All of us
so many together growing these plants
bathing in the river and feeling that sun
but it is not to be
the distance divides itself
and divides again
until I am all that is left
fractional.
I get this funny feeling sometimes
like my heart is
s
i
n
k
i
n
g
deep inside my chest
allowing me no rest, no respite
from the cold and the dark and the lonely.
I know that the world is not
cold
dark
or lonely
and I tell myself this.
But my heart doesn’t listen.
My heart rarely listens, to speak truth
and often that is a good thing, a best thing.
It is not safe to leave all the thinking to the brain
and with my love of logic
I
am
especially
susceptible
to being run by my brain.
So it is good that my heart is a rebel.
Except when my brain is happy.
And my brain is happy right now,
whose
wouldn’t
be?
if they were living my life.
So why is my heart an aching, sinking pit
of
cold
dark
and lonely?
This is beautiful in a melancholy way.
I didn’t write the poem which follows. It was written by Margaret Cavendish, who lived from 1624 – 1674. I found it in In Search of the World’s Worst Writers, by Nick Page, and thought it was simply too hilariously hideous not to share:
Death, the Cook of Nature
Death is the cook of Nature; and we find
Meat dressèd several ways to please her mind.
Some meats she roasts with fevers, burning hot,
And some she boils with dropsies in a pot.
Some for jelly consuming by degrees,
And some with ulcers, gravy out to squeeze.
Some flesh as sage she stuffs with gouts, and pains,
Others for tender meat hangs up in chains.
Some in the sea she pickles up to keep,
Others, as brawn is soused, those in wine steep.
And there’s more, which I won’t post, but it just gets more and more revolting.
…Wow. And she wrote this seriously?
It would appear so. And I’ve been reading through that book – she’s not even the worst writer in there.
To my beloved friend Heart, thess rather underwritten words:
I see you always smiling
and laughing
and joking
but
I can see
the pain in your eyes
when you laugh your tears away
how your gaze bleeds
when your heart is pricked with unintended thorns
and the way you stare
into nothing
when you are left alone
so sad
and lonely
though you wish no one knew.
I know, you don’t want pity
so you laugh when you want to cry
and smile when you want to frown
but
I can tell
you’re not happy
though you deserve to be
you don’t love yourself
though you’ve every reason to
and you don’t realize
you’re beautiful
absolutely beautiful
so sweet
so lovable
though you don’t believe in it.
Dear friend, I trust you
and I think
you trust me
but
oh dear, you know
I love you so much
but I’m too weak
you can talk to me
but I lack the strength to help
I really wish I was stronger
but I’m sorry
very, very sorry
I guess
I just can’t
I’m just another sad girl.
I guess I can only tell you with words
how much you mean to me
how much I wish I could help
but
I think
somehow you can help yourself
if you can somehow reach for it
somehow you can save yourself
from whatever’s eating away your soul
and somehow
it can get better
and it will get better
for you
for me
if, my dear, you are willing to let it do so.
Oh dear, a typo. And I thought I checked everything. *headdesk*
It’s only in the intro, not the poem. Which, by the way, is really evocative.
ZNZ–Have you ever heard of Amanda McKittrick Ros? She is one of the best worst poets ever. From, “Visiting Westminster Abbey:”
Holy Moses! Have a look!
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here,
Mortal loads of beef and beer,
Some of whom are turned to dust,
Every one bids lost to lust;
Royal flesh so tinged with ‘blue’
Undergoes the same as you.
XD
I am trying to write the worst limericks I can. I have half a notebook of them now. Here are some of the best(?) ones:
On this day a murderous rover
Saw blood on the doors he passed over
It’s also Easter
A day for feasters
Since it’s April, we can still pick clovers.
There once was a man, so they say
Who worked indoors day after day.
His email queue lengthened
Typing fingers strengthened
All this, to collect his pay.
Nobody said poetry had to be serious.
… so, the best at being the worst, or the best among the worst?
The best at being the worst, I’m afraid.
RANDOM RAMBLINGS WHICH ARE VERY VERY BAD AND STRANGE AND DO NOT JUDGE
…
it is a yellow circle with a white halo irregular and a caring stem and a crayon leaf and a wax light. it is a talking creature, and it sings to me the bright of dawn and the tender of kisses and the stinging of tears. it sings a lilting song, up down up up down up down up up down and i gaze into the yellow above and my eyes close and i hear the melody up down up up down and my eyes are water and i seep and i rest and up down up up down i hear it
…
The waxy leaves are strewn aside, no matter. One only
cares for the bright, is how it is. She sits and the grass
is sponge-damp against her toes and she holds the
stem in her hands eagerly, a hope. It could break.
It could
break and it twists, a curve in her hands, thinning out.
She cannot wait. She pulls off the white teardrops,
pulling and pulling and eager eager wonder anticip
ation and she goes He loves me he loves me not he
loves me he loves me not and she is pulling faster,
question question urgency and pulling pulling and it is
He loves me he loves me not he loves me he loves me
not he loves me he loves me not and the silken petals
are thinning out and she goes goes He loves me he loves
me not he loves me he loves me not he loves me he loves
me not and she is close, she is close, and he loves me
and she is close and now, and now, and there is an answer:
he loves me
not.
sbf, I’m going to judge.
…These are excellent.
*agrees*
Choklit–Then you’ll enjoy this one.
For one second, our eyes meet
My world is spinning
My knees go weak
My heart races
I cannot breathe
Is it you?
Is this love?
No.
It’s just an asthma attack.
Change to the last line: Instead of “It’s just an asthma attack,” read as “It’s just asthma.” HTML gnomes, can you change that pretty please?
This made me laugh. And now I’m having a coughing fit. xD
Snake in the grass
I happened upon him
His scales fit together
Perfectly
A washed out brown
And his eyes were as black
As seeds.
I held my breath
Waiting
For the inevitable
Slither!
Away
But he didn’t move
And still I sat
Waiting, waiting
For the snake in the grass.
For a slither
That would never
Come.
And the tears that fell
Were only
My own
Somewhere
A gold disc falls revolving through the darkness
Catches the light of the sun.
Engraved on it:
a message
from us.
We are here.
Glittering in a cold sunbeam,
a tiny YES in the night.
We are here.
And somewhere
the songs of whales echo among the stars
Freeform poem named Dance of Time.
dancing, running, spinning
waking only to move, to sleep, to wish, to burn
repetitive story of a life, always the same, only reason to keep going the movement inside
why I learned to dance
colors blending, lights spinning, darkened room for practice
cheap rings, glowsticks, two bucks a bundle
but I write in the air, and I dance and I sing
and I remember how the fire inside moves me
you burn in the night, passion unfolded, but unknown
I’m someone different when I dance; all angles and curves, melded seamlessly
flowing, like a breeze or a river, swinging and swimming in the music
and for a little while I forget that I have work to do, that I need to eat
and remembering, returning from the trance, is painful
but no time to reflect upon seconds lost!
time is ours to work with, and ours to use
but when I move to the rhythm, it doesn’t matter
because then time beats in a steady rhythm, and every second is precious
and not wasted, movements are conserved and free
less than a week until I can have the feeling again
but it’s forever and a day, and not even a second
Shakespeare. Need I say more?
Sonnet #18
Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft’ is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Inspired by Rainbow*Storm’s poem, this was stewing in my head for a while, and today just happened to be the first day I had time to write it down. There isn’t really any connection to the events of this morning.
Flashbulb Moments (The Closest I’ve Ever Known)
It’s all for research, of course.
The books, websites, tributes, videos, old newspapers.
And somehow, it always comes back to THAT.
“I’m writing a story, about the space shuttle in the early 80s.”
And all of the adults seem to do it.
I don’t ask, I don’t say “Spill your guts” or “Where were you?”
But still, they always do it, they always tell me.
“I was home sick-”
“- at the Post Office-”
“- buying Garbage Pail Kids at the story-”
“- in school, with my class-”
“- at the office, working-”
“And there was something on the radio-”
“- someone came in and said-”
“- we were all watching the launch-”
“- he called me me and said, turn on-”
“- they had a TV on-”
“- I hadn’t remembered it was that day-”
“- followed every shuttle since the beginning-”
“- but I’d followed all the news reports about *her* before-”
“- they brought us all into the auditorium-”
“It looked fine, at first-”
“- but then, it exploded-”
“- and I couldn’t believe it.”
“- broke my heart-”
“- cried for days-”
“- told jokes, and I wanted to beat them up-”
“- kept watching, hoping they’d-”
“- knew survival was impossible, but-”
“-And that night, I watched-”
“- President Reagan gave a speech and-”
” ‘Slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.’ ”
And I’ve heard it all before, but I don’t mind to hear.
I don’t mind listening to another.
Because maybe if I hear enough, I’ll understand.
I’ll know what it was really like. Really, truly like.
But maybe I can’t.
Maybe I can’t know what it’s like
To see disaster strike high in the atmosphere, spacebound
When the closest I’ve ever known is a black smoke cloud out my own back window.
Maybe I can’t know what it’s like
To be brought into the auditorium by teachers to watch
When the closest I’ve ever known is my mother not letting me turn on the TV.
Maybe I can’t know what it’s like
For death to strike explorers aware of risk
When the closest I’ve ever known is cautious businesspeople expecting none.
Maybe I can’t know what it’s like
To angrily blame contractors and officials who were simply WRONG.
When the closest I’ve ever known is a group with guns and bombs.
Maybe I can’t know what it’s like
To see astronauts fall through smoke in full view of the world.
When the closest I’ve ever known is them floating above it, looking down, forgotten in the emotion of the day.
Maybe I can’t know what it’s like
To see a teacher’s face and name blasted across the news.
When the closest I’ve ever known is a terrorist’s.
Maybe I can’t know what it’s like
To read “exploration”, “science”, “courage” and “hope” in the paper the next day and week and month.
When the closest I’ve ever known is “war”, “fanaticism”, “fear”, and “hate”.
Maybe I can’t know what it’s like
To mourn the failure of a positive plan
When the closest I’ve ever known is the success of a negative one.
So maybe I can’t know what it was like.
But, my god, I wish I could.
This is excellent. I like especially how the quotations flow together very well almost as if they were one sentence.
what is that strange word?
what is that strange word
that i must say?- that can never be heard alone
and so much more is meant when said
i am to drain my blood
and wrap it up in the prettiest words
when it is said
so much more is meant
the day will be lighter and softer
the shadow will be lifted
the shadow, cast over my life
(yet that shadow
is what i live for)
and if i say it
so much more is meant
than the three words
some say it is painful
others say it is glorious
all i know of it
of this great big confusing simple obvious obscure
sad happy important trivial strange, strange word
(only four letters long)
it means so much more
than what is said
and it says so much more
than what is meant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you understand what I mean?
I definitely didn’t at first, but when I read the 4-letter bit, I thought maybe it was love. If so, it would make sense…
I at first thought “alive” because I had seen “The Doctor’s Wife” recently, but then the four-letter thing made me think “love” also.
I was going to guess Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but now I think it’s love.
Yeah, we were asked to write a nontraditional love poem in English class.
I think some people went a bit weirdly with it- one guy’s was “Thou Art the Croutons to my Salad”.
(and when my crush said his i really wanted to go up and grab it and repeat it to him, staring right at him.)
Reasons Why
It was a bright, beautiful, sunny summer day and
I had eaten pancakes for lunch and
gotten tipsy from the amber light pouring through the stained glass
over the doorway to the pub and
dancing on the dark wooden walls to the beat of
my favorite song (that one almost never hears on the radio).
I was footloose and fancy free and
tired of being the new person who didn’t know anyone,
so you were my answer.
(Though it didn’t hurt that the
first coherent thought I had about you
was admiration for the adorable freckles on your nose.)
You were hard to miss, because I almost fell into your lap
as we spilled into the room laughing about our exploits.
I liked the way your name felt when I
rolled it around with my tongue and
I liked how it sounded when I let it go.
So I decided to show you around and
be an insufferable know-it-all because
you were new and so was I, but you were newer.
But that all has nothing to do with it really;
the particulars of our meeting couldn’t
seal our fate, or affix my affections on you
like a stamp upon a letter.
Maybe eventually on a cold and rainy day
when you are snoring quietly into my hair and
your arm is draped over my stomach keeping me
warmer than any blanket ever could
I will lean over and whisper in your ear all the
reasons why I love you.
D’awwwwww!
Went to a poetry contest today. I won both 2nd place and Honorable Mention, for two different categories. One was called Dreams, and it went like this:
something coming
swiftly
silent
falling through the cold night air
nothing stirring
waking
moving
you could look but nothing’s there
flights of fancy
hopes
and wishes
colors flash within my head
the day’s motions
twisted
tumbled
no one speaks but something’s said
The other was called The Watcher:
Walking softly through the tall grass
Binoculars around his neck, swaying with his footsteps
He stops at the edge
Dew sparkles on the soil and leaves
His hat, too, is covered
Morning light glistens off of it
Waiting, holding his breath
The morning stands still
Then–
Soft beats break the silence
A small chitter escapes it
He stops, stone still
Slowly raising his binoculars
The wings stop, tentative notes fly through misty air
He is as still as the glinting leaves
Watching but coming no nearer
A song erupts through the broken dawn
When it fades, it sees him–
Not moving, but seeing–
Locking eyes, an eternity passes,
The wingbeats once more flit through the grasses
Fading like footsteps
Last notes reach eager ears
Then vanish.
Wind
Wind’s easy, swift, friendly and light
Summer breezes, cooling touches
Like a cold ice cream or sea water
That’s what I think of summer breezes
But in the winter, she becomes harsh and cold
Winter gales, a cup of ice cubes down my back!
So I stayed inside, away, out of fierce winds
That’s what I think of winter gales
Early rains are capricious and soft
Spring whispers in the wind and gentle gasps of breath
Not notable, not wondrous, but you notice when they disappear
That’s what I think of spring whispers
And in the fall, she cleans the world
Autumn pushes, dead leaves falling
And the trees heal, but she becomes so bitter
That’s what I think of autumn pushes
And the wind wishes to be free, to rise
To not be used by us in our pursuits of birds
But we want to touch the sky, and continue to cover her
Until all she is…is dust
So the skies are blue, and the clouds move slowly
Until airplanes fly above
And then we could almost touch the clouds
But never the sky, and the wind supports grudgingly
Does anyone know the song “Passage” by Vienna Teng? I don’t remember all the words, but it’s very creepy, and uber morbid, as well as exceptionally cool. The entire song is from the point of view of a dead guy, who died in a car crash. Super cool eerie song! Go listen to it!
I’m a big fan of hers.
but someday I might
I met you
and promptly stopped writing love poems.
It’s not your fault–
I just didn’t want unreal expectations
or too much hope.
I stopped listening to love songs
because that wasn’t how I felt about you.
No light-flutter feelings
or heartache,
no longing thoughts when I should be sleeping.
But it’s not your fault.
Mostly I was nervous
that my hair was a tangle-nest,
my laughter too rough and loud
Certain that my actions were wrong
and god forbid
I should share any of my feelings
no, best box those up
and keep them out of sight.
I’ve never been much for talking anyway.
It’s not that I don’t like you
because I do. And that’s why
I needed to remind myself that life’s not poetry
or prose
it’s a sequence of events
determined by probability
and there is by no means such a thing as fate.
And some might call me unromantic
for not wanting to trick myself
into thinking otherwise.
And some will wait around all day
for prince charming to whisk them off their feet
But no one is perfect,
especially not me,
with the list of problems that I won’t share
but this way, maybe,
we won’t come crashing down
in a spitting blaze
however glorious
and instead,
we’ll go for walks in the mud
and I will open my mouth to say something just to change my mind
and it will be my own fault
but we’ll be holding hands.
I really, really like this.
Thank you. It was written after me not being able to write stuff for a long time, so I’m a bit rusty, but hopefully I can pick it back up.
I need a really awesome, creepy, dark, and preferably Lovecraftian or Poeish (It could be a poem by him actually…) or possibly Goeryesqu poem for a project I’ve interested myself in. It turns out that google is not good at finding “Awesome, creepy, dark, and preferably lovecraftian or Poeish or possibly Goreyesque poem” and I figured that you guys are good people to ask about this sort of thing. If you have a favorite, please post it! Thanks!
I just saw the Chuthulu (Spellcheck, if you reject the great old ones as a word and tell me that I am trying to spell “ichthyology”, you are going to be in big trouble when us cultists revive the ancient race…*Cultisty laughter*) poem scrolling down this thread, which reminded me of my own Chthulu invention. It’s to the tune of a song called stargazing, which is a cool song with a slightly creepy tune, which you’ve probably never heard of. I actually learned it as part of an oratorio of the “Powers of 10” book. The song goes something like “When skies are clear and I can see the stars/ I seek a place where I can be alone/ then I am just a fleeting thought/ in a random universe/ this is the greatest feeling that I know etc.” It struck me as very cultist-y especially when it gets to saying things about “burning the earth to smoke and ash” , so I am constructing a Lovecraft version. Something along the lines of:
“When skies are clear and I can see the stars
I seek a place where I can be alone
then I am just an single mortal
in the old one’s universe
this is the greatest feeling a cultist knows
When I look up to see the polar sky
counting the stars that bring the cosmic octopi back to life (this is a real quotation by the way. The book actually says cosmic octopi! And by book, I mean at the mountains of the madness, not the Necronomicon. I just want you to know that I’m not completely insane…yet)
They will burn our earth to smoke and ash
and the old ones will shed no tears
this is the greatest feeling a cultist knows
Etc.”
Errata posted part of this on the Quotations thread in response to my single line from it (though I didn’t know there was more!), and I just fell in love with it:
The Old Astronomer to His Pupil
Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.
Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, ’tis original and true,
And the obliquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.
But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men’s fellowship and smiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles.
You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant’s fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
What, my boy, you are not weeping? You should save your eyes for sight;
You will need them, mine observer, yet for many another night.
I leave none but you, my pupil, unto whom my plans are known.
You “have none but me,” you murmur, and I “leave you quite alone”?
Well then, kiss me, — since my mother left her blessing on my brow,
There has been a something wanting in my nature until now;
I can dimly comprehend it, — that I might have been more kind,
Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind.
I “have never failed in kindness”? No, we lived too high for strife,
Calmest coldness was the error which has crept into our life;
But your spirit is untainted, I can dedicate you still
To the service of our science: you will further it? you will!
There are certain calculations I should like to make with you,
To be sure that your deductions will be logical and true;
And remember, “Patience, Patience,” is the watchword of a sage,
Not to-day nor yet to-morrow can complete a perfect age.
I have sown, like Tycho Brahe, that a greater man may reap;
But if none should do my reaping, ’twill disturb me in my sleep
So be careful and be faithful, though, like me, you leave no name;
See, my boy, that nothing turn you to the mere pursuit of fame.
I must say Good-bye, my pupil, for I cannot longer speak;
Draw the curtain back for Venus, ere my vision grows too weak:
It is strange the pearly planet should look red as fiery Mars,
God will mercifully guide me on my way amongst the stars.
Oops! Meant to stick “Sarah Williams”, the author’s name, under the title.
I had never heard of her, but I’ve found a short biographical sketch and some other poems of hers online. Here is a short, lyrical one:
Like a drop of water is my heart
Laid upon her soft and rosy palm.
Turned whichever way her hand doth turn.
Trembling in an ecstasy of calm.
Like a broken rose-leaf is my heart,
Held within her close and burning clasp,
Breathing only dying sweetness out,
Withering beneath the fatal grasp.
Like a vapoury cloudlet is my heart
Growing into beauty near the sun,
Gaining rainbow hues in her embrace.
Melting into tears when it is done.
Like mine own dear harp is this my heart.
Dumb, without the hand that sweeps its strings;
Though the hand be careless or be cruel,
When it comes, my heart breaks forth and sings.
Ohh. I’ve been looking her up online still and I hadn’t found that one. I’m really liking her stuff. It’s the sort of poetry I appriciate more and more as I read it, like Swinburne. Speaking of him I just found a section of a pdf of her book of poems/memoir and she talks about him and it makes me happy.
“To A. C. Swineburne.
I dare not rhyme within the poet’s court,
Nor shake my jingling bells against his harp;
But if my greeting can but solace him,
If all unconsciously he hear my voice
Cry ‘Elder brother, Hail! God comfort thee,
And give to thee a golden harp one day”;
If he can feel a friend’s hand in the dark,
Then I am glad: if not, then I am content
To reverence in silence.”
Wow, she says that about him? He must be a genius.
Ohhh. I also really am enjoying this one of hers:
“THE SONG OF THE CITY SPARROWS.
When the summer-time is ended,
And the winter days are near;
When the bloom hath all departed
With the childhood of the year;
When the martins and the swallows
Flutter, cowardly, away;
Then the people can remember
That the sparrows always stay ;
That, although we’re plain and songless,
And poor city birds are we,
Yet, before the days of darkness
We, the sparrows, never flee ;
But we hover round the window,
And we peck against the pane,
While we twitteringly tell them
That the spring will come again.
And when drizzly dull November
Falls so gloomily o*er all,
And the misty fog enshrouds them
In a dim and dreary pall ;
When the streets all fade to dreamland,
And the people follow fast,
And it seems as though the sunshine
Was for evermore gone past, —
Then we glide among the housetops,
And we track the murky waste,
And we go about our business
With a cheerful earnest haste ;
Not as though our food were plenty.
Or no dangers we might meet ;
But as though the work of living
Was a healthy work, and sweet.
When the gentle snow descendeth,
Like a white and glistening shroud.
For the year whose life hath ended,
Floated upward like a cloud ;
Then, although the open country
Shineth very bright and fair.
And the town is overclouded.
Yet we still continue there ;
Even till the spring retumeth,
Bringing with it brighter birds,
Unto whom the city people
Give their love and gentle words ;
And we, yet again descending
To become the least of all,
Take our name as ‘ only sparrows !’
And are slighted till we fall ;
Still we’re happy, happy, happy,
Never minding what we be ;
For we have a work and do it,
Therefore very blithe are we.
We enliven sbmbre winter,
And we’re loved while it doth last,
And we’re not the only creatures
Who must live upon the past.
With a chirrup, chirrup, chirrup.
We let all the slights go by.
And we do not find they hurt us
Or becloud the summer sky.
We are happy, happy, happy.
Never minding what we be ;
For we know the good Creator
Even cares for such as we.
—
I’m reading a pdf of “Twilight Hours” now. It’s pretty interesting. It’s got both her works and notes, but with memoir sections by P. H. Plumptre, who received a copy of her works and it seems kept in touch with her and become friends before she passed away.
Bibliophile- He’s my favourite poet. I haven’t actually posted my favourite poem (by him) on this thread yet, so I’ll do so now. It’s a bit lengthy, but well worth the time to read it. I’ve got it memorized, I love it so much.
The Garden of Proserpine
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds’ and spent waves’ riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.
Here life has death for neighbor,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labor,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.
No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes,
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.
Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.
Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.
Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love’s who fears to greet her,
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.
She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.
There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.
We are not sure of sorrow;
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man’s lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.
♥ ♥ ♥
I love this poem too. It’s incredibly lyrical. I can’t read it without whispering the words.
In spite of the fact that this thread is used almost exclusively for poetry, here are some song lyrics.
Sim Sala Bim, by Fleet Foxes
He was so kind, such a gentleman tied to the oceanside
Lighting a match on the suitcase’s latch in the fading of night
Ruffled the fur of the collie ‘neath the table
Ran out the door through the dark
Carved out his initials in the bark
Then the Earth shook, that was all that it took for the dream to break
All the loose ends would surround me again, in the shape of your face
What makes me love you despite the reservations?
What do I see in your eyes,
Besides my reflection hanging high?
Are you off somewhere reciting incantations?
“Sim Sala Bim!” on your tongue?
Carving off the hair of someone’s young?
Remember when you had me cut your hair?
Call me ‘Delilah’ then, I wouldn’t care
Wait, we can post song lyrics here? Oh…I didn’t know that. I shall post a song now.
Love, love, love this song. Seriously, go listen to it. The Chain, by Ingrid Michaelson.
The sky looks [ticked]
The wind talks back
My bones are shifting in my skin
And you, my love, are gone
My room feels wrong
The bed won’t fit
I cannot seem to operate
And you, my love, are gone
So glide away on soapy heels
And promise not to promise anymore
And if you come around again
Then I will take, then I will take the chain from off the door
I’ll never say that I’ll never love
But I don’t say a lot of things
And you, my love, are gone
So glide away on soapy heels
And promise not to promise anymore
And if you come around again
Then I will take the chain from off the door
I wish I was a water bear!
Then I’d be comfy anywhere,
In a vaccum, boiled, or frozen:
Centuries of happy dozin’!
Pressure never leaves you in despair
(When you’re a water bear)…
I wish I was a water bear,
Politically so unaware:
No more fashion, pain, or gain,
‘Cause with a microscopic brain,
Your heaven is a clump of moss to share
(When you’re a water bear)…
I wish I was a water bear,
A mighty mite* with time to spare,
Never having to prove your worth:
A minor impact on the Earth
With little need for water food or air!
That’s why I really want to be a water bear!
I hate the tune someone gave this song, but that wasn’t even the same person who wrote the lyrics, so I don’t count it. Personally, I currently sing it to the tune of Greensleeves, but I’m looking for something more dramatic for the national anthem in The Land Where Everyone Worshipped Tardigrades, which now actually exists on NationStates.
*Yes, I know they’re not really mites, but people did think they were arachnids once (before this song was written, as far as I know, but still…), and the phrase is so awesome that I’m willing to ignore it, even though I’ve never been able to grasp the concept of poetic license.
What have I done to deserve such pain?
Why do you mock me so bitterly?
How have I offended, and when
Did it occur?
What has brought your scorn upon me?
Why must I always be outcast?
How much do you hate me, then
And when did this all start?
What must I do to earn your respect?
Why do you refuse to let this go?
How long will you continue to hold myself against me?
And since when has being yourself been a crime?
It’s too dark here.
Everything white and gray
all flat walls pressing in
and narrow black streets
Under a low ceiling of smog clouds.
glass and concrete and computerized voices
And light glaring off tiny screens.
one thing keeps me from choking –
That somewhere
the round pearl moon rests on indigo mountains
night herons skim the soft bubbling tide
and sand dunes glitter in the warm starlight wind.
155/156- Well, there’s also a song lyrics thread, so most of those got posted there.
Am trying to write more, but may not post it for a while. We’ll see.
visible world by richard siken
Sunlight pouring across your skin, your shadow
flat on the wall.
The dawn was breaking the bones of your heart like twigs.
You had not expected this,
the bedroom gone white, the astronomical light
pummeling you in a stream of fists.
You raised your hand to your face as if
to hide it, the pink fingers gone gold as the light
streamed straight to the bone,
as if you were the small room closed in glass
with every speck of dust illuminated.
The light is no mystery,
the mystery is that there is something to keep the light
from passing through.
I love this. So perfect.
Poetry, by Pablo Neruda
And it was at that age… Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don’t know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
amon violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever of forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infintesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
Freedom is an empty hallway
Some days, I’ll zigzag across the entire school,
Up and down staircases
Ducking into empty classrooms like I’m being chased
So I can walk to class without seeing another living thing
I don’t run, but there’s no one to tell me not to.
And freedom is the hallway outside your bedroom
Hours past midnight
Silence wrapping the house like a feather blanket
As you creep down the stairs.
Downstairs
The night no longer suffocating,
You leave the lights off
And spin in the liberty of loneliness.
So I was feeling all melancholy and yeah. Feedback?
Ode to a Geometry Teacher
Whenever I close a calculator
I think of you.
In my memory
you berate me,
showing me the proper way to close it,
how I put the lid on backwards.
Now, I put it on properly.
And I miss you.
Geometry
was the best.
You taught me that with
only a compass and a straight-edge
(and of course a towel)
I could do and make
anything,
ever.
I poke myself with my compass,
and yelp,
and check for blood,
and miss you.
You’d recommend books.
Have you read this, that, the other?
And I’d say no,
and read it,
and of course it would be good.
It always was.
I finish reading Ender’s Game
for the first time,
and it is good,
just like you said it was,
and I miss you.
Your answer to my friend’s friend problems:
Eighth graders are morons.
People are jerks.
Ninth graders are still morons,
and I miss you.
We had the best conversations.
You suggested things for my writing,
told me about your own.
Said odd things,
infuriating things,
made me laugh.
From you, I learned
what a paladin was,
and everything I know about black holes,
and exactly how one would go about
melting a penguin.
And I think of all of this,
and I miss you,
so very much.
You knew the answer,
treated greetings as accusations,
and once you tried to take a picture
of the top of my head.
(Think I thwarted you. Can’t be sure.)
You made references to Tolkien
while talking about Asimov –
we both thought
that one was awesome.
And I read Tolkien, and I read Asimov,
and I miss you,
so very much.
And I am hardly a connoisseur
of beards, but I must say:
You had the best beard
of all time.
I think of beards.
I miss you.
So very
very
much.
There was a slam poet who did a performance at orientation, and then did a writing workshop the other evening. I went, and, for the first time ever, shared a poem I wrote with a group of people.
We read Daybreak in Alabama by Langston Hughes, and were supposed to write a response of sorts, using some of the same patterns he used.
Here’s what I wrote.
When I am
When I get to be a poet
I will shout from rooftops.
I will put the world into words,
And people will listen to them.
When I get to be a musician
I will weave with emotion
And stitch with passion.
I will sing the universe.
When I get to be an artist
I will create a place
And people will live there.
I will invent our world.
When I get to be a poet,
People will listen.
Great job!
Turrets are red, Wheatley is blue.
Cake is sweet and so are you.
Vulpix is red, Mudkip is blue.
If you were a Pokemon, I would choose you.
Roses are red, violets are blue.
In Soviet Russia, poem writes you.
Roses are red, violets are blue.
I have no shame, you lost the Game.
Love poems seem to be what all the cool kids are doing now.
These winter days when frost cracks the windowpanes on the shining houses
The street is a bright kind of silent, the sidewalks glistening
and you are silhouetted against the strands of Christmas lights
Crystal clear around the edges as we stand in the snow.
Hm. That wasn’t really a love poem. Fail.
Somehow dropped into a poetic mood, thinking about Swalot and his struggle with school (his goal being to get accepted into his dream college)…
———————————————————————————–
There drift dreams in the wind
Whispering in passing ears
Eluding outreached fingers
Reflections in the tears
Some people quietly listen
Many pass without thought nor care
Some cover their heads
And untangle them from their hair
Sometimes they’re hard to feel
When the rest of the world storms
The lightning’s brighter; the rain, wetter
The clouds take glorious forms
But there drift dreams in the wind
Stay still, let them through
There’ll be tempests, there’ll be deadly calm
Just realize what is true
Walk on now, into the light
Dreamy trail where the wind does blow
May the best be known and the best be made
For mind, for heart, for soul
———————————————————————————–
Not very carefully written with regards to rhythm and rhyme and such, but it seems more sensible than the long confusing other ones I’ve written. Off to rest now.
Forever War by Nate Pritts
In studying the anomaly
it was determined that holiday decorations
look sad out of season,
that there’s no excuse for the mistakes
of my people. Red paper hearts
on the front door into April,
a cauldron that doubles as a planter
in summer. Always the starscape
to help keep me honest, to remind me
that distance is easy to cross.
The analytic belt I’m equipped with
reminds me of an indescribable autumn
from one hundred generations ago
though even last year
I was someone else.
I was faced with a choice.
Proceed with the same core
or blow it up to restart
& maybe go further. Most of my programming
has survived into this new battle.
I can smell faint ocean
salt on the breeze & I have different
reactions for its presence or absence.
Now is the time to overcome problems.
I debate the finer points of being desperate,
of wanting things to remain
as they are, though they can’t.
I’d rather not go into details
since specifics make me queasy,
like in pictures when people put their heads
too close together. How can they stand
such forced intimacy?
I take off in search of my home planet.
My resolve is stronger than ever.
(I haven’t written in a long time, but I cranked out a new poem for our Dead Poets’ Society meeting this past Monday. I rather like it.))
so many words in my mouth, in my mind
a jumble of feelings, emotions and rhyme
jump with a parachute doomed to unfold
love you with words too soft and too bold
things that I’ll reach for but never can touch
you stand on a pedestal, lofty and lush
a kiss I can’t feel, but know that it’s true
invisible strings that entwine me to you
leap all these obstacles, solid and stone
reach through my soul, to these things I atone
wipe my slate clean and write me anew
paint me with swirls of evergreen hue
((I’ve been experimenting with unstructured poetry. Yep.))
Wings of Pain
On wings of pain she flies, among clouds of sadness that shed rainy tears, and her life was never a good life, her troubles have troubled her since the day she was born, for she was born weak and small and these things never change. Growing up without the affection she craved she is now a cold heart, cold eyes, bitter smile hiding weakness and longing for love. Too scared to let anyone near her when all she wants is for someone to hold her close. When she laughs at herself to amuse the people who don’t care about her, it’s because she’s trying not to cry. Because sometimes she is just so tired of living and she just wants to die and she just wants to go home. But home is where the heart is and her heart is frozen aching reaching out for what it never had, trying to find a home in a barren freezing wasteland. She hides in the shadows watching the world turn and turn again and the sun rise set everything comes to an end and she can see how fragile life is, she knows that in eternity’s eyes life is gone in a blink so what is the point in trying so hard? We will all return to dust in the end and time so easily forgets us once we are gone.Â
On wings of pain she flies, and  at the same time she falls to the death that faces us all.Â
Made me cry. Beautiful as always.
“Each From Different Heights” by Stephen Dunn
That time I thought I was in love
and calmly said so
was not much different from the time
I was truly in love
and slept poorly and spoke out loud
to the wall
and discovered the hidden genius
of my hands.
And the times I felt less in love,
less than someone,
were, to be honest, not so different
either.
Each was ridiculous in its own way
and each was tender, yes,
sometimes even the false is tender.
I am astounded
by the various kisses we’re capable of.
Each from different heights
diminished, which is simply the law.
And the big bruise
from the longer fall looked perfectly white
in a few years.
That astounded me most of all.
A poem about an ice cream square.
…
I
crack! into a misted square
dark shell broken, shards slowly tilt
sideways, floating on
white. the dust of
crystal’s gone; breath
steams and pools. things change, you know,
when open light streams down.
hot sun parches, carving diagonals,
melting and burning with each exhale,
but inside that white ream there is
relief: crinkling rapidly, the paper
has parted. ever-melting slivers
rest on my tongue
and it is thick
and calm
and oh so cold.
words are like boxes.
you can wrap them up nicely
make them seem genuine
present them grandly
or deliver them in a sweet way,
like you mean it
you can keep them to yourself
or forget them,
and let them pile up in a corner
and nobody will ever know
that they are there.
it will not matter.
in the end
all they are is
empty.
Wherein the Author Asserts the Value of Names, and Utterances, and Sundry Words
As I was walking through the town,
One cold evening several years ago,
I heard a gentleman
Say to himself,
“If I could have just one power,
‘Twould be the power to name
Objects, and to entitle
Them as I please, and to instill
A thing with a label of my own choosing.”
As I pondered this odd wish, a sparrow
Alighted on a branch and began
To sing a little melody
Despite the dreary November air
And the dull clouds rolling in.
His song wandered here and there,
Gliding along the bricks and
Sliding around a lamp
That lit the hat of the gentleman,
Who had opened his newspaper and begun
To read of the daily occurrences.
As I watched, the sparrow,
Turning his head about,
Hopped up on a higher branch
And continued his cheery tune
Against the approaching clouds
That threatened to bring rain that would
Push him into shelter.
The sparrow sat and sang for some time,
And I stood and watched him,
Except when a crowd of girls pushed past,
Peeking in the store windows to find
Which items they should request for Christmas,
And which dresses to wear to the dance.
When the crowd was past, the sparrow,
Unfazed by the disturbance,
Adamantly sang out his song
Into the darkening sky
And the chilly wind.
The gentleman, twitching his nose at some story
Of political happenings, folded his newspaper
And left his post under the lamp,
Pulling his coat tightly around his chest
As he began to walk into the wind
To have dinner with his wife,
Leaving the street empty except for
The sparrow and I.
I stayed several minutes more,
Watching the sparrow, amazed
That the increasing gusts and
Hints of precipitation
Did nothing to dissuade him from his
Untranslatable song.
After a time, I decided I could not delay any longer,
And so I awoke from my reverie,
Straightened my coat,
And began to walk home again,
Nodding at the sparrow, still sitting in the branch,
Proclaiming his continued song
Into the harsh November night.
I told me I needed to write more poems, so here’s something simple. And yes, I know I have no recognizable common mannerisms in my poetry. Constancy is pointless.
Requiescat
There is a book
Sitting on a bookshelf
Filled with words
(Worlds)
These words are magic
They resurrect the dead
They bring life
(Lie)
They changed her mind
They stayed her hand
They saved her
(Hurt)
They bring about utopia
They end all unhappiness
They create peace
(Pieces)
I read this book
I read these words
They were songs
(Gone)
The pages are yellowed
The ink is faded
It is unreadable
(Need)
I can’t remember it
The words are lost
I’m so sorry
I’m so sorry
I have written some things since I last posted (which was a long time ago… oops), and they are these:
_____
She crowned herself the queen of broken things.
She gathered them to her breast,
bits of glass and cracking teacups
a shard of mirror
not caring about what bad luck it might bestow.
She built a castle out of stones carefully collected
from ruined towers, fallen houses
picking only the ones that crumbled,
that were already half-covered in ivy.
She fit them together, oh so carefully,
and told herself while she couldn’t fix things
she could at least bring them home.
Some days she would sit and stare
from her throne of rust
at the arrangements of dead flowers
and her collection of broken hearts.
Mirrored skies shining silver from her feet,
beneath the grey rolling roof she didn’t have to build.
She kissed her fingertips
to gently close the bruised eyelids of her subjects,
taking walks through gardens of dirt and empty jars
and their curled-up figures
fallen, like dry leaves.
“You’re here,” she said, “you’re home.”
Listened to their shallow breaths.
Sometimes, she wished
she could bestow upon them something more
than the the smell of salt
and the tarnished, dented crown
she had found one afternoon
half-covered in weeds she hadn’t bothered to pick off.
But she sits
grey-eyed and sallow-skined
staring out the window
faintly listening
for something more than the sound of wind
whistling through bottles.
_____
it wasn’t until I shaped the words aloud I knew them for a lie
so carefully planning, painting as a truth behind my irises
tumbling from my lips and unfolding in the pattern I’d intended
but had not seen as false
until it was too late.
_____
The city was burning
and the tv stations screeched something about “the end”
before fading to static and snow.
So we turned off the news channels
because there was no point getting worked up about it,
either life would go on after all
or it wouldn’t.
So instead
we took walks outside as ash fell like snow
warm against bare skin
and held hands in the rubble.
Jadestone, these are all absolutely amazing. Words fail me. *is in awe*
Thank you! I should really write/post here more often. I fell out of that habit and I wish I hadn’t.
If I were to tell you what’s on my mind
And threw me and loved me and made me my bind
Would it take you too? Would it lead you astray
And throw you and love you and take you away.
All that is gold does not glitter
Not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither
Deep roots are not reached by the frost
From the ashes a fire shall be woken
From the shadows a light shall spring
Renewed shall be blade that was broken
The crownless again shall be king.
Excuse me if this is off or missing parts, I have not read it for almost two years now. I recited it from memory as best as I could to see if I could. It’s the one poem from that series that always stood out to me. I love it.
Turns out the line about shadows is “A light from the shadows shall spring”. I wasn’t THAT far off.
That’s really good! The “not all those who wander” line reminds me of the Doctor.
You need to brush up on your Tolkien, young padawan.
I want to be avian, unchained and uncatchable
To fly someplace safe and buttoned-up
(impervious, clement) when the winds of change
blow us in different directions
I want to be enduring , too, and solid
A page in the hardcover life we lead
to fray and wither and age, but
I pray you’ll never turn me away
You can be the north for my needle
And I’ll be the star for your shepherd
When I come home, I’m coming back to
escape plans and love notes
how delicately I can catch
the notions of ardor from your mouth
and cradle them in my rough-hewn reality
In these moments where I can’t tell
the difference between craving and cherishing,
I want to be a poem
because I cling to these undisclosed embraces
that come only through stanzas
when I wish they were tangible
and that I could cradle you in my conversation
kiss you with my echoing refrain
span the world and end up on your doorstep
These youthful years we try to fill with joy
yet when in your eyes I see myself I know
as I’m not yet more than a child, and are you still yet a boy
the coming years will teach us how to grow.
 side by side we walk through time
but you won’t be there to watch me cry
you knew me as the girl who spoke in riddles and rhyme
but you never wondered or sought to know why…
 These youthful years have shriveled and died
and Chaos looks down on us with a smile
because no one was there when I cried
when you should have there all the while.
—
waking up
with the dark fading lights
and the song of the early bird singing
wake up.
leave the warmth of your blankets
and face the cold of the winter air.
waking up
when it’s cold enough to see your breath
and if you were to cry the tears would freeze on your face
waking up
the morning after you cried yourself to sleep
because of something someone said
wake up
even though you wish you never would
you wish you could find eternal sleep
wake up.
face another day, another trial
another night of tears and sorrow
and find yourself wondering why you ever wake up
why you keep trying
why you’re not dying
someday you’ll find your reason
someday you’ll wake up and find what’s always been there.
so wake up.
fissures of trust issues and less than absolute memories
sinking perceptions that skip like stones over my mind’s eye,
splintered stipulation and realization
that everything once dear is dirt,
absolve themselves in my fragmented core.
and for a split second I believe that
no other being could come as close.
there are cogs and gears inside my ribs
that once held no purpose but to clutter and collect
drop side by side like dominos in a line
(crooked, but they make sense when they hit the bell)
just like you, the last in line holds the place of honor
for what we do not expect is the hand that is dealt us
fate’s a cruel friend, ushering in the precious
along with the inept and unexpected
what I expected was gaze at you from arm’s length
catch your eye from a distance
pass me on the cobblestones and smile,
but let the gesture walk on unnoticed.
what I received were three small jewels,
pearls from the mouth of heaven falling like stars
and forming into sentiments far beyond my comprehension
until they landed in my palms.
181- I like it! A lot of your imagery reminds me of stuff I like to write, which is cool.
Here is a poem(s?) I wrote two nights ago. Have it two ways: once as some couplets, and once as a pantoum after I decided to play around with it.
________
Things go up and things go down. You clapped your hands and spun around. I whispered something, staring a the ground. Things go up and things go down.
I kicked my feet and screamed my peace. You begged me so I wouldn’t leave. I fell like rain, I fell like leaves. I kicked my feet and screamed my peace.
You sold you soul and lost your words. I showed you all the places I’d been hurt. We laughed like knives and died like birds. You sold your soul and lost your words.
We wandered till our minds were lost. Bound with battles we hadn’t fought. Scarred with reminders we forgot. We wandered till our minds were lost.
________
Things go up and things go down.
You begged me so I wouldn’t leave.
You clapped your hands and spun around.
I kicked my feet and screamed my peace.
You begged me so I wouldn’t leave.
I fell like leaves, I fell like rain.
I kicked my feet and screamed my peace.
You drank my tears and sighed my pain.
I fell like leaves, I fell like rain.
You sold you soul and lost your words.
You drank my tears and sighed my pain.
We laughed like knives and died like birds.
You sold you soul and lost your words.
We wandered till our hearts were lost.
We laughed like knives and died like birds.
Scarred with reminders we forgot.
We wandered till our hearts were lost.
We drempt our silence and sealed our fate.
Scarred with reminders we forgot.
We aimed for crooked but came out straight.
We drempt our silence and sealed our fate.
You clapped your hands and spun around.
We aimed for crooked but came out straight.
Things go up and things go down.
That’s really amazing, but it’s spelled ‘dreamt.’ /nitpickiness/
Whoops! Thanks for catching the typo.
Attempting poem-a-day for January. We’ll see how it goes…
Spontaneous poetry!
WINTER’S DREAM
It has been cold
November was painted in shades of
everlasting gloom.
Shadows lurked behind car headlights
and behind our eyes
as we painted the world in our minds,
a glorious springtime that had yet to bloom,
and seemed never to be realized.
Slush huddled in piles on the street corners,
sprayed with grime,
sheepish that it had remain among
the dead and dying
grass.
December dawned,
but snow did not descend to gracefully cover
our lawns,
and it remained frigid,
temperatures dropping
as we hauled comforters
and electric blankets
from their summer hibernation.
It is still cold, this early January.
We crowded around a bonfire
as the year died and we shivered too,
feeling the icy wind skitter across the back of our necks.
And as day turns to night,
I long for the brilliant white
to conceal the ground once more,
to justify the freezing temperatures
we are trudging through.
Winter should not be contained in
one strange October snowstorm.
I want the cold to touch my tongue,
laden with maple syrup.
I want the ice to numb my fingers,
preparing them for a warm cup of cocoa,
I want the beauty to grace my eyes,
to feel snowflakes melting on my face.
I am not sick of winter yet,
because it has not fulfilled its dream.
Tears
streaming down my face
and I don’t even know why
Breath
choking in my chest
and coming out in little sharp gasps
Thoughts
whirling around in my head
what if what if why is this happening
Sounds
washing over me in a jumbled way
people talking people laughing music footsteps
People
so many people
all around and I can’t escape
Panic
deep inside me holding me in it’s grip
urgent need to get out and away from the noise and the rush
Safety?
nowhere is safe anymore
except where you are
Please
hold me close keep me safe don’t go yet I’m not better
talk to me rub my back tell me I’m okay just don’t leave me
Calm
it’s okay because you’re here, my anchor my rope to cling to
the soothing movement of your thumb tracing circles on my back
No
I’m not completely better yet don’t leave me
calmer does not always equal completely better
Scared
of the world of the people of the fact that you won’t stay by me
of the fact that no one notices when I’m afraid
Ashamed
of how I let the world see my weakness
how I’ve broken down in front of all of you
Bitter
against the fact that no one ever reaches out to me
I have to ask for help and that makes it worse then you leave me
This
is normal for me, everyday occurrence
it’s just an average panic attack.
You said, stay simple.
But I want to dance,
I wanted my feet to fly.
And when I broke my ankle,
you simply smirked and said,
I told you so.
You said, stay average.
But I wanted to achieve,
I wanted to see an A on every paper.
And when the panic overtook me,
You simply laughed and said,
I told you so.
You said, stay good.
But I wanted to do,
I wanted to escape to adventure.
And when I got my first detention,
You simply turned away, and said
I told you so.
You said, stay nice.
But I wanted to show you,
I wanted to make you feel neglect.
And when they brought me back home,
The expression on your face
was utterly oblivious.
I saw in your eyes
the pain I had caused,
lying deep in your heart,
oozing to the surface
and streaking your face.
And I wondered
how you could not have noticed
the pain in me.
“The Chaos”, by Gerard Nolst Trenité
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.
Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it’s written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say – said, pay – paid, laid but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.
From “desireâ€: desirable – admirable from “admireâ€,
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,
Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation’s OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes with Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.
Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?
Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.
Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You’ll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.
Would you like some more? You’ll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,
Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with “shirk it†and “beyond itâ€,
But it is not hard to tell
Why it’s pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the A of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.
“Solder, soldier! Blood is thickerâ€,
Quoth he, “than liqueur or liquorâ€,
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.
Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.
Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.
And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,
Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn’t) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.
Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)
Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don’t mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;
Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.
No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don’t want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.
But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.
Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you’re not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.
Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.
Please don’t monkey with the geyser,
Don’t peel ‘taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.
The TH will surely trouble you
More than R, CH or W.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget ‘em –
Wait! I’ve got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.
The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight – you see it;
With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,
Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry, fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.
Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
Bona fide, alibi
Gyrate, dowry and awry.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Rally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess – it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.
Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.
Mind the O of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.
Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.
A of valour, vapid, vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,
Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.
Pronunciation – think of Psyche! –
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won’t it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying ‘grits’?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Don’t you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
Hiccough has the sound of sup…
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!
Auch! I’ve heard this before, less than a week ago!
…That is the most Muserly poem I have ever read. THANK YOU.
The world whirls around us
Colors swirling and dancing in the wind
To us all sounds are music;
We are children of the sky and earth.Â
Can you hear the song of the stars?
Eyes so bright with unshed tears
Alone. The music surrounds me
Flows over the gap you left
The colors whirl in the windÂ
And they remind me of you.Â
Why did you fly away?
I am like a leaf on the breeze
Floating, restless, nowhere to go
Without you I have no anchorsÂ
To this cruelly beautiful world
Slowly I fade, becoming
Lifeless and limp
and afraid to be hurt again
in the way that you have hurt me
For though with you I flew on the winds
With wings of joy
Without you I have fallen farther
Than I ever have before
With nothing to catch me when I hit the bottom
I will crumple and fall inwards
Into my mind
Alone.Â
Critique would be much appreciated as always.
Fireh this is so so beautiful, as always. You are such a talented poet.
Just one question! – is there meant to be a variation in the capitalisation/non-capitalisation of the first letter of each line? Most of the time you have it capitalised but then occasionally you don’t, so I was just wondering if this was on purpose to show sentence continuity or something.
Well a lot of the time I don’t use capitalization when I’m upset or hurt, so I’m using that to emphasize the part about hurt.
Oh, okay – cool, thanks!
I totally read the “leaf on the breeze” line to myself in Wash’s voice.
It’s lovely, fireh.
missed opportunities
shooting stars whizzing by
grab on, or
don’t
grab on, and
it slips from your grasp
lost forever, and
others
people who grabbed on
people who could hold on
stare at you from afar
from a standpoint far more glorious than your own.
all that remains is light trails
regret
knowing you could have
knowing you didn’t
knowing you never can again
reach out your hand
outstretched arm
shooting star
forever lost
and everyone
everyone you know
gone with it.
This is beautiful.
It made me cry, and I mean that as a compliment.
Wow, thanks! I’m honored to hear you say that… it was really a spur-of-the-moment thing.
Please make more. That was lovely.
A little something that came to me as I was listening to some shoegazey electropop. This is not intended to be anything resembling a finished poem–it’s more of a basic sketch of a few ideas that I will at some point rewrite from scratch. As such, it’s muddled and poorly worded.
“Perception”
Perception defines us. Its rule
is unmistakable and unavoidable, never
malleable or able to be pushed aside
and ignored as though it were
nothing. To say that one can be objective
is to be absolutely
certain about absolute uncertainty.
Storms and darkness scare men
of all ages, though they don’t show it. I once
thought that the more
obscure something was, the closer it was to
reality. This was my perception,
but it isn’t any longer. My new
reality that I perceive
exists only as I perceive it,
unhindered by some third party.
Remove the false beliefs from your perception,
your blinders that obscure your view,
filters that tell you your view is filtered,
and you will realize that storms and darkness
exist only because you fear them.
Time too is an invention. A businessman who
waits for the morning train,
for his boss to give him a meager raise, will see
no trouble that cannot be waited out. And the
man who accepts his subjectivity,
but tries to avoid responsibility, will find
the world an unrelentless place. The
man claiming reality exists outside of perception,
who says there is some objective truth,
waits and wastes his life hoping
for some cosmic revelation, but
it will never come.
i chose my road myself
tried to shine
fell from the sky
found myself in a circus
amongst clowns with painted faces
no stardust
sea of faces
i am a freak show side tent
see me sit in my cage
come jeer at me all you want
if you need a laugh, if you have time to waste
i welcome you, i’ll sit and hear all you say
here on a throne of thorns
crowned with a rag stained with blood
there is the knife, do what you like
i’ll just watch as the world goes mad around me
if i’m bored i’ll make a fool out of myself
ask me to tell a joke, i’ll tell you about my life
tell me to do something stupid, i’ll smile at you
when i’m tired of it all, maybe i’ll go to sleep
even if sleep is impossible through all those eyes
nowhwere to hide
nowhere to go
but well whatever
you’d think i’m the freak
but come in and sit by my side
stand where the tiles are stained red with my tears
look through the bars and then you’ll see
it’s a slaughterhouse out there
the world is driven insane with sinners
people hack each other apart all the time
here in chains i am free
i chose to be locked up
i threw away the key
you can’t save me
but hurt me all you want
one freak in one silly circus
remind me how to cry
laugh at my sorrows
pity my loneliness
love me
hate me
but don’t try to help me
go away and do whatever you like
just remember i’ll still be here long after you have been shot down
if one day i recall how to regret
oh well
it’s too late to turn back
Before a storm, the sky is beautiful
so dark and purple
so calm and serene
it takes your heart and cuts it open.
The light is amazing
sending shadows everywhere
so things look more alive
more there
than they really are.
There’s something in the air
making people breathe in deeply
to hold it in their chests
as long as they can
before that wild thing claws its way out.
The sun is warm
and everything is wonderfully, beautifully, absolutely still.
just like that.
deejay won’t you play my songs?
turn off the rap and the dubstep
the remixes and the hiphop
turn them so I can dance
turn off all of them so I can hear music
let me shake my body to disco, be the dancing queen
swinging my hips to an elated beat
go earlier to the Beatles’ beginnings
let honest guitar fly out and let us sing along
turn off your heavy beats that hurt my chest
beats that vibrate my bones and words that make me cringe
instead, put on some swing music
dip me, twirl me, spin me around as we laugh
deejay, play me honest music
play me music that doesn’t try to force itself into me
but music that knocks politely
and takes care that I’m happy while I dance
I’m showing this to my friend, who loathes pop music.
(SFTDP: She loved it.)
From a little while ago.
_____
I. the part where you remember.
there was a door.
there was a door and you were going somewhere
and the destination doesn’t matter anymore.
it might have been across the room
or it might have been the stars.
there was a door and there was you
and there was someone else.
you remember that there were words
hanging in the air,
thick as honey.
dripping down your ears and throat
and choking the breath from you, coating your skin.
there were words and there was someone else
and you remember how the light looked
on her hair and in her eyes.
you remember it precisely.
a rich red-gold sunset weighing down
on your memory.
someone said something
and the words rolled down the walls.
there was a door and there was something broken
that day
you couldn’t hear them
but you can remember the sound
you remember it precisely.
you remember the absence that followed.
II. the part where you forget.
the color of her eyes.
the sound of her voice hanging in the air.
where the stars went.
____
Ohhh crap I didn’t post the entirity of this poem. It must have gotten cut off. The above should just be the start of another verse attached to the above poem.
There’s a poety contest I want to enter, but I’m trying to write and nothing’s clicking.
Suggestions?
my wings were formed from shards of broken glass
the colors radiate under the vivid lights
and form like stars in your kaleidoscope eyes
I am simply useless, for when I try to fly
jagged apical pieces dig deep into my skin,
shattered fragments of what could have been
my absence catches in the throats of
those who hold the slingshots and
who can, with a single gesture of ascendancy,
string me down from the glorious clouds
whisper my submission into crystal clear contempt
crowd me back into my iron clad captivity
the bird too limited to fill the sky, she has
formed her own cage.
I accidentally a ballad.
—————–
Have We Met
A boy, a girl, they met one day
As they passed on the street.
“Won’t you join me there,” he said,
“To get something to eat?”
Soon friendship found its way to love
And daily they would go.
Sneak away from homes and jobs
So that their love could grow.
Then, one day, a tragedy.
The boy was locked up tight.
The girl, she pined for her lost love
All through the day and night.
Seven years, she sat expecting
Until she could no more.
Her soul and mind, they went away.
A new girl held the floor.
The boy was freed from prison and
He sought the girl he knew.
He called to her “Roxanne, my love!”
She coldly replied “Who?”
~Perpetuality~
And when she opened her mouth,
a symphony flowed out,
and it painted the buildings
and the trees
and the little birds
and all the people’s faces
as they passed by,
not noticing the color that dabbled on their hair
and noses.
They were searching,
you see,
that kind when you look for the answer
you know you won’t discover.
Probing the silence for sound,
cramming the jigsaw pieces
into a twisted shape,
not the way it was meant to be.
When the streets drifted away,
they didn’t see the sky as it exploded
into stars.
Their eyes were tied to their shiny black shoes
scuffing the buckling pavement
beneath their feet.
Their minds too erratic,
too worried,
too busy to see the rainbows pooling
in the cracks in the sidewalk.
The little birds kept singing
as the people floated off on their perpetual journeys,
continuing on their separate stretch of existence.
Wishing forever for
what was all around them,
on the vibrant buildings
and iridescent trees.
And the symphony continued,
playing where nobody could hear it.
Or perhaps,
no one bothered to listen.
This is my rap about the Great Depression. I’m sorry.
Hey—
production increased hecka faster than wages,
the income gap was a story for the ages,
in the chaos of the country it was kinda like a war
because the rich were gettin’ richer and the poor were stayin’ poor.
Yeah, the income maldistribution came, the labor unions went to, uh, cake
an economic crash was comin’, and not a single soul could see it,
because there ain’t no money to create demand,
the trickle-down suppliers are all controlling the land,
while the workers are breaking their backs, yeah, they’re slavin’ it,
the top one percent take the profit, and they’re savin’ it;
the ads are all tellin’ em
consume, consume.
Pay later, buy now
so we can boom, we boom.
But how to bring in balance
the demand with the supply?
Man, I guess we tax the rich
but you know we’d rather die.
There’s a super-scary faith in the overspeculation
of the market, of the people, yeah, it’s burning in the nation,
it’s the rich who are playing in the sandbox of the stock,
but it’s the poor who’ll lie with their collars on the block,
‘cause if you trade fast now you might just get rich quick,
‘cause if you don’t know how well then you’ll only get sick.
Welcome to America,
and don’t you think it’s funny
where the streets are paved with gold
we pay with nonexistent money?
Give me stock and give me money
give me credit, give me cash,
hold your breath and close your eyes;
we were just waiting for the crash.
So maybe we should’ve known it:
that this wasn’t all it seemed,
but don’t you dare begin to blame us,
we were the people made to dream,
you know there’s just one place to go
when you are sure you’ve reached the top,
and you know when the storm is starting
there ain’t nothing we can stop,
and maybe next time the sun rises
we’ll have found some true solution,
and just maybe if we’re lucky
then we can find an absolution.
Could we have a new version of this thread?