share your own poetry

i want evryone to post a peice of their own poetry here.
please! i love to read poetry, especially amature poetry cause you have a bigger variety among groups. my own peice follows:

ONCE
Once a day, there is no day
Once an hour, there is no time
Once a minute, there is no reaction
Once a second, there is no way
Once one's loved, there is a power
A power of love comes once, & once only
Once one’s gone, you keep them with you
Your heart is stronger than your mind.

psst. we're over here: http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=11806

thanks

THE SEAS OF LONELINESS AND DESPAIR

Sometimes life can be a very scary
place to be as we drift in the Seas
of loneliness and despair, desperately
wanting someone, anybody to care.
We continue to drift along in these
Seas for what seems like an endless
amount of time. And if you're in
luck someone eventually comes along
plucks you out of your drifting life raft.

And chooses to be a friend and share
your life. But not everyone is given a
second chance and that is a crime.
You no longer feel empty as you begin
to mend and get stronger because life
has some meaning once more. You
know that you have found a true friend
on who you can always depend to be
there for you.

Librarianwannabe

SNOW

See how the snow flakes are falling gently
down to the ground like little whispers they
don't make a sound. Snow is such a beautiful
sight to behold on a cold winter's day. Have
you ever gone outside and tried to catch a
snowflake on your tongue? I love snow and
like to watch it from a window as it dresses
everything in a filmy white just like a Bride's
Wedding Gown. SNow means many different
things to different people. To children it is a
day of off school as you hang out with your
friends. To Businesses, Stores and Malls it
means no end to the cash registers ringing
up Sales like a Lion's Roar. Tow Truck Drivers
will be pulling people out of the snow. Those
that are home sit and pout and dream of Spring.
Snow Plow Drivers will be clearing the roads,
streets and neighborhoods making them nicer
and neater to drive on. Some people like to
go to the Video Store and pick up Movies to
watch later that night as the snow continues
to fal and the inches mount up.

There are way too many snow flakes falling
that makes it impossible to count their number.
People go outside and shovel all the snow in sight
from sidewalks, steps and driveways. Cars trying
go get out of their neighborhood spin their tires
as they slip and slide from side to side. But
snow cal also be deadly as it is pretty as
temperatures drop below freezing. If someone
or their pet is caught outside with no place
to hide they will freeze to death.

Librarianwanabe

TREES

See how the tall trees bend and sway to
and fro in the gusty breeze. The branches
move like many fingered hands all at the
same time as if they were trying to catch
and hold the wind.

But in the end the Wind slips through the
many fingered trees with ease and shouts
back a taunting, jeering tease that only
angers and riles the trees. You'll never
catch me it cried as the voice of the Wind
died and the trees were left behind as they
took a heavy sigh.

Librarianwannabe

A DARKSIDE

We all keep a darkside buried deep, deep
inside of us that would like to get out. And
every now and then it shows its ugly, vile
snout in the form of anger, violence, hatred
and distrust. Some of us are better than others
at keeping this monster's rage locked up in a
cage with chains and shackles. But when it
does break free and get loose it can create
havoc, chaos and ruin.

We must all try to do a better job to control
this horrible, terrible beast the best way we can.
Wars have begun when it grows too large and
can't be kept under lock and key.

Librarianwannabe

BIRDS

See how the birds fly way up high in
the sky as they glide from side to side,
swoop, loop and twirl. Like some graceful
acrobat doing flips and somersaults in
the air without a care or any net below
to catch them should they lose their grip.
Wouldn't it be lots of fun if people had
wings like birds as they flew West toward
the Sun as it Sets or North, South or
East not caring in the least where your
wings and the Wind take you. To be totally
free as a bird with no one to please but
yourself.

And not speaking a word as you fly by and
the Wind gently caresses and teases your
wings like a Lover's soft, erotic touch brings.
And almost hear the beautiful Angelic,
Heavenly Choir as they Sing their songs
as only Angels can.

Librarianwannabe

SHAPES IN THE CLOUDS

Have you ever just taken the time
to look up in sky above and try
to see shapes in the clouds?
Some days it seems the clouds
are floating lazily by taking their
time. And other times you see
the clouds float by real fast as
if they were in a race. Sometimes
when I look up to find shapes in
the clouds one second it might be
a face, an animal, fish or plane.
Only to have it change shapes
again. They never seem to have
the same shape too long. There
are days it is so cloudy that
it seems no ray of Sun can peek
through.

And you never see the same
shape twice which makes watching
the clouds roll by awful nice. Oh, what
a shame it is for people who never try
to see the shapes in the clouds. It
helps if you have friends to play this
game with you as everyone shouts
out real loud the shapes in the clouds.

I love all of the poems that have been writen here so far. You've done well all of you

Tumbling deep stretches of brown
Gold flowing sound waves
Of Joy's own laugh
Spring pastures of green
Still moist with morning dew
Gaze to my sky
Gaze to my seeing sky
Stretches of brown mingle
With my sun kissed crown
Warm summer heat
Held within his finger tips
Intertwine with my eternal winter
Always chilling the blood
Held within my own
Pale and small fingers
They breathe life unknown
To myself and all
Into depths far
Beyond my skin
Far beyond such
Unknowing flesh
To where smiles
Melt cold hearts
Words
Rekindle thoughts
To Where lips
Leave their scars
Where my being
Is kept
My soul has waited to say
A word of truth
A word that means love
An understanding word
One single word
A word that will
Control each fiber
Of itself, my soul
And here in this sunset
As a kiss leaves another scar
As breath flows
And sends such heat
Down my neck
When summer hands
Press against my winter back
And green pastures
Gaze into my seeing sky
His brown tumbles over my face
And lays in my gold.
As the silver of his voice
Says
I love you
And he turns my winter
Into his summer
We are one season
brown and gold together
A pasture with a
Bright blue Sky
My soul says it's word
With a sigh of eternity
Of waiting and longing
It's whisper of love
is Andrew

Online Warriors
By Jacob Martin

I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by coffee, hyper, raving, thirsty
For another taste of victory
gained in a game of Counter-Strike
in the I-Star cafe.

These people spoke in tongues
only their number could
understand, w00t, LOLZOR,
pwned you all, ROFLMAO,
these words as strange as silver.

They were my friends, I had
known them, while at school
It was a brotherhood
The white man gamed with the
Asian man, unity in virtual battle

These online warriors,
laid down their arms
when playtime ended,
school brought them together
and every day they returned

To fight each other with bullets
imaginary, it was a farce of
death as they laughed at
the Reaper, as they were
young, they lacked mortal fear

These boys now men
I will treasure in memory
for you will not see their
kind again, a moment, one
generation defined by computers.

* * * * *

Edited for glaring missing word in stanza 5...

I very much adore that poem Jacob

i love all these poems! keep 'em goin!

I second Smiley Scorpio's motion. Kepp 'em comin'

Nice poem teen author keep up the good work!

Basically I was attempting to capture the essence of my experience as a member of the online gaming generation/iGeneration in a poem. From the responses I recieved it appears to be a keeper!

I addored it, considering I am one of your kind lol!

lol. MORE POEMS PLEASE!i am a sorta poetry freak......

Ok then, (this isn't as good as my last one though)

The Cultural Cringe
By Jacob Martin

How can the Cultural Cringe
Be solved when teenagers binge
On alcohol before they come of age?
And when adults rant and rage

at people who mean well
This country will go to hell
If we don’t support the arts
And make the public schoolkids smart

It is a monster not of nature
The Bunyip is not such a creature
It cowers before the beast of apathy
We’re confused about our national identity

If we can never make it right
The ghost of old Patrick White
Will haunt the empty stages
For the critic’s penned outrages

The stories of our people untold
For Hollywood, we chase the gold
We ignore the fields of Eureka
We’d rather have our Nike sneakers

They say it’s not as bad
As it used to be, they’re glad
To live in an asleep country
But this isn’t how it’s meant to be!

ooooh. i like that one, it is true,has meaning.

good, deep. i like!

I like it too :)

to #10 above

A Perfect Summer Day

A perfect summer day
would be these;
walking barefoot
on grass carpets,
driving by honeysuckle
blankets covering
the ground,
zero humidity,
elephant clouds
floating in
the sky,
seeing those
tiny white
butterflies and
small white flowers
moving
together
in the
gentle breeze,
lightening bugs
rising up from
earth at night
with crickets
singing from
the trees.

love it

Love Poem

A bounty of fog
hangs over half-snow-covered fields
under a brown sun whose heat is felt
under the skin
and behind the eyes.

Geese--fifty or so--are hidden
by the falsehood of seeing
among the corn stubble.

Coals burn deep under the earth;
hot blood is squeezed through the arteries of geese.
Several snowflakes melt each second.

No one talks about this heat, but it is there
hidden. It makes fog and melts ice,
an occasional haystack explodes in a barn,
but it is difficult to talk about.

ooooh, i like these. i REALLY like Lips tcw

I am such a sucker for love poems.

Critics

The Word Doctors huddle round,
They chant what can't be spoken.
A grand cacophony of sound
To mend what isn't spoken

Duh,

To mend what isn't broken.

oooo, good

Gloam the Gnome

I once met a gnome who said his name was
Gloam and that he came from Rome and he
knew the Pope real well and said to me friend
let me tell you the Pope is no dope and has
placed all of his hope in me to let everyone
know the end is near, not to show any fear
or shed any tears in your beer nor to have
any regrets. So together we did roam in all
kinds of weather and ended up in Nome.
The Pope had been wrong after all because
the end never came and people started to
dance about, shout hooray and sing happy
songs and shake hands with you as they
greet everyone with a smile and a laugh.

There was dancing in the streets and
parties everywhere. Gloam and I got so
loaded we nearly exploded and had to crawl
away. To this day Gloam and I are still best
friends and laugh when we talk about the
end that never came. The Pope was
embarrassed and a big disgrace he had to
step down and be replaced. He tried to run
away where no one knew his face which was
not a very easy thing to do because everywhere
he went people would poke fun at him and make
a lot of jokes about him in taverns, pubs, bars,
villages and towns both near and far. And to
this day no one can say they know what
happened to the Pope who said the end is near.

Librarianwannabe

Hey everyone I have a great idea why don't we
try and get our own Poetry Book Published. Maybe
LT could Publish it for us or help us to find someone
that would do it. We could all contribute our own
original poems that we have written. I know there
are places where you can Publish your own book.
And if there is enough interest and poems maybe
we could even Publish a second volume. How about
it? Anyone interested? I know I have really enjoyed
reading everyone's poems.

Librarianwannabe

I'm currently at a stage in my life when studying is more important than publishing. Somehow I think a publisher is going to take a high school graduate more seriously than a drop-out.

But I suppose it could be a good idea, but how many royalties would each poet get from this?

I've been reading up on my Australian Copyright laws, and though I can't really do anything about people copying poems I've posted here, the moral right of the author needs to be taken account of.

Does anyone know any of the publishers on LT? Maybe one of them would be willing to stop by the thread and give advice. I doubt you would make money on it to speak of, but it might be fun anyway.

"Feb 18, 2008, 8:48pm (top)

"Message 38: TeenAuthor

"I'm currently at a stage in my life when studying is more important than publishing."

I've been there for most of my life, after about my late-20s-early-30s.

A second reason is the slog of submitting stuff, even when it isn't rejected.

Leda (with bill in hand)

and tempted Zeus
with apples, honeycomb,
and roses, until
a proud,
swan-prowed ship,
lost, in time,
came softly home.

not brutally, but
abashed, drawn
down, pulled reluctant
from air and water
to bow before
Athene's temple,
just a pawn.

and when, deed
done, rape cried,
he hung his head
in imagined shame,
Olympus laughed
to see the man
in him beaten
at that game.

#41

amazing poem.

It is madness to jest
Without a fallback position
Yet
Here is the crime
Assassin of art
Pooling blood as scripture

If after reading Milton
You desire
A taste beyond the breakfast swill
Then let the introductions
Flay
The flesh and the very soul
Of godless demons
Engendered

Poem for a Daughter
By Jacob Martin

I dreamt I had a daughter
The same age as me
We were both eighteen
Boy was it a strange dream!

It’s not like I could see myself
as a darling teenage dad
But the way that girl smiled at me
At the time made my heart glad

Could I be a father,
At my tender age?
I suppose I’m far too young
To be writing this on the page

But in that dream she lived
The apple of my eye
And I shall remember my little girl
Until the day I die

If I was to be a father
I would much rather
Be older, wiser, but still as fun
As when my youth is under the sun

What makes it all so strange,
Putting me in a rage
Is how I miss my daughter
That never was, yet I knew her

Will she ever come to be
In the endless time and sea
Of tossing hopes and dreams
She even offered me ice cream

To make me feel better
As my cheeks got much wetter
Tears shed for joy of seeing her
That child of mine, never were

I suppose I still miss her
That girl to whom I was a father
For a moment in a dream
In sleep nothing is as it seems

awwww!

A small prayer for small creatures

A small prayer for the companion animals
who, lost, abandoned,
casualties of death or divorce,
stranded by force of flood or storm,
may find people with room
in their heart;
people who may find that while they thought they were giving, were being given to;
and in the warm touch of feather or fur,
in the happy bark or vibrant purr,
be healed of their hurts.

49:
:)

49:

That goes double for me!

:) :)

My most recent poem:

Clear

The rain keeps its million
brilliant eyes open,
taking all in as it falls
in love with the earth
and oceans:

Dizzied, rapturous descent
upon leaves,
rooftops, blades of grass,
sharp sizzling asphalt
the water soon washes across
in rushing streams.

Most all the people
scamper inside,
run from the rain,
wipe away its small kisses
from the tops of their heads,
dry its shuddering cool from their backs,
and stare out the window
waiting for it to leave.

The rain knows,
for its eyes are always open.

#41 and #49 especially powerful poems.

The Guarding Flame

The beauty is her nature, the flow of life she receives
Beyond the cold charring of others, she sees his light
The warmth in his heart, the seed of love in his soul
Fertile ground is her imminence, her touch his pathway to live.

Blind to customary realities, her touch sets them free
Unity is endless, when barriers are removed
Natural is the practicality, imminent openness is the river peace
Wind is the messenger, cries floating searching for her.

Her skin is the healing, his wounds of time go back hence from which they came
Evil never destroys her, love wrapped carefully her solace.
Need is the underlying cry, his soul bleeding from wrongs surviving the right
Embrace is their home, her love the guarding flame.

#55 – Love it, love it, love it, Poemblaze.

#57 – Lots of really great stuff in there, SweetLily.

Thank you both for sharing.

I just read my new copy of Otherwise by Jane Kenyon and I was inspired to write about poets and writers who also died young. Here is the poem:

Before Fifty

Thinking about the suicides
Of Sexton, Tsvetaeva, Celan , and Plath
I wish for all the poems they didn’t write.
And then, there’s Keats and Kenyon,
Austen and Emily Dickinson,
Coleridge and Mandelstam ,
Adelaide Crapsey and Byron.
None of them lived to be fifty, and
Holderlin was insane at thirty-seven.

They suffered so, they must have been
hurting more than the rest of us.
From boozing and divorces,
Stalin, Hitler, poverty, exile,
From insanity and addiction,
Tuberculosis, and jealousy.
From ignorant, hostile, puritanical publishers
And the SS and the KGB.

I want to hear them read
Out loud, and wonder
At their accents, and their clothes.
I want to shake their hands
And apologize for still being
Alive. I want to ask them
To autograph my books.

Why should I have expected them
to escape what Unamuno called
The Tragic Sense of Life? Or the violence
And stupidity of the twentieth century.
They were more sensitive, braver
And more tender than the common lot.

Dictators thought they were dangerous.
And they probably were.
A line can be a rallying cry
That topples kings.

July 23, 2008
Edited because Holderlin lived into his seventies, but was insane, so I added Byron.

"A line can be a rallying cry
That topples kings."

Wonderful poem.

Cabanagirl, glad you enjoyed the poem. Thank you.

#60 Almigwin

That is a very thoughtfull poem. Have you published it elewhere? it deserves a wide audience.

I have never published anywhere. I wouldn't know how to begin. This poem is new; I just wrote it last week,

#60 almigwin. The poem is very good. I wish I had stopped to read it sooner, when I was last rushing through here.

...my insides rattled...

I love this.

Take my word for it as a published poet, "you will not make money" writing poetry. Not to say that that will ever stop me from doing so. Poetry in this modern age has to be done for the pure joy and pleasure it brings the poet. The only way a poet will make money today is if they are something else first Singer/Poet (Jewel) Novelist/Poet (Maya Angelou) Actor/Poet (Viggo Mortensen) Rock Star/Poet (Henry Rollins). For what I garner from 2 books each year I generally pay for t-shirts and other such things that I give away at book signings. But again I wouldn't give it up for the world. So keep plowing away and keep pen to paper and just find the joy in getting those words down. If you get to read your work in front of a highschool Eng Lit class at your old highschool someday (like I did) it makes a lot of it worthwhile.

This is a love poem I wrote just for an otaku girl I've seen a few times in the Kinokuniya bookshop I visit every now and then. The best way to woo an otaku girl is to compare her beauty and charms to Anime girl characters you like but as you compare her to these characters, who are more stylised/idealised than a real female body, you have to balance that with traits those characters have that aren't physical which you admire in a woman. Well, here goes:

* * * * *

Full Red Tartan Jacket
A Poem by Jacob Martin

I think I’m falling for you
You’re a female otaku
We’re too shy to do anything
But exchange glances

But I believe chances
Like this don’t come along
Every day, but you’re beautiful
I see, in every way.

I saw you once when your friend
Caught you reading yaoi
I thought I’d never see you again,
But fate sent you to charm me

Your glasses, give you the beauty
Of Yomiko Readman, from Read or Die
Your shyness, mixed with the gentle Miyuki
From Lucky Star, I think I know why

Your jacket stands out from the crowd
But you seem to not want to be seen
Even though you might be a fujoshi
I don’t think that your hobby’s obscene

Maybe you think I’d judge you
For your eccentric little quirks
I’m not here to blame you
I just want a love that works

Your full red tartan jacket
Reminds me of my Scots-Irish
Heritage, though you’re Asian
You really know how to wear it

I’ve never seen a girl like you
In that bookshop before
But exchanging glances is not enough
I’m telling you, I want more.

I wrote this poem for my Latin class as an attempt to write in Catullan style. It's a retelling of the Greek myth of Persephone and Hades.

'Winter Pains'

Woe is the god who dwells in the fiery depths of earth's core.
One who has all,
Yet has only misery.
One who seeks only what he cannot have.
Something to save him from his agony.

Ceres, theived from the plains of Enna,
Into the dark world below.
A mother's joy stolen for Pluto's pleasure.
In the absence of her daughter,
The world is left barren.

The rich one, lord of all precious ore,
Presents his opulence to his reluctant bride,
But she will not have it.
An endeavor to slay misery,
Is met only with more despair.

Resentful pains of winter stab the earth,
And Orcus must relenquish his love for the greater good of man.
He is neither Juppiter, nor Neptune,
His name is not one to be awed, but rather feared.
Orcus.

One parting gift for his unfortunate lover,
A pomegranate of fertile blood,
Which ensures his love's return.
Merciless is he,
Who cares not for the world's winter pains.

sigh . . . too much time between things here for me to read.

Falling Thoughts

And red-tinged leaves flutter
down again, as if
death were not final, as if
each wind-swept rattling pile
scratches a future. More
brittle, quicker to dust
than stone (of course)
but, broken, more likely
to cut.

#72 bookstopshere

I want to say 'A penny for your thoughts' but not have it be a joke. I have been reading about differences between European and American poetry and this one falls right into the European tradition by connecting with nature. Not that I am making any judgment about where you are from. I did enjoy it.

yar - here's the whole:

Falling Thoughts

And red-tinged leaves flutter
down again, as if
death were not final, as if
each wind-swept rattling pile
scratches a future. More
brittle, quicker to dust
than stone (of course)
but, broken, more likely
to cut.

Like paper,
sharp and (unlike stone)
quickly crumbled to dust.
Still blank, still green
in memory, and
gone, bled out and
green and blank again
in some future perfect.

Sometimes nature’s not
enough; a fossil leaf
lies in truth, tells
only what we are.
A red fluttering thing,
caught in sunlight never
reaches the ground.

but what's it mean to you? or, what doesn't work ?
or?

Bookstopshere. If you are asking mho, then I'll tell you how I interpret this poem. Please remember I see things through kaleidescope-glasses.

The first stanza makes me think about thoughts as each of the leaves and a pile of leaves representing people's thoughts in piles on the side of the road. Forgotten thoughts, plans for the future never realized, and the thoughts are more brittle then the leaves they become, more fragile. The future brings ideas to an end faster then materials decompose.

The second stanze is more difficult for me. I understand paper being sharp and unlike stone, but still blank,green ( inexperienced in memory)? The memory starts, bleeds out and never becomes even formed enough to become a leaf? Too much of a dream? This one was not as grabbing for me.

Then the last, third stanza, and I usually like best in a poem. The fossil that is left behind sometimes does not show enough to tell the truth, therefore tells a lie, a misrepresentation. What is left s not enough to tell the truth, only what we looked like we were. Then it was beautiful to come back around to the moment the leaf starts the journal by falling to the ground. It feels whole.

thank you
yareader

75-
thank you for the thoughts. I think too that second bit doesn't work well at all. It's that over-reach page/leaf thing. Now in a workshop folks would rush in to rescue my ineptness with more ideas. Where can I find some kaleidescope-glasses? and merci beaucoup

I was cleaning out some files and I found a poem i wrote around 1968, when we were protesting the war in Vietnam: (It applies to all the other wars since then, including Abu Ghraib, Sudan, Rwanda, Somalia, Lebanon, The West Bank and Gaza, Israel and Egypt, Russia and Chechnya, etc.)

The earth is steady
with her burden.
She carries us
round the sun
singing our plainsong
in doom's circle.
No massacre
alters her course
and she does not remark
upon our folly
but it would be
no injustice
if she would flick us
off her back
with a twitch
and cover herself
again
with ice.

Here is another, from about the same time or earlier:

Eggshell frail is the heart's rim
dividing life from death,
or call it better: light from dark
or love from hate.

This essay in opposites
has one moral only.
While you live, lean heavily
upon this fragile boundary

since yesterday
in every dawn
is lost.

Two poems for my son on his 18th birthday in 1969:

Watch it, baby.
life has a way
of sneaking up on you
and grabbing you
by the tail
and shoving your mouth
full of crow.

You will warn your son
the same way
when he is grown
if you ever
stay in one place
long enough
to know him.

* * *

Well you haven't learned humility yet
In another 18 years or so
perhaps you will, but then
I doubt it.

You don't much want to bother
reading Camus
You'd rather go to Newport
or the Village
and hear the jazz.

You haven't decided really
whether to make it
or not to bother
You'd like to depend on someone
but you're not sure who.

In the meantime
you play the piano.
It doesn't have to be great
because it isn't for anyone important
and you're not really trying
to prove anything.

Not really.

Hi Almigwin

So you were cleaning out some files and found these poems. I wonder how you feel about them now? You must still like them, be proud of them, because you shared them. I liked them, but now that they have sat for a long while, what have they become to you? Are you the parent that stayed around to know your son? Have you too been swept away by life? In the second poem, thrid stanza when you talk about depending on someone, do you mean love?

I am not sure 'proud of them' is the right explanation. I think I entered them here because they expressed what I and other mothers have felt about artistic children who drift, who don't seem to build goals, have discipline or build careers. I feared for him.
He started college at 16, and went abroad at 23, and he is 57 now. The dependence I mentioned was both economic and emotional. He has had difficulties and successes in his life: physical, emotional and economic. We have stayed close, although our value systems differ greatly. I hope I am not being disloyal to say this.

almigwin,

You should be proud of those poems, imho. You captured a moment that rings clear enough for you to remember today. I didn't mean it in a self-glorifying way. I don't think you have to be disloyal to feel differently about choice. I am glad to hear you have stayed close.

TCW: So many readers liked #49, could you put it back? I don't remember it. Thanks.

Saying "Good-Bye" to My Brain Cells
by Marian Veverka

You sneak away at night
While I'm sleeping. Stashing your stuff in tiny backpacks, then tip-toeing down the Eustachion Tube and out the ear.

A few of you take the sinus route - being forcibaly blown
through the nasal passages and into a tissue.
A bit messy, but I can understand your need to leave.
Working with a mind frosted over with out-dated ideas, stacks of thoughts accumulated but neither organized or indexed and who's supposed to pay attention --go, the working conditions will just continue to deteriorate.

I have no idea how many of you have left. Lately, tho, I've noticed the disappearance of the Rapid Response Team and the local news is limping badly. New faces flutter away with the wind-blown leaves and I give up trying to learn new names - they

just creep back into the anonymity of the phone book. Which I am still able to locate (every now & then.)

I'm ready to beg, all of you still loyal to our team, please don't be in such a hurry to leave!
Who will I be without you?

MarianV, I think no. 84 is terrific, and speaks for all of us who have senior moments more often than we would like. Thanks for sharing.

#84

I feel this way when I lose an idea for a story or poem and I am racking my brain to remember it. Wonderful!

I just wrote a poem called I Got Me Those Obama Wins Post Election Depression Blues which I will be posting later on. Don't worry it's not really Obama bashing.And I do not say anything bad about Obama.
In fact, I'll give you all a small sampling of what it will be like.

I Got Me Those Obama Wins Post Election Depression Blues

Listen up people I got something to say.
Because today I got me
those Obama wins post
election depression blues.
When I first heard the word about the worst kind of news that made me feel sad.
The kind of news I did not
want to hear.

Anyway, that is how it begins. And I'll post the entire thing
a little later on today. I would not write a poem that bashed
Obama even if I don't happen to agree with his Politics

Beatles1964

I Got Me Those Obama Wins Post Election Depression Blues 11//06/08

Listen up people I got something to say. Because today I got me those Obama wins post election depression blues. When I first heard the word about the worst kind of news that made me feel sad. The kind of news I did not want to hear. Right now a lot of people are full of joy and good cheer. If I drank I would drown my sorrow and some tears in a boat load of beers. I don't see my bad case of those Obama wins post elelction depression blues to get better tomorrow or anytime real soon. Now we all have to live with the mistake of him being our next President for the next four years. It seems my worst fears came true the other day when Obama was elected to lead the way even though he has very little experience.

I like John McCain and Sarah Palin too and thought they would be much better to lead us out of the muck and mire of the quick sand and the dire, very dark serious and bleak mess we are in today. Now it seems we are stuck with Obama and Biden for the next four years whether I like it or not. I wish this was only a bad dream that could go away when I woke up the very next day. McCain and Palin were the ideal Political Dream Team Machine.

In another four years we will get the chance to vote once more and hopefully we can see Obama and Biden leave the White House doors as they wave good-bye as they go down Pennsylvania Avnue. Then maybe it will be my turn to jump up and down and shout for joy. But until that day finally arrives for me I am going to have to find a way to survive these next four Obama and Biden years.

Right now I am finding it very hard to believe that Obama nad Biden actually won the day. I do not plan on watching Obama speak at a Press Conference or on the tv news for the next four years. For me I expect these next four years to crawl by at a snail's pace. This whole Political Campaign Primaries and then Presidential race for the White House seemed to last forever. There were times it seemed like it would never end. I do wish Obama and Biden a lot of luck because they will surely need it to get us out of this financial stress everyone feels right now.

No one knows for sure what these next four years will bring or what the historians will write in their futre history books is still a mystery to everyone of what is yet to be written on the Obama and Biden era. I think Bob Dylan said it best when he sang the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind. There is a path on a long unknown bumpy winding road ahead that we must all travel together as one nation and take it from there one day at a time.

I know we are all Americans first and must put all of our small petty differences aside. I hope that Republicans and Democrats alike can agree to work together side by side with pride to make our Country great once more and see the big picture and be able to fix the economy again then the weak World economy will look much brighter too on a shining brand new day as the clouds that loom over everyone with a gloom and doom attitude in these hard and difficult financial times right now starts to drift away and leave nothing but blue skies in our view.

It was the greed of the rich CEO's of the huge companies that put us all in this mess in the first place. Then everyone had to be bailed out like a sinking ship upon the treacherous, deadly and dangerous seas. So I ask all the Politicians to Please do their best to complete this very hard seemingly impossible task.

Beatles1964

It took me several rough draft to finalize I Got Me Those Obama Wins Post Election Depression Blues because I kept revising it and adding more to it all the time until you see the completed finished product.
Like most of the poems I write they just come from out of nowhere and I just start writing down on paper what is inside my head at the moment. Other times I may be inspired by someone or something and I can't stop writing until I get it all down on paper.

Beatles1964

practically Shakespeare - maybe Love's Labours Lost? Or Much Ado?

Hey Thanks a lot for the complement bookstophere. I really appreciate it. I don't kow if I'm ready to quit my day job yet and go writing full time. lol!!!

I never imagined anyone would ever give me such a huge compliment by saying it was practically Shakespeare. Beatles1964 and Shakespeare what great company I keep.
I continue writing poems all the time and would eventually like to see them Published one day.

I have lost track of the actual number of poems I have written over the last several years however I think it is over 200 and possibly around 230 or maybe even a little more would be my best guestimate. Some of them of course I have posted here previously.

Beatles1964

Thanks for the constructive criticism tcw. I just write whatever pops into my head and go with the flow from that point onward. It was not meant to bash Obama. I just started out saying how depressed I was on the outcome of the election. And that I do wish Obama-Biden good luck in their administration because they will surely need it. I did edit it as I was writing it at the time that's why it took me several rough drafts to do because I was constantly changing things and adding more to it as well. Maybe later on I can go back and edit it again a little bit more. But for the time being I plan on just leaving it as it was written unless of course I find some more typos.

That is part of what I was trying to convey across is to give them a chance and put our petty differences aside since we are all Americans first.

And that I hope Republicans and Democrats can both work together towards the greater good of our great Country. If I wanted to write something really nasty and bash Obama I would've done it from that angle but since that was not my original intention I didn't take the poem in that direction.

I was hoping to convey a more positive message about Political unity and solving our problems together. It was meant to give Obama and Biden a chance and to hope for a better future.

Beatles1964

I am really Sorry for all of the Obama bashing I did while I was a member of the Pro and Con group. I admit things got a little heated and out control for awhile. And I hope that everyone over there sees this poem wasn't meant to be mean-spirited, nasty or in a negative way against Obama and that I have no grudges or hard feelings to anyone over there in Pro and Con. I understand they were only trying to help educate me to the real issues and not just what I heard on Fox News. So maybe sometime later on I may decide to try to rejoin Pro and Con that is if they would care to have me back again.

Immediately after the results became known I got into a real depressed mood and that is part of what I was trying to convey in the poem that and hope for a better future for everyone and that they can straighten out this financial mess we are all in right now.

At first I thought it looked pretty good for McCain and after Obama took a commanding lead in the Electoral College Votes I felt a sense of gloom and doom fall over me that I knew the end for McCain was near. So I didn't mean this poem to really bash Obama when I wrote it and I certainly don't want anyone to take it that way either.

Beatles1964

“spiteful koans”
He said
Buttoning trousers
Stumbling towards an open door
“What did you say?”
she asked
Finger knuckle deep in nostril
“Nothing”
He replied
Thinking – Nothing that
a cigarette
and
a train ride through a tunnel
wouldn’t cure.

like Ogden Nash with a hangover - thanks inkdrinker; I thoroughly enjoyed ;)

i agree

#91 Or even "The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe".

Skin Graft with Tattoo

Another mask,
Another seeming,
One last scotch
And in the morning
A pounding, tympanic
Membrane un-tuned.

Last call –
A roll call of lies;
It’s later
Than you realize and
How many layers peel
To reveal “you?”

No mirror finds
The face to face the music;
Another memory sets
Another skin between
Pain and brain –
Poor muse!

A drum roll,
Slowing to the measure
Of pulse, not impulse
And, finally,
Keeping heart time –
Whose?

LOL
two too too many tattoos

I decided to open myself to abuse and ridicule, and posted one of my poems on my blog - see here.

And I apologise for the terrible pun in the blog post's title...

almigwin and bookstophere, I enjoyed your poems. Haven't been here in a while.

Here is my latest.

----
Peace

Rainbow pours from gray heavens
into the heart of an earth washed clean.
Point of entry is unprovable
and the scientific-minded mutter
of refraction, of light divided
into component frequencies.

I see a mist of dancing angels fill the air:
select messengers cup amethysts, rubies,
turquoise and amber in their hands.
On light wings they arc downward,
bury gems in the land they touch.

Through vast tracts of time
every point on earth has been sown.
Do not bother to dig.
Forcing its way
through concrete cracks,
wait and watch color being born.

My book of poems about Bob Dylan is available from http://www.lulu.com/content/4373487

is a kiss ever enough...

Garden

the synagoge survived
the place of our burial
needless to say
these god shaped things
have a life of their own.

lord my wife sleeps
her roses bud
and all i feel
is blood before it turns
to composte

just like that the knife and fire
a philosophy of the rich
like two rivers joined as one
i become
a bone of purfumed desire

From Dust To Dust

As time flows slowly by
Life's tide does rise and fall
Singing a baby's cry
Sighing a dead man's call.

And 'pon hearts dust does fall
Hiding one's emotions
Stifling a lover's call
Burying one's devotion.

Two lovers far apart
never know why they care
For time has torn thy heart
Thus leaving nothing there.

Life's tide goes drifting on
And bluebirds fly away
For love is all but gone
It simply passed away.

I have a couple posted here: http://www.lemonfingers.com/v2/bookshelf.php?f=1766

I liked your lemon fingers.

IMAGINE

IMAGINE...
waiting, waiting..
anxiety building inside your
body,
patients isnt on your mind,
getting there is.

IMAGINE...
finally seeing,
walking closer to that special
someone,
walking on air.

IMAGINE...
getting there,
forgetting all of the bad
the past, the future.
All your thinking about is
NOW

~BubbaWF

Wat do u think?? Do u like it?? dont like it?? THats ok... i need suggestions! wat should i change?? wat should i keep?? PLZ HELP!! :)

Might wanna start by changing "patients" into patience. ; )

A recent poem of mine.

One Thursday

Bright-eyed attention
Over a microscope
Determining molecular structure
From a page of stray marks.

His enthusiasm and naivete
Embarrassed others
Unable to match his zeal or
Loath to admit it.

A phone call.
Not his wife or kids
His father?
Hasty exit.

He stopped on an overpass.
At the fence, scanned traffic below.
“Don’t jump,”
Yelled a passerby. Joking.

Without speed or hesitation,
He climbed the fence
Stood
And did a dive, arms out
Into the traffic below.

No cars hit him.
Traffic inched by the
Crumpled body,
Head resting on its asphalt pillow
Among the 2,000 motorists
Late for their evening meal.

posted the one and only poem i might have written a couple of yrs back. Again...

Gravity Waves (after a phrase attr. to Einstein)

Gravitation
Gravitation can not
Gravitation can not be held
Gravitation can not be held responsible
Gravitation can not be held responsible for people
Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling
Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.
Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling
Gravitation can not be held responsible for people
Gravitation can not be held responsible
Gravitation can not be held
Gravitation can not
Gravitation
Gravity
Grave
Gave
Ave
Al
in
L
o
v
e

apologies in advance..i don't write, just read, as a rule.
This was modeled, roughly, after a statistical function.

i like your gravity waves very much
thanks for sharing

Set an example,
My mother always said
(your younger siblings
Are watching.) Who
Are you writing for
If not for eager
Readers? And,
Of course, they’re
Fine critics, pointing,
With love, to
Your flaws.

It almost seems like a shadow passing

There used to be
such a sunny hill
to rest upon

Shoot the breeze

Become refreshed

In it’s place
I find

Shifting people
Only pausing for a moment
And slipping past quickly

Hands in pockets
Looking downward

Oh bring back the easy going days
When the poets gathered

With the easy feelings
of openness
and love

It’s like fishing,
You hope the bait finds
Some unseen ogler,
And the poor starved
Creature sets itself
Upon the hook.

The trick’s to make
The bait look real
Enough.

And when a storm
Comes building,
Up and up,
To get off the damned lake.

Still, every storm ends
and life comes back
to the surface
to feed.

to Kandinsky #111

a touch, a kiss,
short, long,
on the forehead
or the lips,
passionate, tender,
proper choice and timing,
may well do more
than suffice. . .

for the moment. . .

I smiled; I sighed

but why not "short, long" - just me out of phase?
probably

or is the secret in Kandinski? Kandinsky?

it's very charming

My reply to you, Bookstopshere, did not post. This may be a repeat of sorts.

I edited as per your suggestion. The secret is in post number 111, which prompted an immediate reply from me.

I smiled that you smiled, and I sigh that you found it charming.

Glad to see you are still around!

ow orrid me pea brain's on spring break - clear as anything - and yet more charming for its context.

thanks

Bookstopshere, I had way too much fun in the rearrangement of your post here. I also corrected to read 'Kandinsky.'

Ow! It is my spring pea braining. No sediment in sentiment. No zen in context.

I smile thanks to you.

my zentiments exactly (or at least approximately)

Perhaps Amused

Those long ingratiating limbs,
Thick with green belief
Reach my blue thoughts,
Catch the soft sweet wind
of April And scratch,
just quietly, at the window
to. My soul stirs
As if touched. All riot of color
As affections bleed and stain. What
Past? Long fingered hands,
Supple, lithe, tickle.

(funning)

Before pthalo blue, yellow to make green
Unlike blades of grass so sharp
That vision is clouded from the park bench.

Having brushed the surface with no thought
A golden blob begins to bare its ribs
Open its mouth and bloat a belly.

Though fish does not grow from mushroom,
Blurry images from mind work wonders
While arms follow rhythmic question marks.

Suddenly the world is lopsided
And disease begins to wipe out crowded—
Anxiety raises the heartbeat as erasing begins.

(Never mind the caps, please, it’s a computer glitch)
Paired with laziness. They are large red and yellow
Over vastness of night breaking monotony.

It’s like painting Chinese food and eating crib mobiles.

Rising Sunset

a bend in space
a pull in time
where i see your face
once more
with a smile
as broad as the horizon
and eyes
as luminous as a star
no longer shadowed
by sorrow
no longer furrowed
by pain
you have peeled
the burdens back
and burst through
the wreckage of your
broken life
disembarking
to serenity
to embracing arms
to a Rising Sunset

Recipe no. 1: Sweet and Sour Rememboree
______________________________________________

Start with the and.

Select a photograph of someone you have
lost or crossed,
shared days then parted ways with
and watch it softly
(think of a gaze on tip-toes),
five minutes for each side,
first at the picture, then
at the picture gone,
turning slowly, clockwise
like time itself
until you have
a good emulsion in your mind.
Put in a bowl,
add rainbow root,
stir with
a fork in the road
and set aside.

Now for the sweet.

Chop up some thyme,
add mint to it
and store in a dish—
you'll use it near the end.
Pick two or three of your best
good-sized memories;
snip off associations
which may have sprouted with the years
and dust with your favourite colour.
Pour on a glass of
Mozart
(K301 is good),
slowly
note by note,
until the music is all
taken up.
You'll know it's ready
when you find you're smiling.
Put in a pan with rum and essences of Eden
and cook as gently as you can.
Don't stir, you mustn't change
the shapes.

While this is going you can
make the sour.

Over a big bowl shake
out a dictionary, concise
will do
until you get the hang of it
and pick out
all the words
you never should have said.
If there are any turgid ones
prick with your conscience—
they will deflate a little.
Roll them together with a rolling pin
until you get a paragraph:
shape into a loaf
which you will cut
with your sharpest knife
into accusing finger shapes.
Use biting winter wind
for seasoning.
Add some tart wine or
something equally ungrapeful
and then fry furiously
two minutes or
until you hear them snap.
Drain well. Place in a serving dish.
Pour the emulsion on.
Add all the herbs to
the sweet memories and
arrange them around
the side of the dish.
The freshly minted thyme
will make them taste brand new.
Serve straight away.
Unlike revenge it's best
when piping hot.
Then at the table
on top of everything
toss handfuls
of (almost too much)
rue

(more here: http://www.sidewaysstation.com/my_poems/)

122, Bookstopshere..

Maybe I am writing as a fisher with no specific expectations, ready to catch or not to catch a fish, happy to sit at 'the edge' and watch the ripple effect of the pebble I cast, or ponder on the hook with no bait. If nobody reads, how do I know so? If I think so, do my own words spring a new song for myself? If the message, assuming there is one, is there, is it all that it is? Somehow, we are calling, it seems. How fancy we fancy ourselves as we echo. I smile.

chezwhen, is it 124?

I will come back to this your post. Of course, the message is not all it is, but more... I did not consciously use the fisher in my previous reply. Dreaded mind computing!

Interesting

the smiling fisherman
reeling them in
one by one

like a shadow in the wind
he watches his prey
as they ponder his hook

and yes
there is bait

for I too have been caught

we bought lines and
held them hoping
balloons or kites
would seize them
and runamok
upon the sky.

; )

yeah
that's good
it took me a bit
but now i see
that you've turned the fishing
upside down

very nice

poems

words spinning in my head
forming new ideas
wantng to spill out

catching word for word
holding those ideas
writing down the thoughts

thoughts blooming bright as flowers
shining on the paper
creating a new poem

Chez,

I want to answer, but your 'hook' makes my mind whirl and a whole school of fish hypnotize me.

Soon, I hope! ha

each metaphor
strains at its leash,
growls, finally bites
and howls. Free again,
it sniffs here and
there, marks its territory,
and flees
to the wild woods.

Does that mean I am a metaphor? *smile*

do you think you are a metaphor?

I flee to the woods
where parallels abound
and bark the trees
with my tongue--
what better dagger
than one which wags
or perhaps a fountain pen
poking points with perserverance--
woodpecker drilling
to find hollows
nothing to make something
and paint myself silly
little animal lost in the forest.

(Chasing phantoms, it seems, when one parts from the premise that a word is a symbol and never the thing it stands for--we're all metaphors)!

Spring winds whisper
and a gentle rain drops
the last of last
year’s leaves. They have
clung stubbornly all winter,
hoping. Or do
the new buds force them off
to make way?
Small evidence of renewal;
it takes time.

as the sun
rises
on a new day

the
memory

has returned

for you have
clearly seen

the path
it has chosen

or less clearly,
a shadow
moves

seemingly
in a straight
line, (West to East,)

but really,
a long slow
curve.

the curvature of time
rustles notes into the air
as lullabies are heard
from a distance: mothers
rocking babies
in the playground

little girls swing
from spanish moss
as it weaves
its fancy shawl
around their shoulders

in a world of make believe
all is well
and all is pink
until a bird
flies from the nest.

I'm new to Librarything and am just figuring out how everything works. Thought I would just jump right in! Here is a Sestina I did.

First and Second Draught

The house is always cold in the evening time,
and all that moves are the billowing curtains.
I trace my hand through them and feel
soft fingertips touching back, grasping and
reaching for a familiar touch. There
is a faint smell in the air that brings back

feelings of old, and memories flood back
to my cobwebbed mind, erasing time.
The roof was never repaired and their
rain rests sympathy on the curtains,
helping them grow taller, stronger and
fruitful. I laugh at thinking I would always feel

the same way, that I would always feel
the warmth at night, because at the back
of the room the radiator always coughed and
spluttered. The bedroom is stuck in time.
Not even the deep crimson curtains
can change the past or future in there.

I took all the mirrors down because they're
showing what is already known and I feel
that I have seen enough of these curtains
of skin, that hide the stage tucked in the back
of the recesses of my mind. Still, time
marches on, despite rooms without doors and

corridors yet to be traced. I haven't collected and
collated my last set of silk drapes, and there
are keys to be found in their own time.
So I shall paint the walls and fix the roof, feel
the cold no more, and take the old fittings back,
and find some new furniture or even more curtains,

(My very own private collection of curtains).
Of course there will still be rooms without doors and
secret cubbyholes, snook into nooks at the back
of the house. It's sad to say but I will miss their
rain, and the way the water would feel
on my hands, but for that there is no more time.

In the back I now keep their
curtains, in a little red box, and
can feel as if I've dealt with time.

The parabolic flight
from quiet nest to
wide world terrifies;
amnesty becomes amnesia
as sticks, string, seeds
and words are traded
or simply left; pushed
out or escaped? Forgotten?
That open mouth no longer
waiting for, demandiing,
but now singing.

there are tunes to be sung
and those for listening
while a brush with nature
paints different things:
snowy peaks
bending oaks
strung in weaves
as it sends off its message
through rainbows.

yet rainbows are arched
with a gamut
of unanswered questions
and they come
and they go
before those below
are able to catch their illusion.

#41 Cheznomore

This is profound, Chez. I am one who goes around thinking of how cause and effect cause and effect, in a circle, gets very confused. I really enjoy the angle! But not only the meaning that permeates throughout, also the careful crafting and rhythm and rhyme.

I am not sure about "not brutally." I may have skipped that line passing judgment that leads the reader a bit too much.

The last line feels forced for the rhyme (to me). I can see how it may sound lame to your ear if it ended in "beaten." Perhaps a substitute for "beaten" that fits into the rhythm of the stanza?

This poem is 'way up there,' Chez!

many thanks for the feedback Zen, Leda perhaps a problem of too much intent - and a heavier burden than the remaining words could sustain. a failed attempt to convey by "not brutally" (now) what had been brutal before (along with poor attempt to link Odysseus and Adam to the mess.) The Olympian "game" was important to me as suggested (?) by the title and the "pawn" appearing in the middle - and the piece became an exercise in methods of linking and closure outside formal structures (it began life as a sonnet) that doesn't quite do its job. ideas?

I am hungry. I think I will take the apples and run. I will come back, but I doubt any ideas could live up to a honeycomb. *smile*

When you ask about 'ideas,' I get confused. Interpretations? Oh my! For me, that is like opening Pandora's box. I can read what is not written and my mind goes on the tangent to Swan Lake and Rilke.

If you were 'linking,' you sure caught this fish in the chain!

that was Atalanta

tangents are good (and cosines) - interpretations very useful, as are any other problems with reading (including rhythm, etc.) To know what is conveyed really helps

Hi Zen

re:156

On first reading, the dreamscape mix of images made me think of 2 poems, but in the end, after several readings I think it worked out as a progression of night thoughts very nicely (if sadly;) comments, observations & questions:

Lines 3&4 of first stanza seem awkward (what is exhaling?)

Stanza 2 “laying” or “lying?” – (I’m old)
I like the “push”

“I” sleep or “you?” – confuses me
Then 3 lines I think work neatly

Stanza 4: “chained I die” feels like too much; confessing the desire for freedom might convey enough? Then, the last line confuses me – what’s that mean?

In 5, I like the first 2 lines – though comma or semicolon?

I think 6 works nicely, esp the last line

And 7 works – I really like the time/hourglass sands/ sand impression imagery – very neat!

And finally the “fist” opening from sleep is very powerful, though the diamond’s ambiguity confounds me – a tear? a ring? What were you imagining?

Very nice!

On the same, think #44 post, Chez,

I quote, as an example of the types of things that prompt questions:

"....
and roses, until
a proud,
swan-prowed ship,
lost, in time,
came softly home."

lost in time, or lost, in time came softly, but when you use 'in time' as a clause, it makes my mind sway.

I cannot help what my mind does, it does this, for instance: (sorry I do not italize, for these are your own words rearranged)

and roses
until a proud
swan-prowed ship lost
in time
came softly home.

IF it is lost in time..

What I am trying to say is that I stumble over too many commas, meaning I pause so often that the beautiful imagery is like clipped parts of a film. I find this somewhat of an intrusive comment, for each writer has a style, and, perhaps, there is intent I am missing. I am not as logical as I tend to swing from imagery and fall for rhythm.

But, if only what I say made sense, I may justify my intrusion. ha.

#160 Chez,

The third and fourth line, the labyrinth does not come through as being the peach ear? It exhales, the ear, the labyrinth.

Yes, when 'I' sleep, 'You' smells of pollen. (Maybe when I am awake 'You' is vapor or smells like onions, *wink*)

I think in images, so I translate them to words. To me, at the time I wrote this, I conceived the moon as complete, round, and the day ended, myself having satisfied whatever I had to do that fulfilled someone else, and boiled it down to 'filling your moon in my tray,' having accomplished what had to be done, which did not consist of filling my tray with chocolate candy for myself.

Something precious is lost is what I meant by the diamond, so huge in its value, so small in how easily loss happens.

Wowser, Chez! You are thorough and thoughtful, and I thank you immensely! I wonder if I answered your questions.

thanks Zen

that helps, mostly; I got the ear as labyrinth (and a lovely image it is) but I confess to continuing difficulties wrapping my head around
"absorbing the air
which exhales the meaning of being." - hard for me to visualize.

now I see the moon (I needed help - again thanks)

and that fist clenched in sleep, unclenching - that really works neatly. Kudos

and, yeah, my comma mania no doubt steals from any sonic flow - my intent (for what it's worth) being (there) to present more than one thing to think about - usually some ellipsis - and to force a slower reading. I'd use a fancier typeface where I can to slow down the eye too.

My attempt to get that sailor home in time (for what?) and to suggest the passage and to note the legend lost in time, etc - apparently I have trouble sticking to one thing

hmmm, a swaying mind is a terrible thing to waste

nice to read thoughtful feedback

more

The Limit of Gestures

Arguments without logic, no
Less true for being
Hard to hold; voiceless,
But heard, and bearing
Nearer the heart than thought.

The pity in an eye and

The sharing in a wink.

And the distance between act and
understanding

It is the sun
On the shallow water,
Puckering before the wind;
Each ripple drives
Its shadow before it,
Like fate.

The moon on the tree’s
Wind shadow, shimmering,
Casting its net for eyes,
Not fish.

The grey distance.

And the pebbles, a hand
Span deep, rocking gently
By the shore.

By the way, Chez,

"and when, deed
done, rape cried,
he hung his head
in imagined shame,
Olympus laughed
to see the man
in him beaten
at that game."

I really like the "imagined shame." Again, I am not sure I would not end it there--it is GREAT! It makes me wonder when the nail in the finger cries before the message reaches the brain, as is now the scientific discovery about the heart feeling the impact first and then sending the message to the brain, not the convoluted way we are taught (against what nature tells us to begin with).

Do not waste a swaying mind. Leave it in eternal pendulum, wondering, dredging, climbing, as long as it gets home in time. *wink*

Oops, Chez, noooo... Do not worry about multiple meanings, noooo. I think that is great! Just, maybe, cut off lines to replace commas so the reader is not forced to pause. I bet no commas can have the same effect of working with the previous or the following sentence, at least some of the time..

Oh, and the 'absorbing the air exhaling the meaning of being' as concepts are usually made up of words and words are sounds to my ear, even if only visual sound sometimes, if that makes sense, and so, through the ears comes 'back' meaning, understanding.. Something like that..

This is specially interesting because I just wrote about 'gestures' and how much more influential they can be than words. The conflicting messages of body language that go against the words uttered... The unconscious messages we are constantly sending off while we are unaware that we are being transparent in our supposed silence. I cannot see gesture as 'voiceless' only because it is soundless, but I like the way you used 'voiceless,' just in case. As well as "Nearer the heart than thought." The latter dual works.

I am very partial to these lines: I was forever impacted by words by C.S. Lewis on something like "Between the conception and the creation lies the abyss," and go around thinking of the abyss between what we say and what is understood or what we mean and what we say, and so on... In this case, you have added a dimension of the human quality versus the concept. Great!

"And the distance between act and
understanding"
----
About the following stanza, it is wonderful imagery and it is not in meaning that I stumble, but, where I added brackets, it sounds awkward to me. I like shadow as fate, but the 'like' diminishes it to a simile..

"It is the sun
On the shallow water,
Puckering before the wind;
Each ripple drives
Its shadow before it,
Like fate."
-----
I like the next two -- your imagery is wonderfully evoking.

And the last one is both good imagery and play with words.

Yeah! I love this one!

THE BABY

The child,
screaming out of the mother’s womb,
stares unseeingly at the people in white;
this hospital her first home,
nestling in a sleepy English town,
hugged by cozy hills of green.
The mother with foreign eyes
cradles the child,
smiling weakly through
her sweat sodden mist of exhaustion.
Had her own mother in that childhood land
destroyed by guns and bombs
cradled her thus?

The English father looking on,
eyes burning with love and pride,
easing the precious burden
into his arms...
What of the future
for this baby so small?
A fusion of two cultures,
two nations,
two lands,
divided by man-made lines.
Do guns and bombs await her, too,
or only half of her?
Must she take sides
between mother and father
when others of their kind
suddenly call each other enemy?
Which half to give to which?
Impossible —
belonging to both and neither!
Mocking the ludicrous absurdity
of national divisions
people fight and die for.

This time, this place, these parents,
the child’s choice — why?
A small champion
for a new way,
a new life,
a new world of humanity?
A sign of hope
that in the future
we can finally be free
from our present, crazy,
violent insanity?

Copyright © 2008 Helena Harper
(from "Family and More - Enemies or Friends?")

http://www.helenaharper.com

Leech!

She tells you she loves you
We all know she don’t
She always tries to leave you
We all know she wont

She's a leech
A vampire
A bitch if you will
Taking all you have and
going in for the kill.

She flirts
She plays
Around with other guys
You sit there and you take it
With a sparkle in your eye

Yes she maybe pretty
Yes she's surely hot,
But apart from a size 8 waist
What else has she got?

No self-esteem
No self respect
No respect for other people
She knows just how to play you,
We all know that she's evil!

She’ll get left
crying at home
Your moving on
She's now alone.

You wont call,
to see how she is.
Because she didn’t care
For anyone but herself
Her size 8 waist
And the colour of her hair.

You finally get your act together
Your not hooked on just looks
she's a leech
the vampire
the bitch if you will
is all alone
know one cares!
And we know...
Know one will!

Plenty more... :)

This thread confuses me. Do most people just post and keep on posting their own poetry, with hardly a comment from others?

How does the reader know if/when what is posted is merely for the reading? And if/when this is so, is it enough for the writer to just air a poem?

I'm leary of saying what I think, unless the author specifies he/she wishes to get honest comments. If so, I am going to get chastized when the comment does not consist of a pat on the back?

I wonder where the poets are

quietness echoes across the page

words boldly strut

disheveled

oh come back

my friends

my foes

come create some order

and bring back the noise

my goodness, apparently poetry is dead

wow

sad

#41

Really impressed with your poem here, seems to be more to come.

thanks Keith - but what did you like (or dislike) about it? What worked or failed? I appreciate the feedback

O-Oh how I love the crisp brown leaves in the fall
C-Could the air every be so fresh, so sweet, like this in years to come?
T-Trees become limp with colder weather
O-Overjoyed for what is to come
B-Burrrrrr.... So chilly around these times
E-Everyone's going to the Halloween party; what are you dressing as?
R-Ready to end the year in three months?

The poem i made above is called October. Anyone like it?

The poem is good, but really great with a picture illustrating each line.

wow thanks!

My Sweet Little Ellie
By: V.E.L Edgar

I bellowed out a great big shout
a hand upon my womb.
For I did know, without a doubt
that she had gone too soon.

I settled down upon the ground
doubled over and cried.
For in my heart I was for sure
my little one had died.

The doctor came to me that night
confusion in his eyes.
For no one ever knew I held
this child of mine inside.

Child, for I am not forsaken
pregnant? Bare your belly.
T’was the first I’ve ever shown
my sweet little Ellie.

For shame had filled me day and night
over what I had done.
A simple pleasure of delight
fathered, a child of one.

Dishonor to my family's name
disgrace upon my face.
For months anger had filled my heart
now sorrow takes its place.

I held onto nothing but guilt
and none of happiness.
I never looked beyond the shame
and saw that I’d been blessed.

So now the preacher comes to me
in the mist of the night.
To let me know my sweet Ellie
sits on the lap of Christ.

Her eyes they will not blink at me
her smile I will not see.
I know that my sweet little one
will never cry for me.

I did not make the best of it
I could not set aside.
The anger, guilt and shame I felt
my selfishness and pride.

Between this mother and her child
Time has come to an end.
With no chances to start over
For time I can not bend.

So now I send my sweet Ellie
up to the Lord above.
And sit down here upon this earth
knowing a mother's love.

Did not think anyone was listening....

He who is
a

sinner

knows

only the sin

not enough

to weep

and

when i die

i
die and

die

and die

Speaking of shadows

all life is a matter of wind
a flutter of leaves
a flower (pruned of its colour)
dancing towards
its own whispering

a voice
a childs dream
a ghost like movement
of echoes

confined
this memory of the sea
this shadow tear

abandonment

no kiss

no memory

it is a gesture afterall....

City Acrostic

Nocturnal breezes stir from bayou pools,
Enter the city while the darkness cools,
Whistling toneless tunes to lawless rules.

Over the corniced houses somewhere floats
Riffs from a saxophone, which the wind brings
Laughing and crying through the trembling notes.
Eerie and musical, New Orleans sings,
And urban poets take her for their muse.
Night's brush, which paints the streets in smoky hues,
Stirs it to waking on a breath of blues.

That is SO good. Have you published many poems? Book?

very nice AprilFollies

MarianV, Papagaio: Thank you very much.

I haven't published anything... I was thinking of putting a collection up on SmashWords, because I haven't the heart to keep finding magazines, submitting things, getting rejection notices, et cetera. A collection could get it all out at once and let me see if anyone showed any interest in any of them. :)

It may be easier to get published on "on-line" literary magazines. The good part about submitting to them is you can read their stuff online & see which 'zines publish the stuff that's like yours.

nicely done AprilFollies - I really hate acrostics, but you've done such a beautiful job I may need to rethink it all - it's a very pretty & well crafted piece of work. Thanks so much for sharing

there is that subject/verb issue with "riffs" "floats" (at least for me) - but neat rhythm, cool metrics and clever rhymes! got more?

I like your poem (188 - AprilFollies) because it places me

there

in the sights and sounds
of what you write

bookstop: Thank you! Yes, the grammatical problem nags at me. Someday I'll try to find a better wording. I have more poetry, but not many acrostics... I experiment with different forms.

Papagaio & Bookstopshere have been playing "poetry pong" & trading lines to create something for your feedback:

when sleep betrays …

the memory of night
is only
a faded dream.
the sun
casts shadows past
lengthening
the reach of my
imagination
pleads, opening
clock hands
from prayer,
folding back sheets
in pending sunlight.
Venus, the evening
and the morning star
winks through the darkness
beckoning.

So, what about that appeals - or not?
thoughts? other examples of round robin verses or similar attempts? endless fun!

"Glitter Has No Shine, well, has it ever"

of dark paths in the forest dancing through tiaras sequins stilettos glitter
facades chimera to mud slime ash sodden with independence
cinderella to clinton
of butterflies bursting into ash and bees nose-diving into the ground
schools of fish swimming toward a shattered goal polluted by false
promises and hopes spewing from the mouthes of those in power
of the illness and the cure the diagnosis of corruption and those who cower
in fear and denial of what is
of dying breeds of non-conformity slipping into the blonde into the shorter
tighter translucent gaudy flesh
of children poisoned with words and bruises seeing the faults and
cracks in safety at too young an age
of the taking and the egocentric the plundering of the weak and building
fortresses of hate and greed and power
of mindless garbage flowing from the screen into the eyes and brain
robbing willpower slowly chipping away at stubbornness to make way for
immorality mercenary
of puzzles of the mind heart soul past present future love hate anger
sadness but the pieces never fit too many shards cut from too many
different cores
of water stained ceiling growing the mold of lies while below girls
on their knees give their minds love souls bodies blood for their turn
at the crack pipe
of the beats that flow through your head like mind control no thoughts no
feelings just there stuck engrained on the eyes tinting your images of
earth and sky
of heroin and marijuana and cocaine and alcohol and hitting and punching
and abuse screaming from the houses of infants
of blood sweat semen tears dripping from bodies pumping pulsing red wine
through veins
of blackness taking over the light closing eyes to possibilities and drawing
out hope ambition love all given to grief tearing souls apart dirt oh
encrusted dreams saturated with dust and grime
of difference being downtrodden and caked with hatred and fear eyes hid
for the unease of judgements cast as freely as wounded girls pulling
down their skirts
of men of boys bound to their egos hurting but faces never divulging the
secrets of the male mind lips opening only to take tongue searching
for an outlet but only finding the other half’s teeth
of brain words of grave importance succumbing to the dark side intelligence
being stabbed with pure desire and misogyny using the body for the
quick fix of dirty pleasure
of magazines and T.V. 6 foot 90 pound women parading their bones across
stages and back drops girls in the bathrooms with their fingers down
their throats laxatives in stomachs refusing the fuel of life tears
in eyes dying to compare
of the old and crumbling losing everything slowly to disease hanging on
until nothing is left but a body with a blank stare soul
lost in the dreams of youth still held dear
of standing up and out screaming to the stars and sun whispering truth to the
closed bud
roses listening to the winds of autumn and living today
in change hope light of tomorrow

About the "poetry pong" poem ("When sleep betrays..."):

I personally like the imagery of this poem. The last sentence really works for me. The confluence of evening and morning, with Venus as the highly appropriate symbol of both, is perfect with the theme.

The beginning seems a little awkward. "When sleep betrays..." just sort of trails off, especially set apart from the next line like that. It leaves you hanging, so to speak.

198: I'd agree - that was an awkward beginning . . . a step into a directionless journey. Actually I think that's part of the game - to challenge the next with problems to try and resolve. A whole lot of fun (not to mention delight)

REALLY appreciate the feedback. Any other thoughts? or other examples?

I have a first draft which is haunting me, but I can't seem to get it into shape. After spinning my wheels on it awhile, I thought I'd kick it out here to see how I might tighten and tune it. It's not a proper villanelle, being unrhymed, but the pattern seemed to work.

To Absent Friends - 1st draft

They are not gone, but over the horizon
from which dark boundary no light returns,
beyond the curve of gently sloping time.

For our own comfort we must reassure
ourselves, each other, thus: they are not dead -
they are not gone - but over the horizon.

Our sole defense, such hopes, against the pull
of mass, that singularity in space
beyond the curve of gently sloping time.

For it is known the universe permits
the iron hearts of stars to fall, implode,
and be - not gone, but over the horizon.

As when we separate from friends, to later meet
again; we still exist, though in the past,
beyond the curve of gently sloping time.

This, that we say at every vanishing,
may be, for all I know, exactly true.
They are not gone, but over the horizon,
beyond the curve of gently sloping time.

I like it; the pattern does work for it - and if it were tightly rhymed I suspect the tone would lighten in a bad way. You could opt to reinforce the form with slant rhymes (and probably not diminish the tone.)

The one line "As when we separate . . . " just has 1 stress too many (6 rather than 5) and throws it off a bit I think. And I keep reading the line "beyond the curve of gently sloping time" as "beyond the gently sloping curve of time" probably because the modifiers make more sense to my reading there - but that could easily be my problem. Quite nice in any event! Nicely done -

Yes, very nicely done. You might want to shift the words a bit in your lines - those are good lines

Some poets use slant rhyme in villanelles - we don't all have to sound like Dylan Thomas.

I agree with the poster above about "Beyond the gently sloping slope of time." which is a lovely line, either way.

Alone.
Than memory
Requiring more
Peering down and up,
Time hangs over the edge,
The daring necessary to escape.
To some semblance of the truth or
Not just the balance, but the distance
For support, each added line changes
Come eddying. With the weight below
Thing could come crashing down or worse
Becomes more precarious, as if now the whole
It seems as if each successive line grows lighter,
When you begin at the bottom, the foundation,

Is communication ever
More than merely an accidental
Juxtaposition of flights of ideas?

A final mouthful of sounds
Frames and reframes itself
Before finally escaping in a sigh.
Frustration augers poorly
As eyes refuse to meet
And collective pain turns
Abruptly into a black dove.

201, 202 - thanks for the constructive feedback. I missed the extra foot in that one line; "to later meet again" is redundant anyhow, so I just struck "later". I also like the re-word of the last line; I'll have to look at it both ways.

Thanks also for the suggestion of slant-rhymes; that gives me a new direction to play with this. Appreciate it!

203 - I like the subtlety of this, how the relative obscurity of the first verse is abruptly clarified by the second. The last line then becomes nicely ironic. I /adore/ the clever twist of reversal in the first verse.

The only difficulty I have is that the first verse stands quite nicely on its own. It seems like two poems have been "juxtaposed" here - or was that the intent? I think it might pack a more powerful punch separately, though.

LOL

too true - who knew anyone ever read these? bless you. They are, indeed, thrown together for mere convenience - throw now, glaze later. I have limited things to say, so just chew that food over & over. Time creates the distance I need to read freshly myself - and so I pop the odd things on here hoping for feedback earlier. Happy to know what is troubling - again thanks

and please share "To Absent Friends" through its drafts; it promises to be wonderful

I love the Once poem it is so good.

I had a go at a villanelle - see here. It was an... interesting exercise.

#208 Ha! That's a downright creative futuristic twist on an antique form. :)

Thanks. I just wish I'd picked easier words to rhyme with than "console" and "control" :-)

Who has the patience
For incremental change?
Knowing that pain
And wonder are transient
Does little enough
To dull the need.

Small wonder Blake
Went mad spending an hour
In eternity and placing,
To tickle and irritate,
A grain of truth
In the oyster of the world.

And understanding too,
Becomes vague memory;
Where is content?

If everyone’s a poet at sixteen,
What the hell happens after that?
What impulse dies? What cosmic bureaucrat
Decrees an end to everything between
the ears? Or does the heart exact a price
too high or ask the pulse to make a climb
too steep – to make impossible sublime
aspirations? I have no advice
except go now – for better or for worse;
the outcome is most certainly perverse.
Stresses fall away to come again
And a dance with two left feet’s a mortal sin.
Nothing you can say is out of bounds -
Try a word or two to see just how it sounds.

Homage to a Peer:

Why in the first blush of fear do birds take to the air
Cinnamon paper rags and cloth
Burning sounds
Is this the way that unmanned dick trumpets
Childless bloodless battle weary walls falling down
First to see a raven fear
Race across a hill fearful
Before the moon finally dies afraid
God is the blood
The dust The rain
Closed

meet me
one last time
again

what could it hurt
to touch
again

and we’ll leave it
at that
again

... this one bothers me. I think it's just that the 'again' starts to look funny after awhile. The sentiment rings true though.

the sentiment rings true and the "again" (while it may look funny) forces the reader to think again and again - and again - and seems to work very neatly indeed. So few words . . . so many things to think about

again,
it drives it home
as
he drives me crazy

so conflicting

there is a lot to read in this
as a lot is left unsaid

and yet
it is all there to read as plain as day

thank you for the comment!

I took the liberty of sharing 2 versions with a small circle of readers/discussers:

#1
meet me
one last time
again

what could it hurt
to touch
again

and we’ll leave it
at that
again

and

#2
Again

meet me
one last time
again

what could it hurt
to touch
again

and we’ll leave it
at that

One sensible young woman wept. That's positive feedback. I was forced to admit that, despite my own small minded preference for punctuation, this works better without. Damn . . . quite elegant really. The group couldn't agree about titled vs untitled - feeling the cycle worked in either event

elegant minimalism . . . hmmmm

wow! wept... that's something now. this person must relate to the sentiment closely.
I like your group and I like your comments. thank you for the input!!!

But to be driven
crazy
again?

Words fail and the mouth
gapes
searching for words
or kisses

Don’t go away
mad

Don’t go to bed
mad

Good advice or
is it
madness?

I sit down to write, expectantly,
But discover in the long pause
That I have nothing to say. No
Images come, no wisdom, no
Observations even. I have passed
Through the day untouched -
Intentions be damned. There will
Be shadows thrown in slow
Arcs by the sun; the evening
Will slither past my small space
To reveal the stars by contrast
Alone. And I will go equably
To sleep and dream of poetry.

#220 What a lovely poem!!

#220 that is very nice.
I can almost see you sitting with pen in hand as the time slips by.

Thank you

Undeserved kindnesses
Prick the conscience,
Scatter all preconceived
Ideas of society,
Imagine a blush
Like wine or sunset, and
Reach tentatively for
A form, and fail.

My first try at a sonnet: an end to a new beginning.

Birds on a lonesome shore
for a moment of importance
tweeting messages.

Although this is an old thread, I hope the invitation is still open. Here is one of my early poems.

Ode to Innocence

Oh half-remembered, fleeting happy time,
When nothing mattered more than love and play,
Imagination was then in its prime,
And life began anew with every day.

A flower was then a joy, a mystery,
And not a petal, root and simple stem,
And life was full of wondrous fantasy,
Untainted by the intellect of man.

That time is gone now, It cannot return,
The fruit's been swallowed, its slow poison kills,
And yet my fallen heart will always yearn,
For that ephemeral time of unknown skills.

Oh false god, knowledge, daily you destroy,
All that was holy in me as a boy!

From Of Pain and Ecstasy: Collected Poems (C) 1978, 2011

Here is another newer poem excerpt from the same collection:

Unsung Heroes

Although I stand on the shoulders of giants,
I fail to see much farther than the bridge of my nose.
The fault in mine. The shame is mine.
For I am unworthy of you, my beloved dead.

Emilio (Maternal Grandfather)

Your crime was literacy,
And the possession of a social conscience,
That made you yearn to see your beloved Spain remain free,
And prevented you from suffering fascists lightly.

You did not bear arms,
For you abhorred all violence,
You did not incite rebellion, though you
Rebelled against the foreign and domestic enemies of freedom.

As best I can tell you were an idealist who,
In a time of darkness,
Clung passionately to the belief,
In the perfectibility of the human spirit.

You would not abide the lies the regional papers carried,
And translated news from American and British newspapers,
About the gathering storm,
Sharing the truth freely with all who would listen.

You gave speeches, and wrote speeches delivered by others, in support of a doomed
Republic collapsing under the weight of its own incompetence and corruption.
You were warned by friends of your imminent arrest and offered passage back to the
U.S. or to Buenos Aires where so many of your friends had already found refuge.

But they would not get your wife and nine children out,
And you refused to leave them to their fate.
They came for you, as always, in the middle of the night,
Those cowards with stern faces hiding behind machine guns.

They took you prisoner, not for the first time, to the Castillo de San Antón,
A fortress by a most beautiful, tranquil bay,
Where they tore out your nails, one by one, and that their
Gentlest caress, while they asked you for names.

You endured, God knows what else there, for months,
And were sentenced to be shot as a traitor at La Plaza de María Pita.
But the Republic had friends, even among the officers of the fascist forces,
And one of them opened your cell door on the eve of your execution.

You had contracted tuberculosis by then, yet, according to grandmother, you
Managed to swim miles across the bay in a moonless night, to safety in the home
Of another patriot who risked his life and the lives of his family to hide you in
His cellar and made a trip of many miles on foot to find your wife.

He found your home and told your wife of your unexpected reprieve,
And asked her to send some clothing and some shoes to replace your dirty rags.
You eldest daughter, Maria, insisted in accompanying the stranger back on foot,
Taking clothing and what provisions she could quickly gather and carry to you.

From time to time you accepted the hospitality of an overnight stay
In the attic or hay loft of a Republican sympathizer as these were not hard to
Find in the fiercely independent Galicia under the yoke of one of its own.
But mostly you lived in the woods, with active guerrillas for years.

You lived with all the comforts of a hunted animal with others who would not yield,
Whose greatest crime consisted of being on the wrong side of a lost cause.
I hope it brought you some comfort to know you were on the right side of history.
It brought none to your wife and none to your youngest children.

As you paid your long penance for your conscience, once a month or so, after some
Time passed, you visited your wife and children. You were introduced to the little ones as
An uncle from afar. They did not know the bearded wild man who paid these visits in the
Middle of the night and left wearing dad’s old, clean clothes long before the dawn.

The older ones, Maria, Josefa, Juan and Toñita, all in their teens, told the little
Ones that their “uncle” brought news of their dad. The younger children, still
Wearing the frayed cloaks of their innocence, accepted this, not questioning why
He stayed in mom’s room all night and was always gone before they awoke.

Your unimaginable grief at playing a stranger in your own home, of not embracing your
Children on whom you doted, one and all, for their protection and yours, as there
Were no shortage of fascists who tried to ply them with pastries and candy,
At a time of hunger, seeking to use their innocence as a weapon against you.

Your parents were relatively wealthy business owners who farmed the sea but
Disowned you—perhaps for your politics, perhaps for choosing to emigrate and
Refusing to join the family business, or perhaps for marrying for love in
New York City a hard working girl beneath your social station in their eyes.

You lived just long enough to see Spain delivered from war,
Though not freed of its chains.
You were spared the war’s aftermath.
Your wife and children were not.

No books record your name. Most of those who knew you are dead.
Yet flowers have long perpetually appeared on your simple above-ground burial
Site in Sada that holds your ashes, and those of your eldest son, Juan, and
Second-Eldest daughter, Toñita, who died much younger than even you.

Your wife has joined you there, in a place where
Honor, goodness, decency, principle and a pure,
Broken heart,
Now rest in peace.

From Of Pain and ecstasy: Collected Poems (C) 2011

One last poem until someone else posts here:

Siren's Song

Poetry is a dangerous siren’s song,
That calls the soul towards a chasm deep,
Dulling the mind and making the heart long,
For that which it may touch yet never keep.

A Sonnet is too much the friend of truth,
And leaves no room for self-deluding lies,
It conjures up the honesty of youth,
And artifice through artifice soon dies.

Essential truths will spill onto the page,
Transpiring through the pores of consciousness,
Leaving exposed the battles that we wage,
To build facades of hope for hopelessness.

I can deny the painful song I hear,
But it’s too late; its message is too clear.

From Of Pain and Ecstasy: Collected Poems (C) 1980, 2011 Victor D. Lopez

Neanderthal Burial

Their bones are as delicate as the bones of birds,
Their backs as curved as the humps of whales.

We find them sometimes
curled into themselves
like babes unborn,
under the years of earth.

They are not us,
or even like us anymore.

They might be deer for all we know,
like deer we see in woods sometimes,
their flesh decayed and bones bleached dry,
familiar and appalling.

But their paintings flicker deep
in dream’s stone-walled caves, casting shadows
into my day.

What moved them moves me still:
Trembling spears hunt the bright moon beast
as in my bones
I run recalling.

>228 VictorDLopez: >229 VictorDLopez: >230 MaryChase: I am late in reading these wonderful poems. I hope you both will come back to this site and post some more.

Travel in time
To travel the world is her dream and making it true she has begun
Around the world to cultures unknown no fear no need to run
The light she brings to these shores will shine so bright for evermore

People come and people go, those who stay bask in the light
Never to dampen her spirit so free, although they try she knows the right
As she fly’s to shores unknown her spirit trapped in tubes of steel
Time will stop in hearts that wait, for her return to their sight
Their souls will ache as time stands still
For her travel to end and her return they write with quill

Tears of joy will fall from eyes that stare
And time will start to flow again her travels will bring peace and calm
Until the day she can’t remain and yearn to fly back to the wind
Her spirit loosed back to the world her light will shine through to the dawn.

And once again we wait in time, those who love this light that shines
We wait as always with love in our hearts our souls frozen in time and space
Awaiting the return of Princesses in black to shine her light upon our face

While the mother weeps
the father keeps
the tears in his eyes

Oh my son! My son!

Every child
who is not my child
makes me miss my child
more

Surely

A father’s death untethers us,
From the child we were; small jobs,
The sound of meadow larks
And morning glories and
Snap dragons to mow around
Desert us. The distance between
Memory and being hurts. Time’s
Certainty alone holds us down;
Gravity indeed. We move on,
Hoping, into a new dream.

But a child's death
ends the dream.

Cave Canem
owed to George Barker

I chase it
Like a lunar wolf
Pursues a helpless bitch
Through the closed-eyed
Paraffin night

Puppies bringing
All that energy, sans
Experience, in the quiet
Of a study , wagging
Adjectives, howling
Verbs

Bold or quiet,
Everyone looking for
A happy compromise.

Witty wags, becoming?
Barking their chins
On odd angled phrases

The truly erudite seem,
Disappointingly, to talk
More than they write;
The transience is depressingly
Real.

And my held-hero,
Barker, at least reaching
Redundantly for god,
Meaning to mean,
Clinging to dignity
Like a broken umbrella
In a strong wind.

Old egos either
Try to oppress or
Retreat into that egg
Hard shell where
They growl and
Lie.

Chewing it all up,
Playing charades with death

And experience
Sounds like –
But it’s only a guess,
Hope, whistling
In the dark.
...

If (The Refugee)

If I stay home
I will starve
If I remain where I grew up
I will be poor
If I linger where my roots are
violence will take me
If I refuse to leave
I will be forced to do
dreadful things
If I knock on your door
It’s not because I want to
It’s because
I want to live

Don't be afraid to post. Some of us are still around

OK! Here's one that I was inspired to write after visiting many book blogging sites:

Blogbandonment

I stumbled upon your blog today
The place you built to have your say
A clever name
Graphics much the same
Stars twinkled between pages
Of poetic thoughts, dreams and rages
Shared part of your life right here
For friends and followers to hear
But where do you go?
The last post was two years ago
Why walk away?
Was there nothing left for you to say
Do you still look the same?
Do you have the same name?
I hope you left for good reasons
Like the changing of the seasons
There’s nothing I can do
Except hope for you
So I’ll go on pretending
That you wrote a happy ending
I closed your blog when I was done
The visitor count read 3,471

insufficient feedback: too much stretch for rhyme I think, but I applaud the sentiment.

I miss seeing verses

"Demons"

The odious demon was trapped in stone,
to prove that we master the unknown.

Great power that is,
to do as we please.
Unaware, our humanity is gone.

(This one is about statues of demons, a typical expression of human desire to master all. I wrote several others, and I'd love to share them all, but I won't flood the thread, but feel free to read them here: https://effycreations.com/kwoas-world-trip/)

flood away; it's a mighty quiet thread

I have another one if that can help:

"Fairies"

Impish little fairies like crisps and yellow boots,
and who could blame them.
Lounging in our realm,
while our almighty vigilance slowly reboots.

(https://effycreations.com/kwoas-world-trip/)

Drops in the Ocean

So many people saying so many things
Some incite violence, most incite peace
Voices so quiet and voices so loud
Hard to discern through the madding crowd
Committing a crime doesn’t negate the crime
Better to be one to hold up a sign
So, what should I say?
Will my voice in the wind be carried away?
But if everyone else has the same notion
8 billion water drops can raise an ocean

https://www.linesbyleon.com

Boredom longing for tea

Oh endless yearning, crushed over for so long…
(squeaked sandalwood softly)
Lament all you want, that’s where you belong!
(rapped enamel slyly)
Big mouth but no chest, ushering words that strong.
(confronted wicker quite harshly)
Stay away from this, venting ain’t that wrong.
(soothed tea leaves casually)
I can’t agree more; I’m burning hot.
(shushed the fiery gaz)
Damn flame must be right, time to dance along.
(fiffed copper nervously)
Instant frozen still.
“That’d make a great song”!
(observed bored apathy)

(https://effycreations.com/kwoas-world-trip/)

A silence so quiet and true
Has hushed the lies, but still they brew

Young woman keep strong
Old man see clear

May the future be progressive
While traditions held dear

>252 loewll:
I just find the second line awkward, but I like it :

?

A silence so quiet and true
Has hushed the lies,
Still they brew

Young woman keep strong
Old man see clear

May the future be progressive
And traditions held dear

Your soul.

If I should love you for your beauty,
I’d be cursed to find someone more beautiful than you.
To love you for your mind...isn’t easy.
For it like ever-changing weather, is too onerous to know.
Kind heart? Thank God there’s millions and I bow to each and every one!
Though Love I never found in any hearts.
In no hearts nor minds; in no mesmerizing eyes or smiles.

What do I love when I love you?

Is anyone doing NaPoWriMo? This will be my first time.

Hey all,

Here is my poetry book you can check it out. It is a collection about love, travel and belonging. I hope you enjoy!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57511187-five-summers

Thanks,
Elly-Grace

>5 beatles1964: I just joined this site and group. How is it that there are no responses? Your poem reflects this sad fact. Thank you for showing a part of your heart. I hope you get this message.

>7 beatles1964: I like the imagery. After hurricane Ian, I wish it was true here in Florida.