Pebbles
I walk by the stony brook a path of pebbles at my feet. I bend to pick one up and it is lovely. Alas! They number far too many to read each one's story. But I will try.
I walk by the stony brook a path of pebbles at my feet. I bend to pick one up and it is lovely. Alas! They number far too many to read each one's story. But I will try.
© 2014 u/ebonGavia
Love
Love's sweetly poisoned darts
Are wasted on this heart
Inerrant though they fly
My shielding gives them lie
These centuries-builded walls
The keenest edge forestall
Thus armored sit I here
At siren's call do sneer
By hours, years do toll
And cold becomes my soul
That blackguard, Love, I spurn
From treach'rous Hope I turn
At length my vigil wanes
Naught but ennui remains
With apathetic sigh
And dry, half-lidded eye
My senses, weak, are dulled
To fitful sleep are lulled
Thus primed for artifice
Undone by artlessness
A 'doring glance unlocks
My bitter heart. A shock —
A shining word, a koan —
The fatal shot is flown
Each quick'ning touch, now soft
Our scales, forgotten, doffed
Bewitched by winsome eyes
We don our honeyed ties
Yet venom's stings presage
Our bittersweet malaise
But how is it that we
Bemoan this malady?
In love — by Love, lovesick
Yet, healed, we poison pick
No Cupid bends a string
We prick ourselves, willing.
Born in the wrong family
It left me a gaping void
Stole from me my charity
Burdened me with worry
Born in the wrong district
It showed me the savagery
Darkness that lurks within men
To untrust the ones of normalcy
Born in the wrong city
Filled my soul with mundanity
The unbearable banale
Empty of all wonder and beauty
Born in the wrong culture
Learned to hide my reality
Lest I be killed or maimed
In the rein of traditionality
Born in the wrong country
Flayed from me my future
Gutted sense of commonality
It branded on me misery
Born in the wrong system
Chained me to slavery
Feeding some malevolence
Corrupted my destiny
Born in the wrong time
Hurled into moment of history
Trapped within rotting remnants
Couldn't do away with the elderly
Hereby I declare to all
I reject my humanity
For no matter the causality
But only in a handul few
I see nothing worthy
we recycle our emotions
the foundations
dread, despair, the nothing
the isolation of it all
these are all mine
and anger poured on top
disgust inbetween
told by soil to extinguish
sealed them all away
left adrift and devoid
unable to feel the whole
afraid that it would crush
despairing everything
i fed the void
it bloated and festered
putrid without a voice
it would swallow all
so i bestow it mouth
eight-pointed star
the father-mother
bear my witness
i am heartsore
and loathe the creators
we recycle our emotions
i accept it all, the
denied your own tragedy
fun and cheery
held back by ancient rites
good sport and jolly
these unspoken wounds
banter along all day
festered and putrid
dish it out and take it
marred by shallow's tyranny
here's to another round
In shadows cast, a serpent sleek,
With bands of black and white.
In self-encircling, fate draws near,
A moment tense, a future unclear.
Yet, ere the bite, a raptor bold,
Descends with grace, a tale unfolds.
Its talons clasp the serpent’s plight,
A dance of choices in the fading light.
Two paths converge, in present’s hold,
Humanity’s tale, a story bold.
Betwixt self-will and forces unseen,
The dance of fate, on history’s screen.
I desire more poetry on this site. So here is more poetry!
I believe this is Cummings due to the style and some cursory internet searches but I was unable to find an authoritative source. If anyone has one I'll edit it in! The formatting is taken from a book (I discovered this in a photo online).
the great advantage of being alive
(instead of undying)is not so much
that mind no more can disprove than prove
what heart may feel and soul may touch
--the great(my darling) happens to be
that love are in we,that love are in weand here is a secret they will never share
for whom create is less than have
or one times one than when times where--
that we are in love,that we are in love
with us they've nothing times nothing to do
(for love are in we am in i am in you)this world(as timorous itsters all
to call their cowardice quite agree)
shall never discover our touch and feel
--for love are in we are in love are in we;
for you are and i am and we are(above
and under all possible worlds)in lovea billion brains may coax undeath
from fancied fact and spaceful time--
no heart can leap,no soul can breathe
but by the sizeless truth of a dream
whose sleep is the sky and the earth and the sea.
For love are in you am in i are in we
Hello everyone :)
I write as a hobby and have had an article in my drafts for a long, long time. In essence, I'd like to discuss the "repetitive nature of human tribulations/suffering/life", that is, the fact that regardless of superficial characteristics we all are confronted with extremely similar circumstances throughout our lives.
Whether it's 10 years into our lives or 40, there's joy, heartbreak, loss, a need to belong, some desire for freedom, a need for a purpose, lack of direction, obsession with a newly found direction, etc.
I'd love to come across poets, philosophers, psychologists, etc who have touched upon this subject: we are not defined by our circumstances, as they are, in very broad strokes, largely the same, but by how we are able to adapt and reinvent ourselves amidst those same circumstances.
Looking forward for your answers :)
Thanks!
So as an American whose love of poetry started in early childhood with A A Milne and Lewis Carroll, I have a theory that the teaching of poetry in typical schools (at least for my generation which may be 30 years out of date re what happens now) that poetry as taught is almost tailor made to destroy any interest in poetry. I like to compare it to introducing music by teaching music theory.
So, if anyone here reads poetry and is willing to talk about it, what poems would you use if you wanted to come up with a gateway drug. They should be easy to appreciate. And on the flip side, if you met someone who said they were really into poetry, are there sophisticated poems that you think are just cool and insightful and moving and impressive in some way? Please feel free to explain your choices or to talk about your experience with poetry in or outside of education.
It's a box that contains a receipt printer and an interface with several buttons. A user would press a button that reflects their emotional state (happy, sad, anxious, etc.), then the machine prints out a more-or-less appropriate poem on a receipt printer, beautifully formatted and embellished with simple artwork.
It could be occasionally repurposed for certain themes, like Pride Month to print out queer poems.
I want to place it someplace public and well-trafficked, like Dolores Park or on Castro Street.
I like poetry. The idea of a (free) vending machine that gives me a poem to uplift my day excites me. But I wonder if this appeals to others enough to be worth fully realizing. I don't want to spend time and money building something that'll go totally unloved.
Also curious about anti-vandalism measures or ideas. I'm sure some jerk will try graffiti-ing it or peeing on it.
Lastly, anyone interested in collaborating?
T'was picking fruit down under, where
I learned the truth of underwear
Davenport made the best boxer
costed more but last forever
At first my junk was hanging loose
no more briefs snuggling like a noose
but soon I loved it hanging free
it's quicker when you have to pee
Decade later holes not in sight
Bought some more in case they might
Thought they'd be with me till the end
Thirty years they've been my friend
Now I'm down to last seven pair
Out of business they went I fear
Brought down low by cheap knock offs
Where oh where is my Undie Guru now?
I sang her name in words forgotten
Rough bellows of lost yearning
A hurt hound without path
A sorrow meaning without an end
I heard the rain, heard the ocean
Lick the sand without defect
The water, where it falls
Is always beautiful all the same
I saw, my God, that you made her
Carefully crooked, imperfect
And inside her deep mournful eyes
The tears that I could never shed
The sky is clear
except for some
soft grey clouds
beyond the hill
The early setting sun shines orange
on the woods
and the houses
that sit atop the ridge
Not a single bird crosses
the pale blue sky
though I can hear
their chorus
and a gentle wind blows
cold
on my face
I can smell the traffic
from the road behind my house
mingling with
the earthy smell of trees
from the field in front
Neither my hot black coffee
nor my dressing gown
are enough
to keep the
cold
at bay
on this
the first truly frosty day
of the year
A lim'rick is like a haiku But five lines, not three; you add two They're often licentious Or funny; contentious But they can be nice if you choose
Occupied by the primal cries of democracy and its dying eyes.
Ain't no reason to keep pushing some days the infighting the outfighting the needless highlighting of differences in ourselves and others, not some injustice just arbitrary maladjustment.
These words ain't here to minimize or demoralize but to quantify and qualify the true enemy.
We are cannibals, our self absorption and self adornment lead to self consumption and our mutually assured destruction.
As we consume we forget we need to resume what we started, we assume that we’ve done enough and that the movement will carry on without us.
It’s too late, in the death throws of Democracy we choose a different path, without occupation, preceded by preoccupation, we now find ourselves the subject of this new occupation.
What's your favorite Poem? What thing do you find peculiar in it? At what age (or what time of your life) did it introduce itself to you? At what time did it stick?
Deep are the sighs of unsung mariners,
Drifting gently upward out of bottomless canyons
Over hills and mountains
Through snowdrifts and clouds,
They make their way
Home.
Calling the stars (so far out of reach);
Calling the moon (dispassionate waning gibbous);
Calling the trees (for the spineless tools they are);
Calling the ocean,
The ocean:
Home.
Cry to the waves for the songs of land,
The endless dark crashing and shifting and moving.
Plead for stability. Remembrance. Peace.
Beg for an end to this oppressive
Home.
Deep are the sighs of unsung mariners.
Sigh no longer.
I sing you now;
I bring you
Home.
I'm an undoubted pleb when it comes to just about everything artistic (with the exception of music, in which I have impeccable taste). A while back, I suggested I'd be interested in seeing some critique or general discussion of already-known or published poetry, if only so I could get others' opinions on things that usually go over my head. This is an effort to get the ball rolling, with a poem that is one of my favorites.
Also, I'm not sure if this belongs here or in ~arts, please classify as appropriate.
Morning - Frank O'Hara
I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with deathin my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robechills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snowAt night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutesI miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem minealthough I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you'd be proud ofthe parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicyclewhat are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies itis difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are aloneLast night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I'll not be cordialthere is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it iswhen you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go
So we have all these people, and they all seem to be pissed.
So many people and they all seem to have... something amiss.
Many of these people, their concerns are just... entirely dismissed:
By other people with the same problems who somehow look at these perfectly normal people and react: "I have been nixed!"
These problems are pervasive in our memories and experiences and on a metaphorical wall they are fixed;
And yet the root causes are consistently misinterpreted, and ultimately missed.
And the result is we are betting everything for the sake of getting our cathartic and revengeful fix?
That is being delivered to us by people that if they were to meet us, would utterly reject us and loudly hiss?
And if that gamble fails I will be the one to pick up the scraps, and mop up the piss?
Man, I didn't want to grow up to this.
I'm working on this for a poetry class I'm taking, any criticism is welcome.
Edit: Italicized some text I forgot when I copied it out of Word.
Edit 2: Fixed some phrasing.
Coming Out 2.0
When I first came out
I thought it was over.
Done.
I know myself now,
My life can finally be
worthwhile and fun.
But there was always a mess I dared
not touch. Who do I like? What gaze
makes me blush? I suspected the feminine
but held out hope – only taking up one letter
made it easier to cope.
And some people do change after starting
HRT, so patiently I hoped men would appeal
to me. I had some feelings before, it seemed reasonable
they would grow. But as time went on I realized I had
nothing to show. My feelings for men were entirely gone,
but still hopeful for a straight-passing future, I pressed on.
I had definite feelings for women before,
But at times the attraction seemed a bit more –
Did I want to be them or did I want to be with them?
The former I assumed, as it helped to distract,
focus on my work, brush my desires under the mat.
I’d think “She looks cute”, but “in that outfit”, “with that hairdo” and other qualifiers
I began to append, convincing myself what I felt was normal and, like a
Chicagoland road, no bend. When I began to notice some feelings bubbling up I said
“Female friendships are close, it’s nothing, the end.” But try as I might, they flowered
and bloomed, and soon I could not help but be all-consumed. Maybe I’m bi, I thought,
That isn’t so bad. More options for dating, how can I be mad? I told my friend my feelings, and as
expected, for me she had none. She’s still one of my best friends, so I’d neither lost nor won.
I dealt with the rejection and moved on. I could still be bi, better not
jump the gun. You can’t take back coming out, you’ve got one shot – nail it
and be done. I thought everything would be the same, but the floodgates were open,
my restraints had been broken. I could finally be honest about my feelings
for women (endless, confusing and interwoven) and for men, which were at most
an appreciative token.
A week after confessing to my crush, it was obvious
who won. The Sapphic feelings and desires made
their presence known, their intent to stay,
and more difficult than coming out
as trans was admitting
to being gay.