The Writing/Poetry thread

[Marcus]

Poetry, poetry POETRY, for fuck's sake.

www.myspace.com/marcuskeeley

Listen and be cultured, you fucks.

[bridgetbegins]

I wrote a poem. (a new one, it is odd, I've not had the energy to write for a while.)

you are perfect and wild,
t-shirt pulled tight
against your shoulders,
jeans slipping down your hips

gently curving belly and
grown-up white teeth—
you smile, tangle blunt fingers
in hair that is softer than it has
any right to be

you are soft and heavy
cradled in the watery light of morning
little pricks of dark have
grown overnight and

I explore them with fingers that
don’t feel as well as they should
you chuckle and you turn pink
as you stretch up and rub
your cheek against mine

you are warm, blazing
and I wrap frigid feet around
solid calves, and I
clench my toes at the tickle of boy-hair

I push my hands clumsily,
insistently into the armholes of the
same t-shirt you were wearing
yesterday and I hold onto the
bump where arm meets body

later perhaps you will
nudge me out of the warm spot
and curl up behind me
press your mouth to the back of my neck

ruck up my t-shirt and
splay big fingers over my belly,
let me feel you smile into my back when
the lurking muscles tremble and pretend
that this might be charted territory

[Fred Ward]

This bits of song that have been cobbled together when I've worked on it. As it's a song, you have to take it as that, because there's a difference between poetry set to words and poetic lyrics - the inability to distinguish between them is the mistake that, I fear, is made by so many.

I suppose it's called This Young Century. It's got quite a slow beat, and is a work in progress, so I'm really not sure about some of the parts.

This young
Century has worked me to the bone

I was left
I was left out
I left school
All for desire

The slow buzz of snow
Flecks the crests and disappears from view

I am love,
I am arrogance,
I am passion;
I am all the dead wires -
Dead wires that cross your heart

At the moment, you are in the rubble

I trip,
I stumble,
I fall down;
I get lost in this barrage of heartbreak

Had he jumped he would have stopped me
Had he jumped he would never have found out


Thankx

xxX

[Rhiflect]

I really like that!! To both!

[Fred Ward]

Thank you very much indeed, it has a wonderful bassline written by my friend. When I finally get round to getting my music up and running with a new recorder I'll let you all know

[jay]

katie, that was the poem i meant when i said i loved your most recent work.

fredward, that was brilliant. i read it with a beat in my head, not sure if it was the right one but it'll be interesting to hear the song when it's formed to see if it matches up.

[Fred Ward]

Jay you really are a darling, thank you so much, it means an awful lot to me

Katie, I don't know your other work, but I really enjoyed this one. If I could provide one (constructive, I assure you) criticism, it's that some of the enjambement doesn't quite fit, if you just tweaked it her and there it'd be really something.

Sorry, I don't mean to nit-pick, I really did enjoy it

xxX

[allison]

this haiku was written while riding the 29 bus through Stonestown shopping centre. it is called The 29:

Goddamn loud, rude teens
Spitting sunflower seed hulls
all over the seats

[allison]

this was written on the 14 bus going downtown about the couple sitting across from me. it is called The 14:

Lupe and Rosa
Holding hands, in matching clothes
On a MUNI date

[Rhiflect]

I like them both, i really like the first one.

What's MUNI?

[allison]

lol thanks. MUNI-cipal railway, our public transit system here in san francisco.

here is anothe. this was written on the M as I was heading to school. its called The M:

tram lurches away
a man leaps through closing doors
escapes brutal death

[mimicry]

I like your haikus. So much. Partly because I love public transportation.

[tarantella]

I also really like your haikus, allison. I think it would be awesome if you wrote one for each letter of the alphabet and then made a booklet/zine of transportation-related haikus! I can totally see it, it's got thick, creamy paper and watercolor illustrations in a kind of Edward Gorey-ish style, and the haikus are hand-written in black ink.

They make me miss San Francisco.

[Rhiflect]

Since we're in a haiku phase:

If irritants get on heart
Please tenderly wash
With some hot and salty tears.

[lastgoodbye]

Ahh, I love your poetry Rhianne.

Actually everyone here's poetry is really good. I should read this thread more often.

[Rhiflect]

Thanks

My sonnet I had to write for English:

The Last Note

The journey of life is like a big show.
You arrive to those expectant faces,
You sit amongst the others down below,
Wait to be taken to joyful places.
Absorbed by the sound, by the emotion,
Experiencing the highs and the lows
Without family and their devotion,
There would be no good reason for the show.
But your body is tired and so old,
The concert will have reached its crescendo
Memories remain now, body is cold,
And you feel your body starting to let go.
The last note is long, the body is done,
A gasp, loud silence, and the crowd moves on.

yeah.

[scarredbyfallout]

If you like childishly self-absorbed, angsty petry, i'm your man:

The Unfinished Tales

Old, soulless, lost,
Embittered times
Now gone from paths
Of winding lines.
Tempered constructs,
Never truly over,
Languid machinations
Of inspiration
grinding,
Wheels only biting
air.
To find is not to know.

That's a poem about how hard it is to think of ideas for poems, hehe.

The Untold Tale of Intravenia Zinfandel

The sentient septicaemia
Capable of naught.
Try as it may
Unable to rot
The perfection of its host.
My town, my place
Of vainglorious musing
Though not one of choosing,
At least, not yet.

She lay, in my mind
On banks of grass and sand.
Watching, feeling
Sunlight melt
As warm ice in hand.
Such sweetness, such ease,
Life vision so clear
Untainted by fear
Of the need for loss.

I am the all
And end of her, this, us, them,
Those times,
That place.
The simple naive process.
Our crimes.

That's an unfinished poem with a title that make no sense. Don't ask it confuses me too.

One Night Too Late

I only wish I knew who you were now.
Still so harsh with self-denial?
Distracted by self-deprecation?.
And I wish that i could write your name,
They call me guilty without trial
So push me to the edges of their aims.

It seemed to me you gave me all the answers
But the questions were invented
By a life of misdirected passion.
Blinded to your need to have me
Be the person I would soon become
Just one night too late.

All that I have left of where I want to be
Is a box of stolen voices
And the whispered sound of nylon strings.
My salty tears still sting my bleeding lips.
I follow you in "Hallelujah"
A cold and broken sound is what we sing.

It seemed to me your life had all the answers
But the questions were a slow death
By misused good intention.
Blinded to your need to have me
Be the person I would soon become
Just one night too late.

Those Tigers Eyes are piercing other hearts now.
Even now I wonder
If the scars they left were only ever dreams?
The dreams that made me walk into the forest,
Away from all the shallow graves.
My hopeless hope then pulled me back again.

I follow you once more in "Hallelujah"
A cold and broken sound is what we sing
Just one night too late.

A poem about my ex... gah, i'm so sick of myself.

Jezebel

The tears my dear lover shed for me
Would end my winding path
And i am wandering the wilds
Still wandering with no path
A journey without end for me
Your end has past, your time gone

She died inside these arms with me
Eyes open now, forever lost
Still searching for her saviour
Dazed and excited, never lost
To any but the dead and me
My end has past, my time gone

My Jezebel, nothing now
But a curse for me to blame
Your Samson, nothing new
But a victory to claim

A little, biblically inspired one here, actually probably more to do with my favourite song from Iron And Wine

The Song

The song, softly, sweetly,
Like raindrops to the desert man,
It fell upon his ears.
Singing
Singing
Singing.
His desire, warming, endless,
Broke him down and left his soul
Drowning in his tears.
Crying
Crying
Crying.
He ran, cold, alone,
Reaching out to touch the voice,
Hoping through his fears.
Running
Running
Running.
She sat, pure, beauty,
Her hands out to carress his face,
Became his home of years.
Knowing
Knowing
Knowing.
He woke, shivering, tired,
Feeling not her loving touch,
Hoping with his ears.
Silence
Silence
Silence.

Actually, looking back, i still kind of like this one.

Nosferatu

Eyes glitter,
Flashes of a sun never seen,
With passion and longing
Of a soul lost between
Her lust for the life in my veins.

Mind wallows,
Drowning in shallow fears,
Such distance between us
No song on my ears
To flow as though life in my veins.

I think i read too much Anne Rice as a teenager, hehe.

Four Seasons

The peace of my desert,
My harshest Son, his scorn burns,
And I love him still.
The beauty of my night,
My coldest Daughter, her bitterness hides,
And I love her still.
The comfort of my past,
My pitiless Father, his endlessness forgets,
And I love him still.
The love of my land,
My forgiving Mother, her life fades,
And I mock her still.
Forgive me no more.

Another one with a confusing title, it's got nothing to do with the seasons... I'm trying to remember how i came up with these!

Anyway, I'm done bothering you for now, hehe. Sorry.

[Rhiflect]

I love 3,4 and 5! And don't worry, most of my poems are about me, or people i like, haha.

[jadeface]

I like that more people write than I was aware of in 'real' life. It's great.

Have some of mine; I'm a little abstract but I think my head is just always muddled. Although this is just what's on my desktop. Not sure how good these ones are yet.



You sew on the button, then it is complete.
what i feel is the outlandish desire to just fall into the seams of each long piece of string, because you never see it all, you only see half of it. i am in and out of visibility and plastered with the felt of my own dreams. you are scissors and i am to run from the ties you wish to cut, because you want to tie me down with yours. please let me crumble and disperse into the world i wish to call my own, because it has taken me this much to have the courage. i am not bravery with a sword or a shield, but i walk empty handed with words dripping from my hands.



so blunt your scissors, i won't take any damage as i am as nerveless as a piece of string, my heart is split in two like a worm, and i have already slipped from everyone's reach.


cushion.
the smell of their clothes, and the damp, and the nodding heads. the smell of who they are and where they've been, carrying through with them throughout their lives. this is not comfort, this is the opposite. so i wait and i don't like to breathe because it isn't you. it isn't comfort. it's sickly and quiet but i can't hear over all the turning heads and thoughts that they have. and i try to do the opposite so they don't think i am the same. no i am not nodding and i have nothing carrying with me on this day, as i am empty. i am not thinking because i am just sitting here drowning out all the noises and looking out of the window. and the window is barely a window; i can't see through the damp and the breathing and i feel like i cannot move. no, this really isn't comfort.



my hands are two old ladies waiting to go home. my mind is just a child wanting to be held.

this isn't comfort.



pinky promises.
tie a string around my little finger. it represents all of me; that i am bound and i can't do much but stretch and wait it out, or wriggle and writhe and still after all that struggling, be in the same place.


...two hands.
A timid hand waiting to meet its shadow, to double and become more than the truth; to become reality for everything else, but not itself. All the meanwhile shaking, to... to make itself make decisions. The rise and fall of a thumb down onto agreement and "no". The nerves twitching to every possibility and breathing in the oxygen while it waits for command. Holding all that matters, every surge of power and weakness rushes through, to land on another hand, or just the air and silence that keeps it company through the days of singularity. But it always shies in the way of its shadow, falling between the light, trying to be bigger and better than the magnified picture of truth. 

It casts reflections against itself, when they both collide. Against meeting its maker it has met its other half.

[Rhiflect]

I love cushion!