Poetry thread
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sqrt
1210 Posts
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Dr. ROCKZO
New Zealand396 Posts
A bit long to copy-paste, but well worth the read. | ||
Trombpwn
United States20 Posts
I find no peace, and yet I make no war: and fear, and hope: and burn, and I am ice: and fly above the sky, and fall to earth, and clutch at nothing, and embrace the world. One imprisons me, who neither frees nor jails me, nor keeps me to herself nor slips the noose: and Love does not destroy me, and does not loose me, wishes me not to live, but does not remove my bar. I see without eyes, and have no tongue, but cry: and long to perish, yet I beg for aid: and hold myself in hate, and love another. I feed on sadness, laughing weep: death and life displease me equally: and I am in this state, lady, because of you. -Francesco Petrarch translation by A.S. Kline | ||
Artemis
United States129 Posts
Thought The idea snowballs in my mind, before erupting out of my mouth like a cognitive volcano. As it collides with the air it sends shock-waves, which caress your ear. It travels through the darkness of understanding, building up monumental pressure before exploding into the dynamic metropolis of your skull. Slowly building up mass, a new life rocks gently in the cold damp reaches of your mind. Boredom Boredom saturates my soul, like murky waters of disdain. I beat a sheet of white-washed parchment, with the blunt end of my pen, like the monotonous ticking of a grandfather clock. Tick Tock Tick Tock Time is dripping like a leaky faucet into the vast desert of life. I wander eternally in this forsaken land, crawling through the wasteland I leave trails in the universe. I search the universe for a single grain of sand, A door appears. A cracked, dried out hand slowly envelops the knob the knob turns counter-clockwise, and the door flies inward. Time stops for a brief eternity. I step through the gateway into a blinding light A damp breeze envelops me, The day begins again. | ||
LeafHouse
United States185 Posts
This isn't exactly classic poetry, but a good beat poem is something worth listening to. "Hurling Crowbirds at Mockingbars" - Buddy Wakefield Here's another good one called "Aaron" + Show Spoiler + and a couple of fun poems by Taylor Mali + Show Spoiler + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU Cheers | ||
Bourneq
Sweden800 Posts
Also I don't like jellyfish, they’re not a fish, they're just a blob. They don’t have eyes, fins or scales like a cod. They float about blind, stinging people in the seas, And no one eats jellyfish with chips and mushy peas. Get rid of 'em! | ||
Ayush_SCtoss
India3050 Posts
Either way, I will be editing this with a freestyle poem of mine. | ||
RealDeal
United States117 Posts
ahh, love my verbal poetry(hip-hop) | ||
Kontemptuous
Australia132 Posts
+ Show Spoiler [I.] + My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby. + Show Spoiler [II.] + What else should he be set for, with his staff? What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare All travellers who might find him posted there, And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare, + Show Spoiler [III.] + If at his counsel I should turn aside Into that ominous tract which, all agree, Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly I did turn as he pointed: neither pride Nor hope rekindling at the end descried, So much as gladness that some end might be. + Show Spoiler [IV.] + For, what with my whole world-wide wandering, What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope With that obstreperous joy success would bring, I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring My heart made, finding failure in its scope. + Show Spoiler [V.] + As when a sick man very near to death Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end The tears and takes the farewell of each friend, And hears one bid the other go, draw breath Freelier outside, (``since all is o'er,'' he saith, ``And the blow falIen no grieving can amend;'') + Show Spoiler [VI.] + While some discuss if near the other graves Be room enough for this, and when a day Suits best for carrying the corpse away, With care about the banners, scarves and staves: And still the man hears all, and only craves He may not shame such tender love and stay. + Show Spoiler [VII.] + Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest, Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ So many times among ``The Band''---to wit, The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed Their steps---that just to fail as they, seemed best, And all the doubt was now---should I be fit? + Show Spoiler [VIII.] + So, quiet as despair, I turned from him, That hateful cripple, out of his highway Into the path he pointed. All the day Had been a dreary one at best, and dim Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim Red leer to see the plain catch its estray. + Show Spoiler [IX.] + For mark! no sooner was I fairly found Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, Than, pausing to throw backward a last view O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round: Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound. I might go on; nought else remained to do. + Show Spoiler [X.] + So, on I went. I think I never saw Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve: For flowers---as well expect a cedar grove! But cockle, spurge, according to their law Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, You'd think; a burr had been a treasure-trove. + Show Spoiler [XI.] + No! penury, inertness and grimace, In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See "Or shut your eyes,'' said nature peevishly, "It nothing skills: I cannot help my case: "'Tis the Last judgment's fire must cure this place, "Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.'' + Show Spoiler [XII.] + If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk All hope of greenness?'tis a brute must walk Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents. + Show Spoiler [XIII.] + As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, Stood stupefied, however he came there: Thrust out past service from the devil's stud! + Show Spoiler [XIV.] + Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane; Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; I never saw a brute I hated so; He must be wicked to deserve such pain. + Show Spoiler [XV.] + I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart. As a man calls for wine before he fights, I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights, Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. Think first, fight afterwards---the soldier's art: One taste of the old time sets all to rights. + Show Spoiler [XVI.] + Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face Beneath its garniture of curly gold, Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold An arm in mine to fix me to the place, That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace! Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold. + Show Spoiler [XVII.] + Giles then, the soul of honour---there he stands Frank as ten years ago when knighted first. What honest man should dare (he said) he durst. Good---but the scene shifts---faugh! what hangman hands Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst! + Show Spoiler [XVIII.] + Better this present than a past like that; Back therefore to my darkening path again! No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain. Will the night send a howlet or a bat? I asked: when something on the dismal flat Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train. + Show Spoiler [XIX.] + A sudden little river crossed my path As unexpected as a serpent comes. No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms; This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath For the fiend's glowing hoof---to see the wrath Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes. + Show Spoiler [XX.] + So petty yet so spiteful! All along, Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it; Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit Of route despair, a suicidal throng: The river which had done them all the wrong, Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit. + Show Spoiler [XXI.] + Which, while I forded,---good saints, how I feared To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek, Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard! ---It may have been a water-rat I speared, But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek. + Show Spoiler [XXII.] + Glad was I when I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage--- + Show Spoiler [XXIII.] + The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque. What penned them there, with all the plain to choose? No foot-print leading to that horrid mews, None out of it. Mad brewage set to work Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews. + Show Spoiler [XXIV.] + And more than that---a furlong on---why, there! What bad use was that engine for, that wheel, Or brake, not wheel---that harrow fit to reel Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware, Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel. + Show Spoiler [XXV.] + Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood, Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth, Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood Changes and off he goes!) within a rood--- Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth. + Show Spoiler [XXVI.] + Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim, Now patches where some leanness of the soil's Broke into moss or substances like boils; Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils. + Show Spoiler [XXVII.] + And just as far as ever from the end! Nought in the distance but the evening, nought To point my footstep further! At the thought, great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend, Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned That brushed my cap---perchance the guide I sought. + Show Spoiler [XXVIII.] + For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place All round to mountains---with such name to grace Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. How thus they had surprised me,---solve it, you! How to get from them was no clearer case. + Show Spoiler [XXIX.] + Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick Of mischief happened to me, God knows when--- In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then, Progress this way. When, in the very nick Of giving up, one time more, came a click As when a trap shuts---you're inside the den! + Show Spoiler [XXX.] + Burningly it came on me all at once, This was the place! those two hills on the right, Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; While to the left, a tall scalped mountain... Dunce, Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, After a life spent training for the sight! + Show Spoiler [XXXI.] + What in the midst lay but the Tower itself? The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counter-part In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf He strikes on, only when the timbers start. + Show Spoiler [XXXII.] + Not see? because of night perhaps?---why, day Came back again for that! before it left, The dying sunset kindled through a cleft: The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay, Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,--- ``Now stab and end the creature---to the heft!'' + Show Spoiler [XXXIII.] + Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears Of all the lost adventurers my peers,--- How such a one was strong, and such was bold, And such was fortunate, yet, each of old Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years. + Show Spoiler [XXXIV.] + There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met To view the last of me, a living frame For one more picture! in a sheet of flame I saw them and I knew them all. And yet Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, And blew. ``Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'' <3 Big Dark Tower fan | ||
SpiffD
Denmark1264 Posts
A mosquito was heard to complain That a chemist had poisoned his brain The cause of his sorrow Was paradichloro Diphenyltrichloroethane | ||
Trombpwn
United States20 Posts
Anyway, everyone's favorite: Dulce Et Decorum Est + Show Spoiler + Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind. GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime.-- Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. --Wilfred Owen A poem I wrote for an assignment back in HS that I'm proud of. Kind of too romanticized when I look back, but it's all right I think. Worms + Show Spoiler + On the edge of our farm, I arranged the wildflowers I had picked and placed them on Grandpa's grave Standing in front of his stone, I traced my thumb over his name and the Latin words I couldn't pronounce I knelt on the empty plot beside his and reached my hands into the cold earth. I felt the worms wiggle between my fingers preparing the soil for Grandma's arrival I pictured him waiting for her, waiting to lift her ebon veil, to kiss and to carry her over the threshold to paradise I pulled my arms from the dirt and filled the holes they left, letting the worms do their work in the dark My hand reached out and clutched a stick, with which I began stabbing the ground. A stronger thrust, and it snapped. I threw both halves down the hill. | ||
Fission
Canada1184 Posts
by William Carlos Williams I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold | ||
Sky
Jordan812 Posts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSo3HbkmiQU | ||
Kojaimea
United Kingdom277 Posts
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GreyArrow
United States157 Posts
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. -William Shakespeare + Show Spoiler + | ||
Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
Dream song 1 Huffy Henry hid the day, unappeasable Henry sulked. I see his point,--a trying to put things over. It was the thought that they thought they could do it made Henry wicked & away. But he should have come out and talked. All the world like a woolen lover once did seem on Henry's side. Then came a departure. Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought. I don't see how Henry, pried open for all the world to see, survived. What he has now to say is a long wonder the world can bear & be. Once in a sycamore I was glad all at the top, and I sang. Hard on the land wears the strong sea and empty grows every bed. Dream Song 14 Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored means you have no Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature, Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes as bad as achilles, who loves people and valiant art, which bores me. And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag and somehow a dog has taken itself & its tail considerably away into mountains or sea or sky, leaving behind: me, wag. | ||
Dalguno
United States2446 Posts
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
On April 16 2011 07:53 Dalguno wrote: Haven't yet read it, but when I'm feeling ambitious I want to get going on The Divine Comedy. Anyone read it? Yes. It's not really a poem, unless you're counting the Odyssey or the Iliad and such works as poems. It's a very long story with no real conflict or plot to it. Paradisio is more interesting than the inferno but no one reads past it (more creative take on things than... "OH NO PEOPLE ARE BEING TORTURED. IN DIFFERENT WAYS. FOR 300 PAGES."). edit but I'm an atheist. So that might be why i was literally bored out of my mind with each line of it. | ||
Dr. ROCKZO
New Zealand396 Posts
On April 14 2011 22:57 Bourneq wrote: It would be spitefull, to put jelly fish in a trifle. Mad respect for Karl Pilkington. | ||
micromegas
Denmark171 Posts
On April 16 2011 08:03 Nevuk wrote: Yes. It's not really a poem, unless you're counting the Odyssey or the Iliad and such works as poems. It's a very long story with no real conflict or plot to it. Paradisio is more interesting than the inferno but no one reads past it (more creative take on things than... "OH NO PEOPLE ARE BEING TORTURED. IN DIFFERENT WAYS. FOR 300 PAGES."). edit but I'm an atheist. So that might be why i was literally bored out of my mind with each line of it. What I see you saying is - The Divine Comedy, that is, a masterpiece of literature, can tell you nothing because it fails to affirm the arbitrary 'ideology' that you happen to subscribe to? If you stake that claim, there's some really fine lines you'd have to be extremely careful not to cross each time you, say, want to read a book, watch a movie, look at a painting, even speak your mind about a certain piece of architecture, and so on. I mean, I'm interpreting here, but still. It's a point to consider. On another level, I don't see how there's no plot or no conflict to Dante. It's high strung and ambitious as hell (!), that's for sure, but in many ways, it's incredibly ardous in terms of composition - it's a classical story about a man who's lost, faces evil, reflects upon his own role in all of it and at last finds some form of God. And what drives him through it all? A gal. | ||
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