An untitled poem by YesNo
There was a little birdie
Who dropped a little turd. He
Heard clearly every word he
Was not allowed to say.
And so he dropped another,
On sister and on brother,
On daddy and on mother.
He got us good that day.
Printable View
An untitled poem by YesNo
There was a little birdie
Who dropped a little turd. He
Heard clearly every word he
Was not allowed to say.
And so he dropped another,
On sister and on brother,
On daddy and on mother.
He got us good that day.
:smilielol5: That is great! Reminds me a little of 'spring is sprung the grass is ris, I wonder where the boidies is'. Terrific use of rhyme! :biggrin5:
'Plumber's Block' by hillwalker
A dodgy drain at Number 8,
extension rods all laid out straight,
my rubber boots, my yellow pail,
my mug of tea and ‘Daily Mail’.
Then bam…
I stop to roll a fag;
the smell of methane makes me gag,
my fingers fumbling for the wrench
to close the valve inside the trench,
the spanner useless in my grip,
my ‘muse’ has given me the slip.
My brain’s become a marble block,
my body misaligned in shock,
I’ll never lag a pipe again
or handle polypropylene;
without a paddle up the creek
I just can’t face another leak.
Ah, love this one. Well crafted.
Hours
You keep coming, eyes shined to perfect blue,
sometimes dirty grey, or green strewn with gold,
when reflected in a pond, at noon.
I still pirouette with you and the next, in April,
in June, but how poor the contents! all is said, dreamt of,
seen --- old! repeating, copied, never really new.
Truth pulses for its own hidden sake,
nowhere and yearning for boredom. But you,
stiff and relentless,
are always the same at noon, at four,
or under the sun days’ ghost, the moon.
And my spirits sink low, begin to prowl around,
barking about my heels,
I’ve just chased them away, like yesterday,
but they are back, back, growling -
and as you'll pop your dull eyes tomorrow
among the milling city smelling of the day before,
I’ll send them all on you, your lids will fill with rain,
and you won’t watch me rise and escape
into silence, the unmeasured, the new.
I'm so touched. Thank you Delta for appreciating my modest efforts. With gratitude, Bar
Out of this world pizza By Delta40... read on imaganeers and admire...
We could drive through the night
in your salary sacrificed car,
the electronic red glow
from the controls and meters
remind me as if I'm in space
so I lay back and imagine how easy
it is to be in cruise control, high above the Earth.
We shoot past the stars in search of the best pizza.
My Captain tells me screw the traffic
because I will love it and him when we get there!
After a few light years, we glide
to a smooth landing at the finest Interstellar Pizzeria
in the whole universe.
Inside the robotic waitress points us to
an escavated relic of a sign which reads:
Please wait here to be seated
while she wipes down tables
and the auto chef spins and flips bases
to Enrico Caruso's L'elisir d'amore
We are bound to obey the caligraphic order
because of the laser beams blocking our path.
Suddenly, the waitress looks up and transmits,
2200 hours. Sorry folks, we are now closed. Goodbye!
I experience when was in plane,
Through the rain I dash to board the plane,
About the weather to the blonde FA I I complain,
Her answer that “It’s like that everywhere” has me worried,
The net said no rain so no umbrella with me I carried.
Up on the bulkhead a bit misleading is this sign,
Definitely no business class this seat of mine.
Hi there - I think you rather missed the point of this particular thread (it's for members to post their favourite pieces written by other members).
As for your own attempt - I'm afraid it's doomed even before the ink has dried on the page.
Back-to-front expressions like 'to the blonde... I complain', 'no umbrella with me I carried' and 'misleading is this sign' are dreadful, presumably twisted in order to maintain rhyme.
Do you talk like this? I'm guessing not. So why not write using your normal language and expressions?
My advice - forget about rhyme and read lots of poetry to get a feel for how it's supposed to be written...
... and when you have more to post on here begin a new thread of your own. Good luck.
H
Untitled by prendrelemick
Cold, cold beauty,
Pristine and pure,
Ringed with glittering ice,
Haloed with borrowed light.
Perfect.
We see you now,
Framed and displayed,
laid bare to our fatuous stare,
But you remain aloof and lovely,
As only a cold beauty can.
... and certainly my favourite!
I'm sorry I'm withdrawing this from the Favourite Poems, but I have realized it's so good that the poet (B/V) should send it out for publication.
Bravo again, Bar
delete
'Beyond the falling comets and persistent stars' by DocHeart
Beyond the falling comets and persistent stars
Lies loneliness. A city sky's seen
Differently from there; stupidly courageous,
Mocking black nights with neon falsehoods.
A blueness, on the other hand, emerges
When one observes such skylines from the ground:
It is the very heaviness with which
Unskilled saxophonists sit on a gentle
Pianist's mouth.
From thirty thousand feet I watch you dance,
Smashing the fragile porcelain of our small romance.
Descending and observing from a shorter distance
Does nothing to alleviate your non-existence.
This one bears repeating. Originally posted by Lokasenna on 3-29-2009
Quote:
The Youth and the Sea: A Lament
The gentle roar of the careless sea,
The waves that caress the lonesome stones,
The mischievous breeze that blows so free,
And the sun-lit rock that warms my bones.
I lie hard upon its hardness,
My heart thunders in my chest
and stops.
Its touch is more real than any other,
More passionate than a lover,
More caring than a mother,
And closer than a brother.
There is a rock that every wave submerges,
And pulls to the depths of its ancient urges,
Entombed, enwombed, it for a moment merges,
Before being torn out by liquid surges,
with Paradise.
I am not that rock: I can but live upon it,
Entirely severed from my sacred soul,
being locked in this form that can only sit
upon a silent shore, to dream of being whole.
No longer can I make love to the ocean,
Never again shall we in perfect oneness bind,
No more shall I pant beneath its potent motion,
Except in the faded temples of my mind.
I wrote this today, while sitting in the location described - it is, I think, one of the most intensely personal pieces I have ever written, so I'm a little nervous putting it up. Nonetheless, sharing is part of the experience, and constructive criticism is always much appreciated!
Originally posted by Lokasenna on 2-12-2009
Quote:
I'm at University in Leeds, which is great because inland Yorkshire is much colder than my hometown on the Welsh coast. The other week we had lots of snow (in fact, its just started again!), my absolute favourite weather, and something that, until I went to Uni, I had only experienced twice in my life. I have a great view out over the city, and the other week I was looking out of the window, and the snow was lightly falling from the patchy clouds, and the full moon was hanging over the city. Having just re-read Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight" and feeling rather relaxed, my mind took the opportunity to walk in a great man's shadow. My usual attempts at Romantic poetry are usually awful, but this one is significantly less awful the usual junk.
The Winter's Tale
Celestial secrets, the shining stars,
Adorn the primal night,
A holy host of fallen czars,
that flank the Goddess bright,
Bold Luna, set in childish shade,
To haunt the mind of man was made;
The eye itself at once sublime,
Perception is the sacred art,
Mankind is echoed in thy heart,
Thou true child of elder time!
Evanescent pearl, the clouds serene,
Oe’r this too busy globe,
Fantastic, haunt the orb-lit scene,
The silent light they robe,
Dancing slowly, overhead they fly,
To fill the bastion of the sky,
Or they in raging chaos swirl,
As if in awful anger hurled,
Upon the bastion of the world;
The peace of heaven they warp and whirl.
Snow blanked canvass, the cradle feels,
Alive with deadened blight:
A fullness that in nothing heals,
A wrongness that seems right,
But the dull brain itself shall miss,
Lost in the shallow, deep abyss,
That tender sense of nothingness,
Exuding from the starry pole,
That fills the vistas of the soul,
Our petty self to soothe and bless.
Originally posted by Lokasenna on 2-19-2009
Quote:
A View from the Mezzanine
I see the pulsating masses of humanity;
The ling’ring echo of some sad fatality,
Those long forgotten children that bleed and have bled,
Their gushing, weeping prayers of the obscene sacred.
Those black walls – so black! – define, confine the mind,
The thudding mantra more than kin and less than kind,
The pointless beat, the mindless noise, the vacuous despair,
The shuffling dead that long to feel the rush of dawning air.
We are empty, we are the ghosts in the smoke,
That flare and sputter from unburning, varnished oak,
And so we move with a transient violence,
A sad majesty of surpassing eloquence,
That is soon defeated by age and infirmity,
A mewling cry in the silence of eternity;
Oh, we are the lost music, notes without a score,
The orchestra dreamed - before we are, we are no more.
Is it a dream? Or the memory of a dream?
The sudden reality of a rushing stream,
The people (the people!) alive with movement,
The beating heart that increment after increment,
Pulls me gradually back into my essential self,
Back to the comfort of mundane, worldly pelf.
And yet what was this vision, this noon day-dream?
A vision of how things are, or how things seem?
I don't usually do this sort of poetry, so its quite an experiment for me - what do you think?
Originally posted by Lokasenna on 2-25-2009
Quote:
The World is too little with Us
By the failing light of encroaching night,
The mutterers gather in sound,
And the leaden sky in a deadened eye,
Reflects with a power profound.
Through the skeletal trees the whirling breeze,
Blazes a life filled song,
And the turgid dirt of a world long hurt,
Is ignored by the general throng.
The tramping beat of their ignorant feet,
That know not love nor scorn,
Joins the empty speech from the depths of each,
That tremors a note forlorn,
A single word in the mind unheard,
That lies on the skin like moss,
While all about the earth sings out,
and all we talk is dross.
A short little something I penned yesterday in a mood of melancholy. I've wanted to try something with quite a bouncy rhythm for a little while now, and I think it interacts interestingly with the subject matter. As with anything, constructive criticism is much appreciated!
Originally posted by Lokasenna on 3-14-2009
Quote:
Apotheosis
An endless Sea of Sorrow,
With no hope held in vain,
No future, no tomorrow,
No mercy in the rain.
Archaic Zarathustra!
What cans’t thou decree?
For life has lost its lustre,
None listen now to thee.
Hell’s eternal fires,
Against the Floods of Old,
Sacred, smouldering spires,
Corroded spikes of gold.
Oh, purgéd human-kind,
The Angels all are lame,
The Eyes of God are blind,
Bright Lucifer aflame.
Wanton Devestation!
Evanescent Stain!
Antithesis Creation!
No memories remain...
I read an interesting article the other day about the chances of nuclear war. Suffice it to say, the author thought it was fairly likely to come about. This poem just sort of emerged from out of my paranoia - I wanted to create something that had a very abrupt, hard feel to it, with absolutely no leeway.
Originally posted by Lokasenna on 10-09-2009
Quote:
A Song of Tomorrow
As I'm sure many of you are aware, I am an Old Norse fanatic. This has extended to me even attempting to emulate the literature - I am currently slowly working on a saga-style work. Like Tolkein before me, I want my heavily Norse inspired world to be filled with poetry and song. This is one example - I have endeavoured to create an old folksong about the end of the world, as might be sung by a people who are morbidly preoccupied with fate and doom. There are three maidens, the Nornir, who govern fate. They are Wæs, whose book contains the entirety of history, Sie, who lights torches to see into the future, and Beo, whose sword divides the present from the past and the future; the song is about them.
Sorry for the long preamble:
When all the world to ash has turned,
When all the endless sky has burned,
When Death his due has sorely earned,
Then will the maidens weep?
If all our farms are turned to dust,
If all our weapons gone to rust,
If all our hope betrays its trust,
Then shall the maidens sleep?
Bright Wæs her book will shut up tight,
Fair Sie her final torch shall light,
Bold Beo's sword will shatter right.
Fly they to darkness deep?
How was that? Did it sound authentic? I wished to establish a pattern of repetition, and also lots of opposite imagery therein. Does it work?
Lokasenna writes fantastic poetry.
J
'In Desolation' by Bar22do
Lone, voiceless bird,
I’m lurching along;
without my wing
I won’t soar. In tatters,
I search.
New moon bears the old
on a paddled sky;
I huddle in a bark shred,
the left wing, swelling,
covers my bill.
Within hail,
a poplar’s scrawny arms
against dun air call, call,
weaken, call again
and then still.
'I see no sign' by Jerrybaldy
I just held on to a thought,
that maybe I already died
and the incense and the ash and the father,
bar none, they all blatantly lied.
Bare with me here..
I am quite unsure what I am,
I am unaquainted with my neighbours,
Koram and big Sam, the clam.
I feel that I am no longer here anymore,
I feel I am no longer here.
I feel that I am no longer here anymore,
I feel I am no longer here.
I feel that I am no longer here anymore,
I feel I am no longer here.
'Intemperate Frigate on a Placid Sea' by qimissung
Where does it come from,
my passion-
burgeoning, bumbling, burbling,
purple, red, inflamed-
like the Red Queen in a fury
or a fountain
of frothy, frothing water
light as air and filled with color
exploding into universes within the hidden crevices of my brain
then leaking out,
joyously or morosely
like a thin, filthy mattress
slept on by a high-jacked heiress in a forgotten basement;
my pores shimmer with impending excitement,
my lungs heave orgiastically
with the thought of being alive and
alive and alive yes alive
'Love may be' by jajdude
Softly now, let's not pretend,
Love's not love until the end of letting go.
Even then, love's not love until the end is gone.
Love may be a tributary: one stream flows into another.
Let the waves wash over me so all my cares may smother.
Like a jagged stone, softened by the sea, let the waves wash over me.
*This reader actually liked this poem enough to lift from it several months back!
Here
'Playing Out the String' by AuntShecky
At this
point
the sports
metaphor
collapses
hard.
Are we supposed
to swing through
the motions,
look at our
watches, settle
our affairs --
or fight
meaningless
battles
refusing
to surrender
to the inevitable?
All right,
it is
September,
and it’s
the bottom
of the ninth,
but so far
nobody’s
out.
?21st Century oPetry – Yoetrp – Tyroep AnEbodi?
a poem by Wolf Larsen
Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnggg!
Dop!
Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnng!
Bop!
Woooooooooooonnnnggg!
Schloop!
Do-bop- roouuu waaa zoo ba duddle dee yureeeekaaaaaaaaaa!
Really?
Well, za doodle dee wing za flop!!
ka – zoow roouuw ka-pling da da da riiiinnnngggggg!
Fluuupity!
Exactly!
How?
Copyright 2012 by Wolf Larsen
This will either pee him off royally - or make him implode with ecstasy.
H
Haha. An unexpected entry to this category, Hillwalker.
A lucky girl am I!
Your mockery of others Hill knows no bounds
Only those who set themselves up to be mocked, as you well know.
H
Personally I find mockery to be the last of Hill's intentions. He's one of the most attentive and constructive critics in this forum. As to WolfLarsen, I think it's anybody's guess what he's up to. My guess would be that he sees himself in the tradition of les poètes maudits, but theirs was as much an anti-bourgeois activity as it was a purely literary one. They felt they were the castaways of bourgeois society. But what they wrote nevertheless fit within the broad definition of poetry. I have trouble seeing that in WL's offerings.
how many people does it take
to paint a table?
one to apply
lush paint strokes
another to perform
itty-bitty touch ups
touch up where he said
everywhere I said
nice he said
and so we work
eyes closed
This is my favourite poem on here; it's got so much feeling compressed within a few lines.
This forum is for people to post their favourite poems by other Lit-Netters. Am I suddenly a stickler for respect?
I love reading your posts Hill and don't have a problem at all with your opinion of Wolfs work but not everyone shares your view as you well know.
I don't believe this particular forum should be used when it is so obvious that Wolf's poem along with your comments is not your favourite. As far as I'm concerned, it is not genuine, it is insulting and despite Wolf's writings, he is a fellow member and is entitled to the same respect that other members get.
If you continue to feel the need to mock him, then post your thoughts in his threads.
Here's a poster this reader misses seeing on these boards (as if this thread needs another one of these). Here's a time and sense of community this reader misses seeing on these boards. Although it's a mystery why she insisted on calling bortleman 'bartleby.'
'Through The LitNet Glass, or, EveryAdventure in Wonderland' by everyadventure
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
-Lewis Carroll
Urged by
vague
curiosity
I peer at LitNet
through the glowing screen
Of my MacBook
I lean closer—
too close!—
and fall
A wondrous
tumbling
head over
heels over
head
Words pass me by
I reach for them
metallic
messy
meows
But they are not solid matter
I fall
and
fall
and while away
the time
by penning a poem
in my head
I land with a
THUMP
in the
middle
of a forum
I search for an exit
at last spying
a tiny door
“This is absurd!”
I stamp
one slippered foot
“I am much
much
much
too large.”
A sharp, rude prod
against my backside
I whirl around
to face
Of all things
a Goose
“I beg your pardon!
Did you just poke me
with that horrid, hardened
beak?”
The Goose gazes at me
with one shiny eye
and gives a regal nod
Her beak opens
and out rolls
a vial
that stops at my feet
I pick it up
“Drink Me,”
I read.
The goose nods
encouragement as
I uncork
the bottle and
hesitate
before lifting her criticism to my lips
I drink
swallow
And am promptly
shrunk down to size
I’m relieved to find
I don’t go out altogether,
as a candle.
“Thank you!” I call
over my shoulder
as I scurry
through
the door
and emerge
in a lush garden
“Perhaps I
can find someone
to show me the way.”
I soon come upon
a most curious creature
languishing on a mushroom’s cap
ardently suckling
his hookah
“Hello!” I call.
He looks down
from his fungal throne
and envelops me
in an
exhalation
I try again
“Hello,”
I say,
“Who are you?”
He s t r e t c h e s
to his full height
“I
am
Jerrybaldy!
And w h o o o o
are you?”
Who indeed?
“I know who I was
when I got up this morning
but I think
I must have been
changed
several times since then.”
“You must be Missing,”
he surmises
“Recite!”
as though a poem
will bring me back
to myself
I begin
with Bronte
“My God! O let me call Thee mine!”
Jerrybaldy reddens with rage
“It is wrong
from beginning to end!”
He leans low
and shouts
“There is no God!”
His skin splits
and he is freed
of his casing
wings unfurl
and off he flies
leaving me
still
quite grounded
Curiouser and curiouser.
I walk on
and come across
a pigeon
all aflutter
“A Preposterous Affair!”
she splutters,
speaking
of eggs
and nests,
of earth
and spring
Then points
with an elegant
feathered wing
“A serpent!” she accuses
“No, no,” I protest
“A poet, not a serpent!”
But it’s useless
“I can see
you’re trying to
invent something!”
she cries
“And as we all know,
a poet never tries!”
I’ve had quite enough
and take my leave
It isn’t long before
I hear a meow
And look up at a
cat
perched on a bough
It looks good natured;
still,
it has VERY
l o n g claws
and a great many
teeth
and I feel it ought
to be treated
with respect
“Hillwalker,”
he purrs
in answer
to my unspoken question
“Hillwalker, please,
would you tell me
which way to go from here?”
“That depends
a good deal
on where you want
to get to.”
“I don’t much care---”
“This,” he purrs,
“Is a case
of the tail
wagging
the dog.”
And with that
he vanishes.
I’m feeling giddy
not nearly as grounded
as I was this morning
but there’s nothing to do
but keep going
At last I see
a table
decked for tea
“Finally, civilized people!”
I sit beside a young man
with a hat
that
perches precariously
upon his head.
He extends a
gloved
gentlemanly
hand.
“How do you do?” I ask politely.
“Lonely with cold sincere thoughts,”
he confesses.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I reply.
“But perhaps we should find
some more palatable
conversation?”
He clasps gloved hands
in delight
“Rumours of gossips!”
“Oh dear,” I say
“That wouldn’t be polite.”
“How about a riddle?” he asks
crumbs of bread and butter
falling from his mouth
“If we are sole judge on are merits
are merits of luxury?”
I ponder and ponder
but find no answer.
“I’m very sorry,
but I still have a
ways to go.”
He waves me
graciously
onward
I spot
two fingerposts
pointing
the same direction
One marked
“To Bartleby’s House,”
the other,
“To Grit’s House”
The path takes a turn
and there I see
two men
each with an arm
round
the other’s neck
“Could you tell me,
please,
which is the best
way for me?”
They grin
And say in unison
“The woods!
The woods!
All good stories
end in the woods!”
“But…
I don’t want to end,
I just want to leave!”
“Take a dog,”
advises Grit
“Or a cat,”
counsels Bartleby.
But I have neither
(where is Hillwalker
when I need him?)
and continue
alone
I finally emerge
in a grassy clearing
rimmed by a row
of tidy rose hedges
Jack of Hearts
is busily painting
white blooms
scarlet
“Who are those for?” I ask,
pointing to the
roses
He turns to me
sincerity seizes all his features
and the shiny coins of his eyes
gleam
“They’re for… uh…
my queen.”
“The queen!” I declare
“There is a queen?”
Jack paints with nervous vigor
“Of course there is a queen!”
As if on cue
I hear the blare
of trumpets
A procession!
Led by a minstrel
(or perhaps a prince?)
tooting his own horn
His notes scatter
in an apparently
aimless
way
And there!
The queen!
Naked, glorious,
resplendent girth!
“Halt!” she bellows,
spying me.
She points a blood-red
fingernail
“She has stolen my poem
and given it to another!
Off with her
head!”
"Wait! Wait!"
I exclaim
"Alright
right
right
I'll wait
wait
wait
but only because
you asked me to."
“Please,” I begin,
“I’d rather play
croquet?”
'Serenade' by Hawkman
At night, having drawn my curtains
tight against a streetlight’s sodium glow,
I would lie in bed, and hear birdsong.
How loud it was, persistent as the blades
of orange light which inched through gaps
and painted bars upon the wall.
I used to think it was a nightingale
that etched my dreams, with notes like motes
in Brownian motion, caught by sunbeams.
But it was just a robin, gulled
by artificial day, whose music swam
through shade to penetrate my daze.
False nightingale, with your deceitful trills,
no longer do I hear your calls
while drifting to the arms of sleep.
Like the fox’s bark from starlit fields
and distant woods’ bass-fluted owls,
time muted you as walls could not.
'Credo' by firefangled
This is the best I can do:
that day in the blackberries,
at my feet, the fat copperhead stretched out
motionless and shining,
under the green briars,
under the blue sky,
its scales like fallen leaves.
It was when I drew blood in the brambles
and it dropped on the snake
that I noticed him, noticed him
so still, and I thought of You,
hiding in the distant field,
in the grasses and pied Sycamore.
I heard You,
in the frail air,
circling like a hyphen
between heaven and earth.
This is how I believe,
between dim moonlight
and the ferocity of the sun.
You need not wake
to waken me,
but in the thorns,
I think I've felt your touch.
'Jasmine Bursting in Air' by firefangled
In a vase on the piano,
flowers from the Spring or Summer,
fragrance blending with the octaves,
the metronome filling the room.
The window pane fails to divide the light,
but leaves its bars along the wall,
where my silhouette bends and plays
until evening comes for me.
Through the morning glass, Jasmine climbs
the trellis like a simple song
that reminds me of Gardenia.
The trees break sun and shade like keys,
to lie against the garden wall.
The Jasmine blossoms, delicate,
like notes written for the right hand,
flourish under fingers unseen.
The Hummingbirds play the pistils,
draw the sweet nectar from the chime,
and with their wings the drone of bass.
Scale presents itself in mystery—
how do we listen to the guns?
From the thunder comes brass lightning,
from that the quiet, where death sounds
in this garden’s lean symphony.
The flowers of the Fall are red.
For now, we listen intently;
Pianissimo blows the wind
across the strings of future songs—
of victory in the mangled streets;
in public halls the heroes praised.
Make your anthem from the Jasmine,
freedom knows how it came to be.