Your Favorite Poems from fellow Lit-Netters

[zoolane]

By Skia.


Ya gotta be skitz bruv!

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Walkin thru da halls,
I lol at all these pussy's
all da divvs wid dere notebooks,
dere bags n shizz.

I scoff at dem,
askin if dey wan beef,
dey fink dey is funny
when dey reply,
nah I wan chicken,
ha, dey were chicken
when dey ran off,
afta a giv em a chase,
innit.

Ah,
dere's ma boi's
chillaxin wid the homies,
sparkin up a beefa,
a hope dey gotta roach,
an some spray so da prof's dunna smell it,
but,
Ya gotta be skitz bruv!
he betta not be chattin wid ma gyal,
oderwise,
dey aint gonna see dem xbox again!

[zoolane]

Great Time of London



I

Hobbes' Leviathan
Determines for us all
Life in the state of nature is
Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

Cromwell agrees;
His spiked head rots
Atop Westminster Hall.
The future death mask
Of simple, unwitting souls.

II

Death docks in the
Foggy Thames.
Church bells toll
To a gruesome arrival.

Blood engorged fleas
Trade the backs of rats
For Mankind as host
To yersinia pestis.

Apothecaries cry alarms
Penny for a healing charm!
Sprays of rosemary
Hide their sickly cheeks.

Appearances of patchy black skin.
A child’s compulsive vomiting.
Misguidance slays cats and dogs
On corpse infested streets

Countless unknown poor
Rot at the deserted palace door
As Charles II seeks sanctuary
Under an Oxford Weeping Tree.

Labour mills grind to a halt
Tools idle, without trade.
Handfuls of posies to noses
But they all just fall down


III

In answer to the cry,
Bring out your dead,
The fearful living few
Pile corpses on a barrow.

God’s plague pit at Aldgate
Digests another cartful
Of Bleak Black Death.
As scavenging birds circle.

While Newton solves the puzzle
To the theory of gravitation
Somewhere in Pudding Lane
A smouldering oven flames…

[Silas Thorne]

This is still one of my favorites, from the great poet Firefangled, called 'Still Life'. I only wish I knew his name so I could get in contact with him or buy magazines or books with his recent poems, since he is gone from Litnet. This poem almost brings tears to my eyes whenever I read it:

Still Life

'I remember saying my last structured prayer,
you dead with the amazing flower sprays,
sunlight through the stained glass, brush strokes
across the white lilies like a canvas of Klee’s.

Man’s time dissolves in ashes, I repeated,
as the sun and clouds conspired to create
the red pulse over the cross of carnations
and through the veins of the marble floor.

No one planned the wild buttercups in that field.
I brought no bouquets, nor did I kneel, but lay
down in your golden days and painted you,
in my mind, relieved of all your hidden colors.'

Firefangled, posted on Lit-net in February 2009

[Robin Koykka]

Woodland’s Gift



By Robin Koykka

October 22, 2010



He carried tools into the forest

Where majestic pines now stand

And prayed in thanks for what he’ll take

Those mighty giants grand



On the floor of woodland moist

As he looked up to their heights

He felt the years those might boughs

Protected through the nights



Many fowl of heavens rest

They found shelter in her arms

Wind, and rain lashed upon them all

Below protected from the harm



With his aim and mighty swing

His axe sinks into the grains

It’s tears and flesh away they fly

His steel the forest tames



No other noise is now heard

The birds are quiet the deer are still

As timber falls down to the earth

Directed by mans will



Work begins to shape the tower

That lies upon the woodland floor

It’s limbs are gone it’s bark removed

For what is there in store



Little ones lost their home

They wonder where it’s gone

It slowly vanished on the wagon

Where it was set upon



Into the shop it is placed

Where hands now shape its form

And silken garments dress it up

As if to keep it warm



The grains now polished fine

Brass handles are put in place

And decorations are all around

A pillow in its place



Another prayer now is heard

As tears fall on the wooden burl

And placed inside for safe keeping

A lid closes on a little girl



They carry her into the forest

Where majestic pines now stand

And give thanks for the protection there

Among mighty giants grand



On the floor of woodland moist

He again looks to the heights

And thinks of when they’ll meet again

While she’s protected through the nights

[AuntShecky]

This recent notable posting by Hillwalker belongs in this thread because it is a finely-crafted example of showing rather than telling:

OFF-SHIFT

Off shift this late at night
I drag the empty shadows in behind me
silent key then slip the bolt
my hibernating she-bear purring
touch her face to check
she’s there
her lair a mound of crocheted blankets

I take a vodka for my strength
and one for Lena
one for Babu and the saints
then pick up Mishka from her basket
feel her flexing claws like pinpricks
seize her scruff
and sense her heart like claustrophobia
thumping
deep enough to set the tumblers rattling
on the drainer

I pull the blinds
and marvel for a moment at the April snowstorm
melting into flecks and fireballs
sense the sliding weight of stolen sky
tilt closer
masking all perspective
clouding skeletons of sycamores across the Prospekt
feel the acid deep inside me
kick against the womb

I crawl between the sheets
slide clumsy hands around her swollen belly
press my thighs against her sleeping heat
embrace the tidal furnace
longing for the maelstrom
hidden deep within her molten core
a clenching clutch to choke this dread
and hold at bay the coming day

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

Bravo - and brava!

[Jack of Hearts]

Surpassing Experience by TheEarthIsRound

Consciously a world is outside
Clocks are ticking,
Cars are running,
Breaths are taken in,
Birds are chirping,
Earth is turning;
Atoms are transforming
Energy transfiguring,
While I take thought on
This cup of Tea.

I put myself into
The system of the tea,
The system of matter,
Of materials, of physics.

But that wouldn’t matter at all-
Clocks may not be ticking,
Earth may not be turning...

As we speak.

Sometimes it is an elegant gesture,
A leap of faith
To know you are not alone.
To know you are collective
In the system.
But sometimes,
It isn’t selfishness or ignorance,
That the only thing matters
Is not the system
But my cup of tea.
Without inferences
Or references
To what is and what not.

To silence of language,
To emancipate from imagination
Assumptions, and false security--
The aloneness and the unity.
The world outside
The world inside
Outside and inside.

As we speak.

[Jack of Hearts]

SNOWFALL by hillwalker

The white noise of winter has settled all around us

We trawl the river bank for clues
fog-mist forest glades
pine trees laden with blossom
stooping once too late
one careless moment as my shoulders become tinselled by one branch

Fresh scuffs of greenery
where you scraped and foraged
and here and there a brief chicane
of boulders not quite dormant

We pass a fishing perch bedecked in white
a diving board to arctic dreams of basking whales and ice flotillas
and upstream in a sudden startling gasp of sunlight
watch a single fish leap out to snatch the day
when I thought all the world asleep bar you and me

I tread more cautiously
along the filament of sky
where reeds are flattened
crushed by sleeping clouds

And far beyond the pristine white encroaches on the loch
each single grain of ice embedded in a galaxy of giddy light
yet mottled at the edge in brittle grey
and cracked across in places

The cloven tracks of your insomnia
lead right to the edge
that swatch of night
without a single gleaming star to guide us home
so I keep mirroring your moves
one step closer
one step closer
one more step
and for good luck…..

[Jerrybaldy]

ouroboros (epsilon dub) by Weltanschauung

my god!
my money! my house! my car!
my hair my shoe my face
my credit! my bill!
my phone my meds my food my head
my work my kids my back
my dog my cat my fish
my balls my tits my legs
my tits my tits my tits your tits
your tits your thing my thing
my god!

[Jack of Hearts]

"Springtime Limerick" by moonbird

The sunbeams are strings on my fiddle.
I play you an intricate riddle
of sweet little tunes
on gay afternoons
and chord with the chickadee’s whistle.



"Heartstring Guitar" by moonbird

For all her life, she’d watched from afar.
Avoiding love, she nursed an old scar.
But once she slipped, left her heart ajar,
Releasing the music of her heartstring guitar,
And as it sang, in drifted a star,
Small and twinkling, it had drifted far,
Following blindly its guiding north star,
And the little star played on her heartstring guitar
A song both sweet and faintly bizarre
That put the notes where words usually are,
And the door to her heart stayed forever ajar,
Playing sweet music on her heartstring guitar.

[quasimodo1]

Jerrybaldy: This is excellent, unexpected and more than just humorous. I really like it. q1

[Jack of Hearts]

An untitled poem by weltanschauung (from ‘ouroboros (epsilon dub)’)

you're so genuine
under the wallmart original's remake of renaissance classics.
you're so smart
under the haircut and the blue spectacles.
you're so pretty
under the glitter and gold supersized underpriced cover-girl kit.
you're so talented
under the canvas of visa-mastercard-paypall.
you're so pure
under the baghavad-gita topless bikini.
you're so bright
under the stellar five-pointed cardboard.
you're so true
under the six-feet king-size best reviewed innerspring.

[Jack of Hearts]

"Eatin' Sounds" by firefangled

Stop by here sometime,
where the frogs and the crickets
wake up my neighbors
(she has ten poison fingers
and he’s moonfaced with rickets).

Come here summertime,
when it’s thick in the thickets,
night has its own plagues,
bullies kickin’ they legs
feelin' the gray heat of briquettes.

Down near the rushes
singing blues to black water
fingerin’ her notes,
pale like lillies she floats,
missus full moon with otter.

What’s your darkest desire,
and I’ll play you a sad song
made from young willows
and a worn breath from spring,
while cookin’ some croaks on the fire.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Hamina's Lost Head

by Delta 40

In the bland room
to the left of the library
Hamina is guided by sure hands.
She bumps into cream walls
half circle tables halted by
navy patterned carpet squares.
Hamina lists to the right
and behaves as if one leg is a whole
metre longer than her little finger.
She snorts and hoots at the circle
of old ladies buried in craft materials.
The carer steers her round with one hand
while she holds her toys in the other.
He-ll-o Ha-min-a
they say, as if greeting her this way
will help her understand their kindness.
Whee!
Whoop!
Hoo!
My, you're happy today arent' you?,
Odd shaped Hamina shuffles toward each lady,
smirking, contorting her face impossibly
while her neck struggles to move however it chooses.
Her naked barbie doll with only a brain stem left
is slammed against the table.
Good Lord! What happened to her head?
Oh, she lost it somewhere along the line, I think
Nor-tee Ham-in-a!
Bad Ham-in-a!
Hamina sniggers and bends the naked limbs
till they are as misshapen as she is.
She rubs the stem nub between
crooked fingers and
rocks back and forth in time,
then she squeals so everyone winces.
Someone mutters underneath their breath,
Knit two, purl one, drop a stitch.
Hamina whacks the headless tanned body
against the table once more.
Sit down Hamina and have some
of Jan's homemade pie
She plunges her fingers into
the sticky tart
and eats like a two year old.
Strawberry jam is smeared
across Barbie's molded breasts,
her curvaceous legs
then one carefully placed red blob
on the plastic brain stem.
Hamina reveals her decayed chalky teeth
and nods - almost knowingly.
She licks the node,
where the head used to be,
like a lollipop.

[Delta40]

lol. Hamina is a pretty grotesque venture!

I can see my house from here by Jerrybaldy

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'I can see my house from here'
I said to Sally, as she lifted her skirt
to pee on the dandelions.
I took a dead one
and told her the time,
it was fourteen o'clock.
I held a buttercup
and the glow on her chin
told me scientifically
that Sally loved butter a lot.
I picked her a daisy
and counted petals
of she loves me
she loves me not.
The summer sun was burning
the tip of her nose
and her freckles
were ablaze
on her cheeks.
She gave me her gum
and I tasted
the sweet warmth of her spit.
' I can see my house from here, Sally'
Her lopsided smile was unimpressed.
She dragged me to a bramble bush
and we scratched and we bled
as we kissed.
We climbed the big oak together
and sat upon its bough.
The sky was misty orange now
and we held bloody hands
as our features faded out
with the light.

It is a wet Sunday
I have walked to our oak tree
and it is ageing so more gracefully, than me.
I can see our house from here, Sally.
I am coming home.
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