write a really WEIRD poem

[Dark Muse]

Break Down

Heat pulsing
mind racing
head pounding
slipping
loosing my grip
oxygen-breath-
air-need-drink-
drowning-starving
whirlwind suck me
up, flushed free
pins and needles
prick my skin
no sanctuary
SCREAM
while I flea
bare feet bleeding
pumping-gasp
gagging
overwhelmed
breaking down

[Silas Thorne]

wilbur's walrus cuffed me with a twig
I haven't a fig or mention what you twaddle, quoth he with a waddle,
crumping in silence with Sally the pig
in proud green battles with beach-bleached white sailors.

[blp]

Dear gawd, this is a dandy. Think of the heads spinning at a smokey coffeehouse as you stand at the mike...

I love it!

Thanks, kiz - and IP for previous props. Glad you like it because it seems to me to have something too, though I might do more to it. And regarding IP's second post, though both were good, I agree about the second standing out. It's got a great violence about it.

Awesome 'weird' poem, IP; there's a lot of charge going on here -- you can feel the pulse of a dilly of a storm!

[blp]

Lo, from these folds of
an ancient land
the woods and meadows
marked by the honorable scars of
gallantry,
once more,
when malevolent intent describes
a glowering shadow round and through
the fabric of the good society,
yea, then shall arise once more
the muscular form of fiercest virtue
lashing the very air
in hunger for the challenge:
Champion,
the wonder horse.

[firefangled]

Should I remove my shoes?
Yesterday, in her wimple,
Sister Cecilia’s rhythm, I must confess,
caught my ear,
and only then my eye, her sleeves rolled far,
her arms dimpling with the strain, winter pines
rubbing in the wind, caught in her sound of scrubbing.

Should I touch my hat,
passing her in the narrow hall—a breeze
follows the habit of Poor Clare—the brim
across my stare, do I dare to raise my hand?

How is it those trees are more beautiful in snow,
rags against the tattered bark and spreading seeds?
Where shall I confess these memories, and less
than that, who will know my heart when I am dead?

[a_little_wisp]

TOO much fun to pass up! ALL of you are incredible!

(It's long, I'm very sorry. )

then there was that time i was eaten by an anaconda.


I was trapped in an anaconda.
(“-Wait, wait, what?”
“Dude, just listen.”)
I had been eaten, to be more specific.
It was I who stepped into that murky water –
I was not pushed -
Half-aware of what was lurking beneath,
Waiting for its next meal.
I found myself being eaten alive,
Not quite chewed, it’s a snake, after all-
It’s true, I barely had a moment to scream before I was
Swallowed whole, into the dark pits of the beast's belly.
("- Don't roll your eyes at me,
I speak from experience!"
"Was it rather like being in a dumpster?")
I clawed at the slick lining of that
Slimy, taut, unyielding wall,
Until the space became too little
For me to even breathe,
And my arms were suddenly clenched to my sides
And my muscles burned with pain.
I would have screamed,
But I could no longer feel my face,
Or my flesh.
In the once wide world I was now a lump
In a snake,
And I would suffocate.
("That is so weird."
"It's my story,
Of course it's going to be weird!")
Half-digested,
Half-decayed,
Half-alive,
I awoke-
(“That’s not true,” you say,
“You should have died.”
“Shut up,” I reply,
“And let me tell my god*mn story.”)
No, I became the snake,
“I am the snake. I have no name,
I am the creature.”
We were one, living in the depths of a
Jungle’s river- we were the hidden one.
I died enough, you could say,
But one day, while idly swimming by
The shore I saw a bird who sang to me,
She said, “You were once human,
You have the eyes of a human, and
You do not eat humans,
You are sick, you starve, you will not feed-
If you will not succumb, why not try fighting?”
("Who's the bird?"
I sip my tea, calmly, and reply in an even tone:
"Not all my stories are metaphorical."
"Whatever.")
And I said, “Do you dare speak so boldly to me,
Who could end your life in an instant?”
The little bird laughed in my face, and I recoiled,
Shrank away from the sound, for I was so small by then
That perhaps she could have eaten me-
I wasn’t sure.
“Do you want me to help you?”
“No,” I snapped. “I put myself in the river,
I can take myself out when I wish to leave.”
But I wasn’t so sure then,
And suddenly I felt like I was being
Constricted, all over again,
But now
Within my own body.
“You have a very inflated sense of pride,”
The little bird remarked, but I could only hiss in response at her.
And then I cried.
("Don't laugh.

- okay, you can laugh.")
But snakes can’t cry, it makes no sense, but I had to,
I would die if I didn’t.
However,
Warm and snug and safe and half-dead in this body,
I didn’t want to leave. I was a snake and –
“You’re not a snake.”
I wasn’t?
And it came to me that
I stepped in that river because I couldn’t stop myself,
Because I’d taken one step down a steep hill and had forgotten to hit the brakes
When it mattered most.
So there I was, in a river of sludge,
And there it came, the snake,
And I barely fought it.
("You would be the one to trip
And fall into the amazon river
And get eaten by an anaconda.")
“What will they think of me,
The humans? They have great stories to tell,
They’ve seen wondrous things,
And I’ve only stories of sludge and starvation.
Where are they now,
What have they done with their lives?”
The little bird cocked her head to the side
And seemed to smile,
(“But, of course, that’s silly,
Birds have beaks,
They can’t smile.”),
And she said,
“Why, not all are humans.
Some fell in worse traps than yours.
But we can always escape,
If we remember that we’re human –
We have the choice-
We always have a choice.”
“But I’ve been eaten whole- there’s
Nothing left of me.”
“Then start over.”
“I’m scared.”
“Then die.”

Such paralyzing fear swept over me then.

And I rose, and I tried to stand,
But I had no legs,
So I began to shed.
I pushed,
I strained at the corded bonds around me,
At the thick muscle,
(“Not unlike escaping mother’s womb!"
Because it's my duty to quote movies
No one has ever heard of.)
And my skin shed,
Layer after layer,
And I rolled and fought
Against the itch that
Nearly forced me to give in
And just be a snake,
In my river,
In my sludge,
Left alone.
And then I screamed.
The sound was so deliciously my own that
I tore even harder at the skin –
Now my hands were there,
And then they ached from the force of the fight–
But the bird helped, pulling off the layers,
Pecking at the skin.
“I’m so tired, I can’t fight,”
I wept, and felt weak and ashamed.
“You have to fight, you’re almost there.”
And then...
And then there was one last layer, coating me as a cocoon would.
At my first movement it tore, so delicate it was,
Crisp to the touch.
("Oh, like a wafer?")
I unwrapped myself,
And stood, naked,
But unashamed-
I was free.
And the little bird flew away,
Because she had her own life,
And I had mine.
I took my first step up that steep slope,
And I fell countless times
On my new limbs,
But I was dying -
Well, I won't say that
- to see what awaited me at the top
Of that ridge.
And so I rose,
Again and again.
And do you know what I found?

"Um, no."
That’s all right.
Neither do I-
I think that’s part of the adventure.

[Dark Muse]

Virus

Twisted inside
opened-closed
gnawed
limbo between
waking
sleeping
walking
standing
Light to dark
flicker-fade
shift-change
days into nights
into weeks
still half-alive
grotesque misery
trying to deny
seeking numbness
inside
but refused
left cracked
open

[kiz_paws]

Lo, from these folds of
an ancient land
the woods and meadows
marked by the honorable scars of
gallantry,
once more,
when malevolent intent describes
a glowering shadow round and through
the fabric of the good society,
yea, then shall arise once more
the muscular form of fiercest virtue
lashing the very air
in hunger for the challenge:
Champion,
the wonder horse.

Very cool. The ending caused me to go back and savour the poem a second time.

Should I remove my shoes?
Yesterday, in her wimple,
Sister Cecilia’s rhythm, I must confess,
caught my ear,
and only then my eye, her sleeves rolled far,
her arms dimpling with the strain, winter pines
rubbing in the wind, caught in her sound of scrubbing.

Should I touch my hat,
passing her in the narrow hall—a breeze
follows the habit of Poor Clare—the brim
across my stare, do I dare to raise my hand?

How is it those trees are more beautiful in snow,
rags against the tattered bark and spreading seeds?
Where shall I confess these memories, and less
than that, who will know my heart when I am dead?

I loved the nostalgic feeling I got when reading the first two verses. But that third verse was very powerful. Ending with a question like that was awesome, I really enjoyed this one.

[Riesa]

Should I remove my shoes?
Yesterday, in her wimple,
Sister Cecilia’s rhythm, I must confess,
caught my ear,
and only then my eye, her sleeves rolled far,
her arms dimpling with the strain, winter pines
rubbing in the wind, caught in her sound of scrubbing.

Should I touch my hat,
passing her in the narrow hall—a breeze
follows the habit of Poor Clare—the brim
across my stare, do I dare to raise my hand?

How is it those trees are more beautiful in snow,
rags against the tattered bark and spreading seeds?
Where shall I confess these memories, and less
than that, who will know my heart when I am dead?

wonderful stuff, ff.

[Riesa]

Startled by sudden hail, radish shoots, garbage-men
laughing, yelling at dogs and liking the morning;

the perfume of broken tea, floating steam,
snapped towards the upbeat,
the jam jewel-like, tasting of sunlight;

noticing green again along with
the contrast I anticipate, but don’t think about,
like hearing, but not listening to,
the sound of wind chimes carried on a coastal breeze
through a window left open in another room,

in this sidelong way it comes to me
that it is possible you are,
and I have never been,
one of the race with
whole faces built of ice,
made to freeze the mellow
back to winter.

[firefangled]

Startled by sudden hail, radish shoots, garbage-men
laughing, yelling at dogs and liking the morning;

the perfume of broken tea, floating steam,
snapped towards the upbeat,
the jam jewel-like, tasting of sunlight;

noticing green again along with
the contrast I anticipate, but don’t think about,
like hearing, but not listening to,
the sound of wind chimes carried on a coastal breeze
through a window left open in another room,

in this sidelong way it comes to me
that it is possible that you are,
and I have never been,
one of the race with
whole faces built of ice,
made to freeze the mellow
back to winter.

I like all the competing sensory inputs leading to the ending conflict.

I would leave out the "that" in "that you are" - that is if you want to do so.

[Riesa]

I like all the competing sensory inputs leading to the ending conflict.

I would leave out the "that" in "that you are" - that is if you want to do so.

thanks, you were right.

[SleepyWitch]

Death hovered in the off-yellow rug
and later it was night outside the popcorn crate.
A kid tipped me while the lamps tried to glare
and I knew you'd answer the phone "Ja bitte?".
Posh and cold.
I'd never ring you.
Meanwhile I got up every morning.
Should I be more afraid or less?
And, besides, if I knew how to cry,
I'd like to get drunk.
The phone rang, you jumped up,
a bit too fast, but softly,
stood a bit too straight, but weak,
and said your name.
I know I'll never ring you.

[Silas Thorne]

Haven't we met before?
You were at the centre of the web
debating the existence
with the other coffee spiders,
one strong gust of wind, and the web was broken
I lost your number I told you.
Have you got a pen? Here, take my phone.
Hold it! Have you got it?
Just like that, yes.
There! I'll be back in two shakes of a banana
with milk, two eggs, and a little cream.
Your eye twitches in the background,
but I cannot read it.
Could I read it? What I once saw?

Blades of green grass
wrath Khan in his absence
the curtains shut me out
turning light turncoat on me

[kiz_paws]

Riesa, I enjoyed your poem, and in particular the phrases

the perfume of broken tea, floating steam,
snapped towards the upbeat,
the jam jewel-like, tasting of sunlight

Very beautiful.

Sleepy, your poem I enjoyed -- I liked that touch of German in it. And the resolve of the person that would not be ringing the other -- I liked the way the lines read.

Silas, your title was awesome -- loved it!

You were at the centre of the web
debating the existence
with the other coffee spiders,
one strong gust of wind, and the web was broken

This was a very cool passage, I liked it a lot.

There! I'll be back in two shakes of a banana