SleepyWitch
08-16-2007, 09:21 AM
hey peeps,
I've dug up some of my old and more recent poems (the ones I'm not too embarrassed about myself) and will re-post them all together here. please vote for your favourite. if you think all of them suck, please tell me so in no uncertain terms, I can take it :)
please feel free to be very cruel about the endings.. i think what gives me most trouble is to find and ending for a poem that doesn't seem to just peter out or is anti-climatically clichéd.
THANKS
I'll post them in the order I wrote them:
In pics and at the pub the other night
Acting the boss
she swivels with poise
graceless and ever so slightly
out of proportion
the whole defies beauty
and, bursting description,
sweetly she jars
A long-drawn-out infatuation
Surprise washed down the gullies of his grey-worn face
that after X and Y and umpteen years
she should still trust him by default.
Like summer-lightning in the far-off hills,
an unexpected shyness gilds the April slush,
and after X and Y and umpteen years
they grope for words once more.
Ruffled as a stranded bird he musters up his wit
sways like a rainswept sapling in the breeze
and soon resorts to common courtesy again.
They joke and laugh, then go their separate ways
And thus, in X and Y and umpteen years
not much of interest has been said.
And now I wait
She shook my young offender's hand
so many years ago
in speechless summer heat
we said "hello" and glared.
Now sod my brilliant intellect
that took ten years to find
the words
I should have told her then.
Until that day I pictured her
A garish ancient dragon-wife
Fat-arsed with brittle hair
A hag, a gossip, arrogant and cool.
Deserved it! Yes, she did!
And if he chose to mess around
Then how was I to blame?
Now he is just a distant dream,
the shadow of a fevered love
But she can still inspire me
"Not very much!"
I hasten to admit
But still she's worth a line
or two
not every story, every line
That's asking a bit much
But still I often tell myself
"She's strong", that midlife girl
from many years ago,
who makes me think
I was a toy,
foul-copied by a twist of chance
when she had grown too much
herself
for that old boy to grasp.
And now I wait.
Not every day, keep that in mind
but once or twice a year
And when we meet again
in twenty, fourty years from now
I’ll have this speech prepared.
Chemical Fires
Chemical fires in the mountain night
Blaring at a sulphur moon
Electrical eels dangle in your face
Your face, brother, watch your face!
All-seeing, all knowing, camera surveillance
Drink coke for your health, drink coke
Run, brother, run
Leap, soar up to the sky
Run, brother, run,
And I’ll pull the trigger
Nuclear cocktails boil in the sun
Nuclear cocktails lengthen your life
Drink coke for your health, brother run
Now up to that mossy ledge of rock
Spider-infested, the sickening air
Run, brohter, run
Brother run
The mad doctor’s robots
Crawling and swarming
everywhere around us,
everywhere
And his wheels of fire
And his half-witted titans
hybrid creatures
We’ll outrun their bullets
Whistlening past
Run, brother, run
And I’ll pull the trigger
Pink yellow-green burst of colour and light
Blood-rushed brain cells flashing together
The turkey!
Catch it!
Catch the turkey!
Uranium-roasted and hot.
Hot like the fires,
The chemical fires
That scorch our lungs.
Drink coke for your health,
brother, run,
While I pull the trigger.
Watch out, we’re falling.
We’re falling
We’re plunging
Falling through the mountain air.
The key!
We’re almost, almost
There
Thud-Ud-ud-ud-Thud-Ud-ud-ud
We’re almost there
Almost there when the bullets hit
We’re almost there
Only one more time,
Brother, just once more
Press ‘enter’ to play again
<no title yet>
The trees were swaying above our heads
and unspoken clouds crossed your face
as you clung to your hard-won innocence.
Like an angel forged from original sin
you kicked at the twigs on our path.
Up in the trees the oblivious birds
were lost in their mindless song
and the ants beneath our feet
kept creeping and crawling on
trailing infinitely home
In stubborn silence you trod on the moss
and counted the pros and cons
and labeled them neatly to be filed
and stored between your wary brows
The woodpecker eyed a juicy worm
and the love-lorn frogs exploded with croaks
while deep down inside
your brotherly thoughts
brushed the walls of your rebel soul
Too tender to burst and subtle to fight
we sat on a blanket to talk
and an icy drop of dew
trickled down your flawless shell,
searching for a river of blood,
looking in vain for a river to join.
Seven degrees of (Un)Certainty
This must be Anne
she can't be awake
she needn't be dead, though
at home or tomorrow
she should be at home
"Will I see you tonight?"
asked the old spring chicken
overlooking the bay
he predicted the past
in the future
future in the past
predicting the future
What can it mean?
We might never succeed
succeed
success
successful
succeed in predicting the past
"Just hypothetically speaking,"
said the tentative chicken
"Could I borrow your pen?"
But where's Anne gone?
Where can she be?
Water boils at a hundred degrees
and oil will float on water.
He might try harder next time.
He might.
Next time
he might try harder
predicting.
Of course, I might be wrong.
Double Choc Novel of Love
Oh lisp, sweet muse, in languid tones,
affecting fake impe-pe-diments
to soften down the playful pain
of unabashed false modesty,
lisp, muse, of the man, so pallid and sleek,
who wandered, in lonesome company,
not very far or wide to flee
from nineteenth century city drunks
to luscious, green suburban lawns.
Who wandered not so very far
from crumbling backyard citadels
to second-rate suburbia
and there wrote what the reviews call
Ein Roman über die Liebe
a novel about the love,
as if there was just one of them.
Now tell me muse of the man,
without undue prolixity!
And many were the times
that he despaired,
idling through strange metropoles,
of learning his own mind.
Tell me muse, of the man
who travelled on the scent of coffee
to mysterious Kenyan hills
and found in the magic of chocolate
what Starbucks buys in bulk.
Ach ja, die Liebe.
I've dug up some of my old and more recent poems (the ones I'm not too embarrassed about myself) and will re-post them all together here. please vote for your favourite. if you think all of them suck, please tell me so in no uncertain terms, I can take it :)
please feel free to be very cruel about the endings.. i think what gives me most trouble is to find and ending for a poem that doesn't seem to just peter out or is anti-climatically clichéd.
THANKS
I'll post them in the order I wrote them:
In pics and at the pub the other night
Acting the boss
she swivels with poise
graceless and ever so slightly
out of proportion
the whole defies beauty
and, bursting description,
sweetly she jars
A long-drawn-out infatuation
Surprise washed down the gullies of his grey-worn face
that after X and Y and umpteen years
she should still trust him by default.
Like summer-lightning in the far-off hills,
an unexpected shyness gilds the April slush,
and after X and Y and umpteen years
they grope for words once more.
Ruffled as a stranded bird he musters up his wit
sways like a rainswept sapling in the breeze
and soon resorts to common courtesy again.
They joke and laugh, then go their separate ways
And thus, in X and Y and umpteen years
not much of interest has been said.
And now I wait
She shook my young offender's hand
so many years ago
in speechless summer heat
we said "hello" and glared.
Now sod my brilliant intellect
that took ten years to find
the words
I should have told her then.
Until that day I pictured her
A garish ancient dragon-wife
Fat-arsed with brittle hair
A hag, a gossip, arrogant and cool.
Deserved it! Yes, she did!
And if he chose to mess around
Then how was I to blame?
Now he is just a distant dream,
the shadow of a fevered love
But she can still inspire me
"Not very much!"
I hasten to admit
But still she's worth a line
or two
not every story, every line
That's asking a bit much
But still I often tell myself
"She's strong", that midlife girl
from many years ago,
who makes me think
I was a toy,
foul-copied by a twist of chance
when she had grown too much
herself
for that old boy to grasp.
And now I wait.
Not every day, keep that in mind
but once or twice a year
And when we meet again
in twenty, fourty years from now
I’ll have this speech prepared.
Chemical Fires
Chemical fires in the mountain night
Blaring at a sulphur moon
Electrical eels dangle in your face
Your face, brother, watch your face!
All-seeing, all knowing, camera surveillance
Drink coke for your health, drink coke
Run, brother, run
Leap, soar up to the sky
Run, brother, run,
And I’ll pull the trigger
Nuclear cocktails boil in the sun
Nuclear cocktails lengthen your life
Drink coke for your health, brother run
Now up to that mossy ledge of rock
Spider-infested, the sickening air
Run, brohter, run
Brother run
The mad doctor’s robots
Crawling and swarming
everywhere around us,
everywhere
And his wheels of fire
And his half-witted titans
hybrid creatures
We’ll outrun their bullets
Whistlening past
Run, brother, run
And I’ll pull the trigger
Pink yellow-green burst of colour and light
Blood-rushed brain cells flashing together
The turkey!
Catch it!
Catch the turkey!
Uranium-roasted and hot.
Hot like the fires,
The chemical fires
That scorch our lungs.
Drink coke for your health,
brother, run,
While I pull the trigger.
Watch out, we’re falling.
We’re falling
We’re plunging
Falling through the mountain air.
The key!
We’re almost, almost
There
Thud-Ud-ud-ud-Thud-Ud-ud-ud
We’re almost there
Almost there when the bullets hit
We’re almost there
Only one more time,
Brother, just once more
Press ‘enter’ to play again
<no title yet>
The trees were swaying above our heads
and unspoken clouds crossed your face
as you clung to your hard-won innocence.
Like an angel forged from original sin
you kicked at the twigs on our path.
Up in the trees the oblivious birds
were lost in their mindless song
and the ants beneath our feet
kept creeping and crawling on
trailing infinitely home
In stubborn silence you trod on the moss
and counted the pros and cons
and labeled them neatly to be filed
and stored between your wary brows
The woodpecker eyed a juicy worm
and the love-lorn frogs exploded with croaks
while deep down inside
your brotherly thoughts
brushed the walls of your rebel soul
Too tender to burst and subtle to fight
we sat on a blanket to talk
and an icy drop of dew
trickled down your flawless shell,
searching for a river of blood,
looking in vain for a river to join.
Seven degrees of (Un)Certainty
This must be Anne
she can't be awake
she needn't be dead, though
at home or tomorrow
she should be at home
"Will I see you tonight?"
asked the old spring chicken
overlooking the bay
he predicted the past
in the future
future in the past
predicting the future
What can it mean?
We might never succeed
succeed
success
successful
succeed in predicting the past
"Just hypothetically speaking,"
said the tentative chicken
"Could I borrow your pen?"
But where's Anne gone?
Where can she be?
Water boils at a hundred degrees
and oil will float on water.
He might try harder next time.
He might.
Next time
he might try harder
predicting.
Of course, I might be wrong.
Double Choc Novel of Love
Oh lisp, sweet muse, in languid tones,
affecting fake impe-pe-diments
to soften down the playful pain
of unabashed false modesty,
lisp, muse, of the man, so pallid and sleek,
who wandered, in lonesome company,
not very far or wide to flee
from nineteenth century city drunks
to luscious, green suburban lawns.
Who wandered not so very far
from crumbling backyard citadels
to second-rate suburbia
and there wrote what the reviews call
Ein Roman über die Liebe
a novel about the love,
as if there was just one of them.
Now tell me muse of the man,
without undue prolixity!
And many were the times
that he despaired,
idling through strange metropoles,
of learning his own mind.
Tell me muse, of the man
who travelled on the scent of coffee
to mysterious Kenyan hills
and found in the magic of chocolate
what Starbucks buys in bulk.
Ach ja, die Liebe.