Tulips

[The Truth]

This is a poem I just put together in the last ten minutes and thought I would share, it's but a taste of all the work I've put together in the last three years.

The great tyrannies of tulips
Unveiled before the house committee,
The initial shock might result in
Confiscation of catnip
And other similar entities.

Sweet mother of pearl!
Hide in the cabaret!
I'm sure they won't think to look
Where abandoned mothers stay.

Thanks a ton. :)

[Bar22do]

I'm not sure I understand your poem, TT, but I easily recognize your potential, your special style and tone. Will be happy to read more of your work. Welcome here TT and thanks for sharing!

[The Truth]

Thanks for the comments, I will definitely keep this thread alive with my work. :D

[Jack of Hearts]

Well this reader is a bit confused about it, like our dear Bar, but also intrigued (and able to detect something special going on here). Show us what you got!






J

[The Truth]

"It's not a question of faith,"
She says
"It's one of indigestion."
My spine tingles at the thought
And cherub tomatoes
Burst with joy.
After this
She takes her saltlick
And uses it
To disinfect wounds.
Leaning on dusty countertops,
Sundae recipes
Under elbows,
She insists to me
That I'm much too sensitive.

[bIGwIRE]

Is this the thread where you will be posting all of your poetry? If so, I will subscribe, because I like it very much. These two remind me of Sylvia Plath's poems. Please keep them coming.

[The Truth]

^ Glad to hear! I'm currently working on what I hope I will send in and be a chapbook. I may post fragments of it in this thread, if you'd like. :D

[bIGwIRE]

^ Glad to hear! I'm currently working on what I hope I will send in and be a chapbook. I may post fragments of it in this thread, if you'd like. :D

Definitely, I would like to read more. Thanks.

[firefangled]

Your writing reminds me of some of early Bob Dylan, like the first two stanzas of Tombstone Blues:

The sweet pretty things are in bed now of course
The city fathers they’re trying to endorse
The reincarnation of Paul Revere’s horse
But the town has no need to be nervous

The ghost of Belle Starr she hands down her wits
To Jezebel the nun she violently knits
A bald wig for Jack the Ripper who sits
At the head of the chamber of commerce

In Man Carrying Thing, Wallace Stevens wrote:
The poem must resist the intelligence
Almost successfully...

Abstraction is interesting only if eventually the whole becomes visible. In the same Stevens poem, he ends with:

Things floating like the first hundred flakes of snow
Out of a storm we must endure all night,

Out of a storm of secondary things),
A horror of thoughts that suddenly are real.

We must endure our thoughts all night, until
The bright obvious stands motionless in cold.

I've always read this as a lesson in obscurity. Its very title is preparatory to this.

I like your style. Please keep posting here. Please work on making connections in your poems, however subtle. Please don't think to yourself, "they're my poems and I understand what they mean..."

Part of the enjoyment of reading some poetry is trying to get at the meaning, but you have to give the reader hints that will keep them enduring your poem long into the night. It's much like writing a mystery novel.

Forgive me for being long-winded.

[Jack of Hearts]

"It's not a question of faith,"
She says
"It's one of indigestion."


These lines are funny. Keep 'em coming, The Truth. And firefangled descended from poetry heaven to give us mere mortals the beautiful response above this one.









J

[bIGwIRE]

I've always read this as a lesson in obscurity. Its very title is preparatory to this.

I like your style. Please keep posting here. Please work on making connections in your poems, however subtle. Please don't think to yourself, "they're my poems and I understand what they mean..."

Part of the enjoyment of reading some poetry is trying to get at the meaning, but you have to give the reader hints that will keep them enduring your poem long into the night. It's much like writing a mystery novel.

I agree with you on the first poem, Tulips. It seems disjointed and feels unfinished. I like the ideas, but, like firefangled said, it needs to be connected.


The second one (what do you call it? ) I think is great. It is alive. I can smell it and see it. Everything from the season, to the tone of the day, adds to my vision and involvement, and I think it is very well connected.

Just the one saltlick part tells so much about the dynamic between your characters. It makes me think of pouring salt in a wound, but gently and metered. I also think of how it consoles her, and helps her retain things in herself, like a real saltlick would be used to help cattle retain water, ect... The fact she keeps it somewhere handy is a nice touch. She has it within reach like the recipes under elbows.
The dusty countertops, the recipes, are also nice additions. I really like it.

[The Truth]

From last night:

Darkness at the break of noon,
Interrupted by awakening.
The lamb of Tartary,
In a vegetative state
At times is heard muttering
The chorus line to
Some Temptations song.
Though the first thing
Our eyes and ears meet,
It turns out to be rather forgettable.

[firefangled]

From last night:

Darkness at the break of noon,
Interrupted by awakening.
The lamb of Tartary,
In a vegetative state
At times is heard muttering
The chorus line to
Some Temptations song.
Though the first thing
Our eyes and ears meet,
It turns out to be rather forgettable.

At one point or another Wallace Stevens could be said to have supported that Just My Imagination eclipses both the sun and moon (see Poetry Is An Activity of the Most August Imagination). The Lamb of Tartary, though an imaginative feat (as most myths are) does look truer in the renderings than the actual plant itself. So plant carrying lamb is not so clear in the cold reality of morning.

Very interesting, Truth.

Nice use from It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding). One of my favorites with a nod to Arthur Koestler.

[Jerrybaldy]

Hello truth. I enjoyed reading your words. You are also very attractive, so best not show your face as blokes are blokes and they will be influenced. I may well get flack for this, but telling it like it is, the truth.

[The Truth]

I'm a male, and that's Ellen Page so don't let it affect you too much. ;)

[bIGwIRE]

From last night:

Darkness at the break of noon,
Interrupted by awakening.
The lamb of Tartary,
In a vegetative state
At times is heard muttering
The chorus line to
Some Temptations song.
Though the first thing
Our eyes and ears meet,
It turns out to be rather forgettable.

Truth, I'm glad I subscribed to this thread. I'll reply later, I'm at work atm , just wanted to say I really like it. Very interesting, as Fire said.

[The Truth]

Thanks for the kind words everyone, more up and coming!

[The Truth]

Another section of my epic poem:

A constant stream of streetlights,
A caffeine-fueled frenzy for the ages,
She passes Dachshunds
And anarchists with an orange glow
As well as a menagerie of
Beer-gutted zebras
And meth-addicted cheetahs,
And she can’t help but smirk
At the change of scenery.

Skippity-skippity-skip,
The weasel popped on the IV drip.

“Calamities are beautiful,”
She says while swimming
Around a Canadian art display
In a pool of coffee-colored liquid.
“Calamities are all I need.”

[Bar22do]

It is a talent permeated work and the whole epic poem will (or has already) have the strength doubled by your art, honest concern and - truth....

[The Truth]

"Cripple my fertility,"
Yells Audrey from the floor,
Her cracked Capuchin promiscuity
And sleepwalker's intuition broken.

Catwalks may drown her
And abysses may astound her
But still life painting depict
Whatever in true senses exist
So we might never see her.

*****

Your Henry Bemis eyes
Can be quite alarming
When the moon traps & catches
Them just right.

Wicker knick knacks may wobble
But they don't fall down,
Sort of like interdimensional
London bridges.
But this makes the trillions of chigger
Bites on my ankle
Stick out like a thousand
Swollen thumbs.

*****

It's so fine to see you
With dephlogisticated ambrose
And your psychedelic pride.

Everything will be OK,
I think you're splendid.
It's why I leave my questions
So open-ended.

[Lykren]

I like your poetry. Especially the second one on here. It is often difficult to follow, though, as others have mentioned, mainly because you think so fast. The jarring effect produced by your rapid-fire mention of various nouns is sometimes confusing, sometimes very exciting, when the reader can just barely make that leap across the association you had in mind.

Thanks for sharing, and keep them coming.


EDIT: I LOVE the way you rhyme. How do you do that?!

[The Truth]

Thanks for your kind words, I can see how they may be hard for the reader to follow and that's forced me to come under some scrutiny in the poetry community but honestly, I've tried and can't do it any other way so I'm glad that you find it exciting as well, that means a lot to me.

Just found your thread, gonna take a look at it. :D

[Bar22do]

I feel it's sometimes hard to follow you because of the ellyptic nature of your thought. But a careful reading while in meditating mood, opens for one the doors to your essence.
A great little series here. The second is my preferred!

[The Truth]

Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad someone can see what I try to put into my work because most of my close friends and colleagues certainly don't. :lol:

But thank you indeed, I may have more up and coming soon, hectic start of the school year has kind of stalled my creativity.

[The Truth]

Submitting a manuscript of poetry here, in case anyone is also wanting the name of a small press: http://www.littleredtree.com/

[The Truth]

Loose stitches reveal
The commission of cardigans
And the replacement of tires
And the mouths biting steel
And the dogs sniffing Daisy
And the minds feeling real
And the shot femoral arteries
And the end of Jersey Shore.

You hide in your hoodie
Like a thick-shelled taco
Sympathetic, without reason,
And eat your instant potatoes
With a crazed look in your eye.

No matter how many times
We check ourselves
With abacus after abacus,
We’ll always slip a little
Once we get too high
On green tea perfumes
And scripted linear lines.

[The Truth]

Cucumbers may dream as well
But who would take note?
I’m too busy keeping track
Of the ones I never have
And of lines I should not have wrote.

(Insert tone shift here.)

Gera often feels inclined
To whisper in my plugged up ears.
She likely speaks of
Cattle branded with curling irons
And the dead longings
Of ex-futile squires.

She looks at me
With my deaf impetuosity
And tells me with a grin,
“Those cucumber dreams
Will only pickle
If you never let me in.”

[Bar22do]

I love your work very much, Truth;
in L5 it should be "written", methink;
Do you mean Gera in Thuringia ? If yes, it makes your poem even more interesting,
city noises forcing their way into your head...
and the surreal cucumbers, far from the countryside.
Well done, Truth. Thanks a lot.

[zoolane]

Wonderful and burst with creatively and images to.

[firefangled]

I very much enjoy reading your works. They do seem to come from a place far from the surface. Sometimes I don't really try to understand; I just try to follow you back down the rabbit hole.

Ever read Jane Mead? Particularly, The Usable Field and The House of Poured-out Waters.

[The Truth]

^ I haven't ever read Jane Mead, but what've I've checked out looks interesting! I'll have to dig deeper!

Here's a bit of a pish posh that I didn't know what to do with:

To: Judith Paranoia, From: Your Secret Admirer

“What will we do
When the sun kills the moon?”
Asks the infinitely expanding row
Of horribly macabre
Dying trees to me,
“Oh gee, Kenny G,
When did you get here?”

I respond accordingly:
“Through dreariest day
And sleepless nights
Beware my power
Reminiscent of termites.”

~

Gazing at pictures
Of Maldivian leaders
Sent from my Verizon
Wireless phone,
Judith you must be able to see
How far I am from home.

[firefangled]

Reading this several times gives me this impression: S1&2 make me think of the destruction of canned culture.

N sends pictures of leaders from something as pure as Maldivian culture via one of the formost icons of modern culture to friend Judith. Is this Judith Butler?

I see the pish posh as lament, if that helps you make connections.

[Bar22do]

original!

[The Truth]

Man, I haven't updated in a while. Still working on that manuscript, there may be more incoming.

[The Truth]

Rough draft, just wrote a couple minutes ago:

Please help Lara Flynn
Find her way in.
Try to not go out of
Your all to sensitive skull
As she whistles a tune
That appears to have no end.
She hits notes as high as
Kilimanjaro junkies
And as low as the
Amazon's barometric pressure.

Her suitors are outside as well
And they look a little like
Keebler elves without
The sweet reassurance
Of Rainbow Chips Deluxe.
"You misinterpret out intentions,
Ms. Flynn."
But the number of interpretations
Is limited like a seasonal dish.

[firefangled]

After Lara Flynn, I couldn't get Twin Peaks out of my head and this was as cryptic as that was. Kept hearing, "That gum you like is going to come back in style."

[The Truth]

It's been a while guys, I thought I'd update you all.

I have finished that full length manuscript I had mentioned previously and it has been entered into a few contests here and there.

In the meantime, I also finished a 20-page chapbook made up of new material. New material that happens to be some of my favorite pieces.

ALSO, I just this month I was published in the lovely e-litmag The Abstract Quill. It was quite an honor and my first published piece called Cul-De-Sacs which I hope you will check out here (it's a free pdf):

http://theabstractquill.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/TAQ-JULY13-ISSUE-PDF1.pdf

Thanks a ton, you guys. It was thanks to some of the feedback here that upped my confidence and has really helped me make strides as a poet. I will try to be more active once again.

[The Truth]

Oh yeah, here's the poem:

Cul-De-Sacs
By Tanner Boyle

Why does my enchantment
Feel like bared teeth?

Oh, brother of the son of man
Take that arrow from your hand.
And your leg, and your chalice
And take your corpse out of my palace.

I can admire the beauty of a human life
If it's loved and not a nuisance
And I can accept moral differences
If I'm not shot.
The right brain slaps the left
The cleft-lipped children scream
"Mother Mary comes to me!"
But I know it's a dream.
Go away Kony and your cronies
You of all people should know
Everything must go.
Everything must go.

Swimming around in the gene pool
I'm sure I saw her translucent skin
Reflecting off of halls of mirrors
And all immortal sins,
Creating caverns of solid steel,
Leaving me restless
And unable to feel,
Scratching its way through velvet cloth
And leaving me beaten like my path
And leaving me so lost.

It's quite plausibly undeniable
This circadian school of thought.
Whistling never seems so beautiful
And carpet never so mysterious.
And you spend your life span
Bragging about your life span.
Check please.