I'm studying poetry and I can't sleep so here are some poems I've looked at and liked for various reasons.

Frequently Unasked Questions 

I've a pile of memories on my other 
drive, just give me the word and I'll 
configure them for you. I've got 
the pearl blue organizer and the banquette 
with double lacerators, but nothing 
floral like those dipthong transducers. 
Was a time I'd arrive decked to the, 
well that's no way to establish 
contagious proximity. It poured several 
days in a row so that when the blimp 
finally appeared we were focused 
elsewise. Later, much later, got 
to cash in my gold for those new 
chits- look so shiny over there. 

Charles Bernstein



Prayer for the Man Who Mugged My Father, 72

May there be an afterlife.

May you meet him there, the same age as you.
May the meeting take place in a small, locked room.

May the bushes where you hid be there again, leaves tipped with razor-
       blades and acid.
May the rifle butt you bashed him with be in his hands.
May the glass in his car window, which you smashed as he sat stopped 
       at a red light, spike the rifle butt, and the concrete on which you'll 
              fall.

May the needles the doctors used to close his eye, stab your pupils 
       every time you hit the wall and then the floor, which will be often.
May my father let you cower for a while, whimpering, "Please don't
              shoot me. Please."
May he laugh, unload your gun, toss it away; 
Then may he take you with bare hands.

May those hands, which taught his son to throw a curve and drive a nail 
       and hold a frog, feel like cannonballs against your jaw.
May his arms, which powered handstands and made their muscles jump 
       to please me, wrap your head and grind your face like stone.
May his chest, thick and hairy as a bear's, feel like a bear's snapping 
       your bones.
May his feet, which showed me the flutter kick and carried me miles 
       through the woods, feel like axes crushing your one claim to man-
       hood as he chops you down.

And when you are down, and he's done with you, which will be soon,
       since, even one-eyed, with brain damage, he's a merciful man, 
May the door to the room open and let him stride away to the Valhalla 
       he deserves. 
May you—bleeding, broken—drag yourself upright.

May you think the worst is over; 
You've survived, and may still win.

Then may the door open once more, and let me in.

Charles Harper Webb



"A slumber did my spirit seal"

A slumber did my spirit seal;
  I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
  The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
  She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,
  With rocks, and stones, and trees.

William Wordsworth 



“Lyric V” In Memoriam A. H. H. 

I sometimes hold it half a sin
    To put in words the grief I feel;
    For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
    A use in measured language lies;
   The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
    Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
    But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.

Lord Alfred Tennyson


So yeah I am kinda getting poetry now.

Roses are red, violets are blue
I've got a knife get in the back of the fucking van.

I have not, but I totally will, thanks!

I find myself writing stuff occasionally. Mostly I intend that they will become songs so they can be a bit lyrical. My mate has already put a few to music. Some are more like poems, like this one which was inspired by some graffiti on a bus-stop.

hey gary-b ,R.I.P,
your name at the bus stop,
those friends of yours,
wrote it there
to show they care
I read it then,
I had time to think
of how it came to be
that you're not here

oh gary-b , RIP,
nothing scared you
pulling all that mad shit
wi yer mad mental crew
photos on bebo
big shouts out
on yr facebook
an early bath,
but such a laugh
not seeing the
road ahead for you

so gary-b, R.I.P.,
yer maws best wee boy
the buckie rage,
mad wi the drugs
mad for yr life,
square go's wi mugs
fae other schemes
not quick enough
no hopes, no dreams
yr mum so proud
of all your mates
in a celtic huddle
around yr grave
friends like those
gave you the blade

MattyJ wrote:

Roses are red, violets are blue I've got a knife get in the back of the fucking van.

Roses are red, Violets are blue, I've got a penis, Shit so do you

Matty, we be cultured muthafuggas

Conversation with a tourist

You asked about my scottish roots
so I told you about the roads I used.
You gave one o they funny looks
distinct impression (like victoria) you were not amused

So what did you expect me to say?
Talk about my haggis and my tartan hat
Highland dancing an the scots wha'hae
Begging your forgiveness, but I'm not into that

There were hills casting shadows over smaller hills
and expanses,  hard to define
I'll not die or fight a war for this land
Nor put a name on it,
or claim this land is mine

Good shout on Porphyria's Reg, did that in GCSE iirc, ace poem. Also good shout on Brecht Jon, fave playwrite and wot not. Popular fav Wilfred Owen jumps to mind but maybe obviously as he's ubiquitous. I wrote a poem for my partner cause she asked me to, its cute but you know, goofy love poetry eh! I like a bunch of the poetry from the Romantic era, since I had to study a bunch anyways, and Shakespeares sonnets, more ubiquitous but still ace poetry. I'm not going to reproduce Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge here it's enormous, but here's a link if you care

I'll reproduce Kubla Khan, also by Coleridge though, it's a trip, and it was written around a fairly weird few moments of smashedness in his life, and I love poetry written by the hoo haa'd

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
   Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
   The shadow of the dome of pleasure
   Floated midway on the waves;
   Where was heard the mingled measure
   From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

   A damsel with a dulcimer
   In a vision once I saw:
   It was an Abyssinian maid
   And on her dulcimer she played,
   Singing of Mount Abora.
   Could I revive within me
   Her symphony and song,
   To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Normally I wouldn't dream of sticking one of my kids poems up on here, but my daughter just got handed a poetry prize by Carol Ann Duffy for one of hers, so I'm going to allow myself a brief moment of being a smug parent.  Here it is:

I am the Eye of the Island

I am the eye of the island
I watch over the sedate land
When you think you are not being watched
I am always watching
 
I am the spy of the island
People come to me to see
The exquisite island
and its beauty
 
I am the cry of the island
The shrill wind batters me, yet I stand strong
The sea spits at me, yet I stand tall
For it is my duty to watch forever more
 
I am the lie of the island
Even though I am rooted to the golden sand
I walk across the beach, the jagged rocks,
The sapphire sea
 
I see the nooks and crannies in vertical cliffs
And climb to the top
I will watch the peaceful island forever more because
I am the eye of the island

acemuzzy wrote:

Nice poem, and grats to your daughter on her prize!

Thanks!

Prose, not poetry. But had a desire to write this a while ago about someone I know.

The mountain left its mark on you -
it broke your body and smote your mind.
You fell – and in that instant - brushed its side
until then untouched for centuries.
Stones lie on those desolate slopes as you left them...
undisturbed for how long more?

I wonder if your fate was set at birth -
or when your consciousness sparked to life?
Or was it chance and its cold cruelty -
that aligned against you?
Your choice to help that led to hazard...
was that a tendency innate or learned?

The mountain left its mark on you -
but look – the soul, untarnished - intact.
Your undaunted spirit gives evidence.
And long after that pile is worn away
by the elements and time
your soul – everlasting – will remain.
And everything you were, you are, you would have been
will endure forever.

davyK

wrote this during the week. Used to do stuff like this long while back. Forgot how pleasurable it is to find words that sound "right" for feelings of the moment.

Animate, I
Panting, leopard-like present
Uncoiling, stretch out languorous sighs
Waking, desultory gaze slicking o'er
The cast fast approaching
Their staccato falters
Tinkled prisms clatter
I turn and quiver

ta. done.

It's National Poetry Day, so seemed like a good time to bring this thread back from the dead.

Here's a poem about doctors...

Doctors by Anne Sexton

They work with herbs
and penicillin
They work with gentleness
and the scalpel.
They dig out the cancer,
close an incision
and say a prayer
to the poverty of the skin.
They are not Gods
though they would like to be;
they are only a human
trying to fix up a human.
Many humans die.
They die like the tender,
palpitating berries
in November.
But all along the doctors remember:
First do no harm.
They would kiss if it would heal.
It would not heal.

If the doctors cure
then the sun sees it.
If the doctors kill
then the earth hides it.
The doctors should fear arrogance
more than cardiac arrest.
If they are too proud,
and some are,
then they leave home on horseback
but God returns them on foot.

For the second time, I'm posting in here showing off about my daughter's poems, but she's won another Thing, and I really liked the poem, so I'm going to be Smug Dad again.  (It's just a school thing, not a national one like before.  She was given the title, and came up with this.  The judge was Paul Hullah who is not just a Proper Poet, but was also once in a band called Teenage Dog Orgy, so he clearly knows his stuff.) 

Anyway...

An Uncomfortable Truth

A fire inside my heart

that takes no colour,

nor a shape

That rises to my mouth and eyes

That burns up my thoughts,

leaving only that one flame


A fire so great the flames of which

cause me to choke and splutter,

altering every word I utter


And with each word

the fire is fed

building to its inevitable climax

the rising flames threatening to consume everything.


A water droplet falls instead.


Then a tsunami,

quenching the uncontrollable blaze,

putting it to rest,

till another fearful day.

Roujin wrote:

Damn, Tin. Your daughter got barzzz. No but for real, that's really good.

Thanks Rouj.  I'm horribly biased, but yeah, it's not bad is it?