Poetry

[The_Deadliest_Troll]

I love poetry. I love hearing it, reading it, writing it and anything else you can do with it. I mostly write free-verse and slam. I have participated in a few Slam competitions and it's a blast.

So, I'm wondering if there are any other poets out there. If there are, maybe we can share some of our work here To kick things off, here is "I Wanna Hear a Poem" by Steve Coleman. It's one of my favorites!

I wanna hear a poem
I wanna learn something I didn’t know
I wanna say "yes" at the end, because I'm sick of saying "so?"

I wanna hear a poem about who you are
And what you think
And why you slam
Not a poem about me and my poem
Because I know who I am

I wanna hear a love poem
A sad poem
An "I hate my dad" poem
A dream poem
An "I'm not what I seem" poem
An "I need" poem
An "I also bleed" poem
An "I'm alone" poem
An "I can't find my home" poem
I just wanna hear a poem

I wanna hear a poem about revolution
About fists raised high
And hips twisting in a rumble like a rumba
I wanna follow the footsteps of Chè
And hear the truth about the days of CIA killed the mumba

I wanna hear a poem about struggle
So that when I open my mouth, I can step outside myself
I wanna listen to no less than the sounds of protest
In the factories where workers sweat and make Air Jordans and Pro-Keds because
If you wanna take shots at people
Target Phil Knight and Bill Gates
Contemplate how
They own the products
And they got the goods
How they act like they care
But they're just Robin Hoods

I wanna hear a poem where ideas kiss similes so deeply that metaphors get jealous
Where the subject matters so much that adjectives start holding pro-noun rallies at city hall

Because I wanna hear a poem that attacks the status quo
That attracts the claps of the cats with the fattest flows
That makes the crowd pass the hat
And pack my cap with a stack of dough
I wanna hear a poem that makes this audience yell “hoooo!” (hoooo!)

Because I wanna guess your favorite color
Then craft rhyme schemes out of thin air
I wanna hear a poem about why the statute of limitations for rape is only five years
I wanna hear a poem
I wanna feel a poem
I wanna taste a poem
Give me your spot on the mic if you wanna waste a poem

I wanna
Hear
A poem

 

[Monolith]

I used to read and write tons and tons of poetry, though I've seemingly lost my creative groove during the past couple of years. Or maybe it's just that I haven't actively tried to write anything, instead focusing more on making music. My creative inspiration used to come in short-lived bursts; the words would literally spring from the primordial depths of my subconscious mind and surface before me, arranging themselves right before my eyes and compelling me to write them down immediately. I would often still refine the final product, change words and verses etc, before considering it complete.. that was my usual creative method. I will have to dig through my files and see if I can find anything worth posting here

 

[Punz]

My favorite poem is The Forgotten Grave by Emily Dickinson. It's a very realistic view of death and how life forgets and moves on.

 

[The_Deadliest_Troll]

Oooo I love Emily Dickinson!

 

[Lady Redpool the Unlifer]

Not my best work by far, but it's something:

"Why don't you sleep?" she asks of me,
The answer is not what it may seem.
"You cannot imagine the things I've seen,
while I'm asleep, and while I dream."
She cannot begin to understand
but she knows this is how I am
I can't explain that when I sleep
My dreams are cause for me to weep
Sweetest dreams do I have
Dreams of the future, and the past.
Dreams where I am not so ill,
and I don't feel death's cold chill.
Often times, she is there.
The angel with the golden hair
Her eyes reveal the impish spark
She likes to come play after dark
For me she does a lustfull dance
Her body puts me in a trance
I am hers as she is mine
Our souls forever intertwined
Then I wake and she's not there
Worse than nightmares that scare.
It's more than enough to make my eye tear
Knowing that she was never here
I do not sleep because I dream
and a dream can be a terrible thing

 

[The_Deadliest_Troll]

Good stuff RedNeK!!

 

[Lady Redpool the Unlifer]

Lol, thanks troll, it's good to get positive feedback on something that I personally thought was horrible.

 

[The_Deadliest_Troll]

Here's something I wrote for a Creative Writing class project my senior year of High-school. Not that great, but it's what I found for now:

11 New Messages

“11 new messages”
The people around me stop and stare,
Waiting for me to read them, to see what I think.
I don’t know any of them...
And I don’t dare open these, they’re all from her.
But the monster deep inside my gut is roaring to find out.
“Ha! She’s come crawling back! Hasn’t she?!”
My ego jumps, my brain turns over.
I take a deep breath and read them through.
Her life story,
Her heartbreaks,
Why she did it,
And why she NEEDS me back.
I contradicted every point she made.
“You’re the sweetest guy ever”- Yeah right, about as sweet as salted pickles.
“I know you would never hurt me”- But you have no idea how much I want to.
“You made me so happy”- Then why didn’t I ever see you smile?
I notice the onlookers have frozen like statues, waiting to see what will happen.
It’s my choice.
I scream out for someone to help me, but they all disappear.
I’m on my own, and that’s the way the rest of the world likes it.

11 new messages
And not a one of them said anything.

 

[Hacksaw]

I can't say I've written any poetry, but ask me my favourite and I'm not sure I can narrow it down to just one...or even a dozen. My dad used to read me "Abou Ben Adhem" by James Leigh Hunt, and I read it to my middle daughter now.

Some of my other favourites?
"Ulysses" by Alfred Tennyson
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" by John Donne
"The Ballad of Reading Gael" by Oscar Wilde
"Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost
"The Village Smithy" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe

 

[Lady Redpool the Unlifer]

I can't say I've written any poetry, but ask me my favourite and I'm not sure I can narrow it down to just one...or even a dozen. My dad used to read me "Abou Ben Adhem" by James Leigh Hunt, and I read it to my middle daughter now.

Some of my other favourites?
"Ulysses" by Alfred Tennyson
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" by John Donne
"The Ballad of Reading Gael" by Oscar Wilde
"Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost
"The Village Smithy" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe

fire and ice is a good one, definately a good outlook on the end of the world

 

[Lady Redpool the Unlifer]

Here's something I wrote for a Creative Writing class project my senior year of High-school. Not that great, but it's what I found for now:

11 New Messages

“11 new messages”
The people around me stop and stare,
Waiting for me to read them, to see what I think.
I don’t know any of them...
And I don’t dare open these, they’re all from her.
But the monster deep inside my gut is roaring to find out.
“Ha! She’s come crawling back! Hasn’t she?!”
My ego jumps, my brain turns over.
I take a deep breath and read them through.
Her life story,
Her heartbreaks,
Why she did it,
And why she NEEDS me back.
I contradicted every point she made.
“You’re the sweetest guy ever”- Yeah right, about as sweet as salted pickles.
“I know you would never hurt me”- But you have no idea how much I want to.
“You made me so happy”- Then why didn’t I ever see you smile?
I notice the onlookers have frozen like statues, waiting to see what will happen.
It’s my choice.
I scream out for someone to help me, but they all disappear.
I’m on my own, and that’s the way the rest of the world likes it.

11 new messages
And not a one of them said anything.

This is pretty good, definately sounds like an experience most folks can relate to, just with different answers

 

[Monolith]

Good stuff in this thread! Here's my humble contribution (note that most of my poems tend to be rather dark and bleak, with only a couple of happy exceptions ):

---------------------------------------------------------

Portrait of Silence

Life painted a portrait of silence
A blank white canvas
of motionless snowfall
Some glimpsed the outlines of a man within
while others saw nothing at all.

The demon of apathy sits firm on my shoulders
Its minions, the wolves of loss howling at my heels
They burn the canvas and its smoke stings my eyes
Clouding my thoughts, confusing what is real

So many forsaken winters I've spent
eclipsed by the bitter snowfall
All those wasted years so hard to repent
when one feels nothing at all.

 

[The_Deadliest_Troll]

Woooo! I'm having a poetry-gasm!

 

[The_Deadliest_Troll]

I just wrote something unlike what I usually do. There is some sort of meter and all that kind of more traditional stuff haha. I'm bored at work. I might just write poetry all day

He traces words with his tongue
behind cracked lips
Praying for answers;
for Death's cold finger-tips
But none of these come
and none of them will
He sits with the night sky
frozen brutally still

Like a sick, morbid painting
of this slavery dance
Out into the bitter cold
this corporate-master rants
"For the good or all people
these souls must be lost"
For the good of all people
We'll pay this great cost

Never again will
his wife hear his voice
Never again will
his children rejoyce
So what was it worth
when he comes to the end?
That, indeed is clouded
but he'll still be my friend.

 

[treasurehunter]

Robert Frost was always one of my favoured poets. Mainly because I'm not much of a poet, but his style of writing was something I always enjoyed as a teenager, as well as the great amount of insight he gave me when I was dwindling in my own corner of the world.

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost​

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. ​

 

[The_Deadliest_Troll]

^ That's one of my favorites also. I love Robert Frost I am in my happy place haha.

 

[Start Dale]

I've written poetry and performed in Slams as well as a couple of different poetry venues around Northern Ireland & The Republic of Ireland. I have to say i'm more of a writer of poetry than a performer of it so i've never done that well at slams. Though the first poem i'll put up isn't one of my own but it's one of my favourites.

The Charge of the Light Brigade​

Alfred, Lord Tennyson​

​

1.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.​

2.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.​

3.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.​

4.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.​

5.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.​

6.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.​

_______________________________________________________________________________________​

Having been in a violent incident in my life that was deeply unpleasant i can relate how it feels to be moving towards doom.

 

[The_Deadliest_Troll]

Yes! A fellow slammer! WOOoooOOoooOoo Slams have been some of my favorite experiences in life!

 

[Start Dale]

And now for one of mine.

Abstract Personality Disorder Problem

In communication between the first person and the second person
Consideration must be given to the third person in said communication
The third person being an abstract personification of this process
That is the process of communication between the persons second and first
Persons first and second are of course referred to as initial persons

In this public relationship broadcast forecast castaway leaflet

The third person though in not real or defined or even initial in personage
So the third person can continue to be called the third person
Even though the third person is merely an abstraction of a relationship issue
An anthropomorphic personification of the communication between the initial persons
Though the third person can become almost as real as the initial persons

In this public relationship broadcast forecast castaway leaflet

So initials can find themselves supplanted or replaced by an abstract person
Thus the two separate or initial personalities are not able to behave
Outside of the said third person’s established behaviour types
The two initial person behave as if they are both third persons
Creating what is known as two become one syndrome

In this public relationship broadcast forecast castaway leaflet

To have an abstract personality governing behaviour is poisonous for initials
Initial persons should be vaccinated before outset to avoid this problem developing
Though once infected there is no known treatment for initial persons
In rare cases it is possible to reduce onset symptoms with some treatments
These treatments prescribed are of the brown envelope variety

In this public relationship broadcast forecast castaway leaflet

So please send £10.99 to PO Box 69 with an A3 self addressed envelope
For our helpful guide describing many activities and words to use
To avoid contraction of this debilitating abstract personality problem
That in three to five days of delivery you will receive the package
To help you combat the abstract personality problem disorder

In this public relationship broadcast forecast castaway leaflet

 

[Lady Redpool the Unlifer]

wow, good stuff all around
I guess I should contribute a bit more:

Where will I go when I die?
My wings are broken, I can't fly
Heaven's gates are barred and locked
The angels guard it with weapons cocked

The highway south is broken and cracked
My old truck can't hold a tract
fell into the river cold
led by the boatman, ages old

Arriving at the flaming lake
what I don't have, they can't take
they won't open the fortress gate
so I'm stuck at the burning lake

Can't turn back the way I came
The current strengthened by the rain
Can't walk into his domain
Only place left is the lake of flame

The demons call to my soul
Trapped like them is the goal
Damned to swim in the lake forever
But I'm the one to make it better

Set two chairs up on the shore
Ain't no question what they're for
A table rests in between
With a pitcher nectar, poison green

This is my eternity
Sitting here, but never burning
Sippin toxins as I did in life
One more thing and it's paradise

Will you join me at the gates of hell?
Will you ignore heaven's bell?
Sit with me and watch the fire
While fallen angels do what you desire

I was once a soul with nowhere to go
Now I'm a king sitting on the shore
An empty chair sits here with me
Will you come and be my queen?