English Club Chatter

I hope Nic and Todd will post their poems again here. I'd like to reread them, and I'm sure others would too!

HH (Hannibal)

Where does the sky end
and times tower extend toward
black diamonds hanging
proposing intentions and primers
shark teeth and snapdragons
dripping twilight dew upon bewildered brows
over there
somewhere new
our sun cannot extend
past their horizon, no,
it's caught here
in our greedy teeth
we cannot spare
a single drop
of liquid gold
to these who cry
we say
we say
God bless the child who raises
blue stars and stained stripes
under a red sky in morning
we cannot provide
the sliver of sacrament to retain
an inch
an original pulse
so we throw and paste and mold
our lost seconds and verbs and initiations
identifications
into matter
nailed to walls sold in malls

the mushroom cloud
absinthe mist
avoided again

breath

3,2,1

happy...

yes, the rush of ignorance
begins
begins again

Poets of Old

Ten weeks of Milton,was that too much,
or eleven weeks of Poe,ravens and such?
Is there more to read and to learn of,
some poems of seas, death, and of love?
Why just read poetic works that we must,
read for a grade and not in poetry lust?

Much can be learned from authors of old,
how tales of lust and love were once told.
A lot about passion and beauty is seen,
or the love for a woman, man or a queen.
Taking the time to indulge in these text,
like endless time travel, where to next?

Where ever they take you enjoy the verse,
and remember the poet that went there first.

by Todd19

Trapped In Time and Space...

Minds of Those In Turmoil.

Time elapses, worlds pass me by,
in deep thought and ponderance,
I strain to wonder simply why?
I am a product of circumstance.

Arms move, the clock and time fly,
but my mind remains in a trance.
I struggle to think, but I do try.
I may have just one true chance.

One moment to free a troubled mind,
of thoughts that are destined for,
actions of evil and deeds unkind.
I am unable to control it anymore.

Hatred, anger, fear, have taken me,
and my restless mind is no longer free.

by Todd19

Higher EducATION

A different Look at college!!

Higher Education
bachelors of arts or masters of none,
what do I have, if e'r I'm done?
A loin cloth of writing, in and word,
value in that is not far from absurd.
was it learned, spoken or taught,
written, remembered or just a thought?
four years of study, to be bright,
was it the idea then on came a Light?
Perhaps it always was there just,
hidden by rocks, cobwebs, and dust.
university freed it, to think and be,
everybody gets the credit except for me.

Todd Jones

by Todd19

Naked Is the Night

An unusual friendship between night and day...........

Naked is the night left behind by day,
and darkness blankets it existence alone,
shrouded by fog where nightly beings play,
in this gloomy paradise they call home.

What is the night we ponder in thought,
but only a short passing moment we give,
to the darkness that a tired day brought,
and turned off the light in which we live.

Enlightened if only by the light of the moon,
Night is not a mortal enemy to the day,
instead is a harbinger of what cometh soon,
the clear sunny sky in which we play.

Don't tread so fiercely when night creeps in,
A new day soon follows where all life begins.

by Todd19

Where Have All the Beautiful Poets Gone?

....none needed!

If beauty is judged by countenance alone,
would not have all of the poets known?

That writing and words were wasted time,
there was no beauty in verse and rhyme.

Of flowing verse or flowing blonde hair,
one in the mirror would look more fair.

But fair does not carry beauty far too,
Words do more to make beauty be true.

Those who find beauty bestowed them upon,
Search for a writer to play the pawn.

To let the world know what beauty they own,
For their words aloud, more like a moan.

A moan aloud for the world to hear,
Beautiful poet, please look in the mirror.

Own up to the beauty that you express,
the beauty of your face is worth no less.

Let inward beauty come to the surface,
use your mirror for only one purpose.

To show yourself where beauty really lies,
smile at your face, and look in your eyes.

The eyes of a writer that knows beauty of most,
the beauty of words, a beauty to boast.

Be not proud of outward beauty it fades,
words are written and they can be saved.

by Todd19

I threw out some of my work, nothing real recent, quarter was rough, but this term will have time to get back to some of it!!!!

Had a poem once titled "MM"!!!!!!!!!!

Nevermind saith the Raven!!!

Nevermind!!

Sometimes,

God sneaks up

behind me

and whispers
your name
into my ear.

Beautiful
He says.

I remember
and laugh
innocently
feeling
warm and safe.

Light illuminates all
We will weep with Love
entering into His arms.

Wendy O

Just flesh...
No felings, no heart.
No thoughts, no mind.
Electricity driven meat
A parasite

Barely moving, barely living.
Barely peaceful, barely loving.
Shuffling through life
Full of despite

Leftover cares, leftover smack.
Leftovers rotting in the fridge.
Molds and fungus devouring all
Under the light

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

I painted a photo,
I drew a bath,
I wrote a story,
Of a less traveled path,

Once I was there,
I sang an essay,
About the relations,
Between U and A,

PA=LDU,
And 2+2 is 5,
And pi is everything,
That makes the earth alive,

Love + life is peace,
Man is not =,
Heaven for the heathens,
Earth is just the sequel,

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

Are you pro-noun or anti-cedent?

I don't write poems but I do read them, so here is one for you to read too. This isn't a great poem, maybe, but it does raise some interesting questions about the relationship between life and art (or real and "poetic" emotion). What do you think? The poet is a Canadian, Alden Nowlan.

"The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner"

My wife bursts into the room
where I'm writing well
of my love for her

and because now
the poem is lost

I silently curse her.

Poetry, how i love it. HH- love your poetry share. here are some of mine--Jesi (AKA theyellowpoet)

12-03-05
theyellowpoet
Yellow Jar

I had watched your yellow in a jar for a long time. Opening it up every once and a while to sit and peer at its devices, I might have provoked it. I might have opened the jar too far, to much. I noticed the leak last Saturday….I think it has been there for a while. Either way, it spilled out unto the floor now…and it’s taking over. It’s going to cause a flood, and I know that once it is, out there is no way to get it up, it’s a taint that hardly ever goes away... I’m ankle deep already, in my own yellow

---and I had to go open yours….

12-08-05
theyellowpoet
Relative Situation

But there has to be a breaking point, a place where you can put me safely and keep me just as we are now, and our words can sit for a while and suddenly come alive again, after being read, and I like reading you, and you like reading me….

But there is always someone jumping in, trying to overanalyze a movement, they want to know what we are, they want to define something they know nothing about, and we are watching their movements, and ours are more defined…

But who is to know, the truth of a definition, in all of our eyes it is a relative situation.

poetry, catching up....
Current mood: exhaustedededed.
Category: Writing and Poetry

12-11-05
theyellowpoet
suddenly I slip up—dropping my papers all over the floor

And so I am writing my favorite poem again, I can’t stop thinking about you, the way your words play in my head, your smile, your face…and for some reason it’s harder to give this time, it’s harder for me to say, yeah—you made your way in, and I tried to sleep tonight, but I ended coming to my favorite poem…I gave.

And you are quickly becoming harder to keep inside, because I can’t help devoting my words to you, and I can be evasive, just like you can be ambiguous, it’s easier to have this self-preservation, than to reach out my hand—a risk.

And I know what this feeling is, because I can’t sleep, and I can’t get your arm out of my mind, and it is funny—tonight I cried, because you make me feel—when so long I have been numb. But I am fighting for my right to live, because you could be like him, and to loose it all again, after I have given, is more to fear…

And down drops a single tear, because it’s 11:24, and you’re here—no your not standing at my door, and your not reaching for me—you are in my words, you are in my voice, you are in my stance, and for some reason, I can’t fight you off…

And it’s because you are my favorite kind of poem, the kind that creeps in when I am not looking, and suddenly I slip up—dropping my papers all over the floor, scattered, my knees hit the ground, my poetry’s down, and there, at the very top of my trail, is your name, I’ve picked it up, I’ve been turning it, twisting it, ---doing everything to make it go away---but you can’t do that, if you really want it to stay.

And you probably think it is all a joke that I really do believe what they say, yeah—its none of their business, but I’m telling you now, don’t think I didn’t know it when I saw you, don’t think I didn’t know it when I called you—and I’m sorry I ruined it by lying to you, and I am sorry I ruined it by denying your name, because what I truly want to do…is forget this game…

Because I can’t stop you now, your yellow has captured me—the with the taint, the with the trail, you are the one, that will lift my cover. And the tears at first, they hid down inside, but you brought them up—because I know right now, I still have to hide.

yeah i coppied and pasted those from my blog--thats why it has "exhausteded"...oopsy. Jes.

Any one know who wrote this?

Bigger flees bit smaller flees
Who then find smaller flees
And bite ‘em
And on and on and on
It goes
And on add infinitum

is that good old emily dickenson

I don't think this is Dickinson (she tends to write in varieties of hymn meter that are more regular than this: da dum di dum di dum di dum/ da dum di dum di dum, etc.). A quick google (with spelling corrected -- "fleas"!), takes me to, believe it or not, "Gordon's Flea Page" at http://www.earthlife.net/insects/siphonap.html

He describes the poem as a "well known ditty." Maybe it's just an anonymous bit of proverbial verse?

HH

The dreamer and the drunkard

The dreamer was a man who was inspired in his sleep
Of the dreamscapes he created
In the depth of the parlor
In his mind

The drunkard was a man inspired while steeped
In the drinks with which he sated
The thirst of his palate
Inhibit his mind

The dreamer has hopes and future
Creates his art
His dream an extra piece of reality
Apart from himself in the supernatural
He could be dead
In his moment of inspiration

The drunkard imbibes, a consumer
Becomes his art
Reality percieved as an extra reality
A part of himself at one with the natural
He'll end up dead
The way he gets inspiration

The drunkard who dreams knows the balance
Creator, consumer, and destroyer
Of his art, He is his art
The howl of the wild sends
Lulls him to sleep
He wakes to walk
In the ecstacy of a dream-like reality

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe it's not that good, but I was up late last night reading Nietzsche and thought I'd write something vaguely inspired by it.

Jesi, I loved the phrase, "Current mood: exhaustedededed." I thought it was the last stanza of your poem and so simplisticly beautiful...an expresion of extreme weariness.

Guys, I have enjoyed reading your poems, here are some of mine.

Cannibalistic Galaxies
Sarah Stevens

Cannibalistic galaxies
Reminiscent of you and me
As we live out our own galactic tragedy
You speak trivialities to me
Shooting stars that are brilliant
For a moment
But hardly exist long enough
To substantiate my wishes
We communicate retrospectively
Our lack of gravity never a problem
Physically
And afterwards
Drowsy midnight conversations
Sleepy declarations
Thank you so much for loving me
A lazy attempt at a status
You and I can never achieve
As long as I devour you
And you devour me.

Beautiful Complexities
Sarah Stevens

Beautiful Complexities
An oxymoron to you
With your perverse paradigm
Full of social norms and religious conventions
That you put a pop culture spin on
Like sugar on raisin bran, cinnamon applesauce,
Gourmet soup in a tin can
And I still manage to be morally superior to you
By the simple act of complexity, refusing your absolutes
That make you feel better about yourself
As you patronize under the guise of help
And claim that relativism is a synonym for Satanism
Except you haven’t any proof other than the way
Other ideas from other people and other places
Make you so afraid
Too scared to think for yourself, challenge what you know
You’ll never get bigger, you’ll never grow
A spiritual baby sucking a stale, decaying tit
Too brainwashed to see it
Rotting away on the cusp of your bearded lip.

Weaker Sex
Sarah Stevens

No backbone
Invertebrate
Silicone
Then how come
I can bend like this?
Sliding my hips
Up and down
Back and forth
Against another bone,
Dr. Nobody
With your false diagnosis
Put your hands along my spine
And feel it
Every knob and nook
Jagged
Like the blade of a saw
The rhythm of it
Will cut your little log
In half
But you are stroking other spines
These days
Examining their strength, velocity
Only don’t be too quick
To compare her to me
Just because she wears her backbone
Like a false badge of individuality
I am just as strong
But twice as cutting

Wow! I love your "Weaker Sex," Sarah. Very intense. The short lines are very effective too, and one thing that usually gets me interested in poems is the connection/interplay between content and form. Here's a poem by Leonard Cohen you (and others) might like.

When with lust I am smitten
To my books I then repair
And read what men have written
Of flesh forbid but fair

But in these saintly stories
Of gleaming thigh and breast
Of sainthood and its glories
Alas I find no rest

For at each body rare
The saintly man disdains
I stare O God I stare
My heart is stained with stains

And casting down the holy tomes
I lead my eyes to where
The naked girls with silver combs
Are combing out their hair

Then each pain my hermits sing
Flies upward like a spark
I live with the mortal ring
Of flesh on flesh in dark

And Nic, re. your "Dreamer and Drunkard," do you know Wallace Stevens's "The Man with the Blue Guitar"? I think you'd find it interesting. It's a little long to type in here, but you can find it at http://www.themediadrome.com/content/poetry/stevens_man_with_the_blue_guitar.htm.

Cheers!

HH

(P.S.) Any club activities percolating?

Emotion only exists,
Deep in the bowels,
With all other Filth,

The heart is cold,
Kept in bondage,
In a cage of Bone,

To tear it out,
A rib is cracked,
Side-splitting pain,

Inscribed upon the liver,
A promise of Truth,
A reminder,

Of troubled times,
And happy sorrows,
Sudden restraints,

Through it all,
I save myself,
To pull out one day,

From the Filth,
That's piled upon,
What I may be.

HH,
I like that I needed to read the last stanza of Cohen's poem several times to get the total intent (if that is possible with poetry).

HH,

Have you ever checked out Saul Williams?
In my opinion, he is the best spoken word poet in existence today.

Nic

Hi Nic,

No, I don't know Williams, but I'll have a look. I have to confess that "spoken word" poetry isn't generally something I warm to. I guess it's partly the name, which seems a little odd -- if you read any poem, isn't it spoken? I suppose the idea is that it's an oral as opposed to a written medium, but this too is a little fuzzy, since many poets (apart from those like Cummings who depend on features of print) would say there's an oral component of their poems, even if it's more or less notional (i.e., "spoken" in our heads -- our inner ear). I think the other thing that makes me itch about the "spoken word" school (and slams and such) is that many of these poets seem to be abandoning one of the very things that makes poetry so exciting -- form. Although I suppose I'd need to confess that I don't have much experience of this kind of poetry. Does it have its own formal workings? How does it work? Is it like rap (or related)? And what about the experience of poetry? Sarah mentioned that she had to read the last stanza of Cohen's poem several times to fully appreciate it. Isn't a lot of poetry this way? Some of the poems that stick with me most are the ones I've had to reread and rethink in order to work out all (many?) of their complexities. Can you do this if you're just listening to a poem read? Maybe it's me, but I find even with poetry readings, I often feel that I want to go home and read the poems, so I can really think about them. Hmmm. Maybe this is a topic for another thread.

HH

First Sight; exposition in black and white color photography

Her twilight eyes reflect the binary of light and dark.
Shadowed lenses, glaringly lit manholes,
from which one imagines blood/milk tears.

Feed from me, bleed me.

Her skin glows against the blackness
of the background and her choices.
It is but a trick of light,
an amateur's superficial flash.
The artist's swash of cherry,
a cherished theme;
a melancholy smile or imatience.
It is a posed moment,
but the choice of representation is not to be taken lightly,
though it lets in only a little light.

So, through the manholes lightly,
to feel my way through darkness.
I do not fear your inner wail,
but follow the blood red beat of your fragile pump.

Feed from me, bleed me.

Time and I are spent. Looking. Thinking. Organizing words to interpret what is perhaps best felt. Were it mine to offer, understanding. Were it mine to take, need. I am not large enough. I will never simplify. I will give you nothing false. I will break down my filters. Patience. I cannot fix. I have only words. They will fail me also. I felt. My cliched heart was filling. It never wells. Smiles are temporary. I gladly give them. Rising equals a further drop. Math. Science. Life.

I Fell In Love With An Urban Sniper

I fell in love with an urban sniper,
Atop the tower where out rings the bells,
Her song snares my heart like the Pied Piper,
Hear the brassy tinkling of the spent shells,
Hitting the ground, falling from her rifle,
And as she looks down her high-powered scope,
She chooses vicitms with reasons trifle,
One has a bad haircut, one just has hope,
One thing in common, they all end up dead,
Lying on the pavement, their bodies still,
But they're still perfect except for the head,
And that perfection is why she must kill,
Though she continues to make people die,
I'll always love her just don't ask me why.

Why?

Personally, I just can't appreciate stylized poetry as well as I can free verse. I don't think it's as intense as free verse. I mean, Nic's poem about the sniper is really cool, obviously, as was the Cohen poem, but I think the content is always more constrained when subjected to form. What do you guys think?

I'm not a big fan of the word "always." Some people can write brilliantly in particular forms, and I think it's all the more impressive when it's done well and not forced. It's a challenge.

I've always "forced" myself to rhyme because that is how I was taught. I think I am probably better at free verse, but I found it to be quite fun with the challenge of using the sonnet style. In my Harlem Renaiisssannccee (spelled wrong on purpose because it is one of the few words I can never spell) I have seen the sonnet form used in interesting ways. I was thinking about what might be a somewhat different or inappropriate subject for that style, and I thought of the phrase "I fell in love with an urban sniper." I realized it had ten syllables and away I went. Sarah, sometimes it is a lot of fun to play with a form. That constraint was the most enjoyable thing to me about writing that last poem. I had to thing of 7 rhymes. I had to have 10 syllables in each line. I had to make it make sense without sounding like some "roses are reds" garbage. It was probably the most challenging form I have ever written in, because it was not my form to create from scratch. Don't forsake your ideas of free form and the eaase of prose, but open your experience up and try something constraining. Sometimes when we are restrained we have the most exciting times in our lives. The struggle for success or at least completion against what we cannot control can possibly mean so much more than the self-centered actions of doing what we please. Or something like that.

One problem here is our terminology. "Free" verse sounds like it's an emancipation (Milton talks about freeing himself from the "bondage" of rhyme). But is it? Is form a constraint? Poets, I think, write in various forms not because they've been forced to (and who would do this? the poetry police?), but because doing so actually allows them to achieve things they otherwise couldn't. In fact, as Ezra Pound said, there's no such thing as free verse. Or, one might say, all verse has form, it's just that some forms are more thoughtful, more effective than others. And this is also partly a matter of particular circumstances. Not every poem ought to be a sonnet, but for some it works excellently. Similarly, for some poems a very free treatment of line works well. But if all poems are "free," they start to seem the same after a while, don't they? And in this time of predominantly "free" verse, isn't it formal poetry that ends up being radical?

HH

I'm sorry, but how can you suggest that form may not be a constraint? The simple idea of form; something that fits a particular shape and pattern MUST be a constraint. If you are confined into a shape (like the females of america who are subject to the whims and fantasies of men in advertising) or a pattern (like the political partys or trendy lifestyles [goth, pop, punk, hippie, etc.] of todays societioes, then you are constrained. Your actual actions of free will in action and in linguistical use are limited. Limits are constraints. My last argument was that constraint is positive, but you cannot argue that constraint exists when you adhere to a poetical style. And yes, the percieved (on my part) idea that I expected you (HH) to respond well to a sonnet (as you are a Shakespeare junkie) is accurate, and it is correct of you (if you realized all that I was doing) to say (paraphrased) "hey dude, not all poetry has to be a sonnet, man." Regardless, I just want it yo be thought about that free verse vs. formed verse is not vs. the "ideal" of poetry. It is an art like anything else. Some people throw a bucket of paint on a canvas and call it art. Others take mathematical equations, make four boxes, make each a different clor, and do the same. The important part is whether what you say means anything to humanity at large.

On that note, I thought that a poem about something as despicable as an urban sniper in today's f'ed up society might have many layers.

1. It is a love poem. Love is something everyone pretends to understand.

B. A sniper is a death bringer, and most people thing bringing death on another is immoral.

4. I thought it was a clever way to play with the form and put something that is ultimately (to me anyway) pointless.

Hope that was fun and/or confusing to read thhrough. I'm drinking and watching "The Waking Life". See you all bright and early Wednesday morning.

Sincerely,
Some guy who might possibly maybe curse to F'ing much.

Are you a human?
Then you are an animal,
I don't see any "wild" animals;
Putting on makeup,
Shopping at Wal-Mart,
Committing genocide,
Raping their two year old grand daughters,
Having sex with a corpse,
Bringing death upon their own kind on other land mass,
Creating art,
Worshipping a god,
Or playing with electricity,
I guess we must be evolved,
To be capable of these things,
And man am I proud,
To be part of that better thing,
That evolution brings,
When we can postpone natural failings,
And allow our bodies to exist,
Long beyond our minds,
In nursing homes where the young beat the old.

SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK.

I don't know about that.

Don't know about what?

(The sleep is for the weak thing is something my army buddies and I would say to each other when we were up until 2 or 3. I was just being internally funny to myself.)

If you don't know about my poem, I might cry.

Or kill.

Just kidding.

Except for the crying.

No, wait.

Men don't cry.

Do they?

It was about the sleep being for the weak. It was really also an internal joke, as it was at about 4:00 AM that I wrote that.

I get your poem, and am thinking about attempting the sonnet form. Though I'm not sure I can do that sort of thing.

Well, OK, maybe form IS a constraint. But maybe freedom is an illusion. All language, after all, imposes restraints. We have to conform to conventions of vocabulary, grammar, syntax, spelling and such (even inflection, tone, gesture). We can play with such conventions, but if we abandon them entirely, we cannot communicate. We like to talk about language and literature as a form of expression, but it is communication too, isn't it? If a poem is read in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Anyway, I applaud your use of the sonnet, Nic, but I would never say everyone has to write in sonnets. Even a typed line is a formal element. In your poem "Are you human?" or in Sarah's "Weaker Sex," part of the effect of the poem comes from the use of short lines, which shape the way we read the poem. It makes a difference, in any poem, where you break the line. Back to constraints -- I think we miss the point of poetic form if we think of it as some kind of bondage. How about a different analogy? When we take a photograph, we are capturing part of "reality," but we are imposing contraints upon it. We set it, confine it, into a frame, so that some elements (what's in the picture) are inside the frame, and some (what we don't see, but may intuit) are outside. This is an artificial constraint, but it's a huge part of what makes a photograph meaningful or effective. The composition within a frame is important too. Form isn't crippling, it's enabling. It's through form that poets can express things. And it's what makes poems poems. A poem is language at its densest, its most compact, its most complex, and that's largely a formal matter.

Am I alone in this? Am I the only one who likes form? Anyone?

HH

Upon glancing at previous posts again, I believe that we are very much in agreement. The way I communicate tends to be very sarcastic (though hopefully in a realistic way and not pessimistically) and maybe I don't communicate my tone very well in what I said. To try and simplify:

Form is fun, and can be positive. I feel that way because of the very action of fitting things into those boundaries. Bondage is not necessarily crippling. Sometimes it enables. It enables us to experience feelings, moments, ideas, and joys that we may not otherwise discover when we are "free".

Without the language of the 18th and 19th centuries, sonnets have lost some of their charm. I don't speak like Wordsworth or Blake, therefore I do not write like them. I speak the colloquial speech of Plath and Cummings and Ginsberg--these are our contemporaries of this poetic era. Free verse matches today's speech patterns far better than any stylized form. We are a literary culture of people who have the strength to say what we mean. Perpetuating the use of free verse is not weakness or inability, it's a refusal to hide the power and force of my message behind a rhythm scheme.

Yeah, I just realized how pompous it was to align myself with Plath and Cummings and Ginsberg. And wrong since two of those poets wrote some pretty famous sonnets:)

Prostitute

Poor thing, selling sex,
To be called a whore by men,
Dirtier than you,

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

Passion

You got into my mind,
Put my dreams at knife-point,
I feel you strangling me,
Though you're not here,
Release me,
If you aren't going to stay,
I haven't been alone,
With you,
In months,
And I still feel you,
All over me,
Hurting me,
And I can't deal with that,
Without you,
Here,
Killing me,
In person.

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

Anchor

Anchor,
Holding me back,
Slowing me down,
Get out from down there,
If I could cut your chain,
I'd free myself,
From your desires,
ANCHOR!
STOP drawing me back down,
To the perversions YOU enjoy,
Set me free to sail,
Towards something meaningful,
Cursed Anchor!!
When you rise,
Is my most immobile time,
I feel choiceless,
Stuck in an ocean,
Surrounded by water,
Only a man,
Because of my,
Anchor.

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

Couplet

Two in chairs on a porch let out a sigh,
Happy together to not alone die.

Blue Eyes 
(theyellowpoet)
Jesi Halter
 
And I could have seen you sooner, you have been swimming around me over seven years, but for some reason--I saw you last night. I saw your fight in your blue eyes. All their good and all their bad storming inside. I felt myself blink, and I wondered why I could see you like this now?
 
Why all the loyalty? Why all the memories? Why all the smiles? Why all the times? Why all of us?and still a line down the middle. Drawn to separate us, your fight. A word, drawn to keep us still. Stopping togetherness--and yet my loyalty to those blue eyes, to their fight, to your words, to your actions, to every movement made out and on, my loyalty has always stood strong.
 
And I still wonder why? Because I certainly do not find you next to perfection for me. and yet you hold something that no one else has--and I saw it last night, everything that I love about you and your plight, your passion, your words--all in those blue eyes.
 
And I know you touched me on the shoulder and I have always thought of you as a friend, when no sooner had I looked and saw your face, and I was still caught by your blue eyes.
 
And I can still see them stirring at me, and I am wondering if they really are stirring at me and I can't pin you and I like that. I can't fight you and I like that. I can't wonder why we have drawn these words down the middle of us. I have to stop my glance. I have to look away, before it all happens again--and I fall into your blue eyes, into your passion and I am lost forever in wonder.

OK, I take your point Sarah. For a contemporary poet it would sound ridiculous to write like Wordsworth or Shakespeare. Every poet (with a few exceptions, like Edmund Spenser) writes in the language she knows from her present. But you can write formally interesting poetry in contemporary language. Two examples:

from "Cul de Sac Valley" by St. Lucian poet Derek Walcott.

A panel of sunrise
on a hillside shop
gave these stanzas
their stilted shape.

If my craft is blest;
if this hand is as
accurate, as honest
as their carpenter's,

every frame, intent
on its angles, would
echo this settlement
of unpainted wood

as consonants scroll
off my shaving plane
in the fragrant Creole
of their native grain;

from a trestle bench
they'd curl at my foot,
C's, R's, with a French
or West African root

from a dialect throng-
ing, its leaves unread
yet light on the tongue
of their native road;

but drawing towards
my pegged-out twine
with bevelled boards
of unpainted pine,

like muttering shale,
exhaling trees refresh
memory with their smell:
bois canot, bois campeche,

hissing: What you wish
from us will never be,
your words is English,
is a different tree.

"The Underground" [i.e., subway] by Irish poet Seamus Heaney

There we were in the vaulted tunnel running,
You in your going-away coat speeding ahead
And me, me then like a fleet god gaining
Upon you before you turned to a reed

Or some new white flower japped with crimson
As the coat flapped wild and button after button
Sprang off and fell in a trail
Between the Underground and the Albert Hall.

Honeymooning, moonlighting, late for the Proms,
Our echoes die in that corridor and now
I come as Hansel came on the moonlit stones
Retracing the path back, lifting the buttons

To end up in a draughty lamplit station
After the trains have gone, the wet track
Bared and tensed as I am, all attention
For your step following and damned if I look back.

what do I mean to a Man creating God and selling Him to Me?

What do I mean to me?
Why can't I think of me
Existing outside my head?
Why do I find comfort in the idea
Of ended consciousness
When I'm dead?

What is a man?
Secrets?
Feelings?
Lies?
Truth?
Shame?
Pride?

Are we created by something greater?
Or do we create something greater?
Could it be
That you and me
Are insignifi-
Can't go on
Killing each other
Dying for another
Living for after
Death
Comes to all
Live for living
Give for giving
Throw this all away
Neon-distractions
Cash interactions

The new gods
Status, money, power
6 25 an hour
Indebted to your possessions,
Collecting your obsessions.
Your own private gods
That you're devoted to.
Bending your will
Until you are owned,
Not just by the merchants
But the products as well.

I like the latest Nic. The line break, "insignifi-/ Can't go on" is especially neat. It seems to me you're using form in the ways I suggested -- in other words, that "form" doesn't necessarily mean rigid, fixed, or traditional form (though people, like you, do still write sonnets!). Formal devices are part of the poet's bag of tricks, like metaphors, images, even words.

On a different note, it strikes me that reading spam in the context of a poetry thread raises interesting questions about the relationship between meaning and context. If one of those pieces of spam were signed by a name we recognized, would we read as somehow meaningful? as some kind of dadaist, surealist, of "found" poetry? Just a thought.

HH

There are definately some poetic qualities to the spam on this blog. I like the lyrical quality of "kirsten dunst bra little giraffe robes look no bra bra busting cleavage" as well as the Pope allusion in the rape porn spam. Hairy pregnant porn was also amusing.

oil tea tree light tea maltese puppy teacup party tea teacup chinese tea diet green tea oil tea tree tea chest tea ice island long tea room tea chihuahua cup tea chihuahua teacup teacup yorkie light tea republic tea bag calcium coral tea tea tree electric kettle tea black tea house tea

OK, here's a challenge to all you create types. Can you write your own "spam" that resembles the above but that is more meaningful, amusing, thoughtprovoking, etc.? (I confess, I actually thought one of you had already tried this with "ice island long tea"!)

HH

(P.S.) And they needn't be pornographic!

muse matching mutual inspiration dreams ideas poetry stories fiction truth life art muses history future creation genesis partnership collaboration serendipity writer original inspiration peaceful dreaming mated culmination others ideas matched artist muse music musician tones rythym thoughts inspired dreaming flying swimming art muses history future creation mutual inspiration dreams ideas poetry mated culmination others ideas muse matching mutual inspiration dreams ideas poetry stories muse music musician ideas poetry serendipity

little satan devil babies get behind me satan salvation testimonies satan evil demon milton hero satan porn prayer evil devil babies with horns pray to satan in sunday school watch satan porn give salvation testimonies get behind me satan evil devil babies spawn of satan porn in sunday school salvation testimonies pray to satan evil devil babies milton porn devil babies with horns

Cool. I'm especially intrigued by Sarah's "Milton porn" (I'm not sure he would have approved!), though I love Nic's riffing on "mus-" words too!

Have we (i.e., you) invented a new genre here?

HH

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women's bras ooze and oz wun yung boy pants peking thong bikini attolls lingerie junior trainers fool figures wunderbar kinderplatz keepsemfromflopsin over the shoulder boulder holder round the butt nut hut crotchless edible panties panties panties worn by moldy ringworms satin teddy sweet and assy victorian secretion

(P.S.) Those of you wanting to contribute to the "Poetry Spam," make sure you give a legit email address so your work doesn't get deleted as real spam!

I'm officially closing this thread out due to an unbelievable amount of (real) spam, so please direct any poetry posts to the continuance of this thread. Thanks! : )