[ ]   [ ]   [ ]                        [ ]      [ ]   [ ]

Ukraine - Beaker - Mar 28, 2024 - 9:41am
 
Breaking News - Steely_D - Mar 28, 2024 - 9:39am
 
The Obituary Page - rgio - Mar 28, 2024 - 9:30am
 
Bug Reports & Feature Requests - Beaker - Mar 28, 2024 - 9:30am
 
March 2024 Photo Theme - Many - Alchemist - Mar 28, 2024 - 9:03am
 
NY Times Strands - geoff_morphini - Mar 28, 2024 - 8:37am
 
NYTimes Connections - geoff_morphini - Mar 28, 2024 - 8:29am
 
Wordle - daily game - geoff_morphini - Mar 28, 2024 - 8:25am
 
Radio Paradise Comments - pilgrim - Mar 28, 2024 - 8:19am
 
Business as Usual - black321 - Mar 28, 2024 - 8:09am
 
• • • The Once-a-Day • • •  - black321 - Mar 28, 2024 - 7:44am
 
Trump - rgio - Mar 28, 2024 - 7:29am
 
Outstanding Covers - thisbody - Mar 28, 2024 - 5:51am
 
Today in History - DaveInSaoMiguel - Mar 28, 2024 - 4:28am
 
USA! USA! USA! - R_P - Mar 27, 2024 - 7:40pm
 
Little known information...maybe even facts - haresfur - Mar 27, 2024 - 6:21pm
 
Live Music - oldviolin - Mar 27, 2024 - 5:08pm
 
RightWingNutZ - R_P - Mar 27, 2024 - 3:48pm
 
Lyrics that strike a chord today... - miamizsun - Mar 27, 2024 - 2:44pm
 
Please Don't Post Here - Red_Dragon - Mar 27, 2024 - 11:02am
 
Motivational Office Cliches... - NoEnzLefttoSplit - Mar 26, 2024 - 10:20pm
 
(Big) Media Watch - Red_Dragon - Mar 26, 2024 - 6:18pm
 
YouTube: Music-Videos - miamizsun - Mar 26, 2024 - 4:10pm
 
Israel - R_P - Mar 26, 2024 - 12:24pm
 
Photos you have taken of your walks or hikes. - Steely_D - Mar 26, 2024 - 12:04pm
 
Solar / Wind / Geothermal / Efficiency Energy - islander - Mar 26, 2024 - 8:00am
 
Is there any DOG news out there? - Beez - Mar 26, 2024 - 7:24am
 
Food - Steely_D - Mar 26, 2024 - 1:41am
 
Vinyl Only Spin List - kurtster - Mar 25, 2024 - 6:56pm
 
Derplahoma! - Red_Dragon - Mar 25, 2024 - 3:48pm
 
Frequent drop outs (The Netherlands) - kingen - Mar 25, 2024 - 2:43pm
 
China - R_P - Mar 25, 2024 - 11:59am
 
Musky Mythology - R_P - Mar 25, 2024 - 11:20am
 
Play history seems to indicate that I"m streaming 24/7, b... - jarro - Mar 25, 2024 - 10:44am
 
April 8th Partial Solar Eclipse - Coaxial - Mar 24, 2024 - 6:22pm
 
New Music - KurtfromLaQuinta - Mar 24, 2024 - 5:07pm
 
Dental Floss Tycoons, and other Montana Myths, Facts, and... - Red_Dragon - Mar 24, 2024 - 12:32pm
 
Orbiting Earth - oldviolin - Mar 24, 2024 - 9:42am
 
Basketball - oldviolin - Mar 23, 2024 - 2:50pm
 
What Makes You Laugh? - ScottFromWyoming - Mar 23, 2024 - 1:54pm
 
Joe Biden - kurtster - Mar 23, 2024 - 11:17am
 
Technical Streaming Note for Nerdy RP DIYers - sjagminas1 - Mar 23, 2024 - 10:16am
 
Museum Of Bad Album Covers - Proclivities - Mar 23, 2024 - 8:56am
 
Other Medical Stuff - Antigone - Mar 22, 2024 - 3:06pm
 
Country Up The Bumpkin - oldviolin - Mar 22, 2024 - 11:06am
 
Pernicious Pious Proclivities Particularized Prodigiously - Red_Dragon - Mar 22, 2024 - 9:17am
 
Memorials - Remembering Our Loved Ones - Bill_J - Mar 21, 2024 - 8:54pm
 
Talk Behind Their Backs Forum - VV - Mar 21, 2024 - 2:29pm
 
Can you afford to retire? - DaveInSaoMiguel - Mar 21, 2024 - 2:15pm
 
Mixtape Culture Club - KurtfromLaQuinta - Mar 21, 2024 - 11:10am
 
Baseball, anyone? - ScottFromWyoming - Mar 21, 2024 - 7:11am
 
What Did You See Today? - KurtfromLaQuinta - Mar 20, 2024 - 5:13pm
 
Annoying stuff. not things that piss you off, just annoyi... - ScottFromWyoming - Mar 20, 2024 - 4:31pm
 
Upcoming concerts or shows you can't wait to see - Antigone - Mar 20, 2024 - 3:10pm
 
Russia - NoEnzLefttoSplit - Mar 20, 2024 - 11:44am
 
Photography Forum - Your Own Photos - Proclivities - Mar 20, 2024 - 9:33am
 
2024 Elections! - Lazy8 - Mar 20, 2024 - 7:26am
 
Economix - R_P - Mar 19, 2024 - 4:36pm
 
Name My Band - DaveInSaoMiguel - Mar 19, 2024 - 10:53am
 
RP automation with iOS Shortcuts App - jarro - Mar 19, 2024 - 10:15am
 
Delicacies: a..k.a.. the Gross Food forum - DaveInSaoMiguel - Mar 19, 2024 - 10:12am
 
Irony 101 - Proclivities - Mar 19, 2024 - 6:02am
 
New Forum Member on "What Makes RP Great" - miamizsun - Mar 19, 2024 - 4:38am
 
Cache stopped working on old Android Phone - Eisenwindel - Mar 19, 2024 - 1:50am
 
Cryptic Posts - Leave Them Guessing - Bill_J - Mar 18, 2024 - 8:23pm
 
Damn Dinosaurs! - oldviolin - Mar 18, 2024 - 8:16pm
 
One Partying State - Wyoming News - geoff_morphini - Mar 18, 2024 - 3:58pm
 
Great guitar faces - skyguy - Mar 18, 2024 - 3:33pm
 
Despots, dictators and war criminals - R_P - Mar 18, 2024 - 12:41pm
 
Uploading Music - dischuckin - Mar 18, 2024 - 11:55am
 
Media Matters - thisbody - Mar 18, 2024 - 10:03am
 
NASA & other news from space - miamizsun - Mar 18, 2024 - 4:13am
 
MEALTICKET - drinpt - Mar 17, 2024 - 4:13am
 
What makes you smile? - Steely_D - Mar 16, 2024 - 7:31pm
 
Apple Computer - GeneP59 - Mar 16, 2024 - 12:02pm
 
Index » Entertainment » Books » Poetry Forum Page: Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 86, 87, 88 ... 209, 210, 211  Next
Post to this Topic
(former member)

(former member) Avatar

Location: hotel in Las Vegas
Gender: Male


Posted: Oct 31, 2010 - 8:36am



TORNADO
by Dorothea Lasky

I remember he was bent down
Like a whirlpool
I was yelling at him
He looked scared and backed away
Another time, I squinted my eyes to see
And he said I looked ugly
The funny part was when
My sister asked me where he went to
And I just didn't know
He just disappeared one day into nothing
I am rotting and rancid
Each day, rotting, but I am water, too
I am a watery nymph that is hot and wet
Like a wetted beast
I saw the man walking, hunched over
And thought it was him
"Father!" I yelled after the man
Who was hunched, he was going somewhere
He turned but the face was green
It is a black life, but I don't want to die
I don't want to die, I don't ever want to die
God damn you, don't you shoot me in my sleep
Let me rot on this earth forever
Like a carrot I will be everything God can't see
Oh, what do I mean
God can see everything
I mean the angels, I mean the half-gods
I mean the flowers, don't ever let them see me live forever
Don't you ever let them see
That I am all root here in the ground


samiyam

samiyam Avatar

Location: Moving North


Posted: Oct 30, 2010 - 7:57am

Mormon Missionaries Pay Me a Visit
by Ken Hada

I'm sitting on my lawn
enjoying a nice blunt cigar
watching children ride scooters
up and down the street
twilight gently falling,
swallows circling,
Mississippi Kites high overhead,
tree frog, sounds of sweet shadows

Then I see them in the corner of my eye,
two bikes slow
they can not pass a lost soul -
I'm too conspicuous -
I don't want this feeling, I want them
to pass me by

Good evening sir they say
I'm Elder Hansen says the first
I'm Elder Olson the second chokes
and then they wait
but all I can think to say:
You're kind of young to be elders, aren't you?
They launch into their sales pitch
about Restoration and Heavenly Father
while I recoil in smoke, then interrupt
If I convert do I have to give up this cigar?
They are not sure
but soon get back on track
like a loose wheel wobbling
until they finally bid me good evening.
I watch them roll away
and wonder
what gives them the audacity to interrupt me
while I am at worship

 


samiyam

samiyam Avatar

Location: Moving North


Posted: Oct 26, 2010 - 6:46am

Your Punishment in Hell

Someone will douse a cobra in gasoline,
light the sucker, and shove it headfirst
down your throat. It'll speed straight
through your esophagus, unfurl
its hood to fill your stomach
then begin to strike and strike and strike
and strike and strike: fangs pierce
your stomach, venom pours in,
the little burn of incipient ulcers
grows quick, paralysis sets in.
Your lungs stop before your brain,
before your hand, which lifts
to your mouth the plastic-lidded
paper cup holding the caramel
macchiato cappuccino with a double
shot of espresso and frothed soy milk
topped with two shakes of cinnamon
and no, NO (yes, you said no twice)
sugar that was made for you
slowly, while I, already running late,
waited behind you for a simple,
already-made black coffee.
You will lose all motion before
that drink reaches your mouth,
but you recover and the drink,
strangely, has vanished, and barrista
and cobra-douser-slash-lighter do it all again
and again. I know this because,
for my angry impatience,
I am behind you in line in hell
forever, the pot of black coffee
behind the counter steaming,
turning, I know, bitter. 

 ~ Gary Leising ~


Umberdog

Umberdog Avatar

Location: In my body.
Gender: Male


Posted: Oct 26, 2010 - 12:17am

Phantom Land
by Ebon Lupus
October 25, 2010


A chill fall night
Luna drifts on dark sky
casting a pale reflection
over a mist-covered pond
where below
black salamanders
and zombie crayfish
hunt unaware
that they are hunted

At the shoreline
tendrils of mist
curl from sun-warmed loam
into shallow fog
of wolfs-hock depth

Fallen trees
struck down in their prime
cast long shadows
like headstones
of unrighteous dead
whose haunting moans
have failed
to know justice
although generations
have come and gone

Through a bleak
and ethereal dream
the phantom of a wolf
whose bloody death
was not unique
to any but himself
wanders a stolen
and corrupted land
where miasmal scent
of filth and decay
of death and birth
meld into flexing
ghostly nostrils

Ahead
circle shadows
between shadows
into shadows
behind and amid a group
of rejoicing coyotes
muzzles locked skyward
howling a cackled song
for the dead and living

A departed doe
lay near a puddle
of coughed up foam
eviscerated
and disemboweled
by sharp fangs
she was not killed
and yet she had died
the wounds inflicted
postmortem

Coyotes circled her
paying a kind of homage
as the phantom wolf
watched
his spirit undetected
by the conclave
of joyous coyotes

But then
he ventured forth
and sniffed the blood
and longed for what
was lost

The dead wolf
raised howl
to Luna and Gaea
to human treachery
and at this
the napes
of feasting coyotes
raised also
and they all went silent
gazing to one another
while the earth
seemed to honor the dead
with a long moment
of eternal quiet

 




oldviolin

oldviolin Avatar

Location: esse quam videri
Gender: Male


Posted: Oct 25, 2010 - 8:22pm


Umberdog

Umberdog Avatar

Location: In my body.
Gender: Male


Posted: Oct 25, 2010 - 5:29pm

Alone With Everybody
by Charles Bukowski

The flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.




samiyam

samiyam Avatar

Location: Moving North


Posted: Oct 25, 2010 - 10:14am

 Ebon_Lupus wrote:

Well... they can make you feel bad... but not about yourself.

You are a wise creature, Samiyam. No wait... we are all fools.

 


"Day after day, alone on a hill, the man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still..."
 ~ The Beatles ~

Umberdog

Umberdog Avatar

Location: In my body.
Gender: Male


Posted: Oct 24, 2010 - 9:50pm

 samiyam wrote:

A person can never make you feel bad about yourself unless you let him.  If you keep in mind that what he/she is reacting to in you is what he/she hates about him/her self.  We are all children in the garden.
 
Well... they can make you feel bad... but not about yourself.

You are a wise creature, Samiyam. No wait... we are all fools.


samiyam

samiyam Avatar

Location: Moving North


Posted: Oct 24, 2010 - 9:28pm

 Ebon_Lupus wrote:

I guess I should thank you for your courage... or indifference to the paradigm of contempt.

 
A person can never make you feel bad about yourself unless you let him.  If you keep in mind that what he/she is reacting to in you is what he/she hates about him/her self.  We are all children in the garden.

Umberdog

Umberdog Avatar

Location: In my body.
Gender: Male


Posted: Oct 24, 2010 - 9:19pm

 samiyam wrote:
How very honest...
 
I guess I should thank you for your courage... or indifference to the paradigm of contempt.
samiyam

samiyam Avatar

Location: Moving North


Posted: Oct 24, 2010 - 9:01pm

 Ebon_Lupus wrote:
Honesty
by Ebon Lupus
October 24, 2010

Honesty — people wish it, or so it seems
just one, among many, of humanities dreams
alas, when we know it, or so it would seem
it's oft wished we'd kept the mere dream

The reason I write this may not be so clear
for honesty finds itself amongst many a tear
for day after day, week, month, and year
revelation quite oft summons anger and jeer

This, especially, must be the dire case
once conventional label is put in one's place
and many a mind's eyes are blinded by haste
of unfair indictment and iniquitous distaste

Thus to be safe, it is truer to lie
dishonesty is truer than hate's battle cry
for anger oft kills the truths it despise
history hath shown this upon many reprise

 
How very honest...

Umberdog

Umberdog Avatar

Location: In my body.
Gender: Male


Posted: Oct 24, 2010 - 8:49pm

Honesty
by Ebon Lupus
October 24, 2010

Honesty — people wish it, or so it seems
just one, among many, of humanities dreams
alas, when we know it, or so it would seem
it's oft wished we'd kept the mere dream

The reason I write this may not be so clear
for honesty finds itself amongst many a tear
for day after day, week, month, and year
revelation quite oft summons anger and jeer

This, especially, must be the dire case
once conventional label is put in one's place
and many a mind's eyes are blinded by haste
of unfair indictment and iniquitous distaste

Thus to be safe, it is truer to lie
dishonesty is truer than hate's battle cry
for anger oft kills the truths it despise
history hath shown this upon many reprise


Umberdog

Umberdog Avatar

Location: In my body.
Gender: Male


Posted: Oct 23, 2010 - 11:02am

An excerpt from Henry W. Longfellow's "The Building of the Ship."

Long ago,
In the deer-haunted forests of Maine,
When upon mountain and plain
Lay the snow,
They fell,—those lordly pines!
Those grand, majestic pines!
'Mid shouts and cheers
The jaded steers,
Panting beneath the goad,
Dragged down the weary, winding road
Those captive kings so straight and tall,
To be shorn of their streaming hair,
And, naked and bare,
To feel the stress and the strain
Of the wind and the reeling main,
Whose roar
Would remind them forevermore
Of their native forests they should not see again.


samiyam

samiyam Avatar

Location: Moving North


Posted: Oct 23, 2010 - 6:38am

Night Bicycle

Black mamba of the front tire
over wet streets, the wet streets,
after-rain falling from the neighborhood leaves,
luminescence of lampposts' lamps up
through the trees.

Sink into someone's porch chair
and look at all these leaves
then ride on into the smell of sawdust.
That sweet smell of wood.
Someone is renovating.

May he do it right!
May he be careful.
May he do it right.
May the work of hands satisfy.
Sleep on, Amigos!

The girl who left years ago
loved you behind that window.
She is now some person
Living a state away.
Which only makes her more.

You and me, little poem.
Mi amigo. Compadre.
Inside each dark house
the streetlights keep
doing their thing on the far wall.

Tonight though. Tonight's
streetlight makes me need you.
It's writing indifference,
little poem, indifference
to us on that far wall.

Black mamba of the front tire
over wet streets, the wet streets,
after-rain falling from the neighborhood leaves,
luminescence of lampposts' lamp up
through the trees.

 ~ Jonathan Johnson ~


Umberdog

Umberdog Avatar

Location: In my body.
Gender: Male


Posted: Oct 22, 2010 - 3:55pm

Hermes Trismegistus
by Henry W. Longfellow

Still through Egypt's desert places
Flows the lordly Nile,
From its banks the great stone faces
Gaze with patient smile.
Still the pyramids imperious
Pierce the cloudless skies,
And the Sphinx stares with mysterious,
Solemn, stony eyes.

But where are the old Egyptian
Demi-gods and kings?
Nothing left but an inscription
Graven on stones and rings.
Where are Helios and Hephaestus,
Gods of eldest eld?
Where is Hermes Trismegistus,
Who their secrets held?

Where are now the many hundred
Thousand books he wrote?
By the Thaumaturgists plundered,
Lost in lands remote;
In oblivion sunk forever,
As when o'er the land
Blows a storm-wind, in the river
Sinks the scattered sand.

Something unsubstantial, ghostly,
Seems this Theurgist,
In deep meditation mostly
Wrapped, as in a mist.
Vague, phantasmal, and unreal
To our thought he seems,
Walking in a world ideal,
In a land of dreams.

Was he one, or many, merging
Name and fame in one,
Like a stream, to which, converging
Many streamlets run?
Till, with gathered power proceeding,
Ampler sweep it takes,
Downward the sweet waters leading
From unnumbered lakes.

By the Nile I see him wandering,
Pausing now and then,
On the mystic union pondering
Between gods and men;
Half believing, wholly feeling,
With supreme delight,
How the gods, themselves concealing,
Lift men to their height.

Or in Thebes, the hundred-gated,
In the thoroughfare
Breathing, as if consecrated,
A diviner air;
And amid discordant noises,
In the jostling throng,
Hearing far, celestial voices
Of Olympian song.

Who shall call his dreams fallacious?
Who has searched or sought
All the unexplored and spacious
Universe of thought?
Who, in his own skill confiding,
Shall with rule and line
Mark the border-land dividing
Human and divine?

Trismegistus! three times greatest!
How thy name sublime
Has descended to this latest
Progeny of time!
Happy they whose written pages
Perish with their lives,
If amid the crumbling ages
Still their name survives!

Thine, O priest of Egypt, lately
Found I in the vast,
Weed-encumbered sombre, stately,
Grave-yard of the Past;
And a presence moved before me
On that gloomy shore,
As a waft of wind, that o'er me
Breathed, and was no more.


samiyam

samiyam Avatar

Location: Moving North


Posted: Oct 21, 2010 - 12:18pm

 oldviolin wrote:
Knot A Trace

dawn is to morning
as dusk is to mourning
all filled with empty night
moonlit fleeting nocturne delight
timid reed once swayed in flow
precious child once played in tow
bringing treasure fragrant mirth
taking measure stewards earth
least of all the pangs of birth
litmus tree line stands for crow 
wing away from silent snow...

paradise the shimmered peak
listing aural fissions creak
guiding paths once paved in tones
sneering haves with burdened stones
winter sails with wails of men
shorelines hail from now 'til then
wave and foam and breaking backs
filling holes with what time lacks
listening from the bloodied cracks
changing winds ever building
layers of sand ever gilding...

b
 
 

Manbird

Manbird Avatar

Location: ? ? ?
Gender: Male


Posted: Oct 21, 2010 - 11:05am

 oldviolin wrote:
Knot A Trace

dawn is to morning
as dusk is to mourning
all filled with empty night
moonlit fleeting nocturne delight
timid reed once swayed in flow
precious child once played in tow
bringing treasure fragrant mirth
taking measure stewards earth
least of all the pangs of birth
litmus tree line stands for crow 
wing away from silent snow...

paradise the shimmered peak
listing aural fissions creak
guiding paths once paved in tones
sneering haves with burdened stones
winter sails with wails of men
shorelines hail from now 'til then
wave and foam and breaking backs
filling holes with what time lacks
listening from the bloodied cracks
changing winds ever building
layers of sand ever gilding...

b
 

oldviolin

oldviolin Avatar

Location: esse quam videri
Gender: Male


Posted: Oct 21, 2010 - 9:40am

Knot A Trace

dawn is to morning
as dusk is to mourning
all filled with empty night
moonlit fleeting nocturne delight
timid reed once swayed in flow
precious child once played in tow
bringing treasure fragrant mirth
taking measure stewards earth
least of all the pangs of birth
litmus tree line stands for crow 
wing away from silent snow...

paradise the shimmered peak
listing aural fissions creak
guiding paths once paved in tones
sneering haves with burdened stones
winter sails with wails of men
shorelines hail from now 'til then
wave and foam and breaking backs
filling holes with what time lacks
listening from the bloodied cracks
changing winds ever building
layers of sand ever gilding...

b

samiyam

samiyam Avatar

Location: Moving North


Posted: Oct 20, 2010 - 6:31pm

Obituary
by Ronald Wallace

Just once, you say,
you'd like to see
an obituary in which
the deceased didn't succumb
after "a heroic struggle" with cancer,
or heart disease, or Alzheimer's, or
whatever it was
that finally took him down.
Just once, you say,
couldn't the obit read:
He got sick and quit.
He gave up the ghost.
He put up no fight at all.
Rolled over. Bailed out.
Got out while the getting was good.
Excused himself from life's feast.
You're making a joke and
I laugh, though you can't know
I'm considering exactly that:
no radical prostatectomy for me,
no matter what General Practitioner
and Major Oncologist may say.
I think, let that walnut-sized
pipsqueak have its way with me,
that pebble in cancer's slingshot
that brings dim Goliath down.
So, old friend, before I go
and take all the wide world with me,
I want you to know
I picked up the tip.
I skipped the main course,
I'm here in the punch line.
Old friend, the joke's on me.

 


nerakdon

nerakdon Avatar

Location:
Gender: Female


Posted: Oct 15, 2010 - 4:13pm

The setting sun makes
bright exes on the pavement
could they... mark the spot? 
Page: Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 86, 87, 88 ... 209, 210, 211  Next