Post your poems for discussion.
The Last Night:
A man sat by a table
And with effort so slight
Pulled two wires together
And then there was light.
What a sight, what a sight
The bulb glowed so bright
And in an instant he knew
That he had been right.
It was warm
Brilliant and white
Shadows and darkness cast out of sight.
The battle was over
The end of the fight
And mankind would welcome
With joy and delight
That man who brings the bulb to invite
The eternal day,
and the death of the night.
Were I man of more years,
And greater means
I would travel this world
By foot on land, and sail on sea
To learn what it is that I am.
I would walk in the woods,
And I would know the earth to be a living earth. And the sun to be a warm nurturing sun.
In my travels I would meet every kind of man and woman and child. And I would do as they do,
And feel as they feel,
And see as they see.
One day I would ask myself
just what are these creatures called humans?
And I would know the answer.
Were I to travel the world.
I would walk in the woods.
And i would feel the wind blow.
The kind sun would set on the good earth,
My eyes would close,
Peace would surround me,
and I would be at peace.
A man sits on his chair
Love:
It is only pain
which reminds me that
I am human
Because the one thing I truly want
Is the one thing I cannot find
Things are able to be touched
Starting right now
carry the seven
thoughtless
upon this
demonic
as a stone sour solipsist
Marfa, goes the dog, bark, uh
barcalounger in Barcelona (which we're all from)
and form
file it yeah in triplicate
why couldn't RE: be the recipient?
RE? That's funny- Ari Gold would be
spotless I never saw Entourage
but it was worthy of a reference
Bon bons to the wontons
carry on, carry on
seven to the wayward son
take what's left of the
Gold to the Golden Shovel
do the Harlem Shuffle
that's a shakejive reminder
fully resplendent and unkinder
do it Justice, Social Justice
give me buffet line indecency
that's a sneeze to the sneeze guard
and shitkickers in public
What's in the basket? Bread
Well-bred
Lucy Liu in the role of mistress
Queer fantasy in the Modern Family
Spokes coming out all sides
cartwheeling or caterwauling,
who's to say
verbs are like charisma
to use and borrow
in a new enigma
Shoot a ladder from the hip
increase the length to get to my dick
>>7484558
aguirre
death to the savage
living in my sheets like a dog in its filth
clawing at the walls as it rises from bed
dying each night in stink, whiskey
death to the savage who refreshes the page
in hopes of new results
confirmation of delivery
‘cause it ain’t comin’, child
death to the savages
billeted by concert halls, put up in doorways on granville
i just want my goddamned mcmuffin
i just want to watch coronation street
and death to the savage in my dreams
howling like a miniature leviathan
drowning out this fantasy with terror
a dolled-up wolf in calfskin boots
i wake up and my eyes are tired
(Fair warning this ones a bit edgy)
A Partner:
I am the robot which thirsts to be human,
And so tired I have become.
I cannot love all of mankind,
But I could love one person.
It is all I wish for in this world,
To have one person.
One person who understands me completely,
As I understand all people.
One person whom I understand,
Yet is the one person who continues to confuse me.
What a feeling it must be,
To care for another more than oneself.
What a feeling,
To have minds which resonate
like chimes in the breeze
or the coils of a reactor
In strength and weakness,
In triumph and failure,
I want a partner.
Because I am alone,
And I am oh so tired.
All humans have a brain
Det var en vind så stark att statens alla skattepengar
yrde runt om bleka tjänstemän som slog i sina skalor
och på Strömmen kretsa' måsarna med tysta papperssvalor
och gatubullret dränktes i vilda flygbladssvängar
Över människor som trott att själva staden var nervös
satt en vädersol och bågnade, ett järntecken i skyn
det var en vind som riste öarna, en medeltida syn
och staden var en skärgård. Urban Målare var lös
Under Slussen när trafiken i ett trollslag stannade
hördes vågorna som fräsande från Saltsjön slog mot sten
på perrongerna stod människor som log när vinden ven
medans andra började gråta eller bli förbannade
Det var en vind som svepte med sig korsettannonserna
och dom jättestora skönhetsmedlen fanns där inte mer
och i ögonen på alla oss som annars inte ser
lyste vädersolens märke från reklamaffischerna
>>7485263
*järtecken
>>7485036
>All those unkilled darlings
Congratulations. You played yourself.
I-85
If it is to change you
You will not remember the crash
By the moments during or before.
Your death is not about you,
But everyone else
And what they learn in your absence.
Like your quiet father who
Goes to church but never prays
Begging God, “Take me, instead.”
Or your hopeful mother
Who taught him how to speak to Heaven.
You wake with a damaged body
That hates your old one even more.
But it is forgiven.
I-85 is still dense with moving lights
That cut through your field of vision and
Fade quickly into nothingness.You are no longer one of them
And pull off across the median.
It’s only a gambling problem if you lose
And you’ve been given back years
To burn.
If angels showed your forebears how to love
The devil did the same for you.
You wish you remembered why.
You think about how easy it would have
Been, and what it means that
Your brother has seen a decade’s worth of
Old movies more than you.
You think a lot
About what got broken, how everyone says
They’re fucked, and
The one person who thinks they’re fine
Maybe isn’t.
You like hearing voices over the phone
The way they are forced to be honest
Instead of hiding the truth in their faces
Like a white-printed riddle.
Your second-to-last cigarette burns out
But you decide to quit early.
It’s funny.
They would kill you if they knew
That sometimes you wish they didn’t pray
Or that you’re far too old to smoke with
Your cousin.
She conjures up images like
A chemical imbalance would after you
Inhale a ratio you didn’t expect.
But it’s too late, and the drug filters through
Your lungs and the parts of your body that
God touched.
So, you hold it in.
She smiles.
Exhale.
The reality of it all pours from your chest and
Caresses her silhouette
Like a shadow that’s followed you
Into every smokey bar on the block.
You can’t tell left from right, or
Right from wrong, and
You try not to think about it,
How small you must seem.
Instead, you think about space travel
and how you’d like to pass in zero gravity,
Drifting through the black, faced with
The majesty of some distant star, wondering
Which atoms you share, and how even the supermassive
Can seem so very small from the safety
Of the lonely ground.
brought up low-class
low class
rotten teeth low
friends deny your dreams low
cause we're all low
the shit of shit
fuck the beats
those fucks
don't know this
low shit
this song of the
lowest
they're beats, hipsters
wishers, wants to be's
but not me
they gave me low
from the get-go
They don't know low
cockroach holidays
they don't know living
in the back of the skull
they hooked themselves to
junk or diodes
I exited vaginal canal
tangled choked with electric wires
set from start
never to have existence noted
wiped flushed
and finished
words, pages burned
that's how the low low
is
>>7486230
This is probably bait. Either really good bait or really shitty poetry. Either way, I'm pissed.
Staying in my play pretend
Where the fun, ain't got no end
Staying in my play pretend
Where the fun, ain't got no end
Staying in my play pretend
Where the fun, ain't got no end
Ooh
Can't go home alone again
Need someone to numb the pain
Can't go home alone again
Need someone to numb the pain
Can't go home alone again
Need someone to numb the pain
Ooh
Staying in my play pretend
Where the fun, ain't got no end
Ooh
Can't go home alone again
Need someone to numb the pain
You're gone and I gotta stay
High all the time
To climb to
High all the time
To climb to
High all the time
To keep you off my mind
High all the time
To climb to
High all the time
To climb to
High all the time
To keep you off my mind
Staying in my play pretend
Where the fun, ain't got no end
Staying in my play pretend
Where the fun, ain't got no end
Staying in my play pretend
Where the fun, ain't got no end
Ooh
Can't go home alone again
Need someone to numb the pain
Can't go home alone again
Need someone to numb the pain
Can't go home alone again
Need someone to numb the pain
Ooh
Staying in my play pretend
Where the fun, ain't got no end
Ooh
Can't go home alone again
Need someone to numb the pain
You're gone and I gotta stay
High all the time
To climb to
High all the time
To climb to
High all the time
To keep you off my mind
High all the time
To climb to
High all the time
To climb to
High all the time
To keep you off my mind
>>7486249
You P.B and Jelly
I think so
When by my solitary hearth I sit,
and hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
when no fair dreams before my mind's eye flit,
and the bare heath of life presents no bloom,
sweet hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
and wave thy silver pinions o'er my head.
Has the robot already
programmed this
into my head
left me
to
question everything
that I see and think
in abstraction
>>7484982
How's junior high treating ya.
I take it so
your children don't have to
so they don't cut
innocent tongues
on coke mirrors
I feel the gravity
burden
for them so
they don't whither husk
too fast so
they can stay
young a little longer
I cry that mental cancer
so they never will
and will go on and on
eternal
>>7484558
Critical but truthful.
>IE: If a part is shit tell me, but don't make stuff up for being edgy
It flows like sand through my hands,
yet its impression is left in my palm,
leaving me with a hauntingly heavy,
sense of calm.
It pushes on my shoulder,
like a boulder,
taunting me with a sense of ever present fleeting,
informing me of a future where only loss will I be meeting.
When it is gone all I will have left
is the songs,
They will sing to me of what I once had,
Whilst I am sitting in tears,
and in clothes of sorrow I am clad
Sonic is one of those places you go to on a whim before forgetting it exists only to find yourself craving it once again a couple of months later and thereupon indulging your id state cravings only to forget about it again et all ad finitum until years go by and growing old you realize, too late, how you wasted your life ambling like a corkscrew from high to high sliding on a slide of malaise punctuated only by moments of fleeting contentment interrupted too soon by profound existential revelations appearing like death's own saints trapping you into suspended ek-sis-tential awareness of the limits of your transitory deathbound consciousness
>>7486499
little too cloyingly sweet. rhyme scheme is too heavy and it gets broken in the last stanza anyway so don't stick to the rhymes so hard. i'm curious if you would you title this"'Life" or leave it ~up to the reader's interpretation~
not trying to be edgy. yr pretty good. read robert lowell.
>>7486562
Thanks man, appreciate the input.
I wasn't 100% satisfied with the stanza lengths since they are a little uneven but for the time being I had left it as is until inspiration hit me.
Personally I would leave it untitled, I think personal interpretation is one of the most important parts of any kind of art, but thats just me.
I'll read up some Lowell, thanks.
I swallowed my death and abandoned my chest
No longer human, I moved forward
an android; or maybe the devil himself
Anybody knows /spanish/ here? If so I might post some of my work.
>>7486230my man isaac
Lay my father, much turned away.
Who's time of glowing light had dimmed.
Who sent us brothers off to play,
While he and mother carried on.
Many plank for nail to split,
And forgotten length for tape to measure.
As days of Autumn turn to Winter,
So did bad times turn to pleasure.
So did good days turn to tears.
And somethings gone, but not forever.
Remember these, but not forsake.
I pray to god, my soul to take.
Oh miserable life! A hideous figure in my sight
So much pain, regret, suffering and strife
A dark and sinuous path with no guiding light!
We stumble at stones, fall on the bushes
Filled with the most beautiful roses
That bite us with their poisonous spines!
Laying down on the floor, the fever arrives
As our hearts pump this rotten blood
Tearing and butchering our very insides
Until what's left is nothing but the shell
of what once was a confident child
and where dreams and hopes dwelt
>>7487365
Sorry bout your dad, man.
You're on the path, but I don't want to say you're ready for the big leagues yet.
For now, don't be afraid of using your own references and dialect. From this, I have no idea about your background or you, except that you're probably Protestant (I pray to god, my soul to take.)
Anyway, glhf
>>7486947
>I moved forward / an android
Why you pushing androids around, anon?
>>7487178
Un pakido, but post it anyway
>>7486230
you know i was gonna tell you to stop but then i saw you annoyed this guy:
>>7486249
and now I want you to go on.
>>7485060
not the brainless ones
>>7485046
>‘cause it ain’t comin’, child
I mean good on you for being the first poem i've read in this thread with any concept of voice but why didn't a black lady who sells me soap on television show up in the middle of this poem?
I feel like you could be not bad if you just focused on what you're writing about, or not get distracted. I don't know how to say that in a way that doesn't sound shitty. Sorry.
>>7486268
C-G-Am-F
C-G-Am-F
C-G-Am-F
C-G-Am-F
G7
Am-Em
Bm-Em
Am-Em
Bm-Em
Am-Em
Bm-Em
(&c.)
In my room lives a small spider.
It weaves at night.
I move to drink and hours of work are lost.
It starts again beyond my slurred reach.
>>7486295
You only got one hearth? You poor bastard!!1!
>>7486362
Ironically, this shit makes me want to do more drugs
>>7486499
Work on maintaining your sense of rhythm. You know that "sense" in "sense of calm" is wrong, and that may mean changing palm too to make it scan right. If you're doing this type of strongly rhythmic poetry, you need to keep this shit in check so that when you break rhythm, it stands out
Read Lord Byron's "first kiss of love", and notice the stanza that starts "I hate you, ye cold compositions of art," and note how that breaks the rhythm of the earlier stanzas. Ask yourself why (hint: b/c he mad)
Funnily enough, the word "sense" fucks up the rhythm in the second stanza too.
>>>IE: If a part is shit tell me, but don't make stuff up for being edgy
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. If you're writing for /lit/, that's good, because any audience is better than none. When I write poetry, I think about how it will sound in front of this poetry group I go to, and that keeps me from saying anything downright embarrassing
>>7489098
The Great Vowel Shift
Time sees.
East came day's house.
Moonstone knows law,
New dew that fox cut
Darkness Consumes the Sun
Darkness Consumes the World
the Moon Rises up
but Darkness consumes that too
when I Sleep
and Dream
Dreams full of Darkness
Sometimes I DRINK to end the Pain
Fine wine. I pair it with
Strong cheeses and roast mutton
on a Wooden table with red velvet tablecloth
In a way, I am Frodo
Fighting a battle
Struggling to live
That battle is Life
By
the way
I'm
the frog
and on
my
ton
gue
poet
try
is
tast
y
Hey look! It's that stupid fucking poetry rhythm
With the second line contrivedly rhymed, a bad decision
I made but oh shit I need to rhyme again, what a vision
Well it's the second verse so I better expand my themes
Oh shit I never thought of one so lets go with dreams
And maybe nature for good measure and throw in some moon beams
Okay gang, three stanzas look good on the page
So I'm gonna leave it here but not without
Fucking up the rhyme scheme one last time to fill you with rage
>>7489138
Wouldn't darkness have an easier time consuming the moon than the sun, seeing as it is both smaller and does not produce light?
>DRINK
oh
>Frodo
oh you're doing a bit
You evil ex woodsman, all green and heated
Beat through her door to where we are seated
I, newly knighted protect more than her chamber
Rise with a start, alert to the danger
'You're a fucking slut!' Cryeth thee
Seething in pious ugly jealousy
Before punching her square on the fold of her jaw
Giving me the excuse to knock you to the floor
Ahh you didn't know I studied ancient martial arts?
I save it for thugs, thieves and breakers of hearts
I am a gallant blur of blood and fists
Each beat bashes more of your face to bits
Before grabbing you rough by the scruff of your neck
I throw you outside then follow to inspect
The whimpering mass now at my feet
Piled like a turd on Bernard street
I lean in close, my voice calm in your ear
Speaking slowly and simple to make sure it's clear
'Take out your phone. Do as I say.
The last time you see her is now, today
Delete her on Facebook and her number too
Delete her friends numbers that you always use
To wrangle your way back into her head
After I've wrangled my way into her bed
Never call here again, don't ask who she's with
No thirty texts an hour, you lost the privilege
When you quaffed her like wine and tossed her aside
Unfaithful to her five separate times
And now have the gaul to say your hurt
I hope the next wench treads your handkerchief in the dirt'
But most of all I hope that she stops getting upset
Every time you call to recollect
The time she loved you and you snapped her in two
I wish she would love me, I wish I was you
In fantasy I win, in life I am defeated
You will call tonight, I shall sit green and heated
>>7489149
Funny.
>>7489204
What the fuck? An actual poem? That you put real effort to? And posted on lit?
I mean I could nitpick little things, but this is clearly the best poem in the thread. I don't pretend to be an expert -- I just read poetry, and this is the best thing here by a fucking mile.
Everybody else, see this. This is the new bar. Poetry shittier than this is not welcome.
Serious question: do you have a website or something? Or an email?
Moving Through Voids, Questions, Answers, and a Lame Poem
crushed pills
fucked snorting
fish drinking
from tanks of liquor
run out. light. all's
fine
lights. music.
hard as steel
on cock sucking whores
virtual love girls
raped by everyone
flesh untouched
oink like pigs
pigs pigs pigs
oink oink
uh. huh. uh. yea. oink
oink. mmm yea. mmm yea
oink oh god yea
oink harder oink oink
bitch pigs covered in cum
pull 12 inches out of her ass
all for free, fuck pigs
the electro box houses
my fuck pig bitches
stomp on my face for sweet honey
run and feel
give pills for suicide
call this line
and you don't wanna
jump. full on train to your face goodbye
Everything
but now I feel love
feel I don't have it
but it exists so I can't
die but fight for
all this essence of
sunlight and grass and
the ecosystem connected
they drill a switch into your
face and flip it and
no matter you're happy
happy happy
happy happy
>>7484571
Best of the ones you posted.
>>7486230
Legitimately above average.
>>7486295
Pleasant, if a little contrived.
>>7487368
Also above average. Perhaps it's just me but I felt that "butchering" jarred a little in that line, I would maybe change it. Otherwise fine.
>>7489204
You misspelt *you're
>>7489382
Have to admit I laughed. Your sincerity is admirable.
>>7485263
heja heja! fint
The usual reign
Overthrown by symbolic means
Resides in a kitchen
And laughs at the boiling water
And the piercing shriek of a kettle
Calling forth all earthoworms of the soil
Willing to devour
and digest
their supper's symptomatic nutrients
The mother of all prophecies
For she had seen them all, known them all betimes
Sits silently in a chair
Her aura warm and eyes pure
Sweeping the floor with a gaze
that could comfort a thousand newborns screaming
but fails to comfort a hundred neurotics rushing
like erythrocytes to the head
permanently heating the atmosphere
melting the pans and the pots
notwitshstanding pouring the smoldering essence
into a new form
facing sublimation
>>7486295
>>7489086
>1/10
>>7489110
>You only got one hearth? You poor bastard!!1!
>>7489438
>Pleasant, if a little contrived.
Actually, that's 'A Hope' by Keats.
>>7489585
I always thought Keats was contrived compared to the other Romantics, so my comment stands.
That was a clever trick though.
Just started nofap, wrote a poem about my experiences:
I hold it in
And they stare
My right wrist is no longer bigger than my left
My mind is pure and my thoughts are clean
No more porn to satisfy my craving
They all want to make fun of us
Let them
Let them toil away in the perils of mediocrity
We all know the real reason why we are here
It isn't to ejaculate
But to pre-create
A world of beauty
>>7484560
Truly the worst poem i've seen here, and that includes the ironic ones
>>7485056
Really nice for some reason
>>7486230
Genuinely best in the thread so far
>>7489204
Genuinely very funny. the volta works perfectly
>>7489204
It's cryest thee, not cryeth
He, with a feathered tongue unsheathed
Behind a pair of purple lips–
A whisper stirring from his chest,
In steady rise breaching, rumble of the atmosphere,
And by degrees, breathing a roar of eternity-
sows his verbal oats across
the desert plains, oceans and crofts.
And yet, the Sun speaks slowly in its
long, droning tones:
And perched upon the riverbank,
ears prick'd, to tender welcome sunlit trickle, may hear the notes
of those earth-moving bellied moans...
But before his tongue has the chance
To rear full form in tone and dance,
Not one word is finished
for my body become as dust
And no less than centuries have come to pass,
but through all forces, and for all ends,
therein lies the same silent bloodied rust.
>>7489075
>why [did] a black lady who sells me soap on television show up in the middle of this poem?
hahaha
thanks for the feedback!
i did feel weird about that line, the "accent" sort of embedded itself in first writing it, no real reason. will revise.
that advice doesn't sound shitty btw. just unsweetened.
I once had a fright
My will turned to might
I scurried to the lavatory
And unhitched my belt
No stalls could I find
As they were all occupied
So I sat perched upon a urinal
And released a shit
One has never shat
I sat and I shat
Upon the urinal
Rectum I did rupture
And with forehead of sweat
And leg a'tremblin
With countenance of agony
With shriek shrills that echoed about
I sat and I shat
Upon the urinal
I excite myself
with the promise
that with renewed vigor
I shall attack the day
when I rise to engorge
myself upon
what I cannot
this eve.
The deep and
profound need
to ingest
to imbibe
the new excitement
the newest marvel
the words that spill
from pen to pad
that reach the
toneless ears
of those
that lack the
remorseless hunger
of the novel.
The passion of interest itself
unbound
unheeded
untamed
must wait for
me to rise
again.
Such limitless drive
strains my drooping eyes... To bed. To bed.
bump
bump bump bump
bump bump
bump?
bump
BUMP
Untitled
I see the light
dancing on the floor
it reminded me of you
who is with me no more
grace and mercy
like Christ the Lord
cuts through my heart
like the warrior's sword
But my empty hand
holds nothing but loss
since you're with me no more,
like Christ off his cross.
Goodbye, my dear
forgive me of my sin,
Perhaps later on,
we might rise again.
>>7485036
isn't this from the kolsti files?
regardless, it's too jumpy for my taste, like the literary equivalent of ADHD, with no real talent for developing an idea or an image. it relies too heavily on conflations and uses rhyme as a flashy trick, like in slam.
it's certainly not conventional. it's more like a collage. I unironically sneer at collages, they're lesser art: less beautiful, less thought required
[This thread again]
>>7493469
what's wrong with "this thread"? It's people discussing literature, their own literature, on a lit board.
>>7489585
>keats
>>7489647
"contrived"
Never grow up, c/lit/.
>>7493740
>Never grow up
>c/lit/
It's nice to see you following you own advice.
I am after death in the no place
But because Death is on vacation
Everyone gets a day off
To go to some yes place
And mine is the ice cream factory
Where I lasted three days
As a teenager, boxing fudgsicles,
And there I am back on the line
That whispers like a long tongue
Dark prophecies about my co-workers
And just like before they come down
Faster and faster, and in my haste
I cut my finger on the edge of a carton
And pretty soon the foreman comes
Shouting down the line about
"Can it possibly be fudgsicles
With BLOOD on them,"
And he traces the trail to me
And starts bellowing like
A whole orchestra in a pit,
But this time, because
Death will be home soon,
I do not guiltily acquiesce
Like before, but instead
Unwrap a fudgsicle, and biting
Off a hunk down to the stick,
Say to him that he is beautiful,
That they are all beautiful,
And he should give them all
Vacations and raises in pay,
And just then, to everyone's
Astonishment, when it looked
As though he might really blow,
I just faded out, like in some films
Solid to vapor to wisp, to nothing,
But not before I scooped up an
Armful of bloody fudgsicles to take
Back with me, something frozen and
Sweet, and bearing the sticky mark
Of seriousness, my life so handily
Upon a stick.
he is careful of dogs now:
he makes shorter leaps
and he stays on the inside,
when frost starts to creep
round the borders of windows.
he still walks the ledges
but nowadays two or three steps
from the edges.
The mice whom his forays
would terrify nightly
he just looks on and nods
as they pass him,
politely
When he dreams of the kitten
of eight lives before
he shudders, and takes
a slow stroll to the door
And I rise and assist him
out into the sun
and he shuffles along
where he once used to run
And I take shorter steps
and I take smaller breaths
and I want to inquire
about his other deaths
But he’d just raise an eyebrow
and look up to heaven
and say “I wouldn’t worry
till you get past seven.”
from my bed
I watch
3 birds
on a telephone
wire.
one flies
off.
then
another.
one is left,
then
it too
is gone.
my typewriter is
tombstone
still.
and I am
reduced to bird
watching.
just thought I'd
let you
know,
fucker.
hannah montana
hannah montana
hannah montana
hannah montana
i got molly
i got white
i got molly
i got white
I've been
trapping
trapping
trapping
trapping
all damn night
"Crossing the Rubicon"
Let me set the scene for you.
A yellow leaf is politely swaying its last
on the highest branch of a cypress tree, and then it falls,—
brushing against the lower branches, rustling at every touch—
falls to the cold, dry ground
where a breeze scrapes it away from where it fell.
It’s a country of smooth mounds and green hills,
partitioned by a river flowing east,
carrying, if it happens to step in, the fresh autumn harvest
to bury in the depths of the Adriatic.
The general sees this—Julius Caesar—it’s the tenth of January, 49 BC.
He’s here at the head of an army, or, to be more accurate, a single regiment—
a legion, as the Romans call it,
here at the borderlands, the frontier separating the thralls from the slavers:
thralls to one single city,
the fountainhead of power and splendour,
of scholarship and industry,
a city of gleaming white marble pillars and high aqueducts,
a city blessed by Jupiter Optimus Maximus,
a city that wears a cuirass over its toga
and carries a dagger at the side for protection
while it enforces thraldom to Pax Romana—Roman Peace.
Piss on your peace. Caesar is carrying a javelin
to shatter this Pax Romana.
For the moment, though, he is standing here,
bathing in the beauty of Gallia Cisalpina,
admiring the hedges dotting the rolling hills, and the tall trees
slowly stripping off the handsome viridian foliage of their youth.
Withered and yellow with age, the cypress leaves sadly sway along their pivots,
rustle noisily as a breeze blows between their papery skin.
The occasional wind jars the frame, shaking the life from the leaves,
and with the deft fingers of death, twist their petioles:
a rain of elderly leaves
that catches the wind and is blown
across the countryside, into the muddy river,
and hence to the Adriatic Sea.
Julius Caesar, you bald-headed general, if you advance another step,
if you dip so much as a toe into the waters of this river,
the fury of Rome will snake through streets and valleys,
cross the chasm between city and frontier,
and burn your insubordinate flesh inside your armour.
History itself shall be remapped to expel you from it;
your name shall be struck from wherever it’s inscribed,
and all your achievements: they’re only paper and stone.
Gaius Julius Caesar, consul, triarch, general, governor,
your memory be damned, and your body be flung into the Adriatic Sea,
if you take another step.
(1/2)
>>7495722
He could drop his sword, his javelin, onto this grassy field,—
it’ll absorb the clangor of his defeat—
turn around and instruct his army to do the same:
drop their weapons, turn around, and march back home.
His spilt honour would no doubt ooze into the river and find its way
to the Adriatic then, even if his body may not.
Damnatio memoriae is the cruellest of all Roman punishments,
but when the alternative is to be chained in Rome with life and titles intact,
an injustice unchallenged, and dignity drowned like these cypress leaves in the Adriatic Sea—
it’s a gamble. Is it better to have tried and lost?
Not much better than to live like these leaves: plucked from life so easily
at the whims of the wind.
It’s decided. The River Rubicon, blood-red from the mud,
separating the slave from the slaver,
appears as a bloody whip stretched across the countryside.
Caesar strides forward, crosses the bridge, with his army at his heels.
Alea iacta est. The die is cast.
(2/2)
>>7495548
>hip hop is modern day poetry, man
>>7495727
You're a fag
Your mom's a drag
She turns white like a French flag
When I give my dick a wag
Don't be like this anon
Don't be a fag
Don't
>>7495751
>criticism
>discussion
not a place for down's retards, anonymous.
Mother Mary
Irish roots support the family tree
Your Highness birthed thee three
Sons born to bear all your blame
Burdens not carried all the same
Isolated and far from the Church of Rome
A house for certain, but not quite a home
In the back room discretely hidden
The sweet nectar of the forbidden
Piercing through the haze of fog
Howling wildly like a worried dog
That night we made the assumption
Like your father, he had consumption
Relapsing pain calls for some dope
While misery longs for some hope
We’ve prayed since it was diagnosed
Father, Son, and your Holy Ghost
> This is based on Long Days Journey Into The Night by Eugene O'Neill
>>7495853
The Servant of Baghdad
The servant rides north on his master’s horse
A cowardly escape begins to feel like remorse
Peering at his steed, he touches with a hand
It’s flanks are dried with both blood and sand
He pauses a moment Samarra laying ahead
Feeling grief for the horse who willingly bled
He dismounts his master’s mare and begins
He washes it’s wounds with care and spins
For a woman moving at the speed of light
As a woman late for an appointment might
Sped past him towards Samarra unaware
He who she wanted was tending his mare
No longer willing to hurt his beast of burden
He pledges to no longer use his spurs then
Accepting his fate as avoiding it may go bad
He walks beside his friend back to Baghdad
> This is another one I wrote, this one based on Appointment in Samarra by W. Somerset Maugham
>>7495761
You mean like the menstrual troll who keeps putting up this thread? She is accumulating these troll threads for a /sci/ humor thread. To show how gullible, pleb, and cuckable /lit/ is. It's a STEMfag troll. It's like the fourth one this month.
They all contain menstrual blood "art" as the OP pic, and they all contain multiple posts of famous poems the OP fails to recognize. Check the archive.
OP is the cartoon here:
>>7493469
nowadays poems are supposed to be short and the greatest have a consistent symbolic.
>>7496532
>failing to recognize le reddit raid
>>7484558
I don't have a lot of time to write because of my job but sometimes I compose in my head on long walks and then I write them down when I get to work. Here's one
Ursula, in a garden, found
A bed of radishes.
She kneeled upon the ground
And gathered them,
With flowers around,
Blue, gold, pink, and green.
She dressed in red and gold brocade
And in the grass an offering made
Of radishes and flowers.
She said, "My dear,
Upon your altars,
I have placed
The marguerite and coquelicot,
And roses
Frail as April snow;
But here," she said,
"Where none can see,
I make an offering, in the grass,
Of radishes and flowers."
And then she wept
For fear the Lord would not accept.
The good Lord in His garden sought
New leaf and shadowy tinct,
And they were all His thought.
He heard her low accord,
Half prayer and half ditty,
And He felt a subtle quiver,
That was not heavenly love,
Or pity.
This is not writ
In any book
I love you
I said to the shining star
In my window.
I'm not a star
Said the plane
And continued in his way.
Eat your nails with
gnashing teeth and
makeout lips. Stare at
nothing, or
everything, or
both, with
eyes shut to nighttime
streetlamplight.
Blow smoke slurped from
a bummed cigarette — only
open your eyes when they
are drowning in the carbon
monoxide cloud.
Because when they’re open
you feel the earth’s tilt,
its spin, and you feel it
all over.
It hits you hard
in your skinned skinny jean knees.
It hits you harder in your chest.
You are bruising, my love.
You are bleeding, and breaking.
Is it you? Is the pressure
heavier than your fragile
eyelids can handle?
The smoke rises and
eases your burden,
lifting the corners of your mouth
with your glass eyelids.
I never know — are you
crying, or laughing?
Breathing, or dying?
Everything at once, or
nothing at all?
Do you feel when you
sleep? Do you dream?
While your brother
punches in plaster, while
your mother oozes regret,
while your father thinks
of leaving, do you dream?
While you lie face in pillow,
does the pressure destroy hopes
of leaving your breaking body?
Do you want to leave like your
father? Do you need something
other than this tilt, this imperfect
sphere of blue drowning and green suffocation?
The green is rotting to asphalt grey, my love,
the blue is rotting to trashbag brown.
And you feel it all over.
You feel it.
Lip bit nails limp
chewed to beds.
Callous crown hiding
crying king — he knows
you hurt but not where.
Unbutton your blouse:
display the devil in you.
Force down pills and
reality — dripping from
fixtures and fingers and
firmament.
You don’t remember
last night — only red lights
and hollow sensing pushed
past emotion to royal ecstasy.
For him.
But you don’t remember that.
You remember getting your
fix and hating him and
you and that red light you
keep on while you sleep.
I can’t speak for tomorrow
with its casual permanence and
heavy presence
but today darkened eyes and froze
lips
Today awakened in a crack
of light through vinyl sheet
on my windowsill
Seated in formation I aged
and felt it
I performed wrinkling sleeves
and sweaty feet
I swallowed hiccup liquid and
bubbling juices
I spoke façade and eloquence
eating my fingernails
I sat in cool summer night air
swinging naked feet over my
ledge
I thought of jumping but couldn’t
scream
I made her cry and she
didn’t look back for she
wished I were dust or leaves
or the air instead
But I was me and I cried
confused tears on my ledge
go to the river
it will take you
where you meet your dreams
the water will sing you to waking
it will swallow your dreams
whole
but you will find them again
down the stream
floating on their backs
staring at the sun
>>7495095
i like the double meaning of "my typewriter is tombstone still"-- still as a tombstone, and acting as a tombstone for you
>>7491519
the rhymes worked until last stanza. there's clear form here so i'd like to see a good rhyme in the last stanza.
phlox flam latte cadabra bioshock
explodey ocarinas teledilate hipster larvae
svelte aphoristic nicotine, tofu-esque & gaga
autobot Creole shinola Faygo rosary
hazmat ululating molybdenum judiciary
unsmurfy frippery grizzled as an aloha
autopsy bullfight vatic snafu
ludic ventricle, a jihad-lactating pubic mushroom
spraytan hieroglyphs in mambo cabal
anthropomorphic Valiums snorkel chipotle
polyesters unquenchable defibrillating giddyups fiendishly
zeppelin cactus oboed to a boutique of crepuscules
velveteen skeletons Ziplocked by hulking trillionaires
hulahoop monarchy brontosaurus polygraph ozone
milkshake penury thaw unleaded subtitle swig
nutri-Nazi haltertop Pacman goatee
genuflect prolapse slipknot moisturizer sheen
Rolodex neon iris atrium
erratic fabric softeners lob ditzy zombies
eldritch doubloons by Darth duct, Scooby squish
quantum Omaha lunar diaspora
kewpie Travolta turbogender underoos
hearse mittens capsizing demagnetized bling salvos
goon psalm archipelago succubus cake brink,
& standing on your momma's porch
i knew that it was now or never
& when i look back now
seemed those days would last forever
it was the summer of '69
>>7497845
Go home Beck you're drunk
