Stuck in my feelings, wonder what you guys think of my first real attempt at poetry.
I believed you.
I did the thing I’m still not sure how I did,
But I did it for you.
You said it was what you needed, and I thought,
Maybe what I needed too.
Was amiss I to unbind them?
These festering wounds underneath my essence.
These ones I sealed away and shunned from existence.
Because now you’re gone, and I fear they’re too much for me to handle.
They’ve tasted the air, and grown stronger.
While I fear I’ve only grow weaker.
They’re engulfing, and consuming.
Drawing from my sanity as they spread.
I don’t understand why, except that they ache.
As they call out for some kind of sanctuary,
Some removed place,
Some forsaken memory.
Not sure if trolling but ill entertain you. Its bad. Like fucking horrible. Read some poetry and try again. Stay away from abstractions for now
"One"
I can’t remember anything
Can’t tell if this is true or dream
Deep down inside I feel to scream
This terrible silence stops me
Now that the war is through with me
I’m waking up, I cannot see
That there’s not much left of me
Nothing is real but pain now
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please, God, wake me
Back in the womb it’s much too real
In pumps life that I must feel
But can’t look forward to reveal
Look to the time when I’ll live
Fed through the tube that sticks in me
Just like a wartime novelty
Tied to machines that make me be
Cut this life off from me
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please, God, wake me
Now the world is gone, I’m just one
Oh God, help me Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please, God, help me
Darkness
Imprisoning me
All that I see
Absolute horror
I cannot live
I cannot die
Trapped in myself
Body my holding cell
Landmine
Has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in hell
I love it, OP! Can you comment on and crit a similar poem by me, as we appear to be on the same wavelength?
There's something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
Consuming, confusing what is real
This lack of self-control I fear is neverending
Controlling, I can't seem
To find myself again
My walls are closing in
Without a sense of confidence
And I'm convinced that there's just too much pressure to take
I've felt this way before
So insecure...
>>8175125
It feels like you have read other poetry and are trying to imitate it. In good poetry, every thing the writer does has a purpose and all of the elements form a cohesive whole. Here, you seem to have taken elements that you deem "poetic", like that line with the inverted syntax, and use them out of context. You should really only use inverted syntax to keep within an established rhythm or to conform to a rhyme. In (what I assume is) unmetered, unrhymed poetry, inverted syntax is a bit cumbersome unless it fits with the tone of the passage.
I also have to add that the ideas are a little trite. It is incredibly clichéd to talk about love's sorrow as wounds. However, I really like how you use "fire" imagery, normally used to describe love, to instead describe the pain left smoldering in said love's wake. The description and actual imagery could certainly be stronger and more vivid, but the fact that you are beginning to write outside of the clichés and conventions that you are familiar with. It is definitely weak, but it shows that you are on the right path.
I like to post my work and have people laugh at it. Feel free to do so.
She sits quietly
Legs crossed politely
And with an air of meaning and grace.
Her hair is russeled gently,
The harsh winter's cold not reaching her.
Her rosy cheeks and protesting nose say otherwise,
But her smile is warmer than the summer days we left behind.
Train tracks squeal beneath us,
and our car comes to a stop.
She looks up,
Not at me,
But to the exit and leaves.
The first time I spoke to her,
I had felt obliged to,
Sitting next to her everyday as we commuted.
She smiled a smile that was just barely noticable,
and told me it was too early for pleasantries.
Now when I see her,
I bask in the warmth of her looks.
But once she has left,
A stale coolness comes over me.
I hate her.
I love who she pretends to be,
but I hate who she is.
The night of our first encounter,
I spoke to her again.
This time she humored me.
"So what do they call you?"
She cooed in her slimy voice.
"Jack." I said rigidly.
The cool stupor had already come over me,
The radiance she once held gone.
"Well Jack, do you know how I make my money?"
She told my now frigid figure that she was a prostitute.
With that, her warmth returned.
Everything I had come to hate about her
Surfaced and transformed into passion.
We saw each other quite often,
Outside of that train car.
She lived alone, as did I,
In New Haven's shoddiest apartment complex.
I came to love her, a prostitute,
As much as I despised her.
Together, not quite a couple,
We grew old.
At 30, I was too old to fish for women,
and she was nearing the end of her "career".
Rushed, we married,
But nothing changed.
We lived together in her apartment.
She no longer worked the corner,
But she could not escape her tendencies.
Fidelity, of course, was an issue.
But commitment was as well.
We were married legally, yes,
But in no other sense of the word.
We had a child,
Unplanned.
We don't know the father.
She fell into a hole,
Being forced to care for a baby
In place of her usual escapades.
Heroin was no longer a luxury for her;
It was her reality.
She convinced herself that I wasn't real.
That she didn't have a Bastard child.
That she was still young enough and pretty enough to attract a John.
Every waking second she spent running,
Until one day it caught up to her.
At 26 I was an only parent,
Raising a child that wasn't mine.
I don't know what to tell him
When the time comes and he asks about his parents.
All I know is that I will tell him that I had always hated his mother.
>>8175125
Don't show me something that you qualify by saying 'it's my first attempt' and expect me to read it.
If you're not going to make yourself vulnerable by saying "this is something I'm proud of" then I'm not going to waste my time reading it.
Come back when you have something good.
>>8175490
I predict this will be hailed by future generations as the precursor to the genre that finally revived poetry in the 21st century: the cuck epic.
Damned be tradition, the corner-foundations
of the pagoda and mosque, the jurassic,
polished, well-varnished, in slow ambulations
round the bejewelled cathedral enclosure
understood; burn the commandments in classic
letters that cassocks in motley dipped foreign
fingers in ink to inscribe; let exposure
flake the decaying old virginal parchment
sheath and the papery helms of their horsemen
confident faces emblazoned upon whose
masks are the picture of vacuous assent;
let the remaining air bathe your lewd tattoos.
You’re weighed against a spurious ballast; knife
the ropes, free yourself—what can you lose but life?
>>8175594
Thank you Anon. Your kind words are like nectar to me.
>>8176226
Nun bandage porn. My favorite.
