/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12596127]

Poetry General: Share anything youre working on, your favorite poets, what youre reading right now etc

[Anonymous No.12596141]

Just a little something for Valentine's day

I remember when-
I felt your shape, at my side,
Fit into my shape
With ease and comfort

I remember how-
The first rays of light,
Spackled the spaces
Of your hair
And informed my sense of beauty

And I remember-
As we lay in bed
Until the sun drew back-
The wonderment; your fingers
Tracing a path, like the tide-
Over and over
And over and

[Anonymous No.12596145]

Atm mostly analyzing and trying to figure out what makes this good or where his talent here is

[Anonymous No.12596150]

The Evening - Georg Trakl

With the ghostly shapes of dead heroes
Moon, you fill
The growing silence of the forest,
Sickle-moon-
With the gentle embraces
Of lovers,
And with ghosts of famous ages
All around the crumbling rocks;
The moon shines with such blue light
Upon the city,
Where a decaying generation
Lives, cold and evil-
A dark future prepared
For the pale grandchild.
You shadows swallowed by the moon
Sighing upward in the empty goblet
Of the mountain lake

[Anonymous No.12596177]

>>12596145
Hes efectively painted a scene for you with 5 short lines

[Anonymous No.12596208]

>>12596177
Yes, but is there nothing behind that?

[Anonymous No.12596228]

>>12596208
Im not saying its the best poem ever written, but it shows pounds economy of language, and its a compelling little thing.

[Anonymous No.12596265]

The neighbourhood is buzzing,
by seven it comes alive
animated by the singing
all up n’ down King Drive

Of children and ratty cars-
The burp lurch-screaming,
the greenline, its tracks so far
above the streets teeming

A Pistol barks in the dark
Pop pop pop and then silence
Four blocks outside of Hyde Park-
Now the choir rests in silence

[Anonymous No.12596284]

>>12596228
I guess I was simply overthinking it, yeah. Thanks!

[Anonymous No.12596438]

>>12596127
anoint me in the wax that melts from your wings

falling in shards to the wine dark sea

for we sing of the sun in his blistering radiance

when it is i who will imbrue your feathers in my surf

and carry your tiny shattered body

back to your weeping father

when the sun has deceived you

[Anonymous No.12596459]

anoint me in the wax that melts from your wings

falling in shards to the wine dark sea

for we sing of the sun in his blistering radiance

when it is i who will imbrue your feathers in my surf

and carry your tiny shattered body

back to your weeping father

when the sun has deceived you


i think the fourth line is weak, but i don’t know what to do with it

[Anonymous No.12596888]

>>12596459
Not the worst

[Anonymous No.12597970]

bump

[Anonymous No.12598217]

>>12596150
What did you like most about this?

[Anonymous No.12598238]

>>12596459
Interesting concept. I like the allegorical elements (It's about Icarus, no?), but maybe it doesn't have to be such a straight retelling of such of famous story.

The grammar is kinda off. "anoint me... for we sing" Doesn't seem right. Punctuation could be your friend here.

[Anonymous No.12598246]

bump

[Anonymous No.12598248]

>>12596127
I haven't written anything since high school. What I did make wasn't bad but whenever I try to write something now it's always garbage.

[Anonymous No.12598273]

>>12598248
You're out of practice. Start reading again, everything and anything, then start writing.

[Anonymous No.12598289]

Feeling Fucked Up by Etheridge Knight

Lord she’s gone done left me done packed / up and split
and I with no way to make her
come back and everywhere the world is bare
bright bone white crystal sand glistens
dope death dead dying and jiving drove
her away made her take her laughter and her smiles
and her softness and her midnight sighs—

Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky
fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds
and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth
fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah and
democracy and communism fuck smack and pot
and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck
god jesus and all the disciples fuck fanon nixon
and malcolm fuck the revolution fuck freedom fuck
the whole muthafucking thing
all i want now is my woman back
so my soul can sing

[Anonymous No.12598351]

I’d like to write
the way one
makes love:
With tenderness
-at first-
and then
Boundless Passion

To leave each mark of ink
like a love bite;
a declaration of
my devotion,
a warning of my
possession

I long to pour myself
onto the page,
and for something greater
to pour back into me--
A loving rejoinder

[Anonymous No.12598402]

There's something dark about the way you wrap
A length of yarn around your calloused thumb-
Reminds me of the mornings, 6 A.M.
When I am dragged, unwilling, by the drone
Of my alarm to face my mirrored self.
The glass is flecked with fossiled drips, long dried,
Memorials of August, when I last
Took bleach and water to the bathroom's skin.

I sand my palms against my stubbled cheeks,
And reach for faucet, brush, and toothpaste tube.
Remove the cap from third and twist the end
About itself, so as to make a roll.
And then the slightest squeeze will send the paste
Within without, which even I can do.

One time I rolled the tube before I took
The cap away, and when I made to twist
apart the same, it shot out all at once,
And toothpaste went all over, on the floor,
The mirror, and myself, and I could not
Get all of it cleaned up until August.

[Anonymous No.12598704]

>>12598238
ya it’s meant to be from the point of view of the water or something

[Anonymous No.12598728]

Current favorite: William Baylebridge

Something I've been working on:

I have seen vast pleasures,
And I have known the glory of pain.

I have sundered mountains in the wake of my steps;
I have swallowed pantheons with every stifled inhale.
When the time comes to adjourn
I will go without regret.

I will abandon this mortal shell,
And take my rightful place among the Kosmos.
I will question, and be questioned;
I will answer, and be answered.

I will bear the weight of Entropy upon my back.
My will shall last eternally.

\


All these and more are at the forefront of the mind;

All these and more are the forefront of the soul;

Questioning that which has remained true throughout time

In the hitherto black pursuit to form a whole

Picture of shifting Kosmos, that Gods don't allow-

For what isMystery, if Men discover how—

[Anonymous No.12598835]

I wrote this for my buddy whose a Jew

The Camp’s Delouser’s Tale

They call me Speer Chanticleer, the gibbon gelding brig’dier
Boreal brethren I endear, in brassy blacks I strike fear.
Though niggers fear me, niggards are close on my back
Their locks shilling shylessly, their talking heads talking smack.
Many such cases, however, one sticks out like a nose
A young rabbi named Noel, the mouth on this yid, by Jove!
“Stop with your hate!” screamed the denizen of the desert
“You must be tolerant! Be fair! Goys must all live together!
Your parents won’t care, if they do, what’s the bother?
Who cares at all if your child looks like his father?
Tradition is racist! Science says so, look here:
Race is a fable, so is gender, all kids are born queer
Thank Yahweh for Freud” continued the preacher.
“Diversity is our strength, you should have paid more attention to your teachers!”

A train bell clanked in the distance, but the heeb was not to take heed
I flashed him a Saxon smile, my grin not as white, straight as me.
“My dear Semitic friend“, I began to intone
“The misdeeds of the twelve have not gone unknown
If your pace had been even, steady and slight
Perhaps you stood a chance of overwhelming our might
But my people aren’t ready yet to go into the night
White is right, gas the kikes!” The train burst into sight!
I cracked short Noel’s forelocks like the reins of a mare
Spun him thrice, took aim, watched him sail through the air.
Jew vanished into car, save a few notes and his lid.
Conductor Ben tipped his hat. That was that for that yid.

[Anonymous No.12599703]

A poem I am working on. First draft

All my thoughts
Bought, targeted and shot,
Vices are private, virtues are public,
A picture of world rules by bots,

A race of gratification,
A race fighting for emancipation,
A race for equal rights,
A race for brightening others' plight,

Anger is raged against,
Bullies circlejerk with haste,
Everyone is an expert,
Without any knowledge to exert

What is the next step,
Increased penetration of the net,
Men of will will die,
Science will cast you a die,
Dreams of escape are dead,
Take part and may god bless

[Anonymous No.12599912]

>>12596127
The ennui develops
At my desk earning
Another tablet for my
My back aching
At 4:07 A.M

[Anonymous. No.12599928]

>>12599901
Please someone, I need just one caring soul in this forsaken tomb of despair!

[Anonymous No.12599943]

>>12599928
post it

[Anonymous No.12599960]

[1]

Shall I describe the autumn just fallen?
More abundant and bountiful than last:
Its lease leaving each day more important,
The eleventh, the best endowed, depart.
The bright eye bestowed but too often dimmed
When the fairest decline in perfection;
But dearest summer, she’s often left slimmed
Wandering in nature’s fluctuation.
Eternal slumber, autumn’s dénouement;
But death does not bind the nomadic shade
And perpetual lines brag of new dawn
After sailing divine storms, unafraid.
Fair autumn may sallow: ever mature,
My verse will retain our youth, evermore.

When youthful morning ascends clouded skies,
Gold flattery stifles the infant realm;
And while bubbling brooks and lush lowlands lie:
Her fingers of rose do soon overwhelm.
Twelve sit upstairs amidst the basest rack,
While her eye victorious in its gaze;
But foreseen heaven appears at her back,
A forlorn shade over cosmic face.
Stealing west, hiding face from dishonour,
While robes of saffron left on morning’s bed;
Her gaze I filched, my paramount wonder:
Passing away, fraught, with blue verses said.
Yet for eternity that men can breathe,
Love will be stained by the morning that leaves.

When disillusion runs amok the court
And true intentions are hidden in verse,
The fairer seen frail, no reason or thought;
Yet guilt prevails in the mind for the worse;
As twilight haze and honour descends fast,
Hurt maidens sink under love songs withdrawn;
With envy enraged, a cut to the past
Will leave spring bloody and finally gone
Less fair by fair lie maidens by rivers:
As fledgling morning wanes, an endless ring;
Chaste nymphs unspoiled, their joie de vivre;
Will blossom's branding tarnish future spring?
And through times of faith, this verse will stand true,
Time’s hand stays aside as the fair drown blue.

If I’d encountered all that I supposed
On evening which new spring beheld, forlorn,
A troubled jewel that she scarcely rose,
Do I pray to sea foam that hardly forms?
For pleasanter verses spoken were not,
The law, fulfilled, sworn by untutored youth,
And last season's grasp did finally stop
As tender eyes did not make me uncouth;
While memory may cease in winter’s cruel self,
And bequeath fools with letters from heaven,
The fairest creatures may decrease in wealth
Misunderstanding what no one fathoms.
Defects lie above, yet fresh spring suffice
When grace in the soul does fall into vice.

[Anonymous No.12599966]

>>12599960
[2]

In rich meadows of shade do lie the lost,
Past lives still summoned by ghostly silence,
No heavens break for the soul still aghast
As farthest lands home the sweetest sessions.
From distant lands her torch rose, plush and bright
Asphodel flowers in hand; as night’s eye
Moaned at drowned fair souls and love blinded sight,
Grains resown; grey bed beckoned for kind life.
Heaven heard woe, yet fall claimed nature’s hymn
As life’s wrinkles fell fairer for burnt souls;
Foe of strife rode high, while darkness within
Left crescent light upon yellowed meadows.
If woe blooms in heaven’s fairest prairie
Her heart may sway but my love won’t vary.
and now grey and inept, you spend your last days

In faith of you, my image remains true
Despite the idolatry that sways man,
And when heaven does break, the sky of blue
Shows the fairest of faces you began
While the climb of your eye sits aside twelve
And the clouds sit based, at your feet of gold,
You provide the steps; the heart does dare delve
To hope, yet memory reminds of old:
And tender hearts are scarred by lovely lips
And time’s stain cut deep into memory;
Do starry nights share hope or fall amiss
At the thought of sweet love’s truest beauty?
And if the pious do fall from his grace,
Let his verse free, and sing to heaven’s face.

[Anonymous. No.12599975]

>>12599943
It's not in English...

[Anonymous No.12600019]

>>12599966
>>12599960
Rather boring

[Anonymous No.12600025]

>>12600019
doubt you even read it/understood it :) but thanks for the "feedback" friendo

[Anonymous No.12600030]

>>12600025
I did read it. What's to understand? Is there a hidden meaning? Certainly there was nothing that couldn't have been said in so many less words.

[Anonymous No.12600042]

>>12596127
A man who knows no caves
Solitude is what he craves
Everyday he spends alone
X marks his little zone
Unattracted to male or female, both he deigns
A man who's different by design
Look at the first letter of every line

[Anonymous No.12600050]

A man who knows no caves
Solitude is what he craves
Everyday he spends alone
X marks his little zone
Unattracted to male or female, both he deigns
A man who's different by design
Look at the first letter of every line

[Anonymous No.12600054]

>>12600030
ofc there is a hidden meaning and the length gives hint to reason

[Anonymous No.12600055]

>>12599960
>>12599966
entirely lackluster. it meanders for ages without saying anything impactful, and is too caught up in pedantic diction to actually use rhyme and meter well. it’s a shame bc it seems like you spent a fair bit of time on it

[Anonymous No.12600068]

Love spread itself down in the cracks of failure
and I lost a little hope.

We can see the asteroids giving up on us but
we still tune in for the spacey pictures,
there's a queer nodder on our screens
who places his last hopes in the banal
and we buy bananas to support the endeavor.

What will come of lost scryings
where silvered mists fell loose
of upholstered expectations?
Damned pride peels the cerebellum.
Doses of solitude worsen the gumption
of a generation left marginal and bloody.

[Anonymous No.12600081]

>>12600055
i actually didn't. I wrote each one in about 5 minutes randomly before class. The whole meandering is part of the piece hence the length. They were originally single pieces (obv from stanzaa breaks) but edited slightly

ty tho for your opinion pal pal

[Anonymous No.12600135]

>>12600081
whatever you were trying to achieve with the length was very ineffective, and was lost to the banality of the work

[Anonymous No.12600282]

Here's a bit of a rap song I wrote. I usually only write poems but when I smoke I write rap songs.

Take another trip past reality lane
Bargain vacations, to the other plane
Tricycles bicycles all sorts of cycles
So we are the first by the fittest survival
Does that make sense monkey boy
Are using those simple tools you employ

?

I wrote another verse that rewords my favorite Shakespeare verse into a similar phrase that has a double more modern meaning, but I'm saving that for my Childish Gambino diss.

[Anonymous No.12600313]

>>12596459
We are not pleased to read a poem by someone who seems to have just gotten through their first mythology primer. Your diction is not nearly interesting enough to sustain it. I’m also not sure if you’ve earned the right to disregard punctuation. But if you have an earnest will, I would recommend writing about something that isn’t so well known.

[Anonymous No.12600321]

>>12598402
The first two lines are really good, as I think you recognized, but I’m not sure what their relation is to the rather ham-fisted sexual allegory that follows. There are also some matters of diction that need improving, but that’s the main issue to me.

[Anonymous No.12600325]

>>12598728
Nobody who is fairly well-read will care to read past the first two lines.

[Anonymous No.12600335]

>>12596208
what do you want? hidden meanings? why?

[Anonymous No.12600339]

>>12600050
Reminds me of something Todd from Bojack Horseman would write.

[Anonymous No.12600344]

i like this poem:

Some day Love shall claim his own
Some day Right ascend his throne,
Some day hidden Truth be known;
Some day—some sweet day.

[Anonymous No.12600361]

>>12596127
Something I wrote a long time ago.

The words that hurt most / are just those not said
From the silence after song / sprung Hades' tears of lead
Floating down the river / the singer's bloated corpse
For the mercy after life / in death / sung orphan's head

Do mythical poets count? I like the figure of Orpheus a lot.

[Anonymous No.12600363]

Ruin my shit.

The Nymphs cleave to the river’s grey encore;
They love a virtuoso’s gentler nature.
Because green echoing mouths demand no more,
Even the lowest warbling has its stature.

The sidewalk slabs demand no more of branches’
Trembling accordion shadows, than the thin
Attire to attract the idle glances
Of hearts whom simpler mysteries can win.

But you sit hard and bear down on your book!
Your mind crawls sideways like a flat-backed crab;
You wish the whole world would take on the look
Of your bench’s, your book’s, your face’s, stone slab.

You want the wind to nip—then make it so!
Tempestuous, cunt-like spread the larynx’ wings
And hear life’s chimes through your books’ bellows blow
Until the screen of painted faces sings.

[Anonymous No.12600385]

>>12600363
I can't ruin it. It's masterful. Now go write a thousand more poems and post here once you have become canon

[Anonymous No.12600422]

>>12600385
If you’re not being sarcastic, then thank you anon. I know that I am a very long way from being “masterful” though; I struggle still with form, and even more so with finding anything new to say. But if you like it so much, can you articulate what its good qualities are?

[Anonymous No.12600477]

>>12596459
Gave me that little smile I get when inspiration hits me. Nice little piece man

[Anonymous No.12600491]

if u dont read more poetry than u write ur shit sucks sorry to tell u, dont even bother

[Anonymous No.12600496]

>>12596459
And don't listen to the small quips pointed out by the randoms here. Just know it flows great, has great imagery, and is a unique perspective on a classic story which offers an interesting interpretation and analysis of its insights.

[Anonymous No.12600521]

>>12600496
its not unique at all, and the imagery is readied for him and i've seen similar interpretations in a dozen poems before, but the flow is good

[Anonymous No.12600526]

>>12600521
Blank citations, your professor would be dissatisfied

[Anonymous No.12600535]

>>12600526
i'm not analyzing, nor am i trying to present a formal argument therefore citations are unnecessary.

Nice try though, champ

[Anonymous No.12600541]

>>12600535
>not trying to present a formal argument
>being a quality poster
You must pick one, Sire!

[Anonymous No.12600554]

>>12600526
You also have “blank citations” lol. Look, I’m not trying to get anybody down. But the fact is that we are not pleased, if we have read a decent amount of classic literature, to see a contemporary writer rehashing once again a classic story. It is different from when we read Milton or Montaigne (for instance) giving their take on such a story, because then they are sharing with us something they have loved and cherished from childhood onwards, and we love them all the more for it. But now, we typically do not get a grounding in the classics unless we make a point of doing so in college, and by that time one just can’t incorporate it into the heart the way one can during what are really the formative years. Of course most of us probably know the basic Icarus story from childhood, but we are lacking in the context. We know the basic “message” of it; but for Tennyson and even Joyce, say, the force of it went deeper than that. At any rate the writer of the poem has not convinced me that the Icarus story is anything more than a curiosity for him—and if he does not love it and know it thoroughly, then why is he using it in what is supposed to be the medium of heightened emotional expression?

[Anonymous No.12600569]

>>12596127

This house was built by human hands
To hold their spirit, their will no less
Than the workers' of Chartres in centuries past,
Their souls like steel cables
Stretching between the walls, straining to keep them upright.

The spirit is willing to stay forever
In this space of wood and glass
But wood and glass are made of earth-stuff
Like the stars, the fog, the pilgrims' road
Like the weak flesh of human hands.

Where human hands have failed, forgiveness is received
And the spirit shines out through the cracked panes
Inscribed with the names of the fallen.
Let it shine through all new windows that it finds.
Let a new window be made, for this house.

[Anonymous No.12600600]

>>12600569
>And the spirit shines out through the cracked panes
Yawn. My recommendation is to read late Eliot (or whatever other mawkish born-again literature you’ve been reading) over and over again until you get so damn tired of the stuff that you can apply what you’ve learned from it to something actually good and new. (By the way I love late Eliot as much as the next guy, but you’re almost a parody of some of that stuff)

[Anonymous No.12600607]

>>12600600
I'm not a Christian, if that is what you're thinking.
But it is about a house of worship that had to be torn down.

[Anonymous No.12600629]

>>12600607
If you aren’t Christian, then you have even less justification in treating the matter with such high seriousness and inflexible diction. I admire striving for a plain style, but perhaps think of the less obvious associations. Of course we will be tempted to make a Biblical allusion in connection with a torn down church. But perhaps think of what it reminds you of, as a non-Christian, what to compare it to so as to make the thing unfamiliar and therefore more real. But that’s the whole principle of poetry.

[Anonymous No.12600633]

My first wife, a born again christian
Was killed of her own volition
Without witness there to bear
Her bloodied body barely bare
Red as roses dead and sold
Her holey head that held her soul

Now I notice the irony
It's clear what was meant by God
A world as woeful as is this
His children are of not
So now my plans are shot

[Anonymous No.12601316]

>>12600541
An individual doesn't have to present a formal argument when rebuking someone but I imagine you don't go outside/converse with anyone so don't know how conversations or debates go about.

I feel sorry for you :)

[Anonymous No.12601400]

>everything so far has at least an incelish attempt at lofty diction, pr a wrenching of the word order, or that fucking souvenir-shop tier treatment of ancient mythology
turboyikes, shit thread, and all of you should kill yourselves

[Anonymous No.12601419]

>>12600313
thanks, this is the most helpful reply so far.

[Anonymous No.12601450]

>>12600554
i’m really not an expert, i have just always loved the story and wanted to focus on something besides blaming icarus for his hubris and focusing on his relationship with the sun in the narrative— but the criticism here is really valuable and thanks for that

[Anonymous No.12601470]

Fishy faced fellow with fins and furrowed brow.
Don't tell me a name, speak only the how
Because we made the chainsaw, for removing this house
And we brought cam-er-a, from un-der-a, the... uh...blouse?
So it's simple
and worthwhile
and you never have to smile
It's bleak but uplifting, it's perfect,what a style
Almost a steal, if understanding of that feel
No entry to this building as it's not even real

[Anonymous No.12601508]

Critique is encouraged!

Wind;
Billowing through an acre of trees,
Warping and bending their leaves,
Whistling a soft shifting sound,
A pattering cacophony of foliage.
Calming and peaceful,
With each gust,
The leaves ebb and weave,
To form the wind's symphony.

[Anonymous No.12601512]

>>12601470
Can't make sense of it, but it holds promise in terms of it's pace.

[Anonymous No.12601522]

>>12601508
very simple, i like the use of “pattering” in line 4, but it juxtaposes weirdly with cacophony

[Anonymous No.12602856]

The slovenly urge to hum
a broken tune turned mantra
cuts the barber's noose—
the townfolk parade in the funhouse,
the marching band crunch in step,
the sullen clown commits identity fraud
and I stand alone in the sewer.
The local highschool sells guns,
the coroner dies digging a ditch
for the pope's body double
who visited today for the wedding.
A concert comes to town,
the hum returns, this time in verse,
86 people chant along
signing off on their own criminal record:
Oh say can you see?
Yes, miss, please, thank you—
I love you more than I'll ever know.

[Anonymous No.12603032]

your touch is tenderest against my neck,
your smile nicest when the play is foul,
your blade aroused and eager to dissect
a heart so full it saturates the towel.

beneath your knife and hardening erection
i hold my breath in masochistic bliss
while sharpened edge of dangerous affection
commands a pounding arterial kiss.

my love the more to give the more you take,
the bond between us strongest when i break.