all of a sudden passion suddenly

A lisped slur of slithered speech
Lettered focus like hocus pokus
as rambled ramblings ramble on
and on and I forget where I was at
 
If I Didn't Care

A shallow layer of control
buffers thoughts about
what life would be like
if knowledge remained
locked inside exhaustion
and despair instead

Allowed out to hold
the moral high ground
above confrontations
brewed in the muddy
churn of guilty metaphors
of swine and cattle
at the trough of maybes

Happiness should help
expand that shield bubble
and keep the stench
of the herd locked outside
of this now and forgotten
in the flow of this moment.

(Thanks twelvio and Joseph Campbell)
 
You have no power to
harm me; the words of a
poet have no meaning.
The pen isn't a sword.

Words cannot hurt, or heal.
They cannot mend a soul.
Harm exists insubstantial,
figments locked in my head.

No bleeding appendices,
no broken hearts.
Friends?
Trust? Love? All impossible.

zero one zero one
MINUS one zero one
zero —- that's the sum
the meaning of all

these words we trade —-
nothing but a pointless
exercise in lip flapping.
Except I'm not a robot.
 
a poet's words can
crush the grain on its stem
freeze water where it stands
call down the moonless night
and banish stars from murky heavens

if you let them

or if they have that way
that way of taking words and spinning them
of teasing and twisting zeros and ones
into living pictures
perfumes and textures

their words can
lift a veil
bring dawn to eyes that hurt for lack of light
bring solace to a heart grown small for want of joy
bring visions of a future's promise held

if you let them
 
There is a scene in the movie "To Have and Have Not," with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. They fell in love during the filming of this movie and later married. The marriage lasted until his death in 1957.

There's a scene where Bacall is leaving his room and stops to ask, " Who was the girl, Steve? The one who left you with such a high opinion of women."

Sometimes that scene plays through my mind. When it plays too long, something like this appears.

September.

It's September and like every September,
decades running hand in hand,
you come back on the breath
of laundry soap and a song.
Why does the man remember what the boy can’t forget?
Rod Stewart sings, “It’s late September,”
and I am back in school,
a tiny bit of the man who will be
the boy who can’t forget
brown eyes and pink nipples and a mother who worked nights.
It’s September and I am the seventy five cent yard boy
who doesn’t need the money, just the time with you,
hidden in corners and behind azaleas,
time to hold you, inhale you, taste your coco-cola sweet tongue,
one ear to your whisper, the other to footsteps and discovery.
You are the one who broke the seal and said,
“Begin your exam. You have the rest of your life.”
No time to study and poorly prepared,
the test is the lesson,
a master piece submitted by the apprentice,
unfinished and unplanned, runs in the wet paint, loose joints and bent nails,
and graded by every woman who came after you.
 
If I Didn't Care

A shallow layer of control
buffers thoughts about
what life would be like
if knowledge remained
locked inside exhaustion
and despair instead

Allowed out to hold
the moral high ground
above confrontations
brewed in the muddy
churn of guilty metaphors
of swine and cattle
at the trough of maybes

Happiness should help
expand that shield bubble
and keep the stench
of the herd locked outside
of this now and forgotten
in the flow of this moment.

(Thanks twelvio and Joseph Campbell)
Really?
But that thought came creeping back in "these things too shall pass". And then...
I decided to have it tattooed on my ass.

so rich in context
so much ambiguity
so permanent in ink
 
I’m too old for this
you rooting in my head
convinced there is evidence
of my infidelity

someone else’s fingerprint
who dared to touch my heart
or worse, some stray pubic hair
caught between my teeth

a Polaroid photo
tucked inside my head
of some hot naked Latino
with her butt against my lens

you search in my dark corners
to catch me in flagrante delicto
with some hot black girl
who just can’t get enough

even the supermarket checkout girl
is under your suspicion
as you check the receipt
for the price of sex between milk and bread

woman, I’m happy with your limbs
wrapped around my body
I’m just not in the mood
When Liverpool lose
 
I’m too old for this
you rooting in my head
convinced there is evidence
of my infidelity

someone else’s fingerprint
who dared to touch my heart
or worse, some stray pubic hair
caught between my teeth

a Polaroid photo
tucked inside my head
of some hot naked Latino
with her butt against my lens

you search in my dark corners
to catch me in flagrante delicto
with some hot black girl
who just can’t get enough

even the supermarket checkout girl
is under your suspicion
as you check the receipt
for the price of sex between milk and bread

woman, I’m happy with your limbs
wrapped around my body
I’m just not in the mood
When Liverpool lose

I'm in lust with the mix of disgust, sarcasm and humor....this is great!
 
Hehe thanks. I just said how I felt. There are many on here where I envy the talent. :)
look everybody will tell you I'm the most arrogant prick on the planet (alright, I lied, merely a distant third) but very early on, you should have a list of people that do something better than you the more you are here, the better you get, the list may change, but it will not get shorter it is about discovery.
Talent is OK, work and thinking is better.
 
look everybody will tell you I'm the most arrogant prick on the planet (alright, I lied, merely a distant third) but very early on, you should have a list of people that do something better than you the more you are here, the better you get, the list may change, but it will not get shorter it is about discovery.
Talent is OK, work and thinking is better.

Ok, I already have four favorites, with the first two heavily at the top. Here is the first poem I submitted - if you wouldn't mind critiquing it? No worries about arrogance, as long as it's matched with honesty...

Know that when you whisper
of sweet love in the moonlight
You vanquish my innocence
And I am defenseless against your desire

For your white, hot desire will have
even the purest of hearts
Dropping to their knees
Beseeching a night without end

And the dizzying madness in the night
Urges yearnings of forever
Towards dawn's cold light
Taking maybes, ifs and mights
and spinning them into hopes and dreams
 
Ok, I already have four favorites, with the first two heavily at the top. Here is the first poem I submitted - if you wouldn't mind critiquing it? No worries about arrogance, as long as it's matched with honesty...

Know that when you whisper
of sweet love in the moonlight
You vanquish my innocence
And I am defenseless against your desire

For your white, hot desire will have
even the purest of hearts
Dropping to their knees
Beseeching a night without end

And the dizzying madness in the night
Urges yearnings of forever
Towards dawn's cold light
Taking maybes, ifs and mights
and spinning them into hopes and dreams
Ok this impresses me
white, hot desire < the comma here, subverting the cliche
white hot desire> wince
white desire and hot desire > not bad, the combination suggests other things

dizzying, spinning < anytime you suffix a word, it weakens it, unless you have a good reason for doing it, avoid.

There are two others here:
defenseless < you may want the weakness, but could it be reworded as no defense?

yearnings< a noun, a better construction with a verb yearn?
this is one opinion, consider it

if two or three people weight in on the same thing, seriously think about. painless, eh?

P.S. hopes and dreams, eh a little too pat, but that is enough for now to think about.
 
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Ok, I already have four favorites, with the first two heavily at the top. Here is the first poem I submitted - if you wouldn't mind critiquing it? No worries about arrogance, as long as it's matched with honesty...

Know that when you whisper
of sweet love in the moonlight
You vanquish my innocence
And I am defenseless against your desire

For your white, hot desire will have
even the purest of hearts
Dropping to their knees
Beseeching a night without end

And the dizzying madness in the night
Urges yearnings of forever
Towards dawn's cold light
Taking maybes, ifs and mights
and spinning them into hopes and dreams

I like your poem, in general. It's easy to read and leaves a good feeling in me. I'll point some things out, though, not because they are "wrong", but so that you can think about your choices.

"Sweet love". Is there love that isn't sweet? Also, you talk of "vanquished innocence" and desire. So perhaps he is whispering something a bit more carnal?

On line 4, "And I am defenseless..." reads a bit awkward to me, especially so since the three first lines roll so naturally.

I was trying to understand what "white, hot" desire and "cold light" means. Note that those are open ended, each person can come up with a meaning. Also note that I am not saying that it is right / bad / wrong / good, just that it's something you need to consider / be aware of.

Poems are often open ended, but some are especially so. It's important to give the reader a fair chance of finding "a" meaning (**a** meaning, not **the** meaning). Check out Cleardaynow's "The Coin", my "bonsai" poem or, for the hardcore difficulty, twelveoone's "I, the shadow".

edit: I forgot to mention, I do think your poem gives the reader a fair chance. So it's fine — just something to think about. :cattail:

The last stanza, yes, I agree with 12. Watch out for those "ings". In my humble opinion (and here I perhaps disagree with twelveoone), there is nothing wrong with using them, as long as it doesn't become a pattern. As long as you're aware of what you're doing, and take hold of your choices. Think about how the reader willl see that.

Often, one goes toward the "yearning", "dizzying", "spinning" and starts rhyming those without even noticing. It gets old fast. I do it all the time (without noticing), at least. :)

These are only my opinions, given in hope that they will be useful. That was a nice poem, thank you for sharing.
 
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Ok, I already have four favorites, with the first two heavily at the top. Here is the first poem I submitted - if you wouldn't mind critiquing it? No worries about arrogance, as long as it's matched with honesty...

Know that when you whisper
of sweet love in the moonlight
You vanquish my innocence
And I am defenseless against your desire

For your white, hot desire will have
even the purest of hearts
Dropping to their knees
Beseeching a night without end

And the dizzying madness in the night
Urges yearnings of forever
Towards dawn's cold light
Taking maybes, ifs and mights
and spinning them into hopes and dreams

I enjoyed this, Matryoshka. There was a melody to it because of effective word choices and their grouping, and the last two lines felt climactic.

1201's right about clichés. In my view, it's probably harder to recognize them than think of an alternative way to express the same intention once you do recognize them. I think one pitfall that leads a poet to employ a cliché (or come dangerously close, which sometimes is just as bad and which yours truly can be guilty of) is because he or she likes the sound of the word choices.

Is there anyway you can think of an alternative to "white, hot desire?" I get the contrast with "dawn's cold light," and contrast of images in a poem is often very effective, but the latter in my opinion is as much a cliché as white, hot desire.

I'm less concerned about the gerunds than 1201, provided they are used sparingly, but to be honest " to spin them into hope and dreams" does sound better.

I wasn't patronizing when I wrote I enjoyed this. I did.
 
dizzying, spinning < anytime you suffix a word, it weakens it, unless you have a good reason for doing it, avoid.
actually, guys, if we disagree, it wasn't by much, but possibly for different reasons

We haven't heard back from Matryoshka. I doubt the criticism killed her, something else? Your fault, tso pointing her to the shadow.
 
actually, guys, if we disagree, it wasn't by much, but possibly for different reasons

We haven't heard back from Matryoshka. I doubt the criticism killed her, something else? Your fault, tso pointing her to the shadow.

See? You never wander into Carcosa. Things happen, there.

...and yeah, rereading what you said, I now notice we're pretty much saying the same thing. Between reading your comment and posting mine, it somehow got corrupted in my mind. Organic brains. Such imperfect machines...
 
See? You never wander into Carcosa. Things happen, there.

...and yeah, rereading what you said, I now notice we're pretty much saying the same thing. Between reading your comment and posting mine, it somehow got corrupted in my mind. Organic brains. Such imperfect machines...
mine is made out of glass

we are diverging in this thread.
 
the exploding kebab

or

Sheesh - kaboom!


that is all.
move along, nothing to see
here
 
or

Sheesh - kaboom!


that is all.
move along, nothing to see
here
Sheesh - kaboom!
ah boom shaka lacka lacka

I'm surprised anyone remembers that song

ah, the distant days of yore
when everything was such a bore
and I was such a teddy boy
and you, my rubbermaid-en

Sheesh - kaboom!
 
Sheesh - kaboom!
ah boom shaka lacka lacka

I'm surprised anyone remembers that song

ah, the distant days of yore
when everything was such a bore
and I was such a teddy boy
and you, my rubbermaid-en

Sheesh - kaboom!

whenever i think
of whips snap-crackin'
the thing i recall
is Rawhide, back in
the old black an' white
days past trackin'
and things were all a li'l rowdy
fer sure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKC8pSFg1Vw&hd=1

:devil:
 
Rawhide and whip Snide
ly Whiplash Dudley Do
Right of the RCMP
gloriously backward
on his horse and poor
pitiful Pearl palavering
on the tracks the train
Ah-Whoo Ah-Whoom
ing down the track
but have no fear sound
the trumps flourish~

Dudley's here.
 
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