Any poets among us?

cease2exist

I'm one! I'm one! I've been writing since I was 16. I used to suck at it, but I don't now. Here's my newest one, about my hatred of the cavalier killing of foreigners by American weaponry and the hypocrisy of my fellow Christians who support it:

ACCEPTABLE LOSSES
by Will Gardiner

The womb won't be a tomb, just like you wanted
Now the ghost that never was has you haunted
When the image that was made isn't what you regard
As it was intended to be, a work of fine art
You have no qualms about tearing it apart
Down to the bones, stopping your own heart
When border lines and dollar signs
Tell you who deserves to die
You can drop every last bomb on me
Tell me why I'm any less deserving
Put every last bullet in my head
If this is life, if this is love, then I'm better off dead
Love yourself enough to hate the rest
You are the vermin that you claim infests
When the image that was made isn't what you regard
As it was intended to be, a work of fine art
You have no qualms about tearing it apart
Down to the bones, stopping your own heart

Let me know what you think, let me know if you want to see more, and share some of your own!

Hmm. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but the rhythm seems a little weird. The rhymes in the lines featuring dollar signs, bombs, and deserving don't seem to match the structure in the rest of your wording. It's definitely a poem, and I'd say it's pretty good—but I'm not a poem-writer (and wouldn't write one if I could).

cease2exist

@DarrenWalker I have a habit of thinking of my work lyrically, so there are rhythm changes at times based on the tune playing in my head.

That makes sense. I could see that happening. So I'd have to hear the song to see the pattern in the rhyming... what music were you using? Anything I'd know? It's weird how smoothly melody can make bad lyrics flow. I'll never be a poet, but with music possibly I could come up with something that I wouldn't hate to see.

cease2exist

@DarrenWalker The pain in the butt is that I can't write music worth a lick, haha. I'm finally going to buckle down and learn guitar for real. I've owned guitars half my life and never afforded myself the discipline to do anything with them. Generally, I have some metalcore riff playing in my head that I can't create, ESPECIALLY for this one and its weight.

I write music well, but mostly church-style harmony. Soprano, alto, base—it's the familiarity. Four years ago I wrote a song that you might like to hear. It's kind of short, but if you'd like, it's listenable here.

CreativeCuddles

I have a mind that thinks random thoughts, sometimes too quick for my brain to process and I have done these about random people for as long as I can remember. I have one about a cuddler but he probably wouldn’t appreciate me posting before I ask! ? My middle child is the same way except hers are very deep. This one is about my ex boss who was never around unless she had something to complain about and when we needed her we could never find her so we nicknamed her “Cricket.”

         The Saga of Ms. Cricket

She sits in her office how lonely she must be
She don’t answer texts or phone calls, oh God where is she

When a new day starts she won’t be here by ten
Her sitter has issues, so she never knows when

There are stories and fibs you don’t know what’s true
She can’t drop the kid off, oh shit what’ll she do

If you have a question or need a return call
You better call Lisa because Crickets at the mall

A boss is to answer questions, our texts and our calls
Her policies are not universal, she wants you to fall

If you call on the phone or walk through the door
You don’t need a license, clearance or have done this before

You can wear what you’d like, even your pants on your butt
If you knew your coworkers, they are surely to laugh or maybe bust a gut

The turnaround is quick, it all points to one
You hang out in that office and you too will be done

From conversation to conversation, she does try and hear
Are we just talking or gossiping, our voices aren’t quite clear

She has to chirp in and add her two cents
When just her presence in the office things are so tense

The cricket is beyond her self and doesn’t know what to do
You must work more than 5 hours and more days than just 2

If you are absent and not helpful its not you we will call
Lisa is helping and fulfilling our needs, while you are at the mall

So please Ms. Cricket no more fibs and tall tales
The place you belong is Bon Ton or a side walk sale.

TKE August 2018

Hahaha. So many bad bosses! I had one much the same. It's really awful, isn't it? These people have no shame. How did they get their positions? I kind of wish they'd tell, 'cause if I knew the secret, I'd use it as well.

This kind of edit-begging rhyming might not be proper poetry, but the sentiment's so lovely it doesn't matter much to me.

CreativeCuddles

?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️

That's less relatable. I think I'd have to know all the people mentioned to enjoy this poem-show. It's maybe too specific? Makes the bitterness seem mean. A stereotype I can hate, but not someone I've never seen.

CreativeCuddles

?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️

@CreativeCuddles: The extra information helps a little, it is true. Maybe now more people will feel empathy for you.

...My mother always warned me not to take up an offense. Since this "Cricket" never harmed me, getting angry makes no sense. But if I don't get angry, the poem isn't very fun. Would anyone else like to try posting another one?

CreativeCuddles

?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️

CreativeCuddles

?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️

@CreativeCuddles [nod, nod] Intentions and results are often disconnected. Private poems aren't made public without something unexpected turning up and making you a little discombobulated. Have you written anything where it won't make you agitated to have it taken the wrong way or even uncompassionated?

When most people share a poem, they think about the reader. "Will this word make sense to him? Where will this sentence lead her?" Writing for yourself is very useful, that's a fact. But if you share your writing, the reader will react in different ways than you do. They're not you. It's just a fact. And do most people read a poem that anybody writes, thinking "How does the poet work out problems during their frustrating nights"? It's not a question I have ever thought to ask, for sure. But... I dunno... maybe I'm just immature?

I always thought that poems were for fun, that they were shared to give the writer's feelings to anyone who dared to look through the eyes of someone who wasn't them and see how the world looks to "someone who isn't me."

On a thread that asks you to explain the way you handle stress, I wouldn't dare to say that your response wasn't the best. But this isn't that thread—is it?—so you see, I was just expecting the normal stuff from poetry. Complaints about specifics are somewhat strange in this context. Why share such bitter feelings unless you want us to know you're vexed?

It was my misunderstanding, but it's understandable. Self-obsession is a thing of which I, too, am very full.

CreativeCuddles

The OP asked for readers to share some of their own. The type of writing wasn’t specified or it be directed at hatred towards cavalier killings. What is “normal” to one may not be normal to someone else. You are correct poetry is supposed to be for fun and shared to give the writers feelings, none of us have the same feelings and any poem will have something unexpected turn up. All poetry is private, it’s private to each writer and not written to satisfy the reader it is to satisfy thoughts they have had seen written out. I don’t write things for the same reason the OP does but I respect their writing. So I suppose I am unclear as to what “normal poetry” is.

Hmmmm. Normal poetry is, I would say, any poetry that doesn't go this way:

I do my job fine, but my boss is a jerk
He always picks on me and he doesn't do good work

I wish he would just jump into a lake and die
I am telling you, no one likes this guy

Let's all mock this failure of a boss:
Sam, your very birth was the universe's loss!

Ted does a better job of everything than you
He is always doing the stuff you're supposed to do

Ted is wonderful and you just bleeping suck
Ted is a genius, meeting him was such good luck

He takes care of everyone, you know he really cares
He's everybody's daddy and he doesn't put on airs

All us little children love our daddy, and you know
That's how bosses should be, you useless potato!

But, then again, it could be that you're right—poetry is poetry, even when it casts you in a bad light. I suppose I'm just not used to someone so blatantly saying "I blame my boss for every failure: she's got it out for me." Maybe the poem you took down was normal. Who can tell? But I don't think you realized before you posted it that it condemned you as well. If you had considered what a reader (not you) would see, you might have a been bit less taken off your guard by me.

Rather than "a normal poem," I suppose that I should say I just hadn't expected anyone to talk that way.

CreativeCuddles

I don’t care what it cast me as, poetry is poetry. Does every poem talk about darkness and bullets and villains? I am not taken off guard by you, anytime something doesn’t fit into the protocol of the thread someone like yourself reacts in the way you did. The OP didn’t as for judges for things posted they asked for things to be posted. I should have realized after your first response that it would continue and just like you I didn’t expect anyone to talk that way. That being said I guess just like CC guidelines for things requested on a thread should be posted so it fits into each readers little box.

labelz

-no more rhyming, I mean it!
-anybody wanna peanut?
-gahhhh!

CreativeCuddles

“I always thought that poems were for fun, that they were shared to give the writer's feelings to anyone who dared to look through the eyes of someone who wasn't them and see how the world looks to "someone who isn't me."”

Its what I thought too, it’s what this ONE person looked like to me. It was written for fun. You said you had a boss similar to mine and you dealt with him/her in whatever way you wanted. I wrote this to get me through. Those were the 2 I had about a recent job, a staff of 5 led by one person who yes was clueless. The majority of my poems, well I suppose they aren’t poems to others but in my eyes they are, they are comical about my friends and things I love about them and my children, things I love about each of them and random beautiful people I meet daily.

UKGuy

Everyone may have their own definition of poetry but I believe in the definition given if you look up 'Poetry' on Wikipedia. A poem has to evoke something other than just the meaning of the individual words. The Wikipedia article is very good; you can learn a lot about poetry by reading it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry

cease2exist

Thanks for sharing, @CreativeCuddles!

Here's another one I wrote after I became privy to a situation of infidelity and was thinking about how I wouldn't want to be part of creating that sort of misdeed for someone else.

SECONDHAND SYMPTOM
by Will Gardiner

My pain is yours
And yours is mine
When we both participate

In the end
We both pay the fine
God does not discriminate

If Hell is waiting at the door
I won't tie the ribbon for
The handbasket you're riding in
I'll just go

I'll be one less cigarette to burn you on the way down
One less carcinogen pressed into your skin
One less cigarette to burn you on the way down
One less symptom secondhand

CreativeCuddles

Thank you @cease2exist, You are very welcome!
You are a beautiful writer and I understand the second more than the first. I had to watch two create the misdeed and living together now paying the fine. We know infidelity exists and can look at it as many ways we think possible but then you have the opportunity to read the perspective of others it brings an additional light to the whole situation.

I guess I'll throw my hat in the ring. Here's something I wrote

throwing daggers
By Jennine Hammond

Throwing Daggers
Is the only option left
The only way to make myself heard
Over the cacophony of hate and rage
That swirls inside your head
Well aimed
They pierce
Striking old wounds
And your pride screams
I am to blame

All the while it is you
Taunting and daring me to aim true
While you hold the target
Over your heart

Catloaf

The last time I completed poetry I was somewhat happy with (free-verse with the occasional rhyme), I was 17. I'm definitely a rather lyrical poet when I do write, but I don't follow any orthodox form. This poem deals with the realisation of my first love breaking my heart and abandoning promises we made. Was a very intimate experience, as he was from New York...we met online by entire chance on a game I played, and carried a friendship, and finally a romance for circa 2 years before he flew up to meet me. Like most lovestruck teens, I thought we were gonna be together forever, he was gonna move here and go to college while we continued to date, etc... For that situation this is such a drama queen response, lol.

You, Me, And The City We Built

Bricks upon bricks we have laid
And love upon love has been made
To nestle the nest and plant the plant
And we are here
On this very soil, as one

Hair on his forearms erect
Neck covered in braille I cannot read
So little pleasures we're to feel
And the first time was the last
Oblivious to the shadows coming

Skies can glow red
On this planet called Us
Will you stay
Will you go
I can only hope for what may come

Our war may shake pavements beneath
Shall I grow apart as your roots?
Only to cling to another tree?
The river dehydrates and ages
Impossible fantasies destroy me

You'll be thinking of me, I know
Journeying through valleys and deltas
To find only what has been lost
Pay the price, as you did not yesteryear
Fight for your outstanding dues

This is you
Versus me, and the bridges we set
And the ash on the mirrors
Sunken deep in the reminiscence
Where it is to stay, let it remain

You and me
And the walls of the fortress
Magical as once they were
Now broken down fragments
All that is there

Sift throughout the air
And collect my laughter
Here is your glee
Prehistoric fossils of the memories
The disintegrated promise on your tongue

You, me?
The possibility of it all
Broken into fields of view so infinitesimal
The evolution is skewed
Hope dies, vicious fury survives
_
Pay your acceptance
To the skies and lonely Orion
No bird in your cage
To perch on your call
Let it come down; let it all fall_

See the wings escape, love
The towers will falter
Once this was our only shelter
Now watch the dust fly away in a wind of silk
It is you, me, and the city we built

Very nice! I like them. Thank you, everyone. Sure enough, metaphor makes poems more fun. Tying ribbons for handbaskets, holding targets over hearts, reading Braille in goosebumps—there's genius there, in parts! Yes, those who can write, do... while those who can't, critique. It's my only skill, I fear: nitpicking your technique.

( @labelz: Sorry, Vincini—it's the poetry thread. We could both have a nice iocane drink, instead....)

bluesgirl

I'm a poet--many years ago I used to host open mics and slams, but haven't really had the time to get back into the public performing. In college, I loved reading Langston Hughes, and also, having been a Spanish Lit major, enjoyed Octavio Paz and Pablo Neruda's works. I keep a blog now, should post more often than I do (blogs at https://thestoryofmoth.wordpress.com/tag/original-poetry/ if anyone's curious). This is a more recent one that I wrote:

patron saint of lost things

I think of you too often
In walks along the lake
In the quiet of night
When my heart cannot rest
And I see the ghosts of our memories

A song echoes in my head
As we slow dance to the melody
Your hand upon the small of my back

Maybe if we were healed
Maybe if we were healthy
But then we’d be different people

I wish I could keep you from drowning
I want your arms around me
One last time

I think of you too often
In talks with strangers
In the silence between breaths
When my mind cannot focus
And I see you in the shadows and bends

A haunting song you sang
As I listened with intense fever
Resting in your bed

The wolves came
And we couldn’t fight
Falling in awe of their terror and beauty

I think of you too often
And these days are misery
I love you always
Even when my head says carry on
And the world moves like we never existed

cease2exist

Wonderful, everyone. Just wonderful. Keep sharing.

Here's one I did about evangelical support for Trump.

SLIPPERY SLOPE
by Will Gardiner

Short term losses for long term gains
A wise investment, or so you say
But when you've got nothing left
What will it take to say it was theft?
Concede the property
Of a Kingdom come undone
Deceive your identity
Into thinking that you've won
It's the slippery slope that you warned me about
While you were greasing your own shoes
You told me this is how you win
But all I've done is watch you lose

Heres another of mine. Hope you enjoy a glimpse into my current world

How is it
That the world outside my door
Continues spinning
Oblivious
To the wasteland that has become my home
.........my family
............my soul

I am here
Shattered among the ruins
Trying to separate Me from You
Suffocating as dreams burn
To smoke and ash
Tripping over memories
And bruising my heart on each outcrop
Of We

And while I bleed freely from each dagger
you have thrown
I am forced to clean up your messes
To repair the collateral damage.

As I attempt to bandage our children's hearts
I wonder

Who will bandage my wounds
Before I bleed dry......

CreativeCuddles

I agree @cease2exist we all have our own way of expressing ourselves and I’ve enjoyed reading the writings from all of you. Thank you for sharing. This was a great idea for a thread!

JoyfulHeart

I'm sitting here beside you
Do you notice that I'm here?
If I wrap my pain around me
Will I simply disappear?

If I stand and walk away
Will you see that I am gone?
Are you full enough without me?
Does my absence bring a pang?

I see you walk away, I see you.
I see you turn your eyes, you're gone.
I see you look right through me.
I see your soul, see mine!