Poetry

"Excuse me madam,
I can see your bellybutton."

Heres my poem I wrote a couple nights ago

Keepin' Up with the Jones'

You've gotta keep up with this ever revolving world
Every man wants what the next mans got
You work to make wage
You work to get paid
You've grown attached to your magazine clippings and vanities
Are you happy?
No time to think
It's on to the new trend
Keep up with the new sensation
Its a calling from your generation
Don't fight your urges
Your mind is already mush
The warping, talking box is telling you what you want
No time to think
It's on to the next trend
Keep with the new sensation
It's a calling from your generation
Are you going to find your answer under a knife?
Or find it in a can?
That makes you feel more like a lady or man
Swipe your plastic
This purchase will be your last
Your mind is already mush
The warping, talking box is telling you what you want
No time to think
There's a new trend
A new sensations awaits
And your generation is calling
Your holding onto your magazine clippings and vanities
Are you happy?
You got to keep up with the Jones' to succeed
You got to keep up with the Jones' to be happy
Wait til you're hit by poverty
Everything is common in this economy
People are buying what they want and not what they need
Sorry to crush your hopes and dreams
This is life
This ain't no movie
You seem to be stuck in your scene
Holding onto your magazine clippings and vanities
No time to think
You gotta keep with the Jones'
All the while I become subliminal
I've become your counter culture

Electric, I REALLY like that. The ending is perfect.


What The Birds Had To Offer

We left kisses by the creek
Inscribing memories of youthful adoration in the soil
Unforgettable memories that reappear cyclically
A montage cast on the gleaming of the sun
Smiles that stretched like the winter sky
Passionate beyond belief
A touch like a taser, but in the most astounding way
Words couldn't make what made
Hollywood actors couldn't fake what we knew
A love of our own, unique to the senses
Brand new to reality, a perception never viewed through the looking glass
Glistening like jewels, your eyes watch the horizon
Your words bounce off the breeze
Evaporating into the sky
And coming down as a gentle mist
Simple movements like resting your hand on mine
They can speak more than novels or poems
A mumble from you is the equivalent to a wordsmith's paragraph
Complimentary colors, thrown on the same canvas
We would blend to create our own gradients
You took the exit a few miles before me
And I have to be honest, I'm still in the fast lane
We left kisses on the cloud
Inscribing our love that will never be lost
And I think about you everyday
I don't forget when we were we
A storybook left open, unfinished
I am the conduit moving memories to the notepad
Breathing life into the page with nostalgia
Now, we converse scarcely and in a manner that can only be called meek
Instead of a stream, we flow like waterfalls
With staccato words and finishing our conversations with awkward decrescendos
And for some reason, I still buckle at the knees
And my palms still get sweaty
And the world still seems to get a little less heavy
Unfortunately, not everything changes
They left pieces of themselves in the past
For better, not for worse
But better, doesn't always mean it won't hurt

Uhm, this is a WIP. Definitely has room for improvement. I wrote this for my brother.

I want to place you in this scene.
A desert surrounding ruins,
empty buildings never once welcoming,
never to attempt hospitality again.
The sky looks lethal with is emptiness
and the sun is cruel to illuminate the desolation.
I want you to breathe this brittle air.
The poles hang flags honoring murderers.
This comemerates a past of duality
of terror and tranquility.
The mountains, though timeless, seem to have aged.
I want you to feel this desperate isolation.
The terrain is rugged and endless
horizons stretch for miles
cut uncomfortably by distance peaks
jagged like broken glass slashing palms
of falling runaways, so frightened.
I want you to hear this place.
Nothing moves.
No wind. No xicadas. No birds.
No scraping lizards. No skittering insects.
I want to place you in this scene,
ripping the nightmares from memories,
and have you leave these tragedies in the rubble,
unburied, slashed, dismembered.
So when next your eyes close,
you will remain home.

Note, the line "leave these rubble,/unburied, slashed,
dismembered" is in reference to a Lakota Sioux belief. The belief is
that if a person is whole when they depart this life they will be
whole in the next place. If they are dismembered, mutilated, maliciously injured,
etc. they will go into the next place in the same fashion. I believe
at the Battle of Little Bighorn the Sioux women went through the
dead US soldiers and dismembered and mutilated many of the bodies.
My brother and I are part Lakota.

So, I've never considered myself anything of a poet, but I got pretty tipsy last night and wrote this, and then worked on it a bit, today. So, let me know what you think of it, and be as harsh as you want to be, like I said I'm no poet. I think this is the first actual poem I've ever written, too. (In school, whenever we had to write poems, I wrote those acrostic ones.) I don't think there's too much flow or rhythm to it, but let me know how I can improve. Also, the rhyming is not so great, I think. A rhyming dictionary was used.


The things of today
How will they affect
The way we act and the way
Our everyday plays out?
Will anything really change?
Or will all just stay the same?
In the clouded firing range
Where we shoot with one eye closed
While leaning against the walls
Solely to impress the other
Shooters in fantastic stalls
Which they leave to act like brothers
And then to lie and deceive
But all with the best intentions.
Maybe it’s just imperceptive
Attempts to help us all get on.

But let’s accelerate.
Let’s keep going forwards.
If it keeps us at a rate
With which we can still understand
The actions that we make
And the things we keep at heart
While contemplating the late
Yet familiar directions
We’ve taken in our wanderings
And still keeping in mind all the
Effects of our upswings
And our troughs on those with whom
We share our everyday
And our deepest surface feelings.
Perhaps we just can’t think to say
What we don’t know about ourselves.

We want to get our minds straight.
Externally, internally
But we never want to wait
Take a second to assess
How our feelings and our
Thoughts reflect our true nature
And remind us of old scars
That still live with us today.
It gets harder and harder
But more convenient still
To ignore the quiet caller
In our mind who reminds us to
Obey the Rule, and sympathize
With the things we see people do
And to listen to the cries
Of those who seek our company.

I like that A LOT, Dustin. Especially from "While contemplating...." to "...don't know about ourselves."

Here's a bitter poem I wrote, followed by truth.

This Will Never Have A Title

I want to say that I can never love you like that again.
Because a part of me will always despise that part of you.
I want to say "thank you", in a snide, sarcastic tone.
I want to leave it all behind me, every last bit of it.
I want to say "fuck you". I want to forget. (And I'll think about forgiving.)
I'm tired of our pointless conversations, meaningless glances, and empty gestures.
I'll never let you in close enough to do that again.
I want to ignore you.
I want you to suffer. Both of you.
I wish nothing but shit for you.
Fuck you for letting it happen like this.
Fuck you for it all.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wish any of those words had been honest.
Because that's a lot easier to tell than the truth:
I want to say "I love you." And "I always will."
If I had the chance to say it anymore, believe me, I would.
I love you. I miss you. And no matter what you do, I can't escape that.

Thanks, Daggar, I'm pretty happy with it considering my lack of experience. I like yours, too. Especially the truth bit at the end.

There's a lot of good poetry in this thread. How much would you guys say you're influenced by the lyrics of bands you listen to? Say, obviously, in specific, Tom Gabel?

I usually find my influences from Neruda and Baudelaire along with some lyrics by bands like AFI, Godspeed You Black Emperor and then just the music of bands like Coma Recovery and Explosions in the Sky when I'm heavy into imagery. when I'm more into ideas and abstracts with less imagery (I don't have anything without imagery or some sort playing a role) I take inspiration from the likes of Gabel, TS Elliot, Plath, and the works of Hemingway and Steinbeck. Wow, don't I sound like a douche? I find myself also heavily influenced by a lot of local slam poets I used to watch and remember from a few years ago. I haven't been to one since the National Poetry Slam of 2006 (hosted and won by ABQ!)

THREAD REVIVAL TIME

Just a random
collection of words
acting as if
this is a poem

Alright. I'll bite. This one doesn't have a title.







You are where we look, yet
Even now inside these buildings, inside these walls
I am untouched, unmoved inside these bustling halls.
"Had I only searched earlier" is my half regret.

"Seek and you will find" from the pulpit I've heard.
Tell me then, what if I find not Him
But a new consolation which has no hymn
Nor prayer, neither one singly Holy Word?

Countless have come to know You, wept tears of joy,
Yet here I stand with praises sung and texts read
And an understanding, a sorrow, for the blood you shed,
With faded anticipation like that of a young boy.

And I am like that of a lost sheep
Waiting for you, my shepherd, to come find me.
With open ears I hear you not, nor do I see
Thy crook o'er the hills where the dusk does creep.

Then in darkness will I seek and find only this:
One who answers with a voice smooth as silk
Promising a life of honey and milk.
Blinded in darkness I will accept, is this Your voice or his*?





*referring to Satan. Notice the lack of a capital "h."

The poem concerns itself with religious doubt. The speaker waits for the epiphany, but God never reveals himself in the awe-inspiring wonder that many claim they have experienced, or compared to the stories in the Bible. Classic imagery of Jesus as the shepherd and the speaker as the lost lamb becomes undermined as the speaker waits for God until night time approaches. In the darkness, the speaker is tempted. Blinded by darkness, he can not see who is talking to him, but the voice is soothing and enticing. Note that the speaker has already accepted before he begins to ask if he just committed himself to God or to a life of sin with Satan.

Just found this... A poem I wrote while drunk, longboarding around my hometown. It's filled with references to or slightly altered lines from songs I was listening to at the time, and a bit of pop culture in general.

Trails In The Water-Laden, Early-Hours Streets

Part One

Vacant cul-de-sacs
Empty crescents
A wake left behind me
In the early-hours streets.
The piano's sombre tone
Reminds me of places
That I cannot recall
Rain coming down in fleets.
Drops speck my damp hair
The wind carries me
To where, I cannot know
Through these water-laden streets.
Past fifteenth avenue,
Down Haven Place
The longboard has been drinking
Not me.

Part Two
(Or; How She Keeps Me Sane)

She glides like a butterfly,
Dances like a bee
Carving through the streets
In ways that speak to me.
Leaving trails in our wake
The only remnants of our dance
Every moment, one of grace
She leaves me in a trance.
A band on the run
We fled without remorse
For those we left behind
In the over-crowded house.

Part Three
(Or; A brief, yet triumphant conclusion)

Trumpets blasting triumphantly
Oh, how these wheels carry me,
I toss back a roach
Watch it tumble behind me.
In the night, I'm not alone
When I'm riding to these songs
Singing of love and solidarity
Resonating through my bones.
Only one night before
We danced down this road
Yet it feels so long
Since my feet have touched this board.
The pines so firm in place
Envied my nomadic ways
I arrive only to leave
My presence has no trace.

P.S.
(AKA: Strange Days)

The magic that precedes routine
Leaves a mark upon my back
Not long before it's forgotten
Yet, soon to be reminded, again.
I watch my shadow behind me
Feel the joy I knew before
Lost in a world
Of endless paths that wind.
Return to this place
To find new roads to Roam.

A 9th Century Irish poem translated by Seamus Heaney

Heaney has been dead a year.