Poetry

[lexicondevil]

Love this poem, I used it in a class yesterday actually along with Citycop's version of it! Have you heard it?

 

 

No, I need to check it out.

[lexicondevil]

Another favorite of mine in Julio Cortazar. His writing is simple, yet he touches that pulse.

 

 

To Be Read in the Interrogative

 

Have you seen

have you truly seen

the snow the stars the felt steps of the breeze

Have you touched

really have you touched

the plate the bread the face of that woman you love so much

Have you lived

like a blow to the head

the flash the gasp the fall the flight

Have you known

known in every pore of your skin

how your eyes your hands your sex your soft heart

must be thrown away

must be wept away

must be invented all over again

~

from Save Twilight
(City Lights 1997)

[Guest]

Marty Farty had a party

And all the farts where there

Then Fruity Tooty
Let out a beauty

And all the farts

Went out for air

[ptrsev]

Hard to pick, but I think this may be my favorite Bukowski poem:

 

The world's greatest loser
by Charles Bukowski

He used to sell papers in front:
"Get your winners! Get rich on a dime!"
and about the 3rd or 4th race
you'd see him rolling in on his rotten board
with roller skates underneath.
he'd propel himself along on his hands;
he just had small stumps for legs
and the rims of the skate wheels were worn off.
you could see inside the wheels and they would wobble
something awful
shooting and flashing
imperialistic sparks!
he moved faster than anybody, rolled cigarette dangling,
you could hear him coming
"god o mighty, what was that?" the new ones asked.

He was the world's greatest loser
but he never gave up
wheeling toward the 2 dollar window screaming:
"IT'S THE 4 HORSE, YOU FOOLS! HOW THE HELL YA GONNA BEAT THE 4?"
up on the board the 4 would be reading
60 to one.
I never heard him pick a winner.

They say he slept in the bushes. I guess that's where he
died. He's not around any
more.

There was the big fat blond whore
who kept thouching him for luck, and
laughing.

Nobody had any luck. The whore is gone
too.

I guess nothing ever works for us. We're fools, of course --

bucking the inside plus a 15 percent take,
but how are you going to tell a dreamer
there's a 15 percent take on the
dream? He'll just laugh and say,
is that all?

I miss those
sparks.

[icecream]

not to be an elitest here but well I love Bukowski as well I have like 23-24 books of his he's helped me through so much

shit in life.

 

 

anyway I give you anis mojgani

 

http://youtu.be/GembNtyjRYw

[lexicondevil]

I'm with Buk. Now I think I will have a beer.

 

 

 

http://youtu.be/lAhrr7JNlhk

http://youtu.be/lAhrr7JNlhk

 

[SeeMoreGlass]

Love Poetry...Have some T.S Eliot records of him actually reading his own poetry...pretty cool stuff

 

Here is a poem I wrote for a creative writing class a while ago...feel free to hate on it...

 

 

A Walrus on a Cross, But its Not What You’re Thinking

 

Empty messiahs

All this world wants is empty messiahs

Each man on a cross

Like a walrus with no tusks

Trying to eat a bowl of Fruit Loops

While playing the Guitar

Goo Goo G’Joob

 

Jesus Christ in a

Clown suit

Shopping at the Wal-mart

For some tube tops

And Natty Light

High heeled telephones

Passing themselves off as sneakers

Goo Goo G’Joob

 

Michael Jackson

Couldn’t pull himself

Off of this cross

If he had two

Young boys with

Their pants down

Goo Goo G’Joob

 

They want a  Michelangelo

And I’m looking for a Dali

Crafted out of cellophane tigers

And vinyl forests

Clocks hanging from noses

In deconstructed hallways

 

Paint brains on a wall and call it art

Put a walrus in a cage and call it justice

Stab the king with his crown and call it rebellion

 

Come back from the dead and become a savior

 

Kill a genius and live forever

[franco]

i just wrote a haiku for you guys

 

stop collecting now

reissues are stupid man

vinyl is a gas

 

love, franco

[casey]

Just realized e.e. cummings hasn't been rep'd yet. My favorite:

who knows if the moon's
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky--filled with pretty people?
( and if you and I should

get into it, if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen 
city which nobody's ever visited, where

always
it's
Spring) and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

[steventangent]

Lately I'm writing more prose/short stories. So...I don't have anything to contribute?

[hipsterasfolk]

potato/pototoe! Post that stuff anyway broski daddy!

[steventangent]

This isn't poetry. It's not anything. It was a status update I wrote on Facebook when I couldn't sleep.

What It Takes To Survive In This Business

Every morning from Monday through Thursday, Kenneth Wade stops at the same coffee shop. He waits patiently behind the two or three other regulars, and he rarely changes his order.

It's not just the coffee that perks him up; it's the barista, Alison Marx. She wears her brunette hair up, held in place with chopsticks. She has a tattoo of a drawing on her wrist that he doesn't realize is by Shel Silverstein. The strap of her apron touches the bare skin of her neck over the collar of her polo shirt sometimes. She has the darkest brown eyes behind her cat's-eye glasses. She smiles a perfectly slightly crooked smile. Every bit of it drives him wild.

He makes small talk. Flirts casually. She compliments him on his tie. He always drops his change and an extra dollar or two in the tip jar. She thanks him and calls him "sweet." He reassures himself she isn't humoring him. He tells himself that she's charmed by his wit, grateful for his change, impressed by his Brooks Brothers suits. It all adds up to one thing; he bets she'd fuck him if she had the chance.

Kenneth starts every day at his firm by putting the coffee on his desk and stopping to chat with his partners. They needle each other about their golf games, call each other faggots, joke about each other's wives being unfaithful, and sexually harass their secretaries, who take all of it in stride. Every bit of it is okay because that's just the kind of environment we have at this office. If you don't like it, quit. Pussy.

Alison ends every day at her coffee shop by going into the bathroom, looking into the mirror, letting her hair down. She takes off her glasses and leans forward to wash her face. When she stands back up and looks at her reflection again, the smile is always gone. She no longer needs it after washing off the filth of the dozens of insufferable macho dickheads that she has to deal with and force herself to be friendly toward. She balls her apron up, collects her tip money, and stops to buy a treat for the autistic younger brother she's taking care of while her mother is bedridden from aggressive cancer therapy.

And every night, as they lay in their respective beds, they ready themselves for another day of doing what it takes to survive in this business.

 

 

 

edit : this is a little embarrassing, actually. but I had written a bunch of things kind of like this, sort of with a very specific audience of people I'm friends with in mind.

[steventangent]

I don't know where else to share this, but this was another recent facebook status update of mine :

The light turned green and I slammed on the gas, swinging into the curb in front of the Rialto Theatre and coming to a stop almost as abruptly. I pushed the door of my Cadillac open and it scraped the top of the sidewalk. She darted out of the theatre doors, through the pouring rain, and dove into the bench seat, slamming the door shut behind her. She was a few feet and a few miles away, all at once.

I could scarcely sort how much of her face was wet with tears, and how much from the late autumn downpour. She was still in her chorus line outfit - the delicate plumage was soaked but still stood up enough to rub the headliner of my car, staining it in orange and pink and green hues. I didn't care. She pulled out a Julep and I lit it for her. She slumped down into the seat and took a few deep drags before either of us spoke, an emaciated rainbow in the muted half-light of the fading marquee. I could hear every soft sigh over the tempestuous howl outside.

"What happened?" I asked.

She blew smoke against her window and answered with the last of her breath. "Got fired."

I could feel her dreams washing away, like so many dead leaves running down the gutters and into the storm drain. My heart ached for her.

"What in God's name for?"

"I guess there's just no place in this business for a girl that ain't got a big ol' booty..."

[steventangent]

One more of my late-night facebook posts :

The sea-salt air tugged at Captain Swineheart's brimstone beard. From my vantage point below deck, watching it whip in the wind against the slate-grey sky was like watching gunpowder burn. His fearsome eyes met mine momentarily. I prayed his legendary cruelty would not soon follow.

"Oglesby!" he bellowed. The first mate. A good man, and hardly deserving of indiscriminate punishment, or at least no more than any of the rest of us. Too bad for him, but if it meant I'd be spared the lash, then all the better for me.
"Oglesby!" he hollered again. His voice sounded like he had barnacles in his vocal chords. "Show yourself! Malodorous troll!"

"Begging your pardon for my indisposition, sir!" Oglesby stumbled toward the Captain, half in a drunken stupor, and half struggling as the ship heaved and wretched on the sea beneath his feet.

"Drunkard! I will not have this treachery aboard my ship! Present thyself to the bosun for keelhaul!" Swineheart barely had room to talk. Though I'd never voice it to anybody else about this ship, I couldn't decide which was the stronger case for mutiny; his cruelty, or his hypocrisy.

"But Captain!" he protested. "You'll need every strong deckhand to ride out this storm. I'll serve my punishment in due course."

"By then you will have sobered up!" he pressed his flintlock pistol into the first mate's chest. In his inebriated state, he hardly noticed. "Wretched cur! Cursed wretch! Thou shalt not defy me in front of my own crew!" the ship lurched. It wasn't until Swineheart tumbled that I realized that he, too, was plum drunk.

That slate grey sky afire now. I had never seen anything like it in all my years, though this was my first time at sea. Perhaps a Divine manifestation of the spite and hatefulness and destruction that dwell in the Good Captain's chest. Maybe, then, His Providence that we be punished for our association with such a terrible man. Dread welled within me as I watched the chaos unfold above deck, Oglesby and the bosun, the Captain and various crew being thrown about like children's playthings. Through it all, the Captain never took his eyes off his first mate - or the aim of his pistol. I prayed a silent prayer to God.

We have been bad boys. We deserved to be punished. But this - this is not what we signed on for. I knew we were going to be whipped, possibly even chained up. I knew we were going to be dominated by a cruel master. But being trapped below deck as the ship capsized and drowning is not how I imagined it would end, no matter how naughty of a boy I had been.

It was then that my cell phone buzzed. A text from my lover Carlos, also aboard the ship. "I don't know about you honey, but this is the last time we sign up for a gay cruise on Craigslist."

[suchashorttime]

sweet topic.  i spend a few semesters in undergrad with poetry classes, everything from classics to leftists and the like.  it was great.  since i've gotten my masters in teaching, i think i've lost a lot of that part of myself.  i spend an entire semester with james wright's "the branch will not break," which is a beautiful collection of his poetry.  i'll share my favorite from his collection here.  i'm also a big fan of cummings, yeats, williams, and perhaps lesser a fan of bukowski, though i do love his work.  perhaps i'll share some of mine, too, but it's hard to share these things.

 

A Blessing

 

 

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness   

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.   

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.   

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me   

And nuzzled my left hand.   

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

[suchashorttime]

here's one of mine.  i appreciate feedback, 'specially from you lit buffs.

 

 

 

“A One-Sided Conversation With D., 6 Years Old, As He Fumbles To Wear His Glasses"

 

But, you see, our worlds are different.

When you get big, 

bricks make buildings, 

but were never blocks to be built with.

Trees spend the Winter harvesting sap,

waiting for the first ripe day in Spring,

to bleed all over your windshield;

There is always blood to clean up.

I still cry when I scrape my knee,

blood or not;

I’m just not as resilient.

You see, the bigger you get

the more things bleed

and the less people are willing to

kiss it and make it better.

It’s not as easy to leave behind,

keep running with a slowly dripping knee,

no one caring to wipe the trail behind me.

What I’m trying to say is

I’m sorry you have to see me bleed.

[000000]

I know no one else has posted lyrics, but I had to because mwY is one of the most poetic bands out there (also one of my favorites).

 

 

mewithoutYou - "Messes Of Men"

 

"I do not exist," we faithfully insist
sailing in our separate ships,
and in each tiny caravel -
tiring of trying, there's a necessary dying
like the horseshoe crab in its proper season sheds its shell
such distance from our friends,
like a scratch across a lens,
made everything look wrong from anywhere we stood
and our paper blew away before we'd left the bay
so half-blind we wrote these songs on sheets of salty wood

you caught me making eyes at the other boatmen's wives
and heard me laughing louder at the jokes told by their daughters
I'd set my course for land,
but you well understand
it takes a steady hand to navigate adulterous waters
the propeller's spinning blades held acquaintance with the waves
as there's mistakes I've made no rowing could outrun
the cloth low on the mast like to say Ive got no past
but I'm nonetheless the librarian and secretary's son
with tarnish on my brass and mildew on my glass
I'd never want someone so crass as to want someone like me
but a few leagues off the shore, I bit a flashing lure
and I assure you, it was not what it expected it to be!
I still taste its kiss, that dull hook in my lip
is a memory as useless as a rod without a reel
to an anchor-ever-dropped-seasick-yet-still-docked captain spotted napping with his first mate at the wheel floating forgetfully along, with no need to be strong. we keep our confessions long and when we pray we keep it short
I drank a thimbleful of fire and I'm not ever going back

Oh, my God!

"I do not exist," we faithfully insist
while watching sink the heavy ship of everything we knew
if ever you come near I'll hold up high a mirror
Lord, I could never show you anything as beautiful as you

[Emo Revival]

So I'm not a poet by any stretch, but my great uncle was apparently a pretty famous one. I could only find one of his poems online http://www.generalmihailovich.com/2010/07/draza-dies-martyr-by-watson-kirkconnell.html but I have at least a dozen books that he wrote in my library.

[hipsterasfolk]

Clough St. 

Poetry flourishes in the corridor
Where the hallway becomes the bedroom
Following the beer stains on the carpet
Like the stones that rest in creeks
Foundation cracked like smiles
Teeth the same shade of the wall
Furniture pieced by tape
Wounds mended by bandage
Remembered by one’s periphery
By a hundred pacing objects
That burned holes into the carpet

 

[hipsterasfolk]

Working on a confessional poem for this week's class assignment. Can't tell if this makes sense, or if I should really just go to bed afterwork...rather than trying to do homework

Winter Depression is too Cliché (to write about)

I am confined
To my stoic expression
Masking the phenotypes
Inherited by the process
Of emotions I’ll never feel
Constricting my body
Like straps on the mobile cot
Where my body rests
Quite too often

The mirror in the bathroom
Reflect flaw,
Processed by the windows
Of my damned soul
Still hemorrhaging,
From making love to malts
Each and every night
Underneath the studio apartments
Where the city sleeps
Exposing my defeated prime

 

[almightyseancore]

why?

 

your new favorite band

some trendy hipster hip hop.

it's his favorite band.

you just want to impress him.

you never liked this shit before you met him.

maybe if i stood up straighter my neck wouldn't look so fat.

or maybe that just makes it worse.

i should eat less and consume more stimulants.

[yocaseycasey]

I read through this entire thread this past weekend from my phone. I forgot I read it. 

 

One thing that REALLY bugs me about the combination of poetry and twenty-somethings is that the result always ends up being what I like to call "Bukowski Boners."

 

I fell into the trap myself. Reading Bukowski for the first time is no different than when you heard "The Places You Have Come To Fear the Most" for the first time back in 7th, 8th, 9th grade (depending on whether you're 27 or 30 years old). It opens the door to something you never realized you liked, and ends up setting the tone for your taste for years to come. However, Bukowski wrote the same 10-15 poems over and over and over again. He has some great work, but he also has some bland work, and really, he was just a dirty old man that got to skate through life drinking and writing because he knew the right people. I started reading "Women" a few weeks ago while doing laundry and quit after page four, because it just clicked... I don't want to read that shit.

 

What the world DOESN'T know is that there is an awesome poetry movement happening in the dark corners of California. Write Bloody is a group of poets that are actually pretty awesome. They do a lot of "spoken word" (they hate that term), but also sell chap-books, music CDs, and other stuff. Derrick Brown actually went on tour with Cold War Kids once. Here he is singing and performing Meatloaf and it gets me everytime:

 

 

Here's one of Shira Erlichman (this poem is fucking awesome):

 

 

And George Watsky is known for his rap YouTube videos, but he actually majored in poetry at Emerson:

 

 

 

 

My general point here is: don't worship some dude that died and lived a miserable life (but wrote 10 poems a night about birds in his heart and running out of beer) just because all of your friends like him. What the fuck? He's the Blink 182 of poetry.

 

The best poems are the ones by nobodies... not somebodies. And they are the ones that you'll remember.

 

Oh, and Jon Sands rules:

 

http://vimeo.com/19109726

[steventangent]

I've actually never read Bukowski. Or Palahniuk. Feel free to make fun of me.

[patthickey]

This kid is doing a poem a day for 2013 here

And he also is a huge record collector and is pretty cool,

The last time I checked he isn't a member here.

[Guest]

I didn't want to like anything casey posted, but I did.

 

Calico grounds is an independent publisher I enjoy. I dated a guy who had a few chapbooks from there.

http://calicogrounds.bigcartel.com/

 

still probably going to pop bukowski boners for a long time though.