<p>I love reading, writing, listening, and watching (think Def Poetry Jam) poetry.
I was wondering if anybody wanted to fill a thread up with poems so we can read and share our poems.</p>
<p>I'd read a thread with poems in them. But I'm too insecure to post my own poetry.</p>
<p>I understand, and this should not be a contest</p>
<p>sometimes it takes time to open up to sharing your work
Or, maybe you just want to keep it for yourself
I mean I write for myself, but I do not mind sharing for the most part</p>
<p>i have, but only for class. so they have to fit certain reqs and stuff, like specific types of imagery, etc.</p>
<p>Theme from English AP</p>
<p>O, rime doth be the crutch of the ineloquent
and meter be no cleaner than aged pepsident
How shameful be these poets who doth use these forms
while true creators always hold contempted scorn</p>
<p>O rime, have you no class? you are ever so crass
and the refuge of the words of a horse's ass
O rime, have you no shame? You are ever so plain
with your sweet sounds and calculation to be the bane</p>
<p>of my existence; and meter, thou art no better
than a poorly constructed wiry woolen sweater
For thou art holey and a shield against nothing
but unraveling of consciousness' unbridled string</p>
<p>But alas, I suppose thou art an art form true
for thy physicality is heel to a shoe</p>
<p><em>giggle</em> i make up my own meters, do you?</p>
<p>Alright, so here's something more serious. Now you'll be able to see why I am no longer going to study creative writing. I don't even know why I'm posting this :p Also, I am a great, great fan of allusion. </p>
<p>A LETTER TO GEORGE SAND
I swear by each day
I am regressing in estrogen
My boots used to have heels
and a pointed toe
Now it's "Hi, G.I. Joe
I like your steel"</p>
<p>I was a silent screen star
Flat bust but red lips
but now I'm unassuming
And right now this unwanted tissue
Reminds me of what I'm not</p>
<p>Judith is always painted as a man
as she slays Holofernes
The muscles on her back
Are me
I wouldn't mind being Leah
She was ugly and discarded
but all she did
was give Jacob kids</p>
<p>So your cake and your mane
shields you from the world?
your diplomatic tool
with the underhanded men
your talisman for rule
watch 'em drool</p>
<p>And you might say writing's a feminine sport
But on one hand I can name
Modern women of fame
And only Virginia Woolf's worth her salt
(Sylvia Plath choked on it)</p>
<p>So despite my hair
I don't care
what you think
because I need your thrift store clothes
and Cyrano Nose
to survive</p>
<p>But I want to please him so much
why I don't know
society tells me so</p>
<p>THIS IS NOT A SUPERMARKET AND IT IS NOT IN CALIFORNIA
Where are you going, Allen Ginsberg?
Down the alley by San Francisco bay and the city lights
Illuminating some shadowy figure in a polka-dot dress
Wishing she were someone else, somewhere else
So that’s why I’m following you, mon dieu</p>
<p>Where are you going, up on the underground
To the solitary streets of some people’s republic
Where thousands of passers illuminate one alone
We share so much in common, Ginny, except one thing
My king one day be, but you’ll always be queen</p>
<p>Where are you going to, some cramped cluttered flat
Where the sheets snow over some discarded philosophy
And meditation of mind; oh who has been in my bed
That will one day hold some spiritual rapture
And some nirvana, atleast for a while</p>
<p>Where am I heading? The place where you are?
I’m to where the ghost of Samuel Adams whispers in our steps
and will you walk with me by this world of students?
Don’t let your New York smog keep you from the sea air
For we’ll serenade Siddartha and Daedalus and Pound</p>
<p>Where are you going, Ginny? Not the same place I am?
Well keep to your bay, but don’t keep him away
I just want Japhy’s mud to run down our legs
Or atleast his poetry</p>
<p>oy oy oy oy oy.</p>
<p>I love the way those poems sound although I don't really understand them. Usually I'm more of a "I-only-like-it-if-I-understand-it" type of person but I like that I can like your poetry even if primarily because of the rhythm and words and not the meaning.</p>
<p>umm, here's a poem I wrote for my autobiography for my english class... oh, the title is: The Great Escape--- (I know i copied it)</p>
<p>There goes Caleb, runnin’ away
Runnin’ before walkin’ like a derailed train
Neighbors worry, he can’t stand straight
But they’ve got the bandages for his broken gait</p>
<p>Now he’s leavin’, gotta go to school
Leavin’ his momma to learn the Golden Rule
In pre-school, he’s growin’ up
Taking on the world as a grown-up pup</p>
<p>His bags are packed, ready for his flight
Seventh grade had been a docile fight
Leavin’ for D.C, on his own
Can’t wait to take on a world of unknown</p>
<p>Now here is Caleb, stopped in his tracks
A high school sophomore trying to plan ‘fore he acts
Two grand options, one giant choice
Time to pick the one to help him develop his voice</p>
<p>Listen to his heart, listen to his mind
Place all his faith into it and maybe he’ll find
The Great Escape</p>
<p>oh, and it went well with my autobiography. All the little stanzas were different stories (or vignettes) that I told in the biography, and before each story i put the stanza that went with it.</p>
<p>Here's one I wrote last year.</p>
<p>Fell</p>
<pre><code>You thought you could have everything
the day you pedaled your love down the hill --
leaning into hour and air and light,
only to wrap your heart around a tree.
The bike never recovered;
bent in its fetal position,
it waited patiently
for your rebirth,
while splayed across the numb grass,
you watched the sky close in on the ground.
Everything seemed to be dislocated:
your heartbeats moved into your fingers,
your words into the back of your neck.
From the corner of your eye
you watched an ant make incessant trails
in the dirt, its path folding, unfolding,
and then too distant for words,
and then so close.
</code></pre>
<p>hemingwayisdead</p>
<p>but you are alive
like that like that</p>
<p>here's one of my recent ones:</p>
<p>I wanna rock the nation with some specific polysylabic, euphonic manifestation
Straight from my heart to your heart from the start without... any hesitation
Do you hear me, do you see me, do you feeel me?!?
Can ya sixth sense detect the passion or does my countenance just leave ya giggling and laughing</p>
<p>I wanna rock the nation! with that goood stuufff!!!
That Dream-Deferred-over-the-mountain-top stuff
That dude's poem must be on steroids cause it's just that buff stuff
That Pringles-once-ya-pop-can't-stop-cause-you-can't-get-enough stuff
Warning! Take a deep breath before ya read this, better heed this, cause I'm talking that DEEP, DEEP stuufff!
Take ya to the ocean floor then take ya a lil more stuff
Can you handle that? Or, will the change in air pressure that my words cause crush you?</p>
<p>I wanna rock a nation so that the blind sketch masterpieces, the sick cure cancer, and the most solitude of them all provide the softest hugs
I wanna rock a nation so that wars cease in the name of peace, compassion grows from cracks in Harlem, and the hungry are fed with love</p>
<p>I wanna rock a natiopn so that teachers aren't paid but taken care of</p>
<p>I wanna rock a nation so that the hustle-n-bustle slooowwsss to hear the wind blow
I wanna rock a nation so that no more rain drops pitty patter on the soul's windows</p>
<p>I wanna rock a nation so that global warning is the status when my fellow poets are writing that hotness</p>
<p>I wanna rock a nation so that an Army of Optimists is formed, fighting battles with obstacles by shouting, "I got this!"</p>
<p>I wanna rock a nation so that it does everything I said when I speak the words in my head</p>
<p>And if this was Def Poetry Jam... I would say I already did</p>
<p>this is dedicated to some local HS students that have started a movement to stop using the N-word all together: <a href="http://www.wcnc.com/video/index.html?nvid=138635%5B/url%5D">http://www.wcnc.com/video/index.html?nvid=138635</a></p>
<p>ain't a soul in America ignorant to the word
ain't a melanin filled ear that hasn't already heard
ain't a instance its muttered that hasn't plucked a chord
ain't a Black man in the South that ain't felt the sword
ain't a caller of its power unaware of its history
ain't a responder to its meaning masked in mystery
ain't a Ku Klux Klan member hesitant to say it
ain't a Black Panther veteran shamed to display it (or spray it)
ain't another way I can show my respect to another
ain't a man-to-man greeting like
"What's up young brother"</p>
<p>you should have had a word in your head, but the word you first thought about should have been different from the one I am talking about (if you were thinking about the N-word, that is)</p>
<p>Anyone want to hear my depressing poetry from English Lang? I wrote a Villanelle and Sestina in 15 min each. My teacher said they were good, so...</p>
<p>Gosh this is from 2 years ago... I still like it though.</p>
<p>Small, Green Pieces of Paper</p>
<p>In this pitiful world where
Honesty diminishes and virtues taper
The Earth only revolves around
Small, green pieces of paper
And there is a problem in this world:
Most people are very depressed
They cry and sulk and criticize
And no one feels very blessed
Many different solutions are suggested
To make people less snappy
Most of them involve these green papers
But odd... it wasn’t them who are unhappy
People believe that these papers
Will get rid of all their troubles
But once they get hold of some
Their problem quite simply doubles
“Then we must have more of them!”
Together, miserably they cry
Then off they run looking for more
Their hopes and expectations high
Some run to the stock market
Only to come home empty-handed
Some run to the business buildings
But in their offices they’re stranded
“Oh, but how could this be so?”
Together, miserably they question
“Do we not yet have enough?”
They still don’t see their obsession
Meanwhile the small green pieces of paper
Were really feeling quite confused
How can people have so much of what they want
And still not be amused?
“Look at us!” They want to shout to them
“We have absolutely nothing at all!
But we do get to travel around the world
And see sights such as the Great Wall!
We get to shake hands with all kinds of people
And chatter with the coins!
And you are unhappy just because
You ordered pork ribs and got pork loins?
Why don’t you stop staring at our coats
And go see some real green?
You’d be much happier that way
Instead of wishing to live like a queen...”
Yes, the small, green pieces of paper
Would tell people all that
But what a pity, they haven’t any mouths
And they are mute as a mat
And suppose even if they could
Talk and speak and tell of these
Would people trust
Small, green pieces of paper’s expertise?
No, they would rather put
These green papers in the bank
And see if that would put them
On top of the world’s wealthiest rank</p>
<p>Poem I wrote for Black History month at my school called Hyphen it's kinda long</p>
<p>"American means white, and Africanist people struggle to make the term applicable to themselves with ethnicity and hyphen after hyphen" – Toni Ellison</p>
<pre><code> Hyphen
African hyphen American
Disconnected
Fragmented
Pause- Is that Correct?
Separate but equal
2 different identities
(Will it ever be reconciled? )
This is the box I pick,
Not cohesive Like White and Latino
But Broken into 2 parts.
African hyphen American.
This hyphen is a canyon,
A chasm, 300 hundred years in the making.
A deep divide
Combining 2 hostile entities
Started when I was kidnapped and crossed the ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Big Sea.
The symbol of the Limbo Im in
The land of Invisibility
Cuz Im not African nor am I fully American.
African :
I've never been to Africa
Although I look to it as home
Never beheld the lions or the plains that they roam
Never felt the heat of the Sahara
Nor have fell asleep in a hut to the twinkling of the stars
Never looked across the waters and seen part of my family gone.
Never killed a lion, initiation to become a man
Never prayed for rain nor did the dance
Don't know the name of my ancestors ( Can I claim Kinte?)
Or what tribe I'm from
Can't speak Swahilli
Or play and talk with the drum.
Still, in my soul, my blood
There remains a trace,
Something African.
[Hyphen:
The ship, O the ship.
The smell, the pain, the torment
The uncertainty.
Are they going to eat me?
Will I ever see home?
The gap
3,000 miles
Hundreds of years
A new people emerge
Neither Afri or American ]
</code></pre>
<p>American: </p>
<p>Where my culture was taken away,</p>
<p>Where my ancestors sought to assimilate while in chains as slaves</p>
<p>My mother was raped</p>
<p>My father hanged</p>
<p>My brother and sister sold. </p>
<p>Trampled and Oppressed</p>
<p>Finally Freed! </p>
<p>Red, White and Blue</p>
<p>Democracy for everyone but me.</p>
<p>(as Hughes said America has never been America to me)</p>
<p>All Ive known</p>
<p>The only country I've called home</p>
<p>While a sojourner searching for the Promise Land;</p>
<p>Recently given a helping hand ( Affirmative Action) </p>
<p>STILL</p>
<p>My experience has not been American</p>
<p>But in my soul, my blood</p>
<p>There remains a trace……</p>
<p>Something American</p>
<p>African hyphen American</p>
<p>Does not describe me.</p>
<p>Ive come to grips with my history.</p>
<p>Im not disconnected,</p>
<p>Ive reconciled my past </p>
<p>Ive merged the two</p>
<p>No more fragmentation</p>
<p>A whole person, a whole race, a whole culture emerges </p>
<p>Not African ( although a trace remains) </p>
<p>Not Hyphenated ( no longer needed, it's a better day) </p>
<p>Not American ( I still love my country just the same) </p>
<p>But </p>
<p>BLACK</p>
<p>A mixture of them both</p>
<p>Big and bold</p>
<p>Proud and strong</p>
<p>Mysterious and Regal </p>
<p>Content</p>
<p>Cohesive</p>
<p>Merged</p>
<p>Connected.</p>
<p>haikus are easy
but sometimes they don't make sense
refrigerator</p>
<p>^lol :D (10 char)</p>
<p>Bump.
Keep them coming. I like this thread.</p>
<p>(Nice one, chipmoney. :))</p>
<p>Haikus are quite nice
But poets should write their own
Own up, chipmoney</p>
<p>Just as a future hint, you should be careful with plagiarism. Colleges take it pretty seriously.</p>
<p>If it's not yours, cite it, or at the very least, mention it.</p>
<p>I like this thread too
We need to keep it going
Hence, more poems from you</p>
<p>I rebel just to double my haiku
Watch here as ten replaces five, fourteen takes on seven
A super haiku!</p>