A Thread of Poetry ( Only Post Poetry HERE!! )

[coeur_minuit]

You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales!There's no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS--OTHER PEOPLE!

Jean-Paul Sartre, "No Exit"
http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/hell/sart.html

[Dark Art]

I actually thought of the last lines of this poem first.
Be nice, please!

"The Secret Darkness"

Sometimes
In a bright happy shiny world
I plunge my hands into the black earth
The secret darkness
Where seeds uncoil
And watch spiders creep up my arms
In moving velvet lines
Then fly by night
And watch winter-stripped trees
Naked and cold
Gleam bare-beautiful
Beneath the huge white moon

Listen!
Can you hear the cackle of the crone?
All life is born from the darkness
Of the deep earth, the stormy seas, the secret womb

I wrap myself in a cloak of screaming wind
And crown myself with bones

[Dark Art]

Originally Posted by Xnguela

It's nice... It's dark. And I like the imagery, even if a little of it's predictable.

Thank you.

[Demon Eyes]

Candle
A flicker of light
Shadows dancing on the wall.

Flicker, the frail dance
struggling flame to remain-
yet, the light it dies.

(first "poem" in over a year...)

[Dark Art]

Okay, this is kind of rough, but I thought I'd throw it out there and see what you guys thought.

"Poetry Is"

ink spilling
like night on the paper
tracing harmonies
that whisper dimly from nowhere

striking unexpectedly
with a strange venom
turning over the rock
to see what crawls beneath
cutting open the heart
revealing the slick blood and frantic muscles
diving down a spiral wave
to a dark and womb-like sea

drawing aside a black curtain
to reveal everything
upside down
inside out
sideways
wrongways
twisted
skewed
beautiful and strange

plucking out your lying eyes
forcing you to see anew
turning everything into
dim, blurred shadows
that glow with internal light
obscure and entrancing

[Wise Child]

I like it. An original, very gothic take on the creative impulse. A couple of cliches in there ("whispered dimly from nowhere") but the rest of it was so original that I think even they work. And that's a hard, hard task - using cliche without sounding like a pretentious loser. Some powerful, startling imagery in there. Good shit!

[thetiesonyourcorset]

Silence,darkness,shadows glinting on the moon...everything so quiet and dark at night.
People looking at the moon in awe,smiling happily at the moon and stars.

[thetiesonyourcorset]

thanks!! i know i should choose my words carefully! i'll try better in future

[Dark Art]

Originally Posted by Wise Child

I like it. An original, very gothic take on the creative impulse. A couple of cliches in there ("whispered dimly from nowhere") but the rest of it was so original that I think even they work. And that's a hard, hard task - using cliche without sounding like a pretentious loser. Some powerful, startling imagery in there. Good shit!

Thank you! I really appreciate any and all feedback, but my favorite kind is compliments . And I really like your name. Did you get it from the book "Wise Child," or is it just coincidence?

[Wise Child]

No, it's actually taken from Wise Children by Angela Carter. I suck at poetry so bow for ya! Who wrote Wise Child then?

[Dark Art]

I have Juniper, too. I love those books! I think she wrote the third right before her death, called Colman.

[Dark Art]

I haven't read Colman yet. Juniper is pretty good, but it doesn't really match the description of her life that Juniper told Wise Child. Definitely still worth reading, though.

[Dark Art]

I don't think she lied. I think the author changed her mind about the plot of Juniper's life. And I agree, honesty was definitely one of Juniper's defining traits.

[Wise Child]

Hey, this is the only poem (and probably the least Gothic thing - sorry) I've ever written. Feel free to attack it like a load of vultures with your usual brutality, which will be welcomed - like I said, poetry ain't really my baby. Knock yourselves out!

It's about that time of night around four in the morning, when you're having some quality time with your chronic insomnia and it's all going on in your head, and you have all these depressive, irrational thoughts that don't seem like muich of anything in the day.

Sleepless

Impossible to leave behind
The worries of the day, at dusk.
They crowd her head in flocks, like sheep,
The terrors of day’s empty husk
Assailing her unquiet mind
And she is sick for want of sleep.

Now one by one, each rears its head -
Those threatening monsters, that, by day,
Lay still and quiet, wakes and stirs.
A bill thrown in a drawer, unpaid,
An undertone in what he said,
And is there one who he prefers?

She sits beside the windowpane.
- She smokes too much. – The glitzy trash
Surrounding her provokes unease.
Her fingers flick away the ash
As she surveys her lifetime’s gains,
All now devoid of power to please.

What does it mean? – a pile of things?
Dead objects, nothing living here
But her, a shadow in the dark
Alone with secret want and fear
That no one knows; the knowledge stings,
A girl who never made her mark.

But let it go – the sun will wake.
These fears she plants will die with night,
Pull up their roots and creep away
As morning fills the sky with light.
The sky will bleed for morning’s sake,
Its blood will fill the earth with day.

Her mind relaxes into peace,
As rose-red dawn creeps through the glass.
The sky is streaked with much-missed light;
The empty, endless night is past.
The sun re-rising in the East
To sink again tomorrow night.

[Dark Art]

Wow! I'm very impressed. This is your only poem, you say? It sure doesn't sound like it. I particularly like the way you managed to use a rhyme scheme while still sounding natural. Do you write in other genres?

[dreamforthedead]

Your just jealous because you dont have either so NAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAHNAH

[Dark Art]

Why, thank you. I'll work on making it longer.
Here in the US, we just call them vibrators. Or cell phones.
Hey, how'd you get a rep?

[Wise Child]

Ta Xnguela

[Empty_Purple_Stars]

Okay Guys..

Dreamforthedead, Wise Child and Dark Art..

I just spent 20 friggin minutes deleting meaningless blabber that had absolutely nothing to do with poetry or anything even resemblings the letters P and O in the WORD Poetry..

This is the P O E T R Y Thread..

I do believe Disfunction even CREATED a thread entitled " JACK THIS THREAD " for the very purpose of THREAD JACKING!

Or here's a novel idea.. EXCHANGE IM ID'S!!

Either one of those options would be infinitely MORE respectful than the 100 or so posts I just deleted of meaningless chatter..

Please keep the Chit Chat HERE when the burning need overtakes you..

Unless the Burning Need requires Penicillin of course..



Thanks.

[insane_lover44]

here's one that i wrote in the middle of the night when i woke up and couldn't get back to sleep(so, forgive me if it sucks):


there, she waits,
standing there by the cemetary gates.
longing for that one person, wherever he may roam,
but, alas, she dies, just as he did far from home.




again, if it sucks, forgive me.

[Dark Art]

I'm very sorry, Empty Purple Stars. It won't happen again.

Insane Lover44, maybe you should try breaking the last line like this:

but alas, she dies, just as he did
far from home

Just a suggestion.

[Blushing Heliophobe]

bottled up
rage
lower me
because i'm empowered?
desecrate me
because i'm fair?
you stomp
with careless feet
disregard
with ignorant words

without us
you would not live
without us
you would starve
we do
what you will not
we do
what you cannot
we do
everyday striving
recieving less
than a slap
on the hand

punished for equality
derived for exception

little tiny
pathetic minds-
you aren't worth
the struggle

[Greqoh]

The Charred Soul of Icarus
by L. Greqoh



Mother Earth,
Break my fall.
I have heard
A siren like call
seducing me
to look above
to chase the fleeting
divine white dove.

So I took
to the air,
sure I'd find
Gods somewhere,
Beyond the clouds,
Cities of gold,
Held life's answers.
I grew bold.

On I flew
To the sun.
But there I
Found no one.
Laughter I heard.
Terror I felt,
I looked and saw
My wax wings melt.

Words I heard
Mock my ear:
"Little gnat
Who flew too near!
No more an ant
Measure the moon,
No more a rock,
At love would swoon,
Than you find
Your desire
Or understand
Our divine fire!"

Then I plunged
to the Earth,
A bastard angel
Crippled at birth.

Now broken
Here I lie,
By the gods cruel jest,
Waiting to die.
No more rainbows
Will hide their mirth.
I turn from the sky,
And face the earth.

************************************

"There is no God but man" - Liber Legis (Book Of The Law) A.C. 666

[Wise Child]

Nice, Pixel! There's just something about the myth of Icarus - maybe it's 'cause everyone can relate to plunging in then rewgretting it. I liked the short lines, you kind of let the story tell itself.
Permission to bore y'all with my ramblings! I'd only written one poem before t'other day, which I posted - and was so emboldened by the lack of mocking that I've written another, 'specially for this thread. I'm kinda liking this poetry thing - I think I'm gonna stick with it. It's v, v long - sorry - but I don't really want to do away with any of it, as it's all linkeda nd I'd have to pretty much rewrite the whole thing. It's newbron - literally just finished - so any & all suggestions / criticisms welcome. It's about suicide - I'm actualy an atheist and don't believe in an immortal soul, but where's the literary potential in that? - imagery is kinda hard if all you have to depict is nothingness. So I have indulged my sentimental side. Why the fuck not?

She sits beside the window,
Trying to think of reasons to go on being. There are none.
The sky is dark and endless, a dome-shaped void
That goes on forever and covers all that is.
She closes the Holy Book of Lies
And surveys the white flesh of her wrist, a study in map-making –
Blue veins that cross like rivers, the old scars of her last attempt to die
Like the monstrosities that man inflicts upon nature,
Skin pale and virgin like earth before the violation of its aloneness,
Before strange scars were riven into it by the humans which cover its surface like a plague.
This silver blade
Will free my soul from the world that is my body,
The world will end and I will be free,
Just as a true apocalypse
Would free those trapped on the world that it annihilates.
The sky sparkles with jewels too precious
To belong here, which is why
You must fly for fifty thousand years in a silver shuttle
To reach the nearest. But I will fly,
And soon I will hold these diamonds in the palm of my hand,
For when the flesh cannot melt, they will be as mere baubles to my great and immortal soul.

The seductively dark, empty void outside is pulling at her stomach
Calling her home, home.

I recognise the hollow falseness of its haunting call -
No home for me, for life is not a jigsaw
And each person in possession of place, which they need only find.
Because I was not chosen for love, I know
That such thoughts are the privilege
Of those who adore, and are adored
Who are held in this world
By more than merely a heartbeat
That chains them here against their will..
Mine pounds inside of me, reminding me
That there will be no escape until the strong and relentless boom, boom
Is stopped by force, stayed by my own hand.
It must be my own, you see, because none will help me –
They will give me words of wisdom, locked rooms with white walls,
They will fill my body with their infernal chemicals, which will cause my mind to lie to itself –
To cry, give me life!
Yet life is pain, and to live is unbearable.
This blood that screams inside me
Is the sustaining force of the flesh that imprisons me here
And must be shed, like so much excess baggage
Before I can cast off my bondage, rise, and soar among the stars.
Little difference between star and scar,
A mere letter, and what’s in a word? –
Talk is cheap, and if words cannot be trusted,
A star, then, is a scar, and the dark without and the dark within are one.
I will strike down that which separates them,
That has put asunder what was always one –
These walls will crumble, this glass will shatter
And this flesh will cease to house me.
The window is my eyes – a glass, beyond which lives a void of immeasurable blackness.
The night without echoes the night within
But the night behind my eyes exists starless and black.
I will rejoin the body of the universe, little limb that I am;
For I cannot bear to live without stars.
And when I do away with these eyes,
The window that keeps me from the night will likewise vanish
And I will rush outside to touch the sky,
Cartwheeling into oblivion
Until I am close enough to touch the stars, which are the scars
Of this strange and beautiful universe.