alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry - Tumblr blog

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Dante Émile - a city

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Jane Lightbourne

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“I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple—or a green field—a place to enter, and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an intellectual thing—an artifact, a moment of seemly and robust wordiness—wonderful as that part of it is. I learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but to speak—to be company. It was everything that was needed, when everything was needed. I remember the delicate, rumpled way into the woods, and the weight of the books in my pack. I remember the rambling, and the loafing—the wonderful days when, with Whitman, I tucked my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time.”

~ Mary Oliver, from “Upstream”

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Entangled by Alix Klingenberg

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Baby your touch is so seductive for me 🤤🔞

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M SOLEDAD CABALLERO

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Jane Lightbourne

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Jane Lightbourne

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I wish I could text the girls about you like I was 17 again and wondering if this guy really want me back,

But I’m 30 now and we’ve done this so many times that it’s getting old and tired

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"I get so jealous of euthanized dogs" by June Gehringer

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Song of the Worm

by Eliza Cook

THE worm, the rich worm, has a noble domain

In the field that is stored with its millions of slain ;

The charnel-grounds widen, to me they belong,

With the vaults of the sepulchre, sculptured and strong.

The tower of ages in fragments is laid,

Moss grows on the stones, and I lurk in its shade ;

And the hand of the giant and heart of the brave

Must turn weak and submit to the worm and the grave.

Daughters of earth, if I happen to meet

Your bloom-plucking fingers and sod-treading feet--

Oh ! turn not away with the shriek of disgust

From the thing you must mate with in darkness and dust.

Your eyes may be flashing in pleasure and pride,

'Neath the crown of a Queen or the wreath of a bride ;

Your lips may be fresh and your cheeks may be fair--

Let a few years pass over, and I shall be there.

Cities of splendour, where palace and gate,

Where the marble of strength and the purple of state ;

Where the mart and arena, the olive and vine,

Once flourished in glory ; oh ! are ye not mine ?

Go look for famed Carthage, and I shall be found

In the desolate ruin and weed-covered mound ;

And the slime of my trailing discovers my home,

'Mid the pillars of Tyre and the temples of Rome.

I am sacredly sheltered and daintily fed

Where the velvet bedecks, and the white lawn is spread ;

I may feast undisturbed, I may dwell and carouse

On the sweetest of lips and the smoothest of brows.

The voice of the sexton, the chink of the spade,

Sound merrily under the willow's dank shade.

They are carnival notes, and I travel with glee

To learn what the churchyard has given to me.

Oh ! the worm, the rich worm, has a noble domain,

For where monarchs are voiceless I revel and reign ;

I delve at my ease and regale where I may ;

None dispute with the worm in his will or his way.

The high and the bright for my feasting must fall--

Youth, Beauty, and Manhood, I prey on ye all :

The Prince and the peasant, the despot and slave ;

All, all must bow down to the worm and the grave.

never let anyone tell you that trawling through mediocre victorian poetry isn't worth it. we just happened upon an absolute BANGER of a worm poem. go read it or else 🪱🪱🪱

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Fixed the typos

To the spider,

the shadowed creature in the corner of the room

i hate you.

You scared me just as your brothers and sisters did before you,

and i will tell you what i told them,

You are a trespasser that does not belong here.

You entered without knocking.

Roamed freely like this is your home and decorated my walls with unwanted, silk webs without asking.

You may not be the only killer here, but only one of us is innocent,

and it's not you.

The spider says to me, it's brittle body squashed and dying,

It's not you, either.

There is venom infused in my fang-shaped maws,

but i was born this way.

What's your excuse?

If you could count your murders, how long would you be counting?

Am i really this threatening?

I thought human hearts were bigger that mine, but you have killed with malice instead of marrow of your bones and poison bubbling behind your scowl

And i'm sorry for scaring you,

but i didn't know being seen would cost me my life.

Maybe

If you didn't fabricate the prickly feeling of my legs creeping upon your skin while I crawled across the living room floor,

If the webs I weaved were made of cotton candy and captured clementines, cherries, and sweet peas rather than struggling wings and blood;

If i had a pink tongue, push fur, a wagging tail, and fur legs instead of eight

If i had only two eyes, and they were glittering stars and not supermassive block holes;

If i was the same but looked different;

maybe you wouldn't hate me.

Maybe you wouldn't have loved me, either, and maybe you still wouldn't have let me stay,

but maybe you would've shown me the door or a window.

Maybe you would've shown me mercy.

(But you are still standing, and I am still sorry).

I think

maybe,

no matter how reluctant,

mercy would've been enough

10 legs, 8 broken

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Right on Schedule

Poems will fly Friday.

- Jane Taylor

Tomorrow, the poems will leave their nests, their

burrows, their hidey-holes behind the sheds.

You may hear flapping of paper in the crepuscular

hours of morning as they assemble their letters

into words, words into lines, lines into stanzas.

They like to get off early. Others, the late risers,

avoid the heat of the day, departing their notebooks

in after-dinner hours, swooping with bats above trees.

Be alert. Rise early, retire late, or you will miss them.

If page 49 is gone, wait a day, then return after dark.

Anita Skeen

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I’ve begged you to pick me or put me first for years

I’m so used to it now

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Margaret Atwood, from The Selected Poems of Margaret Atwood; "Thoughts from Underground,"