#poetry about poetry

[llanekee]

Words are like barbed wire Violence is a sharp knife Both can cut deep if you just use them right

But if you use too many words You’ll get wound up in your own wire

And if you use violence too much You’ll find yourself at the end of your own knife

Remember, how the blood moves When it seeps out of your own entrapment It’s a potent way to show you How you’ll steal the lives and love of those people

With every word you wrap with All the violence you act with The daggers point back at you

In time you’ll be surrounded by a death of your design But that’s poetry, it’s always costly

You say the expense is worth every cent Is it now, is your life worth the rent

Run those words to the chain Speak that violence as a claim It is all the same, poets needing to be vain

You’re just afraid to be spoilt So you need to earn it and prove it and fly too high In the light, in the right course of poor decision You say you’ll cross that divide

Dying and hate and finding world peace It just takes infinite words and violence to spare

Block the light with your barbed wires Destroy the world with your sharp knife It is just the same to give and take

If poets must write then they’ll stand and be right Is it so much to ask to lay in bloody poetry

-by Lane Key :]

[rachelspoetrycorner]

Thank You For Saying Thank You (2003) by Charles Bernstein

In Episode 43, Rachel shares the longest poem yet!

Rachel: He (Charles Bernstein) was one of the originators of quote "Language Poetry"-

Griffin: -is that not... all poetry?

Rachel: Well, it became a thing in the 60's and 70's, because it emphasizes the reader's role in bringing meaning out of the work; seeing the poem as a construction in, and of language, itself.

If you'd like to hear more about Language Poetry, Charles Bernstein, or be delighted by Rachel's take on the Poetry Corner's jazzy theme song, you can do so here: Davey Coolstools Math Poetry from 4:24-12:43.

[musings-of-the-void]

For once I’m content tonight

I sat in a soft chair in a dark room

A circle of light from the lamp just bright enough to read

Read books of poetry

And the words of my friends

Laughed and talked and learned all in the quiet of night

It’s been a lovely evening, a lovely night

And now I’m scared to let it end

Tomorrow I won’t be content anymore

(Or if I am, I’ll be surprised)

I feel so calm, so ok right now

I don’t want it to be over

So I let the night drag on

Even as the darkness pulls at my eyes

Even as I sag into drowsy awakeness

I am alive this night

I will make it last as long as I can

[imaginationstimulation]

Grounded Wings | by Arka Ghosh

In the quiet of the night, perhaps you are a bird robbed of wings, yet not of song feathers replaced by whispered words, plumage lost, but your eloquence strong.

So you dance, on barren ground, each step a verse, each leap a line. You’ve discovered the sky in syllables found, soaring in stanzas when you can’t in time.

They say you’re earthbound, a creature confined, but listen, they know not the hymns you keep. Your rhythm is air, your cadence is wind, and in each metaphor, you find your sweep.

Perhaps your wings are thoughts that dare Maybe you're a bird, still claiming the air.

I admire Arka Ghosh's poem as-is. But to resonate more deeply within myself, I propose the following edits:

Grounded Wings | by Arka Ghosh; edited by Cassandra McLean

Perhaps you're a bird, robbed of your wings; you're never robbed of song. Your feathers instead are whispered words, when the body is weak, keep your eloquence strong.

So you dance, on barren ground, each step a verse, each leap a line. You’ve discovered the sky in syllables found, soaring in stanzas when you can’t in time.

They say you’re earthbound, a creature confined, but listen, they know not the hymns you keep. Your rhythm is air, your cadence is wind, and in each metaphor, you find your sweep.

Perhaps your wings are thoughts that dare, Perhaps you're a bird, still claiming the air.

[local-ink-lover]

[wanderingline]

Always a shape

It is a shape

Always a shape

Intricate, unfurling,

                       Dehiscent

     The shape has a taste

Colours and of course,

Sound

You roll it like a sweet in your mouth

Salivating

It plucks your heart like a string

It pinches and it sings and

Sets you free

Makes you light

                                              Weightless

You love and you love,

Always!

It is always love

Even lost

Even hate

Sorrows are painted joys set afire

Unnamed becomes

Delineated

A shape

Always a shape

[lucidloving]

@roach-works // Melissa Broder, "Problem Area" // Mary Oliver, "The Return" // @annavonsyfert // Koyoharu Gotouge, Demon Slayer // Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance // David Levithan, How They Met and Other Stories // Tennessee Williams, Notebooks

[tigerjpg]

nothing makes me go "ooooh we are NOT the same" quite like reading some post about how people talk with their parents about their interests. what do you mean you told your father about stevebucky. what do you mean he asked further questions

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

secrets of farming (1863) - john w. large

"yeowch augh taking damage ough eurgh"

[sorrcha]

benthic angel

was writing about lake sturgeon for a class assignment and showed one of my friends what i'd written.. he then sent part of it back to me with line breaks to turn it into a poem! i just had to draw something for it :]

poem text under the readmore:

lake sturgeon don't know that they're endangered. They don't know anything - other than the muck at the bottom of the water column and the occasional passing touch of another.

really touched by how my friend turned my technical writing into poetry. i haven't tried to write creatively in months, so it's nice to see i've still got it- and nicer still that i could get so inspired by my friend, since i haven't made nature art in a little while, either :>!!

[skellydun]

absolutely love reading such a well-written story and falling a bit in love with the author based solely on the way they write. like baby the way you italicize words makes my heartbeat quicken.

[llanekee]

When no one listens to the words I speak All I can do is keep on radically talking Hoping that one day, someone will love it And every damaged thing I've had to say That was lost to time and lost in memory Maybe then, a soul will have truly known me

For there is no greater significance than understanding So comprehend me for nostalgic enterprises I’ll keep radically talking even when you’re not listening

-by Lane Key :]

[inkskinned]

in internet posts it is easy to cut them out of your life. they are hurting you! they aren't listening to you!

they held your hair back. they lent you lipstick. they held your hand at the train station and got you home safe. they rounded on your bully, got loud, said get fucked, spitting-mad in your defense.

they also cut the hair off again. told you that you should really think twice before wearing something like that. took you for granted. took your insecurities and threw them in your face again.

you know logically it should be easy. all the internet advice comments always read it will feel better. like an equation - if a person is rotten, you just remove them. you pull the tooth that's hurting.

but it was never a big flare-up moment. you don't live in a sitcom. they never tried to take your boyfriend or steal from your apartment. they showed up to birthdays and they wrote songs about you and bring you water without you asking. once you found out they carry an emergency inhaler for you, even though you haven't had an asthma attack in years - just in case.

where is the line? people fuck up. sometimes they fuck up badly. sometimes people have raw personalities, like a powerline, and being around them is dangerous. addicting. sometimes they can't help themselves, but you know they're trying. sometimes they are just rough-around-the-edges. sometimes they don't even realize how they sounded when they said that. sometimes it's just - you've both loved each other for so long now, the way this thing hurts goes back to the root.

and that's the fucked up part. you have pushed your fingers against the sweetheart of memory. things these days are electric, tense, harrowing. they didn't used to be. there were a lot of good days in there. sometimes you want to just close your eyes and say can this be over yet? do we still need to be fighting?

doing that would give up any chance you get of getting an apology, but you don't always know that you need an apology, you love them. once they flaked on your birthday party. once they told you to get over it, people are always dying. they also let you crash on their couch for a week after the breakup, handfeeding you when you were so sad you couldn't eat. they are also judgmental about everything, occasionally react to banal statements with an attitude that is weird and fiery. they also love you like a lighthouse sometimes, so strong they cut the storm like lightning.

but the problem is that you might be storm. you might be the thing that needs breaking. what if you are two forces who are desperately, horribly drawn to each other, shaped by the other person's passions, and both good for each other and bad in equal measure.

what if you're both just people, and you're no saint neither.

just cut them off! swallowing the saltwater, you catch yourself in the mirror. you've been shaking more than usual. there's an ache in you that is oblique, loud, impossible to soothe. is this what it looks like? when life is "easier"?

your mouth will always have a hole, is the thing, if you remove the tooth.

[deviika]

–Anaïs Nin

[icaruspendragon]

make sure to leave suppressed bisexuality and self-worth issues out for castiel tonight

[delirium-mind]

I miss the way I viewed the world before I knew too much about it