Poetry!!!

[leonthecowboy]

Okay so I'm going through with my idea to make a poetry topic. I plan on posting a new poem that inspires me here every week, but please feel free to share some of your favorites or even your own poetry!

This first poem is called:

Anthony Bourdain
by William Brewer

The more money we come across
the less tarot we do
the more we chew
in silence
staring
at palm trees
glazed red
on wall tiles
the head of actual palms
lining the drive-thru
masked with smoke
from burning
Paradise

For a week it's lined our lungs.

Driving home I strain to see
the exit signs
and toll booth structures
as the radio
debates ways
to stop the kids
from smoking Juuls
between advertisements
for cleaning solutions
I'll use after
the rains have come
to make our rooms smell
like rooms I've never lived in
which are the rooms
I most prefer

Two months now
we've been married
it feels the same
but different
men stopped mentioning
fucking
the same thing forever
and everyone else
started asking
about the future
sometimes just saying the word
for no reason
I'd compliment the Beaujolais
and then
"in the future you should consider looking into"
over and over
until the word began
to radiate
in my mind

I find myself spelling it out
letter by letter
on the roof of my mouth
while up late folding t-shirts
and now it's two
and I'm beside you in bed
envisioning the ripples
on my Celestial
Sleepytime
Herbal Tea
as I dropped in
my CBD oil
meaning both products
have failed me
once again
and I feel like I deserve it

For ten years I fell asleep
watching him
wander
Old World cities
and chew
the fattened
parts of animals
but he's been dead since June
now I can't get through
an episode
the future
like a residue
on every frame
how it was there
the whole time
but I failed to see it

We felt like him
we said once
in a foreign country
after a farmer directed us
into a cave
at its end
a secret altar
carved into the limestone
by the once-persecuted
candles burning
in little scooped-out
shelves of rock
a bowl of oil
a vacant space meant
for a holy text

To get there the farmer told us
to walk until we felt like we
should stop then walk
some more and so we did
until the sunglow
of the entrance faded
then disappeared
as we disappeared
in blackness absolute
and stopped
and then you whispered
Can you see me?
No I said
but I know where you are

[SkieSquiggles]

Okay so I'm going through with my idea to make a poetry topic. I plan on posting a new poem that inspires me here every week, but please feel free to share some of your favorites or even your own poetry!

This first poem is called:

Anthony Bourdain
by William Brewer

Spoiler!

The more money we come across
the less tarot we do
the more we chew
in silence
staring
at palm trees
glazed red
on wall tiles
the head of actual palms
lining the drive-thru
masked with smoke
from burning
Paradise

For a week it's lined our lungs.

Driving home I strain to see
the exit signs
and toll booth structures
as the radio
debates ways
to stop the kids
from smoking Juuls
between advertisements
for cleaning solutions
I'll use after
the rains have come
to make our rooms smell
like rooms I've never lived in
which are the rooms
I most prefer

Two months now
we've been married
it feels the same
but different
men stopped mentioning
fucking
the same thing forever
and everyone else
started asking
about the future
sometimes just saying the word
for no reason
I'd compliment the Beaujolais
and then
"in the future you should consider looking into"
over and over
until the word began
to radiate
in my mind

I find myself spelling it out
letter by letter
on the roof of my mouth
while up late folding t-shirts
and now it's two
and I'm beside you in bed
envisioning the ripples
on my Celestial
Sleepytime
Herbal Tea
as I dropped in
my CBD oil
meaning both products
have failed me
once again
and I feel like I deserve it

For ten years I fell asleep
watching him
wander
Old World cities
and chew
the fattened
parts of animals
but he's been dead since June
now I can't get through
an episode
the future
like a residue
on every frame
how it was there
the whole time
but I failed to see it

We felt like him
we said once
in a foreign country
after a farmer directed us
into a cave
at its end
a secret altar
carved into the limestone
by the once-persecuted
candles burning
in little scooped-out
shelves of rock
a bowl of oil
a vacant space meant
for a holy text

To get there the farmer told us
to walk until we felt like we
should stop then walk
some more and so we did
until the sunglow
of the entrance faded
then disappeared
as we disappeared
in blackness absolute
and stopped
and then you whispered
Can you see me?
No I said
but I know where you are

This poem fucking rules thank you for posting it

[leonthecowboy]

Poem number 2 !!

After Graduate School
by Valencia Robin

Needless to say I support the forsythia's war
against the dull colored houses, the beagle
deciphering the infinitely complicated universe
at the bottom of a fence post. I should be gussying up
my resume, I should be dusting off my protestant work ethic,
not walking around the neighborhood loving the peonies
and the lilac bushes, not heading up Shamrock
and spotting Lucia coming down the train tracks. Lucia
who just sold her first story and whose rent is going up,
too, Lucia who says she's moving to South America to save money,
Lucia cute twenty-something I wish wasn't walking down train tracks
alone. I tell her about my niece teaching in China, about the waiter
who built a tiny house in Hawaii, how he saved up, how
he had to call the house a garage to get a building permit.
Someone's practicing the trumpet, someone's frying bacon
and once again the wisteria across the street is trying to take over
the nation. Which could use a nice invasion, old growth trees
and sea turtles, every kind of bird marching
on Washington. If I had something in my refrigerator,
if my house didn't look like the woman who lives there
forgot to water the plants, I'd invite Lucia home,
enjoy another hour of not thinking about not having a job,
about not having a mother to move back home with.
I could pick Lucia's brain about our circadian rhythms,
about this space between sunrise and sunset,
ask if she's ever managed to get inside it, the air,
the sky ethereal as all get out- so close
and no ladder in sight.

[Cosmic_Outlaw_]

hoping to get a tat inspired by this one!

Two Headed Calf by Laura Gilpin
Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual

[mysteryROOSTER]

hoping to get a tat inspired by this one!

Two Headed Calf by Laura Gilpin
Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual

It’s a cathartic feeling when you can briefly forget about the future, forget about what anyone thinks of your unusual traits, and just enjoy some wonder that comes with being alive. Being in a time and place that is peaceful enough or captivating enough that for a moment, nothing else exists. It’s just you and awe.

[sydsavage16]

I have written hundreds of poems, read thousands more, and dreamed an infinite number. But none of them have come even close to the perfection of these 3 lines written by KC Green (of This is Fine and Dickbutt game). This is my favorite poem, zero irony. It’s my personal opinion that every poem that has ever been written since the dawn of language has been trying to say what these 3 lines say so perfectly. I plan on getting this tattooed to my body at some point. This is 100% serious- this poem touched me in a way that I thought impossible. I became so jaded with poetry, even after being published, due to my experience in college writing workshops. But this poem made poetry feel worth it again.

[mysteryROOSTER]

I have written hundreds of poems, read thousands more, and dreamed an infinite number. But none of them have come even close to the perfection of these 3 lines written by KC Green (of This is Fine and Dickbutt game). This is my favorite poem, zero irony. It’s my personal opinion that every poem that has ever been written since the dawn of language has been trying to say what these 3 lines say so perfectly. I plan on getting this tattooed to my body at some point. This is 100% serious- this poem touched me in a way that I thought impossible. I became so jaded with poetry, even after being published, due to my experience in college writing workshops. But this poem made poetry feel worth it again.

Really good to see other people share the sentiment that simplicity and straight-forwardness in some art work shouldn't bar it from this kind of appreciation. Any method of expression, no matter how succinct or complex, could have the same amount of meaning poured into it. This is a good poem.

[Cosmic_Outlaw_]

The Cremation of Sam McGee

BY ROBERT W. SERVICE

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
      I cremated Sam McGee.


Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."


On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.


And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."


Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."


A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.


There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."


Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.


And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.


Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."


Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.


Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.


I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.


And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."


There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
      I cremated Sam McGee

[sydsavage16]

The Cremation of Sam McGee

BY ROBERT W. SERVICE

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
      I cremated Sam McGee.


Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."


On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.


And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."


Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."


A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.


There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."


Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.


And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.


Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."


Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.


Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.


I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.


And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."


There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
      I cremated Sam McGee

This is a classic. Every time it snows hard I think about it.

[SkieSquiggles]

The Cremation of Sam McGee

Spoiler!

BY ROBERT W. SERVICE

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
      I cremated Sam McGee.


Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."


On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.


And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."


Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."


A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.


There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."


Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.


And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.


Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."


Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.


Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.


I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.


And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."


There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
      I cremated Sam McGee

This one's such a fucking banger.