Submit one of your poems/writings here.

[Pryderi]

Dante's Curse

The sinning mind sits
feverishly twisting
his rosary of phrases
praying for a poet's
salvation.

[no name no slogan]

1. a haiku

Burning cherry tree
Ev'ry blossom was aflame
Uh, here come the cops

[Radio_Lady]

4. No can do -- it's erotic poetry -- and last night, I got blasted because

(we were discussing K-I-T-T-E-N-S and B - R - E - A - S - T - S.... (can I even spell them?)

[Pryderi]

5. Censorship here? Maybe we need an adult discussion section?

maybe?

[Radio_Lady]

34. Let's call it "no sex threads" but they have their rules about almost

everything. It's OK with me. It was a fun night last night, while it lasted...

[ContraBass Black]

2. My most recent, penned hours ago:

I spoke of the hammer too damned long.
My words now come with actions.
I care not now for who you are
Or your allegiance to factions.
Mark your face, your stance, and speech,
And carfully examine your style.
Know that when we're face to face,
You will be on trial.


It's been that kind of day.

[skygazer]

3. Back Road

The dirt road runs between its banks
All hung with moss and tangled roots
Like quilts draped over rocking chairs –
The road is old. The ruts of years
Have worn it deep – wheel of wagon,
Stagecoach, cart. Now people come
In four-wheel-drives, not many though –
The road is rough. It winds up mountains,
Rocky, steep, then plunges down the other side
And dips in bogs where sinkholes lurk
To trap unwary travelers.
The road’s alive. It seems to change,
Its path is different every day,
And only those few lucky souls
Who pass beyond that deepest point
Will find the secrets locked within.
New England roads are like the folks
Who live on them; set in their ways,
Resistant to the sweep of time
But worth the trouble in the end.

[ContraBass Black]

6. Vivid.

Are the roads that shift daily the same ones that are set in their ways?

[skygazer]

7. Go ahead, mock my mixed metaphors

:cry:

[ContraBass Black]

8. I'm not mocking!

I'm making sure I haven't misunderstood.

[skygazer]

9. Their way is to confuse and to seem to change

And they're just set in that. ;)

I wrote this several years ago - I love meandering around on the dirt roads of Vermont. In many places, dirt roads are all dead ends but in Vermont they actually go somewhere (some of the state highways have dirt portions even).

The old ones have become so worn that they have high banks on either side - it's like driving along a ditch almost. And I got to thinking about how they meander and wind about and just when you think you're not getting anywhere, you come out in some village somewhere (miles from where you THOUGHT you'd be).

Somehow, all that seemed to tie in with the people but it is a somewhat mixed metaphor. I just like the imagery and the rhythm.

[Pryderi]

10. A political one I'm in the middle of writing...

The spoiled, fearful boy
With his Puffed chest
and false bravado
"bring 'em on"
safely ensconced in
sulfurous white lair
destroying families, minds and souls
the boy-reaper prattles on
while his programmed drones
cheer him

Death fears the pale horse,
abuses the trust of soldiers
Nothing is as it seems

A raped woman screams

He stands wrapped in a cloak
made of plastic, thorny crowns
blood


Ravaged man weeps

Poseidon's wrath

[Liberalynn]

11. This one's sort of my signature poem.

I wrote it when I was 21. A long time ago but the feeling still holds true.

Loneliness Barrier

Loneliness a barrier
no one dares cross.
A vast violent ocean
many ships are lost.

Shores disappear
lost in darkening gloom.
Love fades away
trapped in private doom.

Passage is prevented
by anger and by fear
swells and waves build
many unshed tears.

Escape made possible
realms of dreams.
The lighthouse guides
the ship with brilliant beams.

[Pryderi]

12. Nice piece! May I ask what was happening in your life at the time

your wrote it?

[Liberalynn]

16. Thanks.

I was seeing a lot of my college friends pair up with guys and none of the guys seemed interested in me. The one guy I really liked talked to me but it turned out that was only so I would help him get better grades in history. I kind of sensed then that I would probably end up alone and so far over twenty years later that's turned out to be true.

Also I had sort of compromised on some dreams in terms of where I went to college and what I wanted to major in because of fear, and a little part of me was already starting to regret it, but I just didn't have the courage to change course.

[Pryderi]

19. You might like this one.

The relationship expired
another emotional coupon
unable to be redeemed
even at 1/20th it's value

[Liberalynn]

20. That is an excellent one.

[BamaGirl]

13. Well there's a reason I don't

write poetry, cause I suck at it lol. I wrote this for a class many years ago. The assignment theme was childhood.

Ode to RC

walk run skip
fall climb scale
bike fast & wild down
a steep hill
swing to touch
the sky
sing
Elvira &Swingin'
hunt with arrows
ghostly indians
wait 11 months for Santa
then forget
abc's and 123's
school's out for summer
bells & chimes
the ice cream man
build a treehouse
in the yard
late one night
campfire bright
who forgot
the RC?

[FuzzyThinker]

14. What if.....

what if all is , whether it is or not ?

what if we jump into the sky ? who decides , or who doesn't decide ? or can one jump sideways into inner lines of thin points.

why do cups fill with sandy light on a sweaty fence ? what if it dies ? do they weep ? those lips that lick dew from the moons eyes...

Anyway , what if "if" does not imply "if" anymore ..... what if all words are lost , or they are already lost , are they lost?

a million crickets quacked (they did!) on the hill tomorrow , but happiness did not touch them , those wide-eyed creatures of ducky disposition.

and on a side note , fermat wrote his last theorem.

take care , you cute swindly bipedals you.....

[FuzzyThinker]

15. Is there any hope left ?

is there an escape from selfishness?

can exhaling and inhaling be forgettable.

can happiness be as sweet as an everlasting moment , an infinity in the now.

or can doors open into dreamy oblivion.

yearning towards an exit , any exit.

There is only birth and destruction , there are no exits , non at all.

or could it be my last illusion ? that there is NO EXIT.

Tired , I lay down into my chores. never dreaming , never hoping , never being more than I am.

Is there any hope left ?

[hypovex]

17. ancient wisdom

there was a young man from Spleen
who invented a wanking machine
on the 99th stroke
the fucking thing broke
and whiped his balls to cream

[bigwillq]

18. **Flipping the Calendar**

There is truth in wisdom
Truth transcends hope,
joy, passion, strength.

Truth boils
to the core,
the root, exposing
weakness and error.

Truth rises
like desert temperature
fast heat by noon,
dark cold by dusk.

We know the end comes
when truth prevails.
We examine and pry
through open sores
but never find more
or less then truth.

Table top steady
glances we give
each other
Bitter, stagnant silence
traps our tongue
until one budges
and exits.

Traces of our past
exploited and exposed
we reached the finish
but the journey
has only begun.

[Nikia]

21. A few I wrote while I sat outside upset

A boom
A bang
Running through the fields
Running through the trees
Far away I run
Finally I am free
A boom
A bang
Will I ever be free from fear?
I run away, but I am hunted every day
Is it no wonder that I am afraid?

Looking at the fly, buzzing around the room
How he tries to get away when I get close to him
Does he feel the danger of his ultimate demise?
Does he fear that there is much undone and unsaid?
Yet I swat and he is dead
A life thrown away, just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time
Am I just a fly?

I am an injured bird with a broken wing
Can I ever fly again?
Or am I to be eaten alive by a cat?
So I'll rest in a thorny bush
They won't be able to hurt me there
And through the thorns I see the others frolicing in the sun,
While I sit alone in pain

[XemaSab]

37. Good stuff....

reminds me a little of robinson jeffers...

[WCGreen]

22. Something I wrote about the Vietnam War.....

It was firefly dusk,
Sweaty, muggy, pell mell running fast behind twilight.
And no one wanted the days last tag.
If it was left off, unrequited, before the break,
It would spill over, a terrible fate,
With redemption spanning
The long stretch till Easter gathering.

A giant black lump coal truck lumbers up the incline,
The last before nightfall.
The young one's stop to revel in the shudder.
Too easy, the no tag rule kicks in,
When the outside world intervenes,
Somehow disrupting the match.
There was no sport in that.
When the black dust turns the bend to depot,
The chase resumes, now all the more frantic.

Perched over the coal dusky town
Like a buzzard watching, waiting the dying day,
The night shift warning siren stands ready.
And then, it screeches, a long mournful wail,
Piercing the heavy summer air,
Vibrating into the back country.
To natives, the sign of another shift in earth,
To players, a two minute warning.

Now Jed pulls himself from the squeaky,
Rust blotched porch glider,
The Hero taking to the killing field.
Younger cousins squeal with delight,
Now that the eldest has finally joined the fray.
The halfback weaves through the throng untouched,
Evading all to stand before the paralyzed It.

A slight feint, just the hint of a dodge and it is done,
The Sacrifice complete.
As the fourteenth whisper tags the first,
The man but still all boy cousin smiles down
From the lofty height of eighteen.

On cue, the final siren sounds,
Signaling true defeat for the day.
With cold, detached efficiency,
Grandma, aunts, mothers, older sisters spring into action,
Mustering the troops for the gatherings final assault,
On the day, only sleep and dreams remain.


Jed took it all in,
That night he would sleep content,
Carrying the it with him into forever,
Memories of youth now spilled.
Before the sun or brood could rise,
The warrior left,
Only the men were stirring,
Staring at faded kitchen Linoleum,
Kicking at nothing,
Harry, George, Steve knew,
Had seen it up close,
Bill only heard, too young for FDR,
But all of them,
Struggling hard to let only pride escape,
Showed no fear, showed no concern, gave no quarter.
And then, under a puff of diesel so dank,
Motor Gray Cherbus sucked youth away,
Pulling out just before,
The phoenix whistle jolts the coal town back to life.

[SoCalDem]

23. My Grandmother's Purse

a recipe, yellowed & ragged
written in a long-remembered hand
slips of papers, tossed into a junk drawer
notes pressed between rarely opened pages

an embroidered, neatly folded hankie in a dusty, shelved purse
a 1957 dollar bill tucked into a tattered wllet
left there by sentiment in my Grandmother's purse

a valentine from an 8 year old, now past 56
pictures of her at MY age with me...
looking older than her years

a loved one,long gone now, who was so much
the tangibles that remain.. faded pictures,aged paper, fabric
insignificant stuff lingers..saved because it's hers

[WCGreen]

24. Sniff........

[SoCalDem]

32. Every so often, I run across that old purse

It was the one she had with her when she entered the hospital just before she died..My aunt kept it all these years, and when SHE died, I took it...
Her grocery list for that week is still in it..:cry: She died in 1961

[WCGreen]

42. That is so sad but also great that you have a piece of your

grandmotehr to carry with you....

[SoCalDem]

25. Ain't war grand??

Ain't war grand??

Planes flying
Bombs dropping
Children dying
Corks popping
Mothers crying
Zealots praying
Rumsfeld grinning
America's staying
Ari spinning
Oil gushing
Money flowing
Poverty crushing
Hatred growing
Flags flying
Bush smirking
Children dying
Democrats shirking
Mothers crying

[RetroLounge]

26. Something I just wrote...

6:34 a.m.

You lift your hand from her left breast
and lay it gently on my forearm
for all of five short seconds,
warm and reassuring, soft yet purposeful.

Suddenly it seems that your palm
sears itself into my arm,
slicing thru muscles, bone deep.

The hair on my neck stands up. It is just
for a brief moment that you let your hand
rest there on my arm, but an eternity
of feelings pass into me, becoming
permanence.

You cannot know what I feel, for I will never tell you.
I do not think you are even awake, nor is she.
But I have not slept in days,
or what sleep I had was filled with images of you,
fleeting mind-movies, dispersing at waking,
leaving behind the suggestion
that you have been there again,
a lingering touch on my thoughts,
a soul-visiting siren, the scent of your curves,
the hint of what I know can never be,
a simultaneous filling and draining of my heart.

A slight squeeze and you lift your hand
and return it to its rightful place.

RL

[SoCalDem]

27. Don't...stop thinkin' about tomorrow (see what you started?)

Don't...stop thinkin' about tomorrow.....
High hopes, good cheer,excitement, everything's fine
The trip's just starting... rolling along...all joy, no sorrow
noses pressed to the window of time...
Are we there yet???

Anticipation.....

How petty and evil can some people be??
Roadblocks as far as the eye can see...
No U-Turns, please,look into the lens
The public has a right to know, and you're among friends..
Bare your soul till it bleeds...

Waaaay down upon the Suwannee River...

The dream must continue, the work's not done
After trouble and strife, the destination's in sight..
Triple teaming, dirty dealing, finally over..evil cannot triumph over right
Wrong......End game..Dream over...It's been fun...

Get Over It

Like Santa, he's made his list
He's got the world united...and pissed
What to do first..
bottom to top, or least to worst??
War.......................check
Loot treasury.............check
Phony appointments........check
Kill Roe v Wade...........check
Loot Social security......check
Break treaties............check
Defile environment........check
Ruin economy..............check
Lose jobs.................check
oh yeah...
WORLD WAR (extra added attraction...NUKES)....

He rocked our world...used real rocks, to our dismay
We stopped thinkin' about tomorrow
We're trying to make it through TODAY...
End of the line, everybody off...destination sorrow..

[SoCalDem]

28. Last one.. I promise.. in honor of the new FEMA guy

A little bit of tape..

tear ducts overflowing...
illuminati eye averted..
corpse dust , in the wind blowing
screams with no sound....
decency and compassion denied, subverted ...
horror, devastation and fear abound..
pillage, plunder and rape
only "victory", they'll be showing..
all that is needed is some tape...
duct tape for our eyes, so We need not see
duct tape for our ears, so we need not hear??...
duct tape for our mouths so we need not speak
duct tape for the ducts of their tears????...
videotape to chronicle successes...
surgical tape for Iraqi injured...
red tape to expose the excesses..

scotch tape to mend our constitution??

[Floogeldy]

29. Okay. I'm really good at this.

There once was a cheese slice from Wisconsin
Which loved all the movies by Charles Bronson

It had no death wish,

It's wife's name was Tish

And it ate pot pies made by Swanson.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

;)

[Heidi]

33. Excellent. Just excellent. (nt)

[Floogeldy]

38. There's just no heiding real genuis.

:)

[Heidi]

39. I know "dizzackly" what you mean. (nt)

[swag]

30. A limerick composed about my life in the financial services industry

The money I made sucking cocks
Is mainly invested in stocks
I sucked on some c*nts
And bought some bonds once
But now I just mainly suck rocks

[WCGreen]

31. Ha Ha......

[CaliforniaPeggy]

35. A little something I came up with recently...

My fatigue sits heavily upon me...my eyes grow weary with my surroundings. Every breath is an effort. My muscles ache ....My spirits flag with the passing time...I feel the years pile upon me...

How I hate this waiting, this longing...the not knowing ....My arms reach out for you, my precious love...but you aren't here ...You are far away from me...and trapped from my love...

Your words do not come to me..not to my ears, not to my screen...all is emptiness...my soul is empty and weary ...

How I long for your touch...but I am weary of longing...I am tired of being patient, of waiting for others to get out of the way...I want decisiveness, to board that airplane and fly to where you are...

I want to run down the jetway and into your waiting arms, where your kisses await me...and your embraces...Alas, it is not to be...not right now...

My fatigue sits heavily upon me...

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

36. My personal favorite, written many years ago.

A SPECIAL DREAM



I had a special dream last night--
I dreamed that I could fly
away, beyond the floating clouds--
I danced up in the sky.

The treetops were my stepping stones
to reach the summer air
so clear, so warm and sparkling blue!
I wish I was still there.

My dream was very real to me--
I thought of it all day.
I want to go back to my sky--
I wish there were a way!

To fly; to fly just like a bird!
To laugh at gravity!
It tasted sweet up in the sky--
like summer wine to me.

I had a special dream last night--
I dreamed that I could be
above the mountains; with the stars!
I flew, and I was free!

[Mobius]

40. Robin Artisson, from Verses of the Wooden Malkin

"They cast about the trunks of Elf-Trees
They flew with abandon through the countryside
They drank from sacred wells
And climbed into the sky

In all this time, the wind was watching
Blowing from its home in the north
Towards the east, where the fire burns
And the white tree grows unseen forth

See owls or geese in the sky
And the changing, unchanged Land below
New days perhaps have come
But the old days do not go..."


-Robin Artisson, from Verses of the Wooden Malkin

[WilliamPitt]

41. This was for my grandmother, who passed in February

Flyfisher

My grandmother was a fly-fisher before arthritis
twisted her hands and knees and back
into shapes only fit for sitting and watching television.

Have you ever seen fly-fishing? It is older than Jesus
and done the same way today as it was yesterday
and 100 and 1,000 and 5,000 years ago.

Old cane pole with a ball of thick twine cast out
on smooth water, floating like a tasty bug,
like ringing the dinner bell for trout or bass.

The fly’s the thing: colored string and bits of cloth
tied around a barbed hook to look like an insect.
The best ones, the real ones, are made by hand.

My grandmother made her own flies before arthritis
stole the deft talent of her fingers. I found a leather
case full of her hand-made flies not long ago.

They had eyes, and wings, and legs, and looked
for all the world like bugs until you got careless
and hooked yourself accidentally in the thumb.

Tying the fly is the hardest trick to master.
The string must be wound and wound round
the shaft of the hook, secure against bass bites.

It takes time, and patience, and care, and love.
In that leather satchel I found were flies that
surely took her hours and days and weeks to craft.

My grandmother was a fly-fisher before arthritis
and a bronchial infection and cracked ribs from
a fall and dehydration and kidney trouble and stroke

and the death of her husband of 61 years
last December put her into the hospital bed
I saw her in last night, clad in white like a cloud.

She called me Michael, which is not my name,
but that was fine with me. I held her wrinkled,
spotted hand in mine and marveled at her fingers.

Those fingers had tied my heart to hers, surely and deftly
over years, with patience and love, so cleanly and
completely that I never saw the hook coming into me.

My grandmother was a fly-fisher until she just got
too old to stand in the lake and cast the line. I know
she misses the thrill of a strike, the silence of wind

on water. She lies now in a hospital bed in Brighton,
unsure of where she is or why, fidgety and ill, lonely
for the company of her husband, whom she hooked first.

The bright colored twine she used to wrap us all in
her love has begun to loosen, breath by breath,
layer by layer, wrap by wrap by wrap. She hooked

us all and we hooked her, a family of fly-fishers
entwined in history. But like all human fish she will
soon slip the hook and disappear into dark water.

My grandmother was a fly-fisher, a catcher of souls
in her own quiet, stubborn, loving, bemused Irish way.
I do not know of one fish that slipped through her nets.

[wildhorses]

43. I already posted this in the "writing" forum but...

since you asked:

I go to the mountains
and I swim in the river
I walk through the valley
and I smell all the flowers

The mist rises o'er me
and the rain falls down on me
I cry to the treetops
and I pray for the violence
to end

I look for the sunlight
and I drink in the moonshine
The stars glitter for me
and the birds fly above me

I look to the angels
and I talk with the strangers
Let there be peace all around me
and I pray for the violence
to end

[livetohike]

44. America Promises (written in 1983)

To the Mon-Valley Steelworkers and Their Struggle:

It's my Grandfather's spirit and my Father's face I see there
And thousands of other steelworkers

Their faces reflect the hard work and a century of struggle that brought the Iron City it's proud name

Counting pennies at a bank teller's window,
This simple gesture - a protest against a financial institution which
chooses to support foreign steel imports

Battered steelworker - 1983 - let your blood mingle with those of your brothers
The institution, their money made with your sweat and blood and that of those before you

My Grandfather, Dzedo, wielding a 50 lb. sledgehammer breaks off the rough edges from a rail of steel
Making a living in the Smoky City - America promises so much, so much

His son, my Father, follows him to the mill, a wireman climbing high - a 50' fall almost takes his life
A wife and four children living the American dream in the suburbs

America promises so much, so much .....

Now the third generation, my brother, college educated, engineer son
Worked for US Steel has left his job for one with more security - promise

Several years of recession
Thousands of proud men and women holding their heads up as they give concessions

Waiting for the Phoenix to rise from the smoke, cinder and ash.

[trackfan]

45. A poem - Memorial Weekend Feast

Memorial Weekend Feast

This last weekend turned out to be a mighty
feast. Our Saturday started with the beers we
drank at home before going out to dinner.
La Risata in Pasadena's Old Town
wasn't crowded. We started with caprese,
then a salad, (the one that's named for Caesar);
now the entree - a giant plate of gnocchi,
and a bottle of wine - a pinot noir. We
came back home and we had some apple pie, just
freshly baked, and we topped it off with ice cream.
In the morning, we had, along with coffee,
eggs and bacon, with hash-browns, toast and jam. At
four we started with drinks whose name defies the
meter: vodka and orange juice mixed together.
Then, for dinner, we had potato salad -
(very creamy) - then Caesar salad followed;
for our bottle of wine, a chardonnay. Then
crispy, crunchy fried chicken and some gravy,
rolls and corn on the cob made up the rest of
dinner. Pie ala mode was our dessert. For
breakfast, odd as it seems, we ate more pie and
ice cream. Also, we had a roll and gravy.
Janet even ate more potato salad.
For our cocktails in the afternoon, I
used the blender for lemon margaritas.
Then we both had a couple Irish whiskeys.
Monday's dinner was mostly food left over
from the one that we so enjoyed on Sunday.