User Poetry

[RonPrice]

Just a few words for Harry T:

"Poets have explained that free verse is, despite its freedom, not entirely free. Free verse displays some elements of form. Most free verse, for example, self-evidently continues to observe a convention of the poetic line in some sense, at least in written representations, though retaining a potential degree of linkage, however there are more traditional forms. Donald Hall goes as far as to say that "the form of free verse is as binding and as liberating as the form of a rondeau",[2] and T. S. Eliot wrote, "No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job".[3] Kenneth Allott the poet/critic said the adoption by some poets of vers libre arose from 'mere desire for novelty, the imitation of Whitman, the study of Jacobean dramatic blank verse, and the awareness of what French poets had already done to the Alexandrine in France'.[4] The American critic John Livingston Lowes in 1916 observed 'Free verse may be written as very beautiful prose; prose may be written as very beautiful free verse. Which is which ?' [5] For more on this subject and the footnotes go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_verse

[jeremy young]

The Rabbit God
The sun sits high past the noontime,
the flat land, new mown,
ambles away to the river.
And, in the last field before the railway lines
I lean against the stake of the barbed wire fence
and watch rabbits.

He is two months younger than I;
taller, more willing to fight,
though maybe my equal in strength.
We have just had a wheelie competition,
in the dust of the abandoned road,
which runs arrow straight over the crossing.
Our brown-berry legs,
in short trousers,
carry the scars of play,
in these dying days of the summer holiday.

He tells me to wait outside:
I kick stones:
he re-appears with the gun.
I am nervous.
He tells me it is fine,
that his parents won't mind.
And, anyway, they are both at work.
The gun is nearly as tall as me.
And as he pulls the trigger,
it nearly knocks him backwards:
though he says it is only a 410,
and he's fired bigger.

The rabbit looks shocked.
One moment it is chasing its friend's tail
the next it is moving sideways,
then backwards
then looping into the air.
The field which moments earlier
had been dotted with grey dancing,
lies fallow and still
a sea of watching eyes.

It is larger than I imagine.
'A female,' he tells me, laughing,
squeezing the guts,
gushing out a yellow stream.
I tell him to stop,
sensing desecration,
but he says you have to do it.
He breaks the gun, and casually carries it at the hip
holding the now cleaned doe
by the ears.

The last time I was in this garden,
we used a catapult
to test the parachute of his Action Man.
And, I think of this
as he slits the rabbit from pelvis to neck.
The torn flesh and purple innards
force me to retreat to the corner of the house.
When I peer around the wall,
in response to his urging,
I see his fingers enter the cut,
hook the skin,
pull the hind legs back:
with a deft cracking of bones.
It comes off in one piece:
the skin from the meat,
like the sound of a wet sandcastle being turned out.

[jeremy young]

Love

Ice : ansus mannez :
Sowelu ewaz largo feyu largo ewaz sowelu sowelu
northaz ewaz sowelu sowelu :
wunju hagalaz ewaz northaz:
ansus largo largo :
raido ewaz teewahz ur raido northaz sowelu :
teewahz othillo :
mannez ewaz ::

Be still : know yourself :
Move to the light and grow fat : grow with life :
For the light of the double sun is your guide :
Find joy in adversity and your need for truth :
Let talk flow : for wisdom is achieved in defeating weakness :
Vanquish loneliness and stay true to your quest :

Ice : ansus mannez :
Ken othillo northaz sowelu teewahz ansus northaz ken yerah :
Othillo feyu : largo ice geebu hagalaz teewahz sowelu :
Ewaz wunju
Ewaz raido :
Ken hagalaz ansus northaz geebu ice ing ::

Be still : know yourself :
In loneliness we understand the need for others :
The need to converse and find new insight :
Only stunted riches lie within : as winter
turns to bring the growth of spring :
The path of happiness and knowledge
is beset with hardship and doubt :

Ice : ansus mannez :
Ansus largo largo :
Ansus northaz dagu :
Northaz othillo thuraz ice ing ::

Be still : know yourself :
Let words flow as water : transform with words
your inner needs : you are but one : together
we become the wings of the butterfly :

[mrmarlowe]

Originally Posted by RonPrice

Just a few words for Harry T:

"Poets have explained that free verse is, despite its freedom, not entirely free. Free verse displays some elements of form. Most free verse, for example, self-evidently continues to observe a convention of the poetic line in some sense, at least in written representations, though retaining a potential degree of linkage, however there are more traditional forms. Donald Hall goes as far as to say that "the form of free verse is as binding and as liberating as the form of a rondeau",[2] and T. S. Eliot wrote, "No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job".[3] Kenneth Allott the poet/critic said the adoption by some poets of vers libre arose from 'mere desire for novelty, the imitation of Whitman, the study of Jacobean dramatic blank verse, and the awareness of what French poets had already done to the Alexandrine in France'.[4] The American critic John Livingston Lowes in 1916 observed 'Free verse may be written as very beautiful prose; prose may be written as very beautiful free verse. Which is which ?' [5] For more on this subject and the footnotes go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_verse

Good one. If you ask me:

Why should poets bother so deep
When they can write sh*t and still sleep.

(just kidding)

Originally Posted by HarryT

Or can't people be botherèd?

[kennyc]

(Dead Thread, huh?)


Turning the Corner

Cold steel skies
press down like a lid
on the city and on me
this shortest day of the year.


Kenny A. Chaffin – 12/21/2014

[GeoffC]

It's been a while since I've posted anything in this thread .... So :

Uisge Beatha III

I seek the braes, for their calming embrace
for the wind that longs to blow,
and the Bens for their lofty gaze
over moors to the sea
from where the clouds bring their weep,
and the wind to chill the heat of my blood.

I seek the burns, for their hues of peat
as they spring from the lings
and they cut to the stane,
afore they flow through the woods
of the ash and the birch and the pines;
and where the wind fills the boughs with sound.

I seek the stills, where the wash steams pure
in their hearts, and the casks are of oak
that were primed long ago.
There’s a time to pass and a nose to teach
and through the wood it’s drawn
for the wind to share with the Angels on high.

I seek the braes, for their calming face
for the wind that longs to blow,
and the Bens for their lofty gaze
over moors to the sea
from where the clouds bring their weep,
and the winds to chill; And the Water of Life to burn my blood.

[kennyc]

Nice one Geoff. Very moody.

[kennyc]

.


Faith and Terror


When it comes to faith and terror,
operate on faith, send an SOS to terror
but keep them guessing where you are.


Kenny A. Chaffin – 1/17/2015

[ChesterFritz]

The Tree of Love

Come stand beneath our tree of love,
Whose seed was sown by god above,
where for us shall its limbs provide,
a haven where our hearts reside.

Let's stretch our arms around its core,
and climb the branches which it bore,
where with me shall you lay beside,
and rest within the top's divide.

Let's feed upon a golden pear,
the fruit of which its branches bear,
so that its substance can sustain,
the hunger which we can't restrain.

Within the tree we'll bore a tap,
and drink upon its sweetest sap,
and from this shall our hearts obtain
the blood of life our veins retain.

Chester R. Fritz

[kennyc]

.


The Whistle-Pig Manifesto


It was the whistle-pigs with their rocket powered rear ends that took care of the high voltage power lines and once they were gone the electrical grid collapsed followed shortly thereafter by civilization itself. The moral of the story: Keep your whistle-pigs happy and safe lest you end up wallowing in the muck.


Kenny A. Chaffin – 2/2/2015

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kennyc

.


The Whistle-Pig Manifesto


It was the whistle-pigs with their rocket powered rear ends that took care of the high voltage power lines and once they were gone the electrical grid collapsed followed shortly thereafter by civilization itself. The moral of the story: Keep your whistle-pigs happy and safe lest you end up wallowing in the muck.


Kenny A. Chaffin – 2/2/2015

Kenny, I know that you write what's called "free verse", and I'd like to learn more about it. Can you explain what makes this poetry rather than prose? To my uneducated eye, it looks like prose.

[ChesterFritz]

Chess Goddess

Amidst a late night game of chess,
with daunting aspects to assess,
with fickle pieces I transpose,
to oust this goddess I oppose,

Upon the table rests a clock,
with threescore minute's ticking mock,
and on the board the pieces pose,
to mate the king we must disclose.

I ponder long and deeply strive,
to place my pieces where they thrive,
thus from my thought I move my rook,
and clear the knight of which it took.

Beneath her apathetic nose,
to my surprise no grimace rose,
not on the board did her eyes look,
to mend the weakness she mistook.

Now from the board she rose to stand,
extending her unpolished hand,
and to me did this lovely dame,
in dulcet voice exclaim "Good game!"

With my position much sublime,
my clock had ceased to tick with time,
and hence her gesture did defame,
my army that I yearned to tame.

Chester R. Fritz

[kennyc]

.


Cow Town


No bull. They were excluded by law. Only cows allowed. Yeah, it was sexist but they wanted their own way without all that snorting and stomping and posturing and my God the smell. So much better without them around. They each had their own loft arranged just the way they wanted it; some with pink frilly curtains and others with plain curtains made from feed sacks. They could have calves if wanted or not. Just a matter of artificial insemination and none of that bull on your back crap. It was a pleasant society, a serene society, a sober society with no bull.



Kenny A. Chaffin – 1/1/2015
(as posted on my Mansions of the Mind blog)

[GeoffC]

minus perfecta

Beneath the shaded boughs of an apple tree
young lovers joined in love;
in a nearby field leverets played
while their mother dosed nearby;
not far away a vixen slept, replete,
while her cubs, they kept themselves amused;
the sky above was a perfect blue
and full of joyous tunes;
the field was strewn with new-mown hay
while colour flecked its edge.

In another place:
young girls screeched
as a razor ripped and cut;
a child with ho-hum eyes sat
mired in his soil
while fetid flies buzzed;
elsewhere other weans
suffered grooming abuse.

Beneath the shaded boughs of an apple tree
young lovers joined in love;
seeds were sown
fertile ground prepared.
Another babe
in a time to come
would be born
into a far from perfect world.

[kennyc]

(a couple from my new collection)


Cyano Love


Cyano loved life, loved freedom. The world was his oyster. He was free to come and go and do as he pleased, float about consuming the abundant feast, free to grow, reproduce and enjoy his life in the sun. His freewheeling activities however changed all that, changed everything in fact, forcing him to seek shelter behind and even within others who had better adapted to the deadly environment he had spawned. He abhorred relying on others, but it was unavoidable and in time they came to enjoy one another’s company. It was love. He moved in. They became eukaryotic together.


Kenny A. Chaffin – 2/3/2015

----

Pilar


I, an old man cast my line into the sea hoping for marlin, hoping for the best, but distracted even in this adventure by the presence beside me and those who came before. Those that died and those that wonder if death is hard. Those killed in the Spanish War and those who passed in the back of his ambulance. The bulls in the afternoon, the elephants of course and that poor, poor soul on Kilimanjaro. Death is pretty easy, but it all depends. I fight and fight until finally he helps me lash the small fish to the boat.


Kenny A. Chaffin – 1/30/2015