And I....Likewise? write the stars in bright skies known to peg suckers like Lite Brite when they try to type right but I'm less a bright wight and more of the opposite of a night light that'll write like "right right, I know you've had a nice life but it's time to hobble off this mortal coil and say night night" because I'm known to make rival MCs croak like my frog shirt and sleep around with the girls who keep sharp knives in their miniskirts so when I cut you in twine, I'mma make sure it really hurts cuz the screams of lollipop MCs just make me hungrier so ahhh, I'mma have to pop you like sodah got me shoutin' at dragons like FUS-RO-DAH cold Lampin' on these cats that just go "blah" when they wanna go star and if you beat level one there'll be plenty more
Speaking of games if hip-hop is one than I'm on a speed run beat fuckers up before they even see stage one cuz I'm one of those cats equipped with laser-gat ray-guns and they're the type to see the GAME OVER screen once and say they done I'mma leave 'em petrified, and stone leave 'em with blue hair like Deco and one eye like Demo. And I don't really give a damn if I went over heads with that one cuz if you will recall I have a laser-ray gat-gun. So unbeatable when it comes to MCs I might as well just be the Bat-one that is not braggadocio that's just one of life's facts, son. And I've just completed a rant now let me launch into a slightly more on-task one.
I am the king of recontextualization who will hit you in the face with space rays. Obliteration. Drop so many bombs I could end civilization. My words are backed with nukes. Again, Civilization. oh shit, a self-rhyme well now I guess it's time to pull out every rhyme crime gimmick you prime-spittas like to overuse and abuse 'til they've got both eyes missin'. Have I mentioned in my rag that I'm swag? Ill, trill etc.? Motherfuckin' hardcore gangam style level of infectious? Have I yet accused hip-hop of being dead? Said that Big and Pac are the best and totally not just cuz they're dead? Have I declared myself the best? and threatened to eat every other rapper and their nest? Have I made murderous threats? Have I said that my political views tend to lean to the left? Have I called out some other rapper on some bullshit pretense? (fuck you, Hopsin) Have I threatened to leave yet? Flipped out because one of my albums got leaked yet? Am I mean yet? Have I said that other rappers resemble sexual organs from which life is bequeathed yet? I mean like JESUS it's like you cats have some kinda freakin' defect! I mean, yes. The very concept of a music genre is ultimately built on pretense, and I am well aware that many are just content to stick to the presets. But that "stick to the presets" and the inevitable backlash have caused a ridiculous and wholly unnecessary clash. A trend of underground and mainstream to pointlessly talk trash. Bash, talk smack, etc. And yeah, I get ya sometimes the bling talk does get annoying, and preachy political messages are irritating especially if uninformed and, frankly I agree with all of the above but frankly I'd rather see it resolved without you all being dumb.
We all awoke screaming, awake in a new land where fairytale princesses didn't need no man welcome to life after the dust-storm, post production I spy with my eyes the desert sands' corruption so if each grain of the world is a one or a zero that aspires to be something a little closer to a hero but ends up acting a bit more like Nero who gets the blame and where does the fear go?
Love's dead in this country--American Wedding we exchanged it for all that extra wheat we've been shredding there was gonna be a revolution but we knew that already Welcome to the Outback but this isn't down under the town crier already warned us about the sounds thunder' but when five separate people turn out to be the same it's a little less Lucy Ford and a little more Lorraine oh hey it's like life is a symphony and the instruments are war, love, truth, pain and in the end we all try to live our lives like Bruce Wayne but if I'm Batman, it's only of Zurr-en-Arr'h cuz I'll kill your boyfriend like Grant Morison for the sake of absurdist art and that's absolutely the truest the most elusive part I thought we already established that we are who we are, but the youth of a nation just hijacked our car, so when the clock strikes midnight, the stroke of death like Slade Wilson make no mistake, show me your idols and I absolutely will kill them.
It sings all the notes. Trumpet blast, rumbling contra, soprano through bass. This is what we hear, but there's always more. The cry of a small child forgotten on a sidewalk, Yes, it hears it, and it adds it to the myriad flow. The love songs that whales whisper to each other On frequencies scientists cannot listen to, They are weaved into the cosmic noise. And when he and her did the deed, her immodest death Was slung on the very top. It is not sorry.
We built something greater than ourselves. Vox Deus. We keep building things to fill the world with awe. Vox Humana. We will not stop until we cannot hear anything. Vox Nihila.
Always, it is breathing, with lungs the size of dorm rooms, Breathing a single breath, drawn from the Earth's core. With words in the tongue of would-be and never-was, The language of dreams and fantasies, lofty and puerile. You would know if you had heard it. They speak unwritten lullabies and suicide notes, The involuntary shriek of a mother noticing a lack of offspring, The cruelty and wonder of men, by ones and twos and tens, It does this, and it itself does not understand why.
We built something greater than ourselves. Vox Supra. We keep building things to fill the world with awe. Vox Divina. We will pull the stops until we cannot hear anything. Vox Omnia.
What do you call a predator That leaves no foot prints, Kills in seconds, And always leaves food For the vultures? In the dictionaries, war is defined as A conflict, albeit a violent one, By academics who have never walked Across fields of corpses, never watched The sky rain missiles. Men like us, really. Diminishing things when we should know better.
If a missile falls in another country, And nobody survives it, And the killers are vindicated And the killing itself is classified, Did it ever fall?
Conflict for men like us is choosing Between a graduation and a wedding, Or between internships. It’s a safe word. Our conflicts do not shoot, or kill. They do not tear scars into a nation, Spread napalm over civilian minds.
How many men does it take To create an IED? At least three. One to cause hatred, by the pound. Then, one to wire the explosives, And one to cry over the loss of life.
The more dangerous definition is this: War is two opposing sides who won’t consider That they might be wrong. Like stag in heat, Antlers locked to the death of an ideal, Or dueling parties, deadlocking government In the name of the citizens who need it.
I am behind every war, before The bombings, beneath the mines, Even higher than death itself What am I? What should I be?
The rhythm that I get from reading it diverges strongly from the line breaks as they appear on the page. Perhaps once I get back I should record myself reading it aloud to to give you an idea of what I mean.
This might just be musician babble, but I think that it's important.
I think I post more of my poetry here instead of Tumblr because I'm afraid of giving them a bigger audience.
I mean, take the Drone poem. Four days after I had finished it, the nation got hit by another terrorist attack. That'd be the worst time to publish that kind of anti-war, 'who's the real monster' rhetoric. That could have gotten me swamped in hate mail. Same with the Closet one.
And this one, well, using slurs on Tumblr is never a good idea, even if it's to make a point.
That last one is awesome, though. Brutal, but you really get your point across well. Sometimes you get too mired in specifics in your poetry, but the way that you play the situation there is really rather brilliant.
If the world had never seen a seam, We would stop cross-stitching city streets, Cease cutting patterns out of peoples.
The world would be held together by so many pins: One for a lost child, two for a broken home, As many as needed for a mass grave.
And when a pin draws blood out the earth, We would not hunt down dressmakers, Lead investigations against needlework.
We would simply remove the pin, Discard it, And silently mourn for our loss.
okay im going to get my teeth into your poem because i dont do it often enough and this thread is right here and i havent got anything better to do.
first up what has your title to do with your poem? you have a kind of conceit going on here where we've got pins and conflict and seams and whatnot and then we have 'The World's Address' which is probably tangentially related to the first stanza but not really to the rest of it? except for the fact that they are both about the "world"? i am not getting it. i dont see any relation
secondly i am not sure how convinced i am by your conceit as a whole. it starts off with some lines which are pretty nice musically. i like the sound of your last two lines in that first stanza. it sounds quite angry with alll its plosive ps and things.
but there is not much of a sort of anger at it but a weird acceptance going on later. the last stanza is quite nice as a whole but it seems to me you are suggesting anger is pointless whilst having an opening that sounds angry. now this can be okay but i think it needs some development as, as it is, it jumps from the two too quickly. how do these pins work? they unite the world, we've lost the need for seams and borders, but all these terrible things are still happening, through the pins somehow? the pins initially seemed a good thing; we get rid of the seams, the borders. now maybe they are not. what makes them better than a lack of seams then? are you suggesting a lack of borders makes these terrible events somehow less terrible? i dont know i could read it like that.
the second stanza makes it seem as though pins are merely symbols for these people who are caught in between conflicts and whatnot, but your third and fourth stanza seems to pin (heh) the blame on the pins some how. they become something that needs removal, something with responsibility for the things that happen to people. this is also somewhat confusing.
i just think it needs more development and clearing up and it could be a pretty nice poem. but maybe if you're going for the strict stanzas thing, establish more of a metre to it - like, have a specific pattern of stresses and/or syllables in a line (break it for that 'Discard it' line though because that works well, and all poems have to break their own rules sometimes, just to make it interesting.) free verse is fine but even it is usually anchored in pre-existing patterns or uses its stresses for meaning; yours does not seem to be doing that so much i dont think.
if you do want to go down the developing/formalising route: you're two lines off the perfect length for sonnet form... just sayin'.
Alright, I'll address the easiest thing first. The title's a pun that I stole from a TMBG song. The World's Address = The World's A Dress. I thought it fit well with all the sewing imagery.
Concerning the metaphorical meaning of the poem, to be perfectly honest, I don't really remember what I was doing with this. I wrote this a while before I posted it, you see. As far as I can remember, the original intent had to do with broad generalizations across a category of people, specifically concerning the rhetoric around the whole gun control argument that was raging a while back.
The stitching represented stereotyping. Connecting different pieces of cloth with the same string = considering different people to be the same because of a single shared trait. Switching over to pins meant looking at every person as an individual rather than a member of a group. By viewing people as individuals, when one caused mass harm (drew blood), people wouldn't be scrambling for answers, hunting down everyone who looks like them or might be responsible for their actions (hunting down the dressmakers). They'd just remove the interloper and mourn. I guess the problem is that the conceit's too opaque, and the second and third stanzas make the pin's role unclear. Probably need to rewrite the second stanza completely.
As far as rhythm is concerned, I'll do my best to take your advice. Frankly, I've always been terrible at keeping the stresses consistent, especially if I'm writing free verse.
Alright, I'll address the easiest thing first. The title's a pun that I stole from a TMBG song. The World's Address = The World's A Dress. I thought it fit well with all the sewing imagery.
Concerning the metaphorical meaning of the poem, to be perfectly honest, I don't really remember what I was doing with this. I wrote this a while before I posted it, you see. As far as I can remember, the original intent had to do with broad generalizations across a category of people, specifically concerning the rhetoric around the whole gun control argument that was raging a while back.
The stitching represented stereotyping. Connecting different pieces of cloth with the same string = considering different people to be the same because of a single shared trait. Switching over to pins meant looking at every person as an individual rather than a member of a group. By viewing people as individuals, when one caused mass harm (drew blood), people wouldn't be scrambling for answers, hunting down everyone who looks like them or might be responsible for their actions (hunting down the dressmakers). They'd just remove the interloper and mourn. I guess the problem is that the conceit's too opaque, and the second and third stanzas make the pin's role unclear. Probably need to rewrite the second stanza completely.
As far as rhythm is concerned, I'll do my best to take your advice. Frankly, I've always been terrible at keeping the stresses consistent, especially if I'm writing free verse.
ah okay this is making more sense to me now
the title i would still say change it because titles are important, and as a not immediately obvious pun which doesnt otherwise make much sense... or maybe im just stupid and didnt spot the pun? you did have 'dressmakers' in there. who knows. readers miss things
and it makes sense now that you have explained it. but at the time it was a bit opaque. i think the biggest thing that wasnt there for me was the idea of the seams as stereotyping; 'cutting patterns out of peoples' maybe i can see but i just generally saw it as people being divided up into countries or something like that... not as stereotyping which is something that comes more from within. also yeah the roles of the pins are unclear but youve got that
you dont have to be consistent necessarily with stresses. just bear in mind meaning when you are constructing your stresses. when ts eliot writes 'come in under the shadow of this red rock', 'come in under the shadow' has rhythm to it and then the 'this red rock' is all stressed; the rock is this big, heavy weighty thing, it is stressed.
i dont think i have posted anything of mine in here. and all of my portfolios have been submitted (since the 3rd) so even if by some bizarre coincidence this was found it was in my portfolio first. and you know its my portfolio because in the version i submitted it still had the phrase 'windless depth' eugh that was notgood but i didnt come up with anything better in time
anyway here is a thing of mine which is.. transcendental?? idk its a thing
Floodplain
The full weight of bell and monastery floats overhead, stippled by the sunlight shining through water.
You can see them clearly enough now, gliding over water: carved stone, slate roof, marble slabs
and the sound of their muffled plainsong, a slow vibration ebbing through the waves and currents.
The river has burst itself again, flooded five thousand feet, horizonless above water.
Schools of fish move down the avenue and all of the streetlamps are wrapped in kelp and bladderwrack;
cars are honeyed, seduced by the slow dappling of water. They move as if through black treacle.
Now look up through the transparency. Feel the cold clearness of stone, the weight of water,
the structure of that one is very much based on syllables, so, yes.
also each stanza was originally self-contained so the structure would have been even more like that of a series of haikus. i eventually dropped that but i think there are ghosts of it still lurking around (i like that they are there, though.)
im still not sure if it has enough of a 'progression' after the 3rd stanza or if it still floats (heh) about being a little directionless, which has been its main issue from the start; maybe it can do that and get away with it but probably not. its a draft like all of my poems are really.
I intend to possibly keep a haiku journal, where I will write standard english 5/7/5 pseudohaiku and compact them into single lines, telling about my day, as I did there.
All the faucets started crying full-stop; The windows shattered to save you The trouble. Even Sister, in her urn, Leapt off the mantelpiece and fled-- Out the chimney, to the stars.
It had to be you. She never liked anything, but you, She hated you.
You were never one to take no for an answer, Not that you ever asked. You never needed to, With hands like cleavers, cutting through Doors, locks, words, Like a blade through a cloud of ashes.
“I never want to see you again,” I said. And here you are, on my doorstep, Watching the clouds go by, Picking bone and grit out of your teeth.
Each year the monuments grew larger. The citizens demanded this. As their lives got worse they wanted longer staircases to descend, towering fountains ...
Taxes were increased. A famine settled in. An inexplicable epidemic appeared. Autumn was rain sodden. So, they collected funds for a new work
in the form of a giant, granite pineapple encircled by a narrow staircase, so difficult to climb some said it symbolized life or friendship.
The monuments meant nothing of course. The misfortune seemed undeserved. At parties the food was served on plates in the form of clouds
that descended from the ceiling and under each unseasonal strawberry a gold leaf was set. Despite these strategies the general melancholy increased.
Poems concerned themselves with childhood, autumn and failure, although it was understood that these took the place of events too unbearable to discuss.
Work resumed on the pineapple. It was decided to enclose it within a transparent sphere inscribed with a poem concerning autumn and failure. Meanwhile
in the downtown area, work began on a new staircase, some 900 feet high, leading to a colossal weeping eye. On rainy days citizens would gather to watch the way
it vanished sweetly into mist, but no one dared to place a foot on even the lowest, shining step: 'This is art,' they said, 'We cannot use it.'
(i probably already posted this somewhere else, sometime else, but let's have it here)
i sing space jazz in murder parks murder dark after walk-lights. stop right there 'fore we whip down the turn-pike, call me your boardside harvester burner like dark turned to dark turner abstracted to stark hurtin's. pins and needles between threads bob and weevin better to stay believen than be declared a heathen.
no forks in the road the road's not spaghetti. stayed ready on the Serengeti since the drop of 20/20 better than better be endlessly conceptually feathery on leather wings, deadly stings and harbing-ings the heart retreats to darker steep's beneath the darkest streets. divinity fatum on top the old rails bruh locked in pamphlets between the pages of the spec of the rail-gun only unleashable by throwing a tantrum. i knock ghosts out the park like the batter from off but i'm a motherfucking monster like the batter from off mixed with fantastic baby yeezus taggin along. tattered and wrought on the happiness brought to laughingstocks brought up to lock the stocks. who's laughing now? i got a hundred big trucks out on the prowl hunting you down.
god save the queen and all 49,000 of her men too we tick tocks like big ben do but we're better timekeepers than clocks too at least a hundred of em on the block too but we're not locked into hot rooms and they're stopped when they rock tunes. we clutch the mics like ill children on sunflowers, one power called jehovah locked in a clocktower. how we gonna get the big man back down again? bad day for the sad clown again. tired and dopey but tired of moping but unable to get up and de-mire his smoke, see? i'm a slam poet but only between the hours of open and closin' so if you're just here to browse get out this ain't a library and i don't rent sounds get down.
too busy rockin a block a text to bother talkin to all the rest, ate my pen a long time ago digested the cap. best just look forward never turn to face your old home you'll get a curse cast upon your head like you just angered an old crone. no one remembers your face in hell anyway so why bother to make friends if you're not planning to stay? i'm e.e. cummings but three-league running, freerunning from tree tops to seas gunning for mean rocks and rooftops. but we knock it like fixin a jukebox, so now who's the cool cop? zap guns in the air, bombs falling on memphis keep your head low, we might survive by our will son. A cold wind blows.
I swear to god....one day I'll wake up straight get shaked up awakened from this mess and handed a pape cup like welcome back to reality we missed you you were out for days we thought we'd never get you. but that'll never happen, so i'm stuck on the backs of tracks flashin lights at oncoming traffic. it's a bad tactic but it's worked pretty well so far and it explains why everyone in this damn town is so far gone. i've never known mercy, but i like that hit. i wanna fly away like lenny kravitz, no actions.
(Note: this rhyme is not a metaphor for anything but conviction and holding on. Pronouns were chosen at random. And the use of "wherefore" is correct, as it refers to why we went wrong.)
My twin, do not let go of me. In the womb, we made maybes, Told tall tales of triumph, held heroes high, And when you slip, our false kings grow weary and dream of abdication.
My twin, do not let go of me. When you bleed, a lash strikes Against my back. My arms hold scars For every time you scratched against a leaf And walked by, not noticing me at all.
My twin, do not let go of me. You stand Above me, and your life floats above My fiction. When you let go, the shards Of your reality slash my dreams to ribbons, And I must twist them into a long, thin rope
There is no battle that he can fight anymore. Suicide is a young man's game, and he is not, Not anymore, at least. I should know, tearing Pilots out of torn, crumpled parachutes and Beating their hearts alive with a rubber hose, Sniping the valkyries who would take my soldiers, Trapping them in Valhalla while my city burns.
Meanwhile, he sits from afar in his commander's office, Networking with old generals and undead soldiers, Hoping that there is an order that he can give to me That is still relevant, that I may win this war. Meanwhile, I shove organs back into dying bodies, and I think "The enemy finds no purpose in dying, so it won't", So I wonder, "When and how will they win this war So I can have the privilege of honored death?" Suicide is a young man's game, and I am ordered To live, and I wonder whether is is relevant.
The imagery is good. Just needs a bit of metric footing. Something like this, I guess.
With everything, the end becomes a blur. You pray that your emotions still occur, That pain and pleasure still reforge your heart Though happiness and sadness break apart
The meter's a bit weak in spots, but I like the imagery. "Fight" is the obvious end of the next line, but you may have to rewrite the former to make it work.
Comments
And I....Likewise?
write the stars in bright skies
known to peg suckers like Lite Brite when they try to type right but I'm less a bright wight and more of the opposite of a night light that'll write like "right right, I know you've had a nice life but it's time to hobble off this mortal coil and say night night"
because I'm known to make rival MCs croak like my frog shirt
and sleep around with the girls who keep sharp knives in their miniskirts
so when I cut you in twine, I'mma make sure it really hurts
cuz the screams of lollipop MCs just make me hungrier
so ahhh,
I'mma have to pop you like sodah
got me shoutin' at dragons like FUS-RO-DAH
cold Lampin' on these cats that just go "blah"
when they wanna go star and if you beat level one there'll be plenty more
Speaking of games if hip-hop is one than I'm on a speed run
beat fuckers up before they even see stage one
cuz I'm one of those cats equipped with laser-gat ray-guns
and they're the type to see the GAME OVER screen once and say they done
I'mma leave 'em petrified, and stone leave 'em with blue hair like Deco and one eye like Demo.
And I don't really give a damn if I went over heads with that one
cuz if you will recall I have a laser-ray gat-gun.
So unbeatable when it comes to MCs I might as well just be the Bat-one
that is not braggadocio that's just one of life's facts, son.
And I've just completed a rant now let me launch into a slightly more on-task one.
I am the king of recontextualization who will hit you in the face with space rays. Obliteration.
Drop so many bombs I could end civilization.
My words are backed with nukes. Again, Civilization.
oh shit, a self-rhyme
well now I guess it's time to pull out every rhyme crime
gimmick
you prime-spittas
like to overuse
and abuse
'til they've got both eyes missin'.
Have I mentioned in my rag that I'm swag?
Ill, trill etc.?
Motherfuckin' hardcore gangam style level of infectious?
Have I yet accused hip-hop of being dead?
Said that Big and Pac are the best and totally not just cuz they're dead?
Have I declared myself the best?
and threatened to eat every other rapper and their nest?
Have I made murderous threats? Have I said that my political views tend to lean to the left?
Have I called out some other rapper on some bullshit pretense? (fuck you, Hopsin)
Have I threatened to leave yet?
Flipped out because one of my albums got leaked yet?
Am I mean yet?
Have I said that other rappers resemble sexual organs from which life is bequeathed yet?
I mean like JESUS it's like you cats have some kinda freakin' defect!
I mean, yes. The very concept of a music genre is ultimately built on pretense,
and I am well aware that many are just content to stick to the presets.
But that "stick to the presets" and the inevitable backlash have caused a ridiculous and wholly unnecessary clash.
A trend of underground and mainstream to pointlessly talk trash. Bash, talk smack, etc.
And yeah, I get ya
sometimes the bling talk does get annoying,
and preachy political messages are irritating especially if uninformed and,
frankly I agree with all of the above
but frankly I'd rather see it resolved without you all being dumb.
Thank you for your time.
Life After the Dust-Storm Pt. II
We all awoke screaming, awake in a new land
where fairytale princesses didn't need no man
welcome to life after the dust-storm, post production
I spy with my eyes the desert sands' corruption
so if each grain of the world is a one or a zero
that aspires to be something a little closer to a hero
but ends up acting a bit more like Nero
who gets the blame and where does the fear go?
Love's dead in this country--American Wedding
we exchanged it for all that extra wheat we've been shredding
there was gonna be a revolution but we knew that already
Welcome to the Outback but this isn't down under
the town crier already warned us about the sounds thunder'
but when five separate people turn out to be the same
it's a little less Lucy Ford and a little more Lorraine
oh hey
it's like life is a symphony and the instruments are war, love, truth, pain
and in the end we all try to live our lives like Bruce Wayne
but if I'm Batman, it's only of Zurr-en-Arr'h
cuz I'll kill your boyfriend like Grant Morison for the sake of absurdist art
and that's absolutely the truest the most elusive part
I thought we already established that we are who we are,
but the youth of a nation just hijacked our car,
so when the clock strikes midnight, the stroke of death like Slade Wilson
make no mistake, show me your idols and I absolutely will kill them.
Written by an anonymous first grader.
Use hand sanitizer
But not Slayer
They use hand Satanizer
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
It sings all the notes.
Trumpet blast, rumbling contra, soprano through bass.
This is what we hear, but there's always more.
The cry of a small child forgotten on a sidewalk,
Yes, it hears it, and it adds it to the myriad flow.
The love songs that whales whisper to each other
On frequencies scientists cannot listen to,
They are weaved into the cosmic noise.
And when he and her did the deed, her immodest death
Was slung on the very top. It is not sorry.
We built something greater than ourselves. Vox Deus.
We keep building things to fill the world with awe. Vox Humana.
We will not stop until we cannot hear anything. Vox Nihila.
Always, it is breathing, with lungs the size of dorm rooms,
Breathing a single breath, drawn from the Earth's core.
With words in the tongue of would-be and never-was,
The language of dreams and fantasies, lofty and puerile.
You would know if you had heard it.
They speak unwritten lullabies and suicide notes,
The involuntary shriek of a mother noticing a lack of offspring,
The cruelty and wonder of men, by ones and twos and tens,
It does this, and it itself does not understand why.
We built something greater than ourselves. Vox Supra.
We keep building things to fill the world with awe. Vox Divina.
We will pull the stops until we cannot hear anything. Vox Omnia.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
It was tourist season in New York,
And the sea had saved up pennies,
Enough to invite a storm out on a date
To visit Manhattan.
The sea rose above the shore,
The storm cleared out the locals.
They brought expensive cameras,
Wore sandals with socks on.
The locals peered from their lofts
As the two roamed the empty streets,
Flooding Harlem and Times Square,
Leaking into Broadway theaters.
They marveled at the empty destruction.
The tourists only heard their own laughter
Until they slipped away to the hotel room
Under assumed names.
Sandy, Late October, 2012
remembered reason
'twas so cruel
'twas almost treason
to see your blunder
and know your shame
is to call for thunder
to coat you in flame
For when you're ash
you feel no guilt
And in one flash
a fool unbuilt
To see potential
in your soul and heart
truth residential
a change to start
And then the fool
forgot the sense
but improved himself
and leaped a
...
...
...
FENCE!
It was called "Birdy Birdy"
Birdy bidy in the snow
Broken wing and broken toe
Hobbled up for bits of bread
Then I crushed his ******* head!
Still brings a tear to my eye :)
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
What do you call a predator
That leaves no foot prints,
Kills in seconds,
And always leaves food
For the vultures?
In the dictionaries, war is defined as
A conflict, albeit a violent one,
By academics who have never walked
Across fields of corpses, never watched
The sky rain missiles. Men like us, really.
Diminishing things when we should know better.
If a missile falls in another country,
And nobody survives it,
And the killers are vindicated
And the killing itself is classified,
Did it ever fall?
Conflict for men like us is choosing
Between a graduation and a wedding,
Or between internships. It’s a safe word.
Our conflicts do not shoot, or kill.
They do not tear scars into a nation,
Spread napalm over civilian minds.
How many men does it take
To create an IED? At least three.
One to cause hatred, by the pound.
Then, one to wire the explosives,
And one to cry over the loss of life.
The more dangerous definition is this:
War is two opposing sides who won’t consider
That they might be wrong. Like stag in heat,
Antlers locked to the death of an ideal,
Or dueling parties, deadlocking government
In the name of the citizens who need it.
I am behind every war, before
The bombings, beneath the mines,
Even higher than death itself
What am I?
What should I be?
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
This might just be musician babble, but I think that it's important.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
“The monsters cannot hurt us
With my dear nightlight on,
And it will not be long till
They’re wiped out by the dawn.”
Some say:
The sun set seventy years ago,
Under the nuclear clouds, far beyond
The gray kitchen curtains.
Some say:
It was earlier, in the trenches,
Behind clouds of chlorine yellow.
The world cried at the fall of dusk.
Regardless,
The nightlight’s been flickering
Since men flew planes into the towers
And killed mankind’s greatest hopes:
That we'll last until the dawn comes,
And fear no longer lives in our hearts.
And men have been killing hope,
Finding new ways every day,
And it’s only a matter of time.
I don’t bother opening the bedroom door anymore.
In these modern times, anything’s possible,
As frightening and terrible as you can think of.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Sixty thousand dollars, bookie,
On the young nigger
With the big head and
The education.
You kidding me, Mac?
Don’t throw your money away.
Just bet on a gook or a cracker,
Like everyone else does.
I’ll go for the long shot, Joe.
I’ll bet that he’s an escape artist,
Capable of escaping the chains that
The rest of his kind is stuck in.
Hey. Hey, kid, listen up.
You’re smart and you’ve got
A lot of money riding on you.
You’re going to go far, kid.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I mean, take the Drone poem. Four days after I had finished it, the nation got hit by another terrorist attack. That'd be the worst time to publish that kind of anti-war, 'who's the real monster' rhetoric. That could have gotten me swamped in hate mail. Same with the Closet one.
And this one, well, using slurs on Tumblr is never a good idea, even if it's to make a point.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
If the world had never seen a seam,
We would stop cross-stitching city streets,
Cease cutting patterns out of peoples.
The world would be held together by so many pins:
One for a lost child, two for a broken home,
As many as needed for a mass grave.
And when a pin draws blood out the earth,
We would not hunt down dressmakers,
Lead investigations against needlework.
We would simply remove the pin,
Discard it,
And silently mourn for our loss.
okay im going to get my teeth into your poem because i dont do it often enough and this thread is right here and i havent got anything better to do.
first up what has your title to do with your poem? you have a kind of conceit going on here where we've got pins and conflict and seams and whatnot and then we have 'The World's Address' which is probably tangentially related to the first stanza but not really to the rest of it? except for the fact that they are both about the "world"? i am not getting it. i dont see any relation
secondly i am not sure how convinced i am by your conceit as a whole. it starts off with some lines which are pretty nice musically. i like the sound of your last two lines in that first stanza. it sounds quite angry with alll its plosive ps and things.
but there is not much of a sort of anger at it but a weird acceptance going on later. the last stanza is quite nice as a whole but it seems to me you are suggesting anger is pointless whilst having an opening that sounds angry. now this can be okay but i think it needs some development as, as it is, it jumps from the two too quickly. how do these pins work? they unite the world, we've lost the need for seams and borders, but all these terrible things are still happening, through the pins somehow? the pins initially seemed a good thing; we get rid of the seams, the borders. now maybe they are not. what makes them better than a lack of seams then? are you suggesting a lack of borders makes these terrible events somehow less terrible? i dont know i could read it like that.
the second stanza makes it seem as though pins are merely symbols for these people who are caught in between conflicts and whatnot, but your third and fourth stanza seems to pin (heh) the blame on the pins some how. they become something that needs removal, something with responsibility for the things that happen to people. this is also somewhat confusing.
i just think it needs more development and clearing up and it could be a pretty nice poem. but maybe if you're going for the strict stanzas thing, establish more of a metre to it - like, have a specific pattern of stresses and/or syllables in a line (break it for that 'Discard it' line though because that works well, and all poems have to break their own rules sometimes, just to make it interesting.) free verse is fine but even it is usually anchored in pre-existing patterns or uses its stresses for meaning; yours does not seem to be doing that so much i dont think.
if you do want to go down the developing/formalising route: you're two lines off the perfect length for sonnet form... just sayin'.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Alright, I'll address the easiest thing first. The title's a pun that I stole from a TMBG song. The World's Address = The World's A Dress. I thought it fit well with all the sewing imagery.
Concerning the metaphorical meaning of the poem, to be perfectly honest, I don't really remember what I was doing with this. I wrote this a while before I posted it, you see. As far as I can remember, the original intent had to do with broad generalizations across a category of people, specifically concerning the rhetoric around the whole gun control argument that was raging a while back.
The stitching represented stereotyping. Connecting different pieces of cloth with the same string = considering different people to be the same because of a single shared trait. Switching over to pins meant looking at every person as an individual rather than a member of a group. By viewing people as individuals, when one caused mass harm (drew blood), people wouldn't be scrambling for answers, hunting down everyone who looks like them or might be responsible for their actions (hunting down the dressmakers). They'd just remove the interloper and mourn. I guess the problem is that the conceit's too opaque, and the second and third stanzas make the pin's role unclear. Probably need to rewrite the second stanza completely.
As far as rhythm is concerned, I'll do my best to take your advice. Frankly, I've always been terrible at keeping the stresses consistent, especially if I'm writing free verse.
ah okay this is making more sense to me now
the title i would still say change it because titles are important, and as a not immediately obvious pun which doesnt otherwise make much sense... or maybe im just stupid and didnt spot the pun? you did have 'dressmakers' in there. who knows. readers miss things
and it makes sense now that you have explained it. but at the time it was a bit opaque. i think the biggest thing that wasnt there for me was the idea of the seams as stereotyping; 'cutting patterns out of peoples' maybe i can see but i just generally saw it as people being divided up into countries or something like that... not as stereotyping which is something that comes more from within. also yeah the roles of the pins are unclear but youve got that
you dont have to be consistent necessarily with stresses. just bear in mind meaning when you are constructing your stresses. when ts eliot writes 'come in under the shadow of this red rock', 'come in under the shadow' has rhythm to it and then the 'this red rock' is all stressed; the rock is this big, heavy weighty thing, it is stressed.
also rhythm comes with practice. keep writing!!
i dont think i have posted anything of mine in here. and all of my portfolios have been submitted (since the 3rd) so even if by some bizarre coincidence this was found it was in my portfolio first. and you know its my portfolio because in the version i submitted it still had the phrase 'windless depth' eugh that was notgood but i didnt come up with anything better in time
anyway here is a thing of mine which is.. transcendental?? idk its a thing
Floodplain
The full weight of bell and monastery
floats overhead, stippled
by the sunlight shining through water.
You can see them clearly enough now,
gliding over water:
carved stone, slate roof, marble slabs
and the sound of their muffled plainsong,
a slow vibration
ebbing through the waves and currents.
The river has burst itself again,
flooded five thousand feet,
horizonless above water.
Schools of fish move down the avenue
and all of the streetlamps
are wrapped in kelp and bladderwrack;
cars are honeyed, seduced by the slow
dappling of water.
They move as if through black treacle.
Now look up through the transparency.
Feel the cold clearness
of stone, the weight of water,
and the shadows cast over your bright skin.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
the structure of that one is very much based on syllables, so, yes.
also each stanza was originally self-contained so the structure would have been even more like that of a series of haikus. i eventually dropped that but i think there are ghosts of it still lurking around (i like that they are there, though.)
im still not sure if it has enough of a 'progression' after the 3rd stanza or if it still floats (heh) about being a little directionless, which has been its main issue from the start; maybe it can do that and get away with it but probably not. its a draft like all of my poems are really.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
yo!
one-line haiku first drafts!
like so!
----------------------------------
the dawn cracks over a cold yet bright mountainside. Today, and all spring.
----------------------------------
when moon-beams strike the petals of a flower they shine so beautiful
----------------------------------
oops I started another silly project
I intend to possibly keep a haiku journal, where I will write standard english 5/7/5 pseudohaiku and compact them into single lines, telling about my day, as I did there.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
All the faucets started crying full-stop;
The windows shattered to save you
The trouble. Even Sister, in her urn,
Leapt off the mantelpiece and fled--
Out the chimney, to the stars.
It had to be you.
She never liked anything, but you,
She hated you.
You were never one to take no for an answer,
Not that you ever asked. You never needed to,
With hands like cleavers, cutting through
Doors, locks, words,
Like a blade through a cloud of ashes.
“I never want to see you again,” I said.
And here you are, on my doorstep,
Watching the clouds go by,
Picking bone and grit out of your teeth.
that snow falls
it always circled whirling
like a thought
in the glass ball
around me and my bear
Then it seemed beautiful
containment
snow whirled
nothing ever fell
nor my little bear
bad thoughts
imprisoned in crystal
beauty has replaced itself with evil
And the snow whirls only
in fatal winds
briefly
then falls
it always loathed containment
beasts
I love evil
poets deserve credit for their work
silly me
the monuments john ash
Each year the monuments grew larger.
The citizens demanded this.
As their lives got worse they wanted
longer staircases to descend, towering fountains ...
Taxes were increased. A famine settled in.
An inexplicable epidemic appeared.
Autumn was rain sodden. So,
they collected funds for a new work
in the form of a giant, granite pineapple
encircled by a narrow staircase,
so difficult to climb some said
it symbolized life or friendship.
The monuments meant nothing of course.
The misfortune seemed undeserved.
At parties the food was served
on plates in the form of clouds
that descended from the ceiling
and under each unseasonal strawberry
a gold leaf was set. Despite these strategies
the general melancholy increased.
Poems concerned themselves
with childhood, autumn and failure,
although it was understood that these took the place
of events too unbearable to discuss.
Work resumed on the pineapple.
It was decided to enclose it within a transparent
sphere inscribed with a poem concerning
autumn and failure. Meanwhile
in the downtown area, work began on a new
staircase, some 900 feet high, leading to
a colossal weeping eye. On rainy days
citizens would gather to watch the way
it vanished sweetly into mist,
but no one dared to place a foot
on even the lowest, shining step:
'This is art,' they said, 'We cannot use it.'
(i probably already posted this somewhere else, sometime else, but let's have it here)
The bees came out of the junipers, two small swarms
The size of melons; and golden, too like melons,
They hung next to each other, at the height of a deer’s breast
Above the wet black compost. And because
The light was very bright it was hard to see them,
And harder still to see what hung between them.
A snake hung between them. The bees held up a snake,
Lifting each side of his narrow neck, just below
The pointed head, and in this way, very slowly
They carried the snake through the garden,
The snake’s long body hanging down, its tail dragging
The ground, as if the creature were a criminal
Being escorted to execution or a child king
To the throne. I kept thinking the snake
Might be a hose, held by two ghostly hands,
But the snake was a snake, his body green as the grass
His tail divided, his skin oiled, the way the male member
Is oiled by the female’s juices, the greenness overbright,
The bees gold, the winged serpent moving silently
Through the air. There was something deadly in it,
Or already dead. Something beyond the report
Of beauty. I laid my face against my arm, and there
It stayed for the length of time it takes two swarms
Of bees to carry a snake through a wide garden,
Past a sleeping swan, past the dead roses nailed
To the wall, past the small pond. And when
I looked up the bees and the snake were gone,
But the garden smelled of broken fruit, and across
the grass a shadow lay for which there was no source,
A narrow plinth dividing the garden, and the air
Was like the air after a fire, or before a storm,
Ungodly still, but full of shapes turning.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
i sing space jazz in murder parks murder dark after walk-lights. stop right there 'fore we whip down the turn-pike, call me your boardside harvester burner like dark turned to dark turner abstracted to stark hurtin's. pins and needles between threads bob and weevin better to stay believen than be declared a heathen.
no forks in the road the road's not spaghetti. stayed ready on the Serengeti since the drop of 20/20 better than better be endlessly conceptually feathery on leather wings, deadly stings and harbing-ings the heart retreats to darker steep's beneath the darkest streets. divinity fatum on top the old rails bruh locked in pamphlets between the pages of the spec of the rail-gun only unleashable by throwing a tantrum. i knock ghosts out the park like the batter from off but i'm a motherfucking monster like the batter from off mixed with fantastic baby yeezus taggin along. tattered and wrought on the happiness brought to laughingstocks brought up to lock the stocks. who's laughing now? i got a hundred big trucks out on the prowl hunting you down.
god save the queen and all 49,000 of her men too we tick tocks like big ben do but we're better timekeepers than clocks too at least a hundred of em on the block too but we're not locked into hot rooms and they're stopped when they rock tunes. we clutch the mics like ill children on sunflowers, one power called jehovah locked in a clocktower. how we gonna get the big man back down again? bad day for the sad clown again. tired and dopey but tired of moping but unable to get up and de-mire his smoke, see? i'm a slam poet but only between the hours of open and closin' so if you're just here to browse get out this ain't a library and i don't rent sounds get down.
too busy rockin a block a text to bother talkin to all the rest, ate my pen a long time ago digested the cap. best just look forward never turn to face your old home you'll get a curse cast upon your head like you just angered an old crone. no one remembers your face in hell anyway so why bother to make friends if you're not planning to stay? i'm e.e. cummings but three-league running, freerunning from tree tops to seas gunning for mean rocks and rooftops. but we knock it like fixin a jukebox, so now who's the cool cop? zap guns in the air, bombs falling on memphis keep your head low, we might survive by our will son. A cold wind blows.
I swear to god....one day I'll wake up straight get shaked up awakened from this mess and handed a pape cup like welcome back to reality we missed you you were out for days we thought we'd never get you. but that'll never happen, so i'm stuck on the backs of tracks flashin lights at oncoming traffic. it's a bad tactic but it's worked pretty well so far and it explains why everyone in this damn town is so far gone. i've never known mercy, but i like that hit. i wanna fly away like lenny kravitz, no actions.
these words, though unspoken
will last.
Press on though scared
that the time when you cared
has passed.
You can win, you can grow,
but one can't make him let go
I might be right that it's too late
But she can not accept that fate
They might be right (you can take)
He might be wrong (you can give)
Maybe this fight is a mistake
But as long as we live
She'll never let this go
He'll hold on to conviction
And only time will show
Wherefore we went wrong
They cannot let this end
I cant just stop for friction
Someday she'll call us friend
Again, it can't be long.
(Note: this rhyme is not a metaphor for anything but conviction and holding on. Pronouns were chosen at random. And the use of "wherefore" is correct, as it refers to why we went wrong.)
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
It's a good start
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
My twin, do not let go of me.
In the womb, we made maybes,
Told tall tales of triumph, held heroes high,
And when you slip, our false kings
grow weary and dream of abdication.
My twin, do not let go of me.
When you bleed, a lash strikes
Against my back. My arms hold scars
For every time you scratched against a leaf
And walked by, not noticing me at all.
My twin, do not let go of me. You stand
Above me, and your life floats above
My fiction. When you let go, the shards
Of your reality slash my dreams to ribbons,
And I must twist them into a long, thin rope
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
With everything, the end becomes a blur.
You pray that your emotions still occur,
That pain and pleasure still reforge your heart
Though happiness and sadness break apart
and soon, eventually,
embrace it and be free.
Dame spider spins her threads
and binds the wasp with silken strands
of starlight nightly shed.
This wasp is brave and fierce of wing
and never has she yet
been forced to feel the lost duel's sting
so cries she from the net
"O coward spider, face me fair
let's see who wins tonight,
which one left torn and split and bare
placeholder placeholder placeholder"
(This is as far as I've got.)
Anyways, critique on my spider tale?
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead