ForumHobbies ► Poetry
I think this forum needs a place where we can write just poetry and comment on each others. I'll start.


While you watch my chest heave
As this last breath leaves me
Know that I have found peace
The serenity I could not find in life
I have finally found by following the light
And now its my turn to burn

As the flames lick my skin they envelop me in warmth
As my skin burns pictures of people I knew pass by
Your picture lingers until you're stnading there

I reach out to touch you but you walk away
Leaving me once again on my own
But instead of the rain you're leaving me in the flame
  
Whovian, I think your poetry could benefit from structure, but otherwise it's good.

Came time to pay the tithe
And all had come from near and far
To meet beneath an autumn star
And pay their tribute to the Queen

The kobolds from their mountain caves
The goblins from their new dug graves
The silent elves from tree and sprout
The pukas from a dying shout
All to pay the tithe

The hags flew in from crumbling keep
And woke the dryads from their sleep
Came the brownies, with a smile
Came the bogarts, filled with guile
All to pay the tithe

In glided pixies, green of skin
And in swam selkies, cold of fin
In marched the red caps to the drums
Beat on by knotted ogre thumbs
All to pay the tithe

Each kobold gave its first born son
Each goblin all that he had won
Each elf a single acorn seed
Each puka thoughts of hate and greed
All had paid the tithe

Each hag brought cuts of strong sinew
Each dryad drops of bottled dew
Each brownie gave thread and needle
Each bogart came with black beetle
All had paid the tithe

Each pixie gave the stuff of dreams
Each selkie mud from sacred streams
Each redcap blood from soldiers slain
Each ogre chunks of human brain
All had paid the tithe

Came time to pay the tithe
And all had come from near and far
To meet beneath an autumn star
And pay their tribute to the Queen
  
The Waltz

The Angel swoops on wings of sin,
His smile lies reassurance.
We dance to ballads in minor keys,
His feathers drift to cover the truth.


I shut my eyes whilst my Angel led,
Shuffled unwilling to music sour, never sweet.
The chords struck as hammers on glass,
And my blood seeped clear from the rends.


The Angel's wings, of Anansi's own silk,
Sealed me in his words macabre.
Our sonatas play unceasing,
Now I answer only to Lucifer's call.
  
I've never had good structure in my poetry. I also prefer it not to rhyme. I have one that I have to find because my Speech class raved about it.
  
Many of the poems I write are:
• AABBC format
• Lines are usually 7-8 syllables with one that ends a verse with far less.

I'm a very technical writer.
  
I'm a very technical writer.

I never would have guessed. 😛
  
Sarcasm?
By technical, I mean that I follow writing outlines strictly, whether I create them or not.
  
My stuff usually never ryhmes. The one from my Speech class does, but that's because the teacher made us.
  
I personally enjoy writing in iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter with the occasional trochaic switch.
  
I rather like your poem there, sirbob. Some of the rhythms and rhymes in a couple of lines feel a bit... off, but it's still good.
  
I just don't care for the iambic rhymes because I hate having to use awkward words to finish my lines and stanzas.
  
Yeah, it can get sort of strange.

And thank you, ThenAgain. It is a bit off, so here's one that's somewhat similar in meter, but slightly less off,


Through blood and through fire
Though the danger be dire
The Royal Dragoons will ride swift
In the hearts of our foes
Our shouts will raise ire
As the souls of our men they uplift

Our formations pristine
In the name of the Queen
We’ll ride to the heart of the fray
Our sabers will glow
With the bloodiest sheen
As our valor delivers the day

Gunfire be damned
As we charge over land
Not a man of us breaks from the fight
For we’re true and we’re brave
And with weapons in hand
Our army’s chances look bright

To us death’s a sport
And to cut a life short
Is no worse then kicking a ball
The clashing of steel
And the cannon’s report
Are as cheers of a crowd to us all

Through blood and through fire
Though the danger be dire
The Royal Dragoons will ride swift
In the hearts of our foes
Our shouts will raise ire
As the souls of our men they uplift
  
Love:

You told me you loved me
I said it back
Our love stung like a bee
And had no lack

At the first sign of trouble
You turned and fled
I stood there in the rubble
As I cried and I bled

Now you act like nothing is wrong
You ignore me as if I’m not there
This has been going on for too long
I feel as if there is no more air

Most would blame you
But I don’t know that I can
I feel a bit blue
Most days I wish to be hit by a van

One day I’ll feel better
But right now I can’t
So I’ll write how I feel in a letter
It’ll look like a rant

And then I’ll burn it
And forget all about you
It’s time for me to quit
Because you’re no longer my glue
  
If I’m The Flower, Then You’re A Gallon of Miracle Gro Weed-B-Gon

I am the flower [petalling through] on my bike, photosynthesized from your light that’s scattering through peridot that glints uselessly in the wake of your grassy eyes that glaze over until portals appear and guide me by way of blurred candlelight in the same way those theatre bulbs guided me back to the seat where we then proceeded to profess our love with lips unspeaking. I watch as those sea green fronds grow and contract into the deep onyx centrifuge and run into a tree. Only to fall off my bike and onto you - discovering that the road maps in your eyes are now just tarry skies - starless and uninteresting. I remember when we wrote that beautiful story acted out in the auditorium of your irises, but now its become a hollow shell of flat characters and bad pacing - losing its ability to captivate me and tranquilize my powerful hands. Now they’ve been lost to you - an upheaval of earth in your garden of eden.

Bursting into sun
you grow ivy ‘cross my eyes -
rooting yourself there.

This is a haibun I wrote for a poetry challenge. This isn't the final draft because the final draft got lost somewhere in the sands of time. Tell me what you think? (:
  
I like that :D And it has introduced me to the haibun!
  
anyone know any good slam poets?
  
Cathexis is shit,
my prolix is worse,
your name has an X,
like all of these words.
  
The End of All Importance

Meaning stalks on velvet paws,
Stopping to snatch at innocent souls.
It rearanges the compass to its own device,
Leading unknowing victims to dubious goals.

Spectres are robbed of all decision,
Their lives no longer are their own-
The hearts and homes are lit now
By an electric sun.

The gods are false and dreams are lies;
People don’t exist. In the forest built of life,
Meaning would have us all pretend:
Sanity is meaning, and the truth is found within.

The Shadow in darkness watches me now,
Its teeth are bared in a smile.
Stories tell me it is real,
But stories are made of hope.

If the world were a lie,
If people were ghosts,
If it were all imagination,
Would not this be the ultimate salvation?
  
^ I liked it. The first two stanzas really reminded me of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" and there's something in the tone that's a bit reminiscent of "The Wasteland" though certainly a lot less formal and convoluted.
  
You, like the poison in my veins,
Blackening my lungs like cigarette smoke...
But still I can't walk away,
Though maybe it's for the best.
  
I think the first line would be better without the "like" and the second with the "...". Also,
the last lines both use connectives, and it doesn't seem to flow. Maybe restructure?
You could maybe add in some more lines between the 3rd and 4th to add more context to the final line.
Basically, I thnk there's too many words that aren't carrying concepts/images, just...words.
  
At Decline of Day.

A sprite of lithe light dances
Its last to a whisper of wind's fun,
When manic Winter applies to it's canvas
The gleams of a grateful sun.

An unspecific pane pops and crackles,
And gathers pace, sound and light from
Silence of mind and evening shackles,
When stirs little in house and home.

Shadows, fed by time and loss growing
On walls nourished by neither,
Garner in their bowing,
Applause of raining weather.

Evening tyres, with heavy sighs, pass by,
While drainpipes operatically sing,
All the songs they know of joy -
Browned concrete, marble sky, sunless wings.

In the midst of shrouding shadows
Where tined and tentacled trees stitch
Seam's of light, daytime narrows,
And darkness drops to its noisome pitch.
  
I like that, is good. The 3rd stanza is a bit... awkward, but the rest flows nicely.
I especially like "Browned concrete, marble sky, sunless wings."
  
Rising Tide.

Frighteningly
Erratic
Aren’t they?
Rises in the tide.

They
Envelope you and I.
Rising,
Rising.
Oh, they inch ever closer.
Rising, Rising.

Dark waves come closer.
Rising.
Each breath we take now is but
A dismissal of our coming
Destiny.

Here we meet our end,
Or at least something resembling an end.
Rising,
Rising.
Open wide and breathe deep the dark water.
Rising, Rising.
  
Bravo, sir. You are the FIRST poet I've ever read, outside of George Herbert, who could manage to make a pattern poem emotionally evocative. Truly well done.

Edit - Did you mean meet our destiny or as it was written?
  
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