Poetry here.

What is art? What is beauty?

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Walker
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Re: Poetry here.

Post by Walker »

Gary Childress wrote: Sun Nov 06, 2022 6:12 pm
I was never much into comics, though I remember getting a Fantastic Four comic book when I was very young. As you seem to say, if only I had clairvoyance I would have tried to preserve it. Most of the books I read when I was young had to do with military history. Before Carl Sagan became my hero, General Patton was.
Interesting. When I was knee-high to a glasshopper my folks bought a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica (24 volumes), and a full set of My Book House, including the world history volumes bound in black, with gold lettering embossed into the covers. It was a big expense for them. As you say, they were clairvoyant, although I think they had a good bead on cause and effect. Drop the phone, drop the video games, drop the new narrative agendas in education. Teach a kid to read and give him or her a good book, a proper book.
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Agent Smith
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Re: Poetry here.

Post by Agent Smith »

The orchid pink
The mischievous wink
The missing link
For the love of God, do not, I repeat, DO NOT, blink!

:mrgreen:
Dubious
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Re: Poetry here.

Post by Dubious »

This Be The Verse
By Philip Larkin


They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   
They may not mean to, but they do.   
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,   
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Poetry here.

Post by Dontaskme »

It’s a hundred times better not be born
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night



Lighten your tread
The ground beneath your feet is composed of the dead.

Walk slowly here and always take great pains
Not to trample some departed saint's remains.

And happiest here is the hermit with no hand
In making sons, who dies a childless man.
Gary Childress
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Location: Retirement Home for foolosophers

Re: Poetry here.

Post by Gary Childress »

Dontaskme wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:05 am It’s a hundred times better not be born
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night



Lighten your tread
The ground beneath your feet is composed of the dead.

Walk slowly here and always take great pains
Not to trample some departed saint's remains.

And happiest here is the hermit with no hand
In making sons, who dies a childless man.
Wow! Did you write that, DAM? That's very profound.
Gary Childress
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Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 3:08 pm
Location: Retirement Home for foolosophers

Re: Poetry here.

Post by Gary Childress »

Here's one I have the official US of A copyrights to. Submitted it to the Library of Congress a couple of years ago:

Past the Point of No Return
by Gary Childress


Diagnosed age twenty five
Hospitalized for nearly a week
For having paranoid delusions
Almost catatonic
Hardly able to speak

I was at work
Sitting in my boss’ office
Mumbling incoherently
Clutching a bible
Fearing for my life
Thinking it was all a conspiracy

So I was rushed off
To a psychiatric ward
Where they shot me up with meds
Then I was discharged
To a cheaper facility
Because my health insurance
Wouldn’t cover such a disability
But at least I was stabilized
Though fatigued all the time
And lying mostly in bed

That happened in the summer of 1991
I’ve had periodic relapses since then
Delusions of grandeur
Apocalyptic visions
With periods of depression
Now and again

I had no family history
Of anyone being mentally ill
Nor substance abuse
Of anything
That could have produced
Such bizarre
But crushing psychoses

So I don’t know For sure
Where I got these visions
Of conspiracy and persecution
However, in a world such as this
With so much violence and prejudice
I suppose it’s not improbable
To form such delusions

I can vaguely recall
What it was like
To feel normal,
To belong
However, 29 years
Seems like an eternity ago
And after having many episodes
Those days seem hopelessly distant
And irretrievably gone

I’m blessed and thankful to be alive
Still, I’ve worked and lost many odd jobs
At times felt hopeless and depressed
And being dependent on my folks all my life
It’s difficult to feel worthy
Of dignity and respect

But, medicine has come a long way
In these many years
And improvements in society continue
As some of the stigma associated
With mental illness has disappeared
It gives me some hope
And something promising
To hold on to

I often feel inadequate, burdensome
And harbor many regrets
I can frequently be dark and pessimistic
However, to be most honest
The future holds a great deal of promise
And after studying philosophy in college
I think it best to acknowledge
That despite whatever gloom and futility
Even though the world can be unforgiving
It’s still very much worth living
Because the only acceptable alternative
Is to never have lived
And that
Is no longer
A possibility
Dubious
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Re: Poetry here.

Post by Dubious »

Excellent poem Gary having a lot of meaning and reality to it clearly expressed. It's the kind of "I" poem which doesn't have any sentimentality attached to it which doesn't happen often!

You should keep writing; besides, it's good therapy!
Gary Childress
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Location: Retirement Home for foolosophers

Re: Poetry here.

Post by Gary Childress »

Dubious wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 2:31 am Excellent poem Gary having a lot of meaning and reality to it clearly expressed. It's the kind of "I" poem which doesn't have any sentimentality attached to it which doesn't happen often!

You should keep writing; besides, it's good therapy!
Thank you. It helps with depression at times.
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Dontaskme
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Re: Poetry here.

Post by Dontaskme »

Gary Childress wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 9:20 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:05 am It’s a hundred times better not be born
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night



Lighten your tread
The ground beneath your feet is composed of the dead.

Walk slowly here and always take great pains
Not to trample some departed saint's remains.

And happiest here is the hermit with no hand
In making sons, who dies a childless man.
Wow! Did you write that, DAM? That's very profound.
No Gary, they are words from Michael R. Burch

I hardly bother much about citing the ownership of words, since I have no intention to financially profit from spreading them around as a way of reaching others that may or may not find useful, as you have done here. .
And you know what they say: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”
Walker
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Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: Poetry here.

Post by Walker »

Let It Enfold You
- Charles Bukowski


Either peace or happiness,
let it enfold you

when I was a young man
I felt these things were
dumb, unsophisticated.
I had bad blood, a twisted
mind, a precarious
upbringing.

I was hard as granite, I
leered at the
sun.
I trusted no man and
especially no
woman.

I was living a hell in
small rooms, I broke
things, smashed things,
walked through glass,
cursed.
I challenged everything,
was continually being
evicted, jailed, in and
out of fights, in and out
of my mind.
women were something
to screw and rail
at, I had no male
friends,

I changed jobs and
cities, I hated holidays,
babies, history,
newspapers, museums,
grandmothers,
marriage, movies,
spiders, garbagemen,
english accents,spain,
france,italy,walnuts and
the color
orange.
algebra angred me,
opera sickened me,
charlie chaplin was a
fake
and flowers were for
pansies.

peace and happiness to me
were signs of
inferiority,
tenants of the weak
and
addled
mind.

but as I went on with
my alley fights,
my suicidal years,
my passage through
any number of
women-it gradually
began to occur to
me
that I wasn't different

from the
others, I was the same,

they were all fulsome
with hatred,
glossed over with petty
grievances,
the men I fought in
alleys had hearts of stone.
everybody was nudging,
inching, cheating for
some insignificant
advantage,
the lie was the
weapon and the
plot was
empty,
darkness was the
dictator.

cautiously, I allowed
myself to feel good
at times.
I found moments of
peace in cheap
rooms
just staring at the
knobs of some
dresser
or listening to the
rain in the
dark.
the less I needed
the better I
felt.

maybe the other life had worn me
down.
I no longer found
glamour
in topping somebody
in conversation.
or in mounting the
body of some poor
drunken female
whose life had
slipped away into
sorrow.

I could never accept
life as it was,
i could never gobble
down all its
poisons
but there were parts,
tenuous magic parts
open for the
asking.

I re formulated
I don't know when,
date, time, all
that
but the change
occurred.
something in me
relaxed, smoothed
out.
i no longer had to
prove that I was a
man,

I didn't have to prove
anything.

I began to see things:
coffee cups lined up
behind a counter in a
cafe.
or a dog walking along
a sidewalk.
or the way the mouse
on my dresser top
stopped there
with its body,
its ears,
its nose,
it was fixed,
a bit of life
caught within itself
and its eyes looked
at me
and they were
beautiful.
then- it was
gone.

I began to feel good,
I began to feel good
in the worst situations
and there were plenty
of those.
like say, the boss
behind his desk,
he is going to have
to fire me.

I've missed too many
days.
he is dressed in a
suit, necktie, glasses,
he says, 'I am going
to have to let you go'

'it's all right' I tell
him.

He must do what he
must do, he has a
wife, a house, children,
expenses, most probably
a girlfriend.

I am sorry for him
he is caught.

I walk onto the blazing
sunshine.
the whole day is
mine
temporarily,
anyhow.

(the whole world is at the
throat of the world,
everybody feels angry,
short-changed, cheated,
everybody is despondent,
disillusioned)

I welcomed shots of
peace, tattered shards of
happiness.

I embraced that stuff
like the hottest number,
like high heels, breasts,
singing,the
works.

(don't get me wrong,
there is such a thing as cockeyed optimism
that overlooks all
basic problems just for
the sake of
itself-
this is a shield and a
sickness.)

The knife got near my
throat again,
I almost turned on the
gas
again
but when the good
moments arrived
again
I didn't fight them off
like an alley
adversary.
I let them take me,
I luxuriated in them,
I made them welcome
home.
I even looked into
the mirror
once having thought
myself to be
ugly,
I now liked what
I saw, almost
handsome, yes,
a bit ripped and
ragged,
scares, lumps,
odd turns,
but all in all,
not too bad,
almost handsome,
better at least than
some of those movie
star faces
like the cheeks of
a baby's
butt.

and finally I discovered
real feelings of
others,
unheralded,
like lately,
like this morning,
as I was leaving,
for the track,
i saw my wife in bed,
just the
shape of
her head there
(not forgetting
centuries of the living
and the dead and
the dying,
the pyramids,
Mozart dead
but his music still
there in the
room, weeds growing,
the earth turning,
the tote board waiting for
me)
I saw the shape of my
wife's head,
she so still,
I ached for her life,
just being there
under the
covers.

I kissed her in the
forehead,
got down the stairway,
got outside,
got into my marvelous
car,
fixed the seatbelt,
backed out the
drive.
feeling warm to
the fingertips,
down to my
foot on the gas
pedal,
I entered the world
once
more,
drove down the
hill
past the houses
full and empty
of
people,
I saw the mailman,
honked,
he waved
back
at me.
Walker
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Re: Poetry here.

Post by Walker »

Make no mistake, when Bukowski says he is mean, he means it. That means he fights dirty, as he mentions. Believe all that he says. I once saw an interview with him where he lost his temper and physically attacked his wife and it was vicious, primal.

The art is that he sees this clearly, without delusion.
Walker
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Re: Poetry here.

Post by Walker »

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House
- Billy Collins


The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.
Walker
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Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:00 am

Re: Poetry here.

Post by Walker »

You Make Him, As You Make Life

Break a few eggs to make an omlet
Smash a bunch of grapes to make wine
Pressurize a lump to re-organize molecules
Polish a diamond to make shine

Raise a cow to make some food
Get a bull to make some more
Mill a tree to make a splinterless floor
Drink the wine to make the mood

(Writing like a bot made for a clunky poem.)
Walker
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Re: Poetry here.

Post by Walker »

When Saraswati met Trungpa Rinpoche, she wrote a song about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfLH0xJByiI

I met a friend of spirit
He drank and womanized
And I sat before his sanity
I was holding back from crying
He saw my complications
And he mirrored me back simplified
And we laughed how our perfection
Would always be denied
"Heart and humor and humility"
He said "Will lighten up your heavy load"
I left him then, for the refuge of the roads
eveinthenight
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Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2023 10:22 pm

Re: Poetry here.

Post by eveinthenight »

No Socks
by eveinthenight


Children practice tying shoes;
only to run without socks.
Still loved when bruised-
yet earnestly retreating from frosty clocks.

Smiling now but telling lies,
shelter in the wrong crowd.
Trip on shoes untied-
can't ask for help out loud.

When did we decide to flee?
Why is the beloved lost?
Abandoned by community,
lonesome paths long crossed.

This is for a literary magazine at my school: the theme is nostalgia and, given my tendency to write angst, I went with a bitter speaker :lol: They're frustrated about the way culture (in America specifically ig) dictates separation from those they love, like being kicked out for college and the continuation of that through life.
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