Spiraling decay that begins and never ends yesterday is today yet today feels worse tomorrow will hurt more I gaze into the mirror and I see my reflection and I see my reflection in the mirror behind my mirror form and I wonder if the me in the mirror envies me or if he prefers to exist intermittently and I wonder if the me in the mirror behind myself envies the me in the mirror as his existence is not only acknowledged when I think to think about him and I realize I am distracting myself from the spiral inside my heart beating erratically although the monitor says 89 BPM and I wonder why the spiral never ends and I realize that the spiral is self inflicted and I decide to cut it out and I prepare my genetic scalpel and I hesitate because it is scary and I make the incision and I pull the string within my heart and I pull and I pull and I pull

ad nauseam

I'm gay
I'm gay
I'm gay for boobs

Echo
by Christina Rossetti

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimful of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again tho' cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.

This is a poem I wrote. Please give a critique.

Empire for empire, war for war,
Strong crushing weak is the law,
As great men sit on golden throne,
They want to see an empire ROME.
Caesar shall return as a great man,
Foretold by Spengler, see his plan,
Total rule from sea to sea
And he will rule but by decree.
Disagree? To the camp.with you,
You will be a slave, that's true,
As empires conquer once again,
And blood flows fresh over the plain,
We worship Genghis, Hitler, Caesar,
We need an empire that's even bigger,
We need an empire that's number one,
That holds the world like a stone,
Men will march in total rhythm,
As emperors expend much jism
At the political map, all one color,
As they take the whole world over,
Old gods return, sacrifices made,
Jupiter smiles, as the way is paved,
To IRON RULE, that will never end,
And for the weakling, we do portend
Unending violence, just for a thrill,
YOU WILL NEVER STOP, OUR IRON WILL.

>>25316902
If self-aware post-irony it's funny. If making fun of someone other than you it's gay.

>>25316647
A poem I wrote translated to English: "The Hedgeshot"

In the shadow of brooding heat fierce,
The grassblades stand limp and pale.
The hedge in glowing, sweating pierce
Has lost its deep and vivid veil.

There stirs a twitch within the hedge’s breast,
A rustling low beneath the floor.
It pricks me sorely to go and quest
What whispers there within its core

In the shadow of the shimmering, glimm’ring heat,
From out the hedge there spurs a strain:
A play of most bewitching, elfin wit,
From the hedgebelly to mine ear again

I peered with narrowed, eager slits,
To see what moves within the leaves’ domain.
I stared into the heat’s wild, mangled fits
What plays that hidden faery-game

Surely the troll teases the sparrows,
Surely sylphs hoard treasures in secret nooks,
Surely gnomes hide in the brown-leafed barrows,
Surely fauns court faun-maids with roguish looks.
Surely sprites are humming and buzzing there,
Surely the dwarf-king lures me to be his heir

Then angels stepped up to my side and spake:
“Dwarf and troll, sylph and faun,
All these quaint and pious hedge-sprites wake
You may dare to grasp them if you’re brave and drawn.
You may walk the hedge-path with God’s own grace,
But know this one thing clear:
If you go, you go all the way, and without a trace.”

A shiver ran through me, full of prickling fright,
That lazy, withered hedge now seemed
A changeful, impish child of spite
It struck me squarely in the heart, it gleamed
Right on it struck my heart, my senses’ bane
Its wicked jest has hit its mark,
And drives me mad with love insane

The rustling in the hedge doth wane,
I startle upright in my chair, aghast.
I must not wake what came again
The very fate the hedge on me hath cast

Yet turning back is now forever banned,
Mad-will hath seized the reins outright.
In angel-song and fool’s delight I stand,
To bask therein and swear to every faery’s rite

For evermore, and more ever, with all my might.

Now there stands that hedge again,
green as spring and right as rain

No wailing on the plane
Parent ethical
(I'm sleeping)

Sparagmos

Mouth full of blood and wine
under the bone-white moon,
women dance and tear me apart
howling like loons.

Under the ascending sun
My gore makes the flowers grow.
Women feast on my flesh
next to deer and crow.

>>25317391
What did you mean by this?

--bittersweet--

A nodding ship that drifts away
Off from places so dull and grey
Where grief and sorrow go to die;
leaving but a carefree sigh

No strife or dread or toil for gold
Of passing stories never told
Gentle seas that rock fears to sleep;
for wakeful minds alone to keep

Intruding curtains wake my sight
The light betrays my wish for night
What lingers wears off with a yawn
And fades away along with dawn

>>25317423
>Sparagmos is an ancient Greek ritual term (from sparasso, meaning "to tear or rend") describing the ecstatic act of dismembering a living human or animal sacrifice. Associated closely with the worship of Dionysus, it symbolized the tearing apart of life to achieve a divine, transcendent rebirth.

Theatre sad.
Drapes in winter.
I'd show you but nothing's
ready for a photograph.
I have some already,
photographs
of photographs
of the sea.
They are precious,
like me.

Thought I'd end up with Sean
But he wasn't a match
Wrote some songs about Ricky
Now I listen and laugh
Even almost got married
And for Pete, I'm so thankful
Wish I could say "thank you" to Malcolm
'Cause he was an angel
One taught me love
One taught me patience
And one taught me pain
Now, I'm so amazing
Say I've loved and I've lost
But that's not what I see
So, look what I got
Look at what you taught me
And for that, I say
Thank you, next (next)
Thank you, next (next)
Thank you, next
I'm so grateful for my ex
Thank you, next (next)
Thank you, next (next)
Thank you, next (next)
I'm so
Spend more time with my friends
I ain't worried 'bout nothin'
Plus, I met someone else
We're havin' better discussions
I know they say I move on too fast
But this one gon' last
'Cause her name is Ari
And I'm so good with that (so good with that)
She taught me love (love)
She taught me patience (patience)
She handles pain (pain)
That amazing (yeah, she's amazing)
I've loved and I've lost (yeah, yeah)
But that's not what I see (yeah, yeah)
'Cause look what I've found (yeah, yeah)
Ain't no need for searching
And for that, I say
Thank you, next (thank you, next)
Thank you, next (thank you, next)
Thank you, next (thank you)
I'm so grateful for my ex
Thank you, next (thank you, next)
Thank you, next (said thank you, next)
Thank you, next (next)
I'm so grateful for my ex
Thank you, next
Thank you, next
Thank you, next
I'm so
One day I'll walk down the aisle
Holding hands with my mama
I'll be thanking my dad
'Cause she grew from the drama
Only wanna do it once, real bad
Gon' make that last
God forbid something happens
Least this song is a smash (song is a smash)
I've got so much love (love)
Got so much patience (patience)
I've learned from the pain (pain)
I turned out amazing (turned out amazing)
I've loved and I've lost (yeah, yeah)
But that's not what I see (yeah, yeah)
'Cause look what I've found (yeah, yeah)
Ain't no need for searching
And for that, I'll say
Thank you, next (thank you, next)
Thank you, next (thank you, next)
Thank you, next
I'm so grateful for my ex
Thank you, next (thank you, next)
Thank you, next (said thank you, next)
Thank you, next (next)
I'm so grateful for my ex
Thank you, next
Thank you, next
Thank you, next
Yeah, yee
Thank you, next
Thank you, next
Thank you, next
Yeah, yee

came up with these more as song lyrics some sleepless night, but i might as well post them here.

i put up all the red flags
that i could fucking find
and you still said you loved me
and nothing'd change your mind

i told you this was quicksand
d'you really think we'd swim?
i couldn't say no to your love
you were my one way in

well we're still bound up in my skin
if not in your eyes
i planted all these roses
to make up for the lies

please forgive me all these poses
and what they're there to hide
please forgive me all these postures, dear
and what you're here to hide

Hard water

Drowned dead, calcified carcass still standing

Mournful eyes layered on glass, silver, glass again

Keeping me company while I evaporate

Dry tears form along the fragile surface

Can't love her

Threadly reminder: "free verse" isn't poetry.

as the seasons blur
grin across the sands of time
forgotten kindness

>>25316647
stephin merritt:

you need me
like the wind
needs the trees
to blow in
like the moon
needs poetry
you need me

>>25318014

Say that without your father's cock ravaging you now.

>>25316647
El armador aquel de casas rústicas
habló desde la barca,
ellos sobre la grava de la orilla,
y él flotando en las aguas.
Y la brisa del lago recogía
de su boca parábolas,
ojos que ven, oídos que oyen gozan
de bienaventuranza.
Recién nacían por el aire claro
las semillas aladas,
el sol las revestía con sus rayos,
la brisa las cunaba.
Hasta que al fin cayeron en un libro
¡ay, tragedia del alma!
ellos tumbados en la grava seca
y él flotando en las aguas.

>>25316647
>Bonus: post a poem you wrote about your oneitis.

The winter solstice of my love
Left nothing to amend
I stood without my heart that night
"Why does it have to end?"

Spring came to take my sullen mood
Snow melted with my plea
Yet in my chest was still a void
Like the hollow of a tree

Then summer came and dried away
The tears I used to weep
My heart now tarries in the tree
Forever yours to keep

>>25317131
I like it

>>25318014
The weavers of these tedious threads
Would like to see their medium dead
Should something raw and real arise
Must this be raped and ostracized
In a life without my rhythm and rhyme
What is there to hide behind?

Alexander Pope's Eloisa to Abelard is a great love poem. Too long to post in it's entirety, but here's an excerpt:
>Then share thy pain, allow that sad relief;
>Ah, more than share it! give me all thy grief.
>Heav'n first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
>Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid;
>They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires,
>Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires,
>The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
>Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart,
>Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
>And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.

>>25318141
Heh. fun little one

>>25318141
bruh

>>25318141
Kino
>>25317391
CRINGE and GAY

>>25318033
https://youtu.be/jgGUutf5BK0?si=atyiBU-tTW0gBgRv

File: FFXqLTGXsAUU17V.jpg (101 KB, 817x1200)

101 KB JPG

>>25318054
>>25316745
Why are Hispanics are the only ones who have the dignity to post in their own language? Other than them nobody whose first language isn't English does it.

We gave them swords to defend the land
Now their blades are at our throats
Our servants claim every speck of sand
And Muhammed rapes our goats

O flesh of my flesh
Blood of my blood
Too near to touch
Eternally out of grasp
Nearest to my heart
Never to know the sound

Lost in spiral I realize there is no room left for my attachments I open a space within my brain to funnel the string through a space with no ending beginning from the origin point the resulting gordian knot hangs like a dead light bulb with nobody to hear its cries for control from there reality may form paper effigies go about their business unobservant of their false nature uncaring for their fellow false humans unknowing of the tangle swinging above their false society as emotions swell surface area stretches further further beginning and never ending one day the spiral will be cut one day the paper will look up one day their crayon eyes will blink one day they may shed a wet tear one day there will be an ending and finally meaning will bloom from the corpses of crushed dreams

>>25317131
can we get the original?

>>25317634
>photographs
>of photographs
>of the sea
nice

>>25317634
i like it

>>25318141
>without rhythm or rhyme
scans better but ymmv with accent, otherwise tight

NÃO FIZ NADA, BEM SEI, NEM O FAREI

Não fiz nada, bem sei, nem o farei,
Mas de não fazer nada isto tirei,
Que fazer tudo e nada é tudo o mesmo,
Quem sou é o espectro do que não serei.

Vivemos ao encontros do abandono
Sem verdade, sem dúvida nem dono.
Boa é a vida, mas melhor é o vinho.
O amor é bom, mas é melhor o sono.

— Fernando Pessoa


I’ve done nothing; never will – but see
How this nothing’s educated me:
Doing all and nothing is the same;
I’m the ghost of what I’ll never be.

Under dereliction’s will we creep;
Truth attends us not, nor masters keep.
Life is good, but wine is better still;
Love is good, but better still is sleep.

Parfum Exotique

Quand, les deux yeux fermés, en un soir chaud d’automne,
Je respire l’odeur de ton sein chaleureux,
Je vois se dérouler des rivages heureux
Qu’éblouissent les feux d’un soleil monotone;

Une île paresseuse où la nature donne
Des arbres singuliers et des fruits savoureux;
Des hommes dont le corps est mince et vigoureux,
Et des femmes dont l’oeil par sa franchise étonne.

Guidé par ton odeur vers de charmants climats,
Je vois un port rempli de voiles et de mâts
Encor tout fatigués par la vague marine,

Pendant que le parfum des verts tamariniers,
Qui circule dans l’air et m’enfle la narine,
Se mêle dans mon âme au chant des mariniers.

— Charles Baudelaire


‘Exotic Perfume’

When, eyes closed, on a sultry autumn night,
I breathe the warming fragrance of your breast,
I see expansive shores before me, dressed
In summer’s dazzling unrelenting light;

A lazy isle, where Nature sets in sight
Exotic trees, and fruits of luscious zest;
And slender-bodied men with vigour blessed,
And women too with open gaze and bright.

Drawn by your fragrance to this pleasant land,
I see a port where sails and rigging stand
At ease, still wearied by the ocean wave,

While in my soul, the verdant tamarind scent
That fills the air and makes my nostrils crave,
Is everywhere with songs of sailors blent.

Noli admirari, quare tibi femina nulla,
Rufe, velit tenerum supposuisse femur,
non si illam rarae labefactes munere vestis
aut perluciduli deliciis lapidis.
laedit te quaedam mala fabula, qua tibi fertur
valle sub alarum trux habitare caper.
hunc metuunt omnes, neque mirum: nam mala valde est
bestia, nec quicum bella puella cubet.
quare aut crudelem nasorum interfice pestem,
aut admirari desine cur fugiunt.

— Catullus


Don’t wonder, Rufus, why you sleep alone,
Without some girl to offer you caresses,
Despite your endless gifts of pretty dresses
And necklaces of rare translucent stone.
I’ve heard some nasty rumours. In the vale
Beneath your arms a goat resides, it’s said.
This scares them off. Quite right! To go to bed
With such a filthy’s beast’s beyond the pale.
So try to smell more like a human being,
Or otherwise get used to people fleeing.

Maria, sedated.
Fingers pluck a tear out
Christ watches, always
Hand on your heart
the other where?

I've been reading the very Revd Donne. I like the poems but I often feel like I'm in over my head. Sometimes I come away struggling with cleaning any meaning at all. Does anyone have advice? I'm relatively inexperienced with poetry aside from Shakespeare.

>>25321587
>I've been reading the very Revd Donne. I like the poems but I often feel like I'm in over my head.
"Dr. Donne's verses are like the peace of God: they pass all understanding." — King James I

>Does anyone have advice?
Read some other poetry. Hard to recommend anyone since I don't know what it is about Donne that you like.

It might be the very feeling of being in over your head you like, in which case, here are some 20th-century poets who can make you feel there is meaning in there you're not quite getting:
— Hart Crane
— Wallace Stevens
— Robert Lowell
— John Ashbery
— Geoffrey Hill (sometimes)
— W. H. Auden (sometimes)

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Rupi Kaur

>>25320233
>zero (you)s
the other ESLs are too savvy.

Just a dream I can't make true
Something I must decipher
Would you let me translate you?

In my mind I'll remake you
And myself right beside her
Just a dream I can't make true

A piece of you in residue
I'll bring along as reminder
Would you let me translate you?

Forge you in my own figure
Shadows behind a divider
Just a dream I can't make true

You'll get your loan in repaid full
Like Joan of Arc since the fire
Would you let me translate you?

Who knew it would be this painful
To pluck the thorns from a briar
Just a dream I can't make true
Would you let me translate you?

>>25321166
Sure: "Die Heckenschützen"

Im Schatten der brütenden Hitze
Stehn Halme matt empor
Die Hecke im gühenden Schwitze
Die sattgrüne Farbe verlor

Da zuckt es im Innern der Hecke
Da knistert es unter der Flur
Da reizt es mich arg zu entdecken
Was säuselt da drinnen denn nur

Im Schatten der glimmenden Hitze
Dringt aus der Hecke hervor
Ein Spiel von innigem Witze
Vom Heckenbauch ans Ohr

Ich guckte gespannte Schlitze
Was da im Gewächs herfuhr
Ich gaffte in's Flirren der Hitze
Was treibt es da drinnen denn nur

Sicher hatzt hier der Kobold die Spätze
Sicher horten dort die Sylphen Schätze
Sicher tummeln sich Gnome im Laubbraun
Sicher buhlt dort ein Faun um die Faunfrau'n
Sicher summen und brummen da Geister
Sicher lockt mich der Zwergenmeister

So traten Engel an meine Seite und sprachen
Zwerg und Kobold, Sylph und Faun
All die possierlich frommen Heckenmanen
Kannst du dich zu greifen trau'n
Den Heckengang mit Gottes Segen wagen
Doch wisse eins:
Gehst du, so gehst du ganz.

Da Schauerte es mir im Schalk
Jene träge dürre Hecke scheint
Als wechselhaft und schelmisch' Balg
Getroffen hat sie mich ins Herz
Inmitten meiner Sinne
Getroffen hat ihr böser Scherz
Und macht mir Irrenminne

Da ebbt jenes Rascheln der Hecke
Ich schrecke im Stuhl empor
Dass ich nicht wieder erwecke
Wozu mich die Hecke soeben erkor

Doch Rückkehr ist ausgeschlossen
Tollenwollen hat Überhand gewonnen
Mich im Engelssang und Narrenwonnen
Sonnen und Eid zu leisten allen Feenpossen
Das immer und immer das ganz

Nun steht die Hecke grün und prall

>>25321936
I kekked

File: Inferno VI — Virgil Quiet(...).jpg (579 KB, 1400x600)

579 KB JPG

Not Doré’s finest hour, I have to say. Cerberus is supposed to be on the point of tearing them limb from limb. But Virgil is sprinkling the earth in a relaxed manner and Dante isn’t paying any attention whatsoever. Oh well, never mind.

>>25316647
How to get into poetry?
I have a few poetry books I keep on the shitter, Leaves of Grass, Robert Frost's NH, some other random shit. I enjoy reading them and occasionally pull some lines I like, but I've always felt a bit in over my head with poetry, like I'm just trying to tap into a world I don't fully grasp. I'd like to understand it better.

>>25323082
I'll add that I seem to like the more abstract stuff best because I can kinda do what I want with it mentally. The stuff I want to grasp better is the more straightforward stuff that's regarded as classics, I don't really understand the nuances of the craft enough to appreciate those.

>>25322045
I wasn't satisfied with some stanzas here, so here's a second stab at it.

Just a dream I can't make true
Something I must decipher
Would you let me translate you?

In my mind I'll remake you
And myself right beside her
Just a dream I can't make true

A piece of you in residue
I'll bring along as reminder
Would you let me translate you?

Forever in my retinue
Your name remains in requiem
Just a dream I can't make true

Bring your voice I'll bring the fuel
We'll cleanse your faults in the fire
Would you let me translate you?

It's painful to be born anew
To pluck the thorns from a briar
Just a dream I can't make true
Would you let me translate you?

The expansion which is is referred to as "echo" thus like an echo expansion always returns to its origin point breathing in and out the knot creates and destroys so that there may be the facade of ending yet because the knot remains nothing is allowed to end therefore it begins and never ends like schizophrenic lungs imagining worlds of interest as to distract from mundane truths kill the knot kill your attachments return to reality break the mirror break your shell reset your heart and understand that one day you will suddenly die in your yard surrounded by grass and wire waiting to be found by your children so that your beginning may finally have an ending and meaning will have been established.

I have a little question that I don't know if any of you will really have the answer to
listening to Slovak music I found that they take great care in keeping vowel length intact even if it makes the lyrics sound weird
is meter in Czech and Slovak poetry quantitative or qualitative? if it is quantitative, that's awesome, I think it would be interesting to hear a poem or something to get an idea of how it may have sounded in Latin and Greek
do they use dactylic hexameters and elegiac couplets and so on?

You look, and I am seen.
God had not finished the trees
before you took the green.

A single tear on the blue column
falls, homesick for the sea.
It might have fallen
from you
or me.

Swart long-ship of wood so coarse,
of heathen make, a water'd Horse.
Gallop'd across the water wide, her sail
billow'd with swollen pride.
With compass new did England seek,
with Axe in hand to hew the meek.
The men of God were slaughtered then,
as Foxes routed from the den.
The bearded men resistance met, by English Men, while women wept.
And spear did clash with sword and shield, those English hearts that could not yield;
Not in their home, on holy shores.
'Fly to your ships and take up your oars!
The wind of God will aid you not, and on the shores by arrows shot!'
The heathen dogs began to rout,while bows
were nocked and in a shout:
They loosed them, lo' there as they fled,
the surf was strewn with heathen dead.

>>25324498

Hello it's 2026.

>>25324498
Pretty good

Poetry Is Happening should be a genre.

File: 717202056_433461224345515(...).jpg (55 KB, 720x835)

55 KB JPG

How is something like this considered poetry? This is (bad) prose? Facebook is infested with this crap. I'm not a formalist, far from it, but what the fuck.

>>25325638
It's considered poetry, because you recognize it to be poetry. Poetry delivered in the vehicle of bad prose. All meaning emerges from context.

In a dream I was
a pigeon
shitting up
the David
and they didn't fine me
but they also
didn't offer a crumb
so I had to lay siege
to a tourist hand
I shat on him too
then
and flew back
to my tiled heaven
fully convinced
of the validity
of a panino

File: trump-new-hair.jpg (264 KB, 1202x630)

264 KB JPG

This cracked nut
Of intellect's stuff:
Babe, you don't strut
With a broad felicitous butt --
I alone flaunt a load
Of gruff gristle -- Mistaken
For fluff

I cracked the nut
On perplexity's open crug:
A heaping 20th century pavement --
An habitation of a mound
Fleshen in cut. All of they,
Whom I spent an hour,
They're made from the same stuff.

Would you guess it?

My father used to tell me
No friends but the mountains
But dared he not prepare me for
the quiet after violence

Marauders after power
Invited me to choir
The music of the shooter
And quiet after violence

The distant drums were booming
Until the crowd was silent
The peacefulness was grueling
In quiet after violence

>>25325734
Not him but I don't. It's just shitty prose with random newlines.

My brains on the pavement
Says more than a verbal statement

>>25326860
ugly ass serif font

Bless the hill that gives freely
and the right time on the clock for a walk.
The dirt road is clean enough for spirits
and you never know behind a tree.
The well is deep enough for two
but probably more—
we go to town for a bucket.

File: 1775023415302963.png (631 KB, 454x612)

631 KB PNG

>>25327349
Bless da hill dat gibs freely
an' da rite time on da clock fo' a wock.
Da dirt rode is cleen enuf fo' spirits
an' u neva no bind a tree.
Da well is deep enuf fo' too
but prolly mo'—
we go town fo' a bucket.

Lo, I have naught to say, and say it well,
With “thee” and “thou” bedaubed on every line;
Yon empty thought, in antiquated shell,
Doth strut as though its vapours were divine.

Forsooth, my quill hath found no meat herein,
Yet still it scratchèth like a lordly goose;
I summon “whence,” “wherefore,” and “hath” and “bin,”
To make this puddle seem profound and spruce.

O list! No wisdom knocketh at the gate;
No bright conceit comes riding o’er the lea.
I merely wear a jerkin, sigh at fate,
And call mine boredom “high solemnity.”

Thus nothing blooms in raiment overwrought:
A sonnet full of robes, and void of thought.

I remember reading an anecdote about how much Wordsworth liked to walk, but I didn't realize that 90% of his poetry is about walking.

File: substack-40bebfe8-8be9-41(...).jpg (39 KB, 512x525)

39 KB JPG

An hospitable abode -- What is that
But a crude forlorn picture? 'Tleast
By a weary man's soul -- For what else
Could he see by moonglow
Or as by chance he attends candlit mass
'Pon Candlemas, and what is all in each
Way greater than he, is still awash by the
Dread complex: Inferiority
And so is 'any place he hangs his hat' --
No, scratch that! So is the finish line that
Overjoyed 'pie in the sky' -- A crude remark
(He knows), but not all this, and tragically
He logically doubts not: Heaven . . .
Where does he turn, and is it women?
Women of great heft? -- Broad and wide?
Bawdy in bosom, or swaying in side?
Or women, the young -- These which youth
Does betray: In fellows a queesiness
The matronly will *gasp* when you say:
"H-, h-, h- . . . Hi." "H-, h-, . . . Hello."
"H-, h-, . . . How can I help you?"
"You been here before?"
Some are so young and handsome
The jealous arise . . .
But you should arise quicker
They're all Christ in disguise
Mind your manners, lost boy
Eyes on the prize
There's no telling if your heart will
In reality capsize -- You're restless to
A fault: So be carried, you dove.

I don't get why in The Divine Comedy that Dante and Vergil are allowed to just wander in and have a stroll around

"Can you hear me now?"
Echoes call in forlorn halls
Questions answer questions
Many times we've called before
"Hear me, hear me now"
Bitter pleas from depraved souls
Confessions of confessions
And words of God through glory holes

>>25328942
People are constantly accosting them and threatening them but Virgil always just says, more or less, "Unlucky — someone in Heaven says we're allowed!" and this is the magic password and the demon or centaur or whatever looks disappointed and stops trying to eat them.

You have to remember the whole thing is a massive allegory and I guess that part of it means, mainly, that if you are really a virtuous person and have faith in God and so on, you can associate with wicked people and not get corrupted yourself.

That said, on a few occasions it is a bit more hairy. For example the demons chasing them into the circle of the hypocrites. Or there's the thing with the castle where the spirits shut the door in Virgil's face. I guess that's saying that logic and reason (which is what Virgil represents) can't comprehend pure malice, because pure malice is not really logical. Evil people are often evil even when they don't benefit from it (or even suffer from it). Virgil can't anticipate that.

I highly recommend doing regular exercises where you pick a random theme and only do a four line stanza with iambic tetrameter and blank verse to keep it simple and constrained. It's really helping me, and some themes sound shit but you can find something interesting in them.

stream of consciousness haibun:

I am alone, i like being alone, not all the time. Sometimes i feel a deep melancholy, a deep world pain, other times i just get sleepy. i wouldnt know how to talk or befriend another person. I feel like a jester having to entertain another person all the time. I feel pain being alone, but also love being alone.
The only time i talk to people who arent my family are when i go to get my anti psychotic shot. There is one nurse who is very nice to me. I think im in love. But actually she is just being nice like she is to everyone.
I feel like im alone no matter what, ill die alone too. Even if im surrounded by people im alone

the soft summer sun
is my friend, the only one
shining above me

I have to write 100 lines to write one line. Worth it?!

Musings on Howl as a Bare Adult

I'm sending my therapy bills
To Bukowski (whom I haven't read)
Care of [c/o] the US Postal Service
Come rain or shine
Or other unforeseen event
Like a 5150
Free potato salad or not

>>25316647
Wanna get into poetry and they had a bunch of cheap complete works books of various poets at the used bookstore, I just grabbed a bunch from poets whose names I recognized from /lit/ mentions: Frost, Dickinson, Blake, Yeats, and Keats. I'm sure these are all of varying levels of accessibility for a complete poetry n00b, so who would you anons suggest on focusing on first? I know Frost and Dickinson can be considered a little easier by modern standards compared to the romantics but is it worth it to jump ahead so chronologically instead of starting with the earlier in history romantics?

File: file.png (416 KB, 745x911)

416 KB PNG

What do we think of the two best posts of all time in reddits poetry critique?

File: 01. Inferno I — The Dark Wood.jpg (373 KB, 1100x800)

373 KB JPG

One of the toughest opening stanzas in the canon for translators-into-English:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

Anthony Burgess said that ‘life’ MUST end the first line. Well, too bad AB. Translation is a matter of ruthless compromise at every turn. (A bit like “Good / Fast / Cheap — Pick any two”. Except that with poetry it's more like “Faithful to the letter / Faithful to the spirit / Sounds okay — Pick any none”, haha.)

>>25330962
Anthony Burgess thought chapter 21 of Clockwork Orange was good, he's a hack

Free verse isn't poetry. Poetry consists of rhyme schemes, rhythm, metaphors, and a message. Free verse consists only of metaphors and a message. It forgets about the technical aspects of poetry.

File: 71g21Hr+4OL.jpg (201 KB, 2000x2000)

201 KB JPG

>>25330971

>>25330923
slop

>>25330971
Yeah
But if
You press enter
Every now
And then
You can call it
A poem
And idiots and women
Will
Think it's deep

>>25331175

Since you're not an idiot, nor a woman, can you bless us with your poetry? I'm sure it's memorable.

>>25330923
I hate redditors so fucking much

>>25330971
Why am I being exposed to your midwit opinions in a poetry thread? You obviously don't know shit about poetry, so either lurk more or try >>25330764 instead.

Free verse can rhyme and it can have rhythm. What sets it apart is the lack of consistent meter (usually), and not adhering to traditional poetic forms. Also, poems -- even traditional ones -- don't need to have metaphors or even a message other than i.e. flowers look nice. Most poems don't.

>>25331202
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Lilies are pink
Some are white too

I just write observations with some rhymes and interesting words thrown in. Am I doing it wrong?

>>25331450
Look into metre, but observations are absolutely what you should be doing.

Daily Mail comment section
And there's no Virgil with me, holy hell.
I must be done for
But maybe I can call Beatrice?
Eh, I'll prod on for a while
And eat the laurel if hungry

>>25331672
clever. i like it. unfortunately it's not poetry.

>>25331450
you are onto something, but what you need is a shift. or what is called a "volta" in poetry, you need to suprise the reader

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volta_(literature)

>>25331450
have to start somewhere
>>25331773
are you the same guy who keeps posting about voltas? I feel like I see voltas mentioned every thread
you gotta learn some more concepts

Baby Steps

You promise vastness to yourself,
sleeping as a dot on the open canvas,
the night a forgery on cardboard.
Lines drawn in a flattened staircase
in mockery of first floors.
You stretch a question mark
and lose the tittle,
it goes to worms
who use it as a stress ball.

>>25331780
no, im surprised there is another guy who posts about voltas

File: 29. Paradiso XXVII.jpg (589 KB, 1200x800)

589 KB JPG

Fun fact: the second line of the second stanza here is the very first line I wrote when translating this wretched thing. I had it in mind for many years before I decided I needed to do the other 14,232 as well.

>>25331903
Which cantiche did you enjoy translating the most? Did you have any revelations during the inherently hermeneutical process?

>>25331962
>Which cantiche did you enjoy translating the most?
I don't remember any one being particularly enjoyable. Some were more of a pain than others (particularly the ones with lots of proper names).

The most enjoyable moments were all during revision. Going back and finding an awkward patch and cleaning it up is very satisfying.

>Did you have any revelations during the inherently hermeneutical process?
Nope.

>>25331499
I just did. If I understood it correctly it's the rythm of a poem by syllable count and/or syllable stress, right? I'm trying to write a poem using meter right now and so far it's harder than rhyming. I guess I get it if I trying to write a poem but I can never pick it up when I read one, I have to really stop and dissect it and even then I'm not sure whether it has a meter.
>>25331249
wikipedia says a poem without rhyme and meter is free verse
>wikipedia
yeah I know but why are they wrong then?
>>25331773
I try to make interesting, unexpected, unique observations. Is that a kind of volta?
>>25331780
what is beyond this?

>>25332109
>wikipedia says a poem without rhyme and meter is free verse

I don't appreciate you wasting my time with an indirect quotation, making me look it up myself. Here's what the article says word for word:
"Free verse is an open form of poetry which does not use a prescribed or regular meter or rhyme"
Now, as I said in the original post, the lack of consistent meter is a defining feature. The quoted sentence will also tell you that it lacks *regular* meter and/or rhyme. This means that you probably won't find a free verse poem in ABAB CDCD EFEF GG for example, but lots of free verse poems do utilize rhymes, and aren't afraid of rhythm.

To clarify; formal verse poetry has very strict rules. Free verse poetry doesn't, but can still utilize the same tools as formal verse.

Today I'll deliver to you
The creature known as volta
The main star of this zoo
Made for Disney adult tortas

My star is ambiguity
Sincerity through irony
Cringe layers are the key
For intellectuals like me

The world berates me, the voices niggle
Yet dawn breaks radiant upon mine eyes
Panty lines border an ass that jiggles

It is said lustful folk burn, my soul fries
As I plot on her flesh, her sweet dark hair
Flung back in ecstasy, little death sighs

I shrink at asking her out. It’s not fair
For a work environment. Nonetheless
I’m in search for a line beyond compare

Imagine her form encased in a dress
Or maybe overalls, I’m not fussy
Vocal timbre sultry, I must confess

My inflamed passions don’t make a hussy
Of her, my burden to bear and wiggle
Half ass endeavor to make her mussy


I have accumulated so much shame that I think I’m beyond it unfortunately.

>>25316647
red houses, rollercoasters

the prints on my fingers are my own
regardless of the multitudes i contain
subjecting ourselves to not knowing
the countless missed birthdays
the holidays to be shared
or any invitations to our funerals

you contain my heart alone
this for many more years i know
and my lovelife is a matchbox
waiting for the next stick to burn out
but i cant say why i still burn for you

and on all those that you yearn for
let mine be the strongest to call you
to stumble back home again
no, the other callings purer
and warm than this musty heart
could ever give you

you should turn to the light
more than i could ever give you

i couldnt see your mothers surgery
or your best friends houses
knowing every day that
i am no longer in your life
or a friend in any matter

blessings of a better love find you
and over my face you no longer know
maybe a very long time ago

so i hurt to release you every time
i expect you in every corner
having lied to myself
in comfortable sadness
from the stories you tell never about me

for i no longer am the man of your life
no longer the man to hurt you
no longer the man you always pick
no longer the man you die for

you dont remember the images
of my new bedroom this year
but alive in all the little decor
the little choices i made
as if you are watching me always
preparing myself in the images of you
and comfort in the recipes i took from you

yes, nothing more but a dream
as i step out of bed in the morning
your annoyed voice on the early phone
replaced by the mechanical alarm clock

like my poetry, still dumb
through years and years
still written for you
to have hurt you
and even maybe still

yes, i was once a boy
in sweeter days of being held
and how you live on within me
in subtle ways truer than meanings

only if you had, if ever, loved me
like i trust, believed you did before

>>25332109
The more you read and right the better you'll get, you will be picking up on the metre and rhythm of a poem without realising it.
>To be, or not to be, that is the question
Is iambic pentameter, five beats, five iambs, though it ends on an unstressed syllable which is okay. Even without knowing about metre and poetry in general you can hear how it has a rhythm to it.

Saw this kino today and had to share it:

There was a young man who said "Damn!
I perceive with regret that I am
But a creature that moves
In predestinate grooves
I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram."

File: thoth_lust_tarot_card.jpg (603 KB, 577x892)

603 KB JPG

While confusing my hunger with fate
I will dress up my feelings in rhyme
Aphrodite's apparent mistake
Got me stroking my shit to her smile

Should I ever devour myself;
Ouroboros incarnate, was it?
To the tune of a siren I fell
And I couldn't eject the cassette

I have never yet heard her in flesh
But I need her to taste my decay
For her gift I may rip from my chest
A diseased & grotesque bone bouquet

You move through nights
with the sound of snow falling—
The moon is a pearl
plucked from your vanity.
Lines eventually curve
into shades.
I know what's behind the drape,
to be left there—
Lodged as I am in a memory,
hidden neatly
in the four-poster.
The rug misses it, this
solitary walk from here to there—
for clarity,
for a measured look.
In the dream, it goes to me,
to the smirking hands,
cupped just so.

how do i learn to write poetry? also what should i read to understand poems?

>>25334088
To understand poems, as in structurally? Wikipedia goes a long way.

Learning to write and structurally understanding poems are two sides of the same coin. I'd recommend you start with free verse though; essentially journal some exciting experiences and throw in some rhymes at the end of the lines (a.k.a end rhymes).

When you're comfortable with that, look up all the formal verse building blocks. At this point, learning to hear the stress syllables in english is crucial, since poems are built on unstressed and stressed syllables in patterns (meter).

After that, try to write some sonnets, steadily moving up to more challenging forms like villanelles etc.

I'd say the the most important thing however would be to fuel your passion and prowess by reading a lot of poetry.

File: Napoleon (Walter de la Mare).jpg (56 KB, 440x400)

56 KB JPG

>>25332159
This is sensible but sensible people on /lit/ these days are voices crying in the wilderness. Let's post a few free verse poems to illustrate what he says.

First up: a justly famous piece that's definitely going in my "One Hundred Poems To Learn By Heart" when I get round to writing it. (I assume WDLM knew of the famous 1812 bulletin Napoleon sent back home after losing about half a million soldiers, in which he put a positive spin on the whole thing by ending "The emperor is in excellent health.")

Not only do we get rhymes but they are full rhymes and very much front-and-centre.

File: Snowdrop (Ted Hughes).jpg (188 KB, 701x541)

188 KB JPG

>>25334728
A bit subtler, but this is still in rhymed couplets:
tight / heart = half-rhyme
brass / darkness = "S" repetition (no assonance because TH would have said "brass" with a short "a")
minds / ends = half-rhyme
month / metal = alliteration ("M")

But there's no fixed meter; definitely a free verse feel.

File: Sheep In Fog — Sylvia Plath.jpg (61 KB, 520x638)

61 KB JPG

>>25334738
Good poem here even though you have to wonder where the sheep went to. (She wrote it after an early morning walk across fields with sheep in. She lost the sheep as she revised, but kept the title.)

There's enough structure that it has structure but it's pretty irregular on the smaller scale. Form definitely dictating content. The brutal line-breaks are not just "prose where you press enter at random intervals", as with so many subsequent imitators. They're there to impede flow. It's someone who can only just go on living, one heartbeat at a time, and whose energy is running out.

File: Thursday (William Carlos (...).jpg (58 KB, 460x420)

58 KB JPG

>>25334747
Closer still to "random line-breaks", except that they aren't. You just have to a) read it and b) not be tone-deaf.

Try re-writing it like this for example:

I have had my dream — like others —
And it has come to nothing
So that I remain now carelessly

and feel the difference.

Simulacra

Frigid liquid oozes from the pupil
Dripping onto palms scarred and aflame
Smoke hardens into armor of bone
The heart twitches into a dissonant rhythm

As it scrapes its shadow of pungent meat
A luminous breath escapes its twisted lungs
Electrical remnants shift into composition
Stretching into a sickly glimpse of gruesome divinity

Glyphs swirl into their destined positions
The iris contracts to a point that dissolves radiant light
A husk that shimmers in the glow of creation
Masking a fate that condemns all who sustain it

>>25333281
Anapestic trimeter, nice.

Veo el mundo como un caos y en el centro una rosa
veo la rosa como el ojo feliz de la hermosura y en su centro el gusano
veo el gusano como un fragmento de la inmensa vida y en su centro la muerte
veo la muerte como la llama de la nada y en su centro la esperanza
veo la esperanza como un vitral cantando a mediodía y en su centro el hombre.

Today's exercise. Theme: Waiting.

A hand leaves furrows through wet hair.
Raindrops drip from clouded glasses,
And newly polished shoes soak up
Puddles that catch red rose petals.

>>25335351
The pool lies almost empty; I watch it nursed
By a thin stream. Such idle intervals
Are from waning moon to the new - a moon always
Holds the cords of my heart. Be patient, hands;
Trail your nerveless fingers in the shallows;
A time will come when I have need of them.

>>25335369
Not QUITE what Graves said.

>>25335369
The exercise is to write the poem m8 not find one by someone else.

>>25335387
>>25335403
Yeah, whatever, keep the ball rolling

>>25335369
Here, in passing, a place to be
as any place else.
From high to low, or peak to peak,
journey lies between,
But here, in passing, the journey's
made, by all but me

>>25335403
just a verse about waiting I had memorised (or apparently
not quite memorised >>25335387)

>>25335430
A citative writing exercise

>>25335445
felt relevant and I posted it in a moment of reckless abandon - won’t happen again.

White dots on your nipples
for the prudes;
Wouldn't want a drape around you
and hidden in the midnight closet.
The light has been known to lie at times,
then it finds your hair.
In the painting, robes fall to the floor
and the owl turns.
The gilded stool won't write the memoir
I'd read.
Turning another page now, another stolen still
where you may sleep like this forever.
But you were always eons ahead:
being forgotten is half the game.

>>25335454
I'm not that guy, I'm the other guy. I don't mind. Much better to read poems and remember them than not.

>>25335497
I mean even remembering them 90% is better than most anons.

>>25335502
Reading them in the first place is better than most anons

bump

destroying

smoking cigarettes on Friday night
smoke reminds me of my father
the cancer enters my pink and black lungs
taking the shape of tree roots

cutting my own hair
getting drunk behind the dollar general
staring up at the skeletal moon
getting drunk on a bus, i can feel my body rust

Im a bug flying into a soft light
stocks on the day of the crash

such a perfect night

WTF is free verse

The Dreaming

Rest your head and drift away,
To where our souls can freely stay.
Dreams of places where we’ll embrace,
Together in our secret space.

Through golden fields and twilight glades,
A kingdom formed of shining glass.
A rosy sunset, pink-hued sand,
Our hearts entwined, one soul, one hand.

So rest, my love, and softly roam.
In dreams, you’ll always find your home.

>>25336538
I like this

Words crashing into one another,
leaving behind fuzzy white foam,
to fill the vast halls of our ritual.
A fleet of laminated dining tables surround us in a welcome cacophony,
our private island in the eye of a storm.
You asked to see the rest of the ink
scribbled unto my skin,
and the warm glow above the smile which binds the mid day sun,
Below the bone white of your fleeing eyes,
an image overflowing,
a moment left undying, tattooed.

Open a candy bar to find rusted iron.
Look at the watch to learn how much the day weighs.
The center floor is a pool, emptied.
Blue tiles have been eaten by sharks.
The old spot is taken by effortless couples:
they threw away the time it takes to learn these things.

My mother told me once of when
A young hare ventured from her den
And as she danced in field and glen
The world sang joy about her.
But wicked hateful things abound
And that young hare these evils found
Then whisked her up from off the ground
And glen was left without her.

-William Murdoch

Clad in novel ceramics, lavish in strange patterns,
Long I had awaited, but now you return fermented
Triumphant over last-years batch,
Though perhaps the fast brought you so,
I expose my senses to sharp infatuation,
Revel in beastly intoxication,
Caring little of festivities,
Not for the pungent smoke from the torches,
Nor the shimmering bells clinging
To the dancer's linen belts.
The hasty breaths of your amphora
Bellow the fires of my devotion
As our drums escalate the paean rhythm
For the night of our metamorphosis

Mnemonic subjugations in critical
approaches to distilled macro-readings
of Byzantine ethical discourses, part six.
Eighty pounds sir, partial knowledge is a cage.

>>25339505
Wtf

the two f's
in the word giraffe
are like two giraffes
running through the word giraffe

>>25341218
bravo

There's a poetry competition in my country, deadline coming up soon. I've written 2-3 decent poems and thinking of submitting them but I'm nervous. I've always struggled with the technicalities of grammar and syntax (e.g., use of a hyphen, semi-colon) and I feel like I'm setting myself up for humiliation if I get it wrong.

>>25341694
Ask someone credible to review your grammar then. If you got no one, then ask grok or something. Otherwise, suffering builds character.

Hi this is David Lynch and this is Jackass
No wait
Why's the cat in the zoo?
I'm blowing into concrete blocks,
nothing happens.
Leftover omelette with tar
how hungry are you.

If you were like me—a knot

half-asleep in the belly of a bottle,
while verdigris flakes away in silence,
making love beneath the world's table—

a wager whose lesson is loss,
loss in its purest humility,
so immense, so alone. A triumph

of sparkling life that,
through defeat, wins a tear in the sky,
where no one's clouds

hide their mane of stars and thought.
Planets moan upon their axis,
and we below, silent and howling,

together—united and divided like dust.
At last we return to the knot,
to that which can scarcely manage
to leave a trace.

A poem I’ve made based on using the ballad form and material from elder scrolls.

Markarth; a Ballad of Bramel the spellsinger.

Wild ravines and mighty streams of clear clean water,
Riding at speed a restless steed far past and westerly,
Miles of steeps and icy breeze an eerie auger,
Aye but repletes the orphan golds of dwarven mold,
Piled beneath the briny deep of dreary karther,
Briars of iron in Dwemer keeps where ember sleeps,
Hideth the reach where nightly beasts of hircine wander,
Riding to reach the fortress-holds of gorgeous gold.


Brazen as the gold-bronze gates o’ yonder,
Trodding fast since storm’s about and galing,
Quiver strapped, bolt in hand, boughed an archer,
Yet my strength’s a stately crown of bay-leaves,

Darting massy cairns and graves of draugyr,
Aye through fronds and bosky towns the trailing,
Nonetheless a burly place, I ponder,
Neither barred nor bourn with bow’ry baileys,

But stone-hewn, by surly powers honored,
Filidth’s fealty moves unbound by frailty,
Trodding fast since storm’s about and gailing,
Brazen as the gold-bronze gates o’ yonder;

Past the city door, “which way I’ll take me?”
I look, saw that, marketplace’d was Margret,
“Whoa!” She woe’d from wildman Weylin’s wailing,
Swift to fight shouting in haste I started;

Wild ravines and mighty streams of clear clean water,
Riding at speed a restless steed far past and westerly,


Saber-cats rush through the dru’dach, dreaded,
Saber slashed right through forsworn, he’s bleeding,
Fell’d he fell against my sword’s protection,
Guards surround, assure no chorus-grieving,

Margret many thank’d and drew a necklace,
Silver from the cidhna forged so seemly,
Flash’d its falkreath forest jewel, an em’rald,
“Take it as a token, for our meeting”


“Hath this greenwood kindled war, burnt jealous?”
“No, mine sister loves a glory’s gleaming,
How brighter than, your pride tours, like seeing;
Saber-cats rush through the dru’dach, dreaded.”

Led by hand, persuaded to go drinking,
At a tavern’s hearth, mead brew’d to pleasure,
“I must leave before I lose the evening “
She tried warning me of hoary weather;


Miles of steeps and icy breeze an eerie auger,
Aye but repletes the orphan golds of dwarven mold,


Night brumes the stones with icen coldness.
“Lorkhan lead thy pilgrim out this Aether,
I do solemnly with bows devoted
Pray thee, Move therefore and house your creature.”


Sentinel Tyranus, righteous cohen,
Friend and fellow trav’ler, found a secret,
“Wayfare with me, near’s a shrine of cultists,
Left abandoned though abound with demons.”
Sanguine as the realms of bawdi-potence,
Enter’d we the gloom-gild palace, sneaking,
Warm as lass, rathe with food, vile as pleasing,
night brumes the stones with icen coldness.

Cont

>>25343219
Piled beneath the briny deep of dreary karther,
Briars of iron in Dwemer keeps where ember sleeps,


Coursing through the turdas shadow’d terror,
Evening star lighten the strange path forward,
Provend pell-mell-pelt, “we’ve made an error”
Said he, shook to heathen pray’rs in horror,

Tangling shadows paints his pallor paler,
Shadows speak” this one but slay or torture,
Lusty worlds would be thine t’grasp, none sharer,
Hurry, jab thee, stab, you’ll reign, rewarded.”

Would I, stendarr’s precious, maim and sever?
And for why, whose voice has gave this order?
“Feim Zii Gron” i made a shade, once-mortal,
Coursing through the turdas shadow’d terror,

“Soon he’ll seep the sleeve, entrapped in toil,
Come, yes, come, below, grab as possession
Treasurestores beyond the cellar door just
Waiting.” Down the steps, I had not tarried.


Hideth the reach where nightly beasts of hircine wander,
Riding to reach the fortress-holds of gorgeous gold.


Through tormented rocks a cleft was riven,
A mace ebon iron’d levitating,
I touch’d, rusted claws myself imprisoned,
“Ha, you, now, my servant-help and plaything.

Bring me Logrolf who wills yet his mistress”
I let loose the Thu'um with breath unfailing,
Sov’ngarde-sail’d tyranus, flesh not vision.
“Good et'Ada, of your strength unfailing,

I invoke before this wretched image,
For your mysteries impress creation,
With your countenances ever daily,
Through tormented rocks this cleft was riven,

An oblivion by Designation “
We availed in this, our exorcism,
Cast the molag bal to hell’s perdition.
Parting ways, with song I left, my laying;

Wild ravines and mighty streams of clear clean water,
Riding at speed a restless steed far past and westerly,
Miles of steeps and icy breeze an eerie auger,
Aye but repletes the orphan golds of dwarven mold,
Piled beneath the briny deep of dreary karther,
Briars of iron in Dwemer keeps where ember sleeps,
Hideth the reach where nightly beasts of hircine wander,
Riding to reach the fortress-holds of gorgeous gold.

note: the poem has the following complications; every group of four stanzas obeys a rapler-IPA-vowel-slide-based assonance pattern of ABAB ABAB ABBA BABA on the final foot, the seventh syllable must obey an assonance pattern of ABBB ABAB BBBA AAAA, the first line of every first stanza that’s not the chorus must become the final line of every third stanza, after every 4 stanzas 2 lines of the opening chorus are repeated.

>>25343219
Oh a stanza got garbled, this part goes

Sanguine as the realms of bawdi-potence,
Enter’d we the gloom-gild palace, sneaking,
Warm as lass, rathe with food, vile as pleasing,
night brumes the stones with icen coldness.

Ghost and Daedra multiplied their greetings,
All around were pleasing sights verboten,
Poltergeists supplied us wines and cheeses,
We denied, “our wills to bind” we oathed.


Piled beneath the briny deep of dreary karther,
Briars of iron in Dwemer keeps where ember sleeps,

>trying to learn meter
>whenever I start losing my sense of it repeat "I am, I am, I am" to myself
>it's starting to sound like a trochee instead of an iamb
AAAA FUCK
how do I learn meter I feel so retarded

>>25344135
Single syllables especially sinewy ones used between substantial nouns and verbs are basically all always “relational” and require context to divide them, this is a good thing for us after you’ll get used to it. A better point to analyze is multi-syllabics because their pronunciation is mostly stable.


You should scan both prose and verse of authors you like, in large big chunks, let it become natural to you to do so.

>>25343219
Rip, seems this whole thing is the first draft version of the poem.

>>25344135
I'm assuming you're having trouble identifying stress in your own writing?
If you have a somewhat consistent meter, you can get away playing with the stress a bit, since the reader can scan which syllables should be prominent.

If you're just having trouble in general, then I suggest training to identify stressed syllables in isolated words first; hearing the stress in complete lines comes naturally after that.
Also, function words are often unstressed, but there are exceptions to everything when it comes to this.

>>25321936
underrated

In my bed I'm thinking
While stroking my Peter
A feeling comes over me, sinking
Who gives a shit about metre?

File: Musée — W. H. Auden.jpg (109 KB, 546x490)

109 KB JPG

>>25334760
OK let's have a few more free verse poems. Rhyme here but no fixed rhyme scheme. Always easier to trust free verse when it's written by someone who wrote strictly as well. You know that he's not doing this because he can't do the other.

File: Buffalo Bill (e.e.cummings).jpg (54 KB, 600x520)

54 KB JPG

>>25345615
"Free verse" is largely, I think, a result of the move from oral to written culture and eec is the outer edge of that. No way you can convey the shape on the page when reciting it.

Some of his stuff is even more extreme — you simply CAN’T speak it. (Grasshopper, for example).

File: She Tells Her Love — Robe(...).jpg (41 KB, 400x294)

41 KB JPG

>>25345624
On the borderline between free and not I suppose. It's pretty structured.

File: Water (Philip Larkin).jpg (129 KB, 507x550)

129 KB JPG

>>25345626
Larkin usually rhymes and scans strictly so (as with Auden) when he doesn't you know he's at least not doing it from incompetence. This is a bit like Sheep in Fog in that there is definite form at the large scale (three-line stanzes) but freedom at the smaller scale (each individual line). And he gets his final effect by breaking the pattern (going from 3- to 4-line stanza).

poem category: casio calculator

>>25345653
beep boop nigga
function loop nigga
click clack nigga
overflow stack nigga

>>25345662

Omg is that terzio-parabled hoppenstacked double dualed internal reassuranced vowels with mixed quarternaries in d minor? But without enjammed inserts? Neat.

Affairs

The man with his eyes up in the ceiling
for two hours, not going—is the man
who will eventually go.

Two men with two beers:
nothing to say, competently said.

Do they want to stop? They say no—
like an avalanche to gravity,
despite the group of skiers below.

>>25344361
Hey Frater, unrelated to poetry, I'm curious with all your esoteric studies if you've seen or heard of anyone casting a fireball. I saw a video of a taoist monk making paper catch on fire with his hands, but it looked like that particular instance might have been staged.

File: How Shall My Animal (Dyla(...).jpg (210 KB, 926x686)

210 KB JPG

>>25345635
Rhyme, to some extent, but a fairly cavalier attitude to line length. Structurally, I guess it's closer to Auden’s Musée than anything else. But it couldn't feel more different. Auden is an intellectual and Thomas is an anti-intellectual, both to the marrow of their bones.

File: Journey Of The Magi — T. (...).jpg (276 KB, 1080x720)

276 KB JPG

>>25347756
People think of Browning as the dramatic monologue guy but lots of other people wrote good ones.

File: The River-Merchant’s Wife(...).jpg (429 KB, 668x930)

429 KB JPG

>>25347759
Another dramatic monologue. Apparently it was a big thing in Chinese poetry to write a love-poem from the point of view of the other party. People say Pound took liberties but I'm sure this is what Li Bai really meant to write.

File: Wise Men In Their Bad Hou(...).jpg (133 KB, 583x644)

133 KB JPG

>>25347764
Jeffers is a pain for typesetters because he favoured insanely long lines so really you want a book about a foot wide. But this one is a bit more reasonable. A bit prosaic / didactic to begin with, perhaps, but the last four lines go up a notch.

I was going to post Yeats’s Second Coming but when I re-read it I realized it's pretty solidly pentametric, so not really free verse. Interesting that it *feels* so much like free verse.

An excerpt that is not mine.

I. The Burial of the Lineage
The April rain is gone, but June remains,
A heavy mist upon the tarmac plains.
Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin—the scales
Tilt in the dark where the modern engine wails.
Beneath the chassis of the iron beast,
The high priests of the bloodline hold their feast.
O tempora, o mores! The steering wheel
Gleams like an altar made of chrome and steel.
We statistical observers sit and wait,
Counting the pulses of a ruined state.
I think of London Bridge, of Unreal Cities,
Of old grandmothers chanting broken ditties.
Shantih. Shantih. The radio plays a song
Of consummation where the wires belong:
The match is struck, the dark fuel takes the spark,
The hot combustion rages in the dark,
And all the driving wheels are set on fire.
We turn the dial to stifle our desire.
But in the Ford Expedition, the leather moans.
An ancient vibration rattles in the bones.
Crux fidelis inter omnes, the mother cries,
Looking into her own reflection's eyes.
The son, the sire, the ghost of Robert’s name,
All swallowed in the self-consuming flame.

II. The Encounter at the Altar of Leather
By all the prophets who have walked the sand,
And by the strength of thy young, vital hand,
Thou hast unloosed the girdle of my pride!
Behold, the floodgates of my soul divide!
Spurn not the matrix whence thy breath was drawn,
But ride me, Jacob, till the breaking dawn!
Thy youth is like the cedar of the hills,
Whose sap runs high, whose sudden vigor fills
The parched valleys of my aging flesh.
Ensnare thy mother in this golden mesh!
With holy dread and most unholy lust,
I cast my honor down into the dust!

O fair and ancient tower, wall of stone,
Whose hidden chambers now are mine alone!
Going I go, and hard my strength is grown,
To reap the field that my own sire hath sown!
I sheath my sword within the velvet sheath,
While all the heavens hold their breath beneath!
Thy flesh is sweet as frankincense and myrrh,
And every drop of blood is set astir!
I smite thee hip and thigh, thou sacred source,
And check no measure of my stallion's course!
Let the world rot, and let the stars expire,
For in this tabernacle, "sex is on fire"!

>>25347776
Bless you for elevating this thread.

Is it me or the only type of OC that gets any feedback is people writing formal copycat stuff?

Feel the smoldering embers wane;
Like faint remains of bliss.
Dancing flames that mesmerized,
And warmed you with each kiss

A silent hearth with ash and dust;
And glowing embers, yet
A frozen window keeps the tales
Of desires left unmet.

Dusty letters filled with dreams;
That never came to pass.
Warm them by your chest, and watch
The ice grow on the glass.

Rekindle the faint hearth, for it
Is now too cold to stay.
Cast the letters on the flames, and
Feel the warmth of another day

>>25327496

This did not get a single reply.

>>25348675
Well, it was a shitpost in the end of the day. Either someone spent way too much effort attacking Shakespeare larpers, while writing a hollow sonnet, or alternatively used a chatbot to write it.

It's a bit too elaborate to be funny but it can't really be taken seriously either.

Bump

File: Earthy Anecdote — Wallace(...).jpg (75 KB, 620x700)

75 KB JPG

>>25347776
OK, time for some more free verse.

Obviously this poem had a special place in WS’s heart since he chose it to open the batting in Harmonium. However, some people are puzzled by it. Fortunately I will now answer all of your questions.

QUESTION: What is the poem about?
ANSWER: It’s about this firecat.

QUESTION: What's a firecat?
ANSWER: It's a splendid animal that jumps about and then sleeps.

QUESTION: How do I get a firecat?
ANSWER: Buy some land where you can’t see any evidence of civilization. Build a humble log cabin. Live there. After a while a firecat will turn up.

File: Glazunoviana — John Ashbery.jpg (69 KB, 620x600)

69 KB JPG

>>25351671
John Ashbery heard people complaining that Wallace Stevens was incomprehensible and asked someone to hold his beer.

For what it’s worth, Glazunov (Glazunow?) was a Russian composer. Not sure exactly which piece (or piece) prompted the poem. Here's his violin concerto:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbQ1f4NNWkU

Even if you think this doesn't bear much resemblance to the poem, at least you got to listen to (and look at) Hilary Hahn, which has never been a waste of anyone’s time.

File: Dover Beach — Matthew Arnold.jpg (190 KB, 950x700)

190 KB JPG

>>25351684
All right, that's TWO (2) incomprehensible pieces in a row. We’re in danger of bringing free verse into disrepute. Let's have something solid and canonic. (MA probably isn't many people's favourite poet these days, but everyone's allowed to do something memorable now and then.)

Another piece (like Musée & Wizard Animal) with very irregular lines in a (loose) rhyming framework.

File: Touch (Thom Gunn).jpg (333 KB, 938x709)

333 KB JPG

>>25351691
Eagle-eyed anons might realize they have seen this one before. It's the fish-eating girl of free verse: I'm going to go on posting it until people like it.

(Gunn another guy who made his name initially writing very strict rhyming metered verse. He branched out later into syllabics and then into free verse.)

>>25345950
Closer to being something than most in the thread.

Almost a very good ending. But logically flawed surely? An avalanche doesn't tell gravity it doesn't want to stop. Gravity tells the avalanche it doesn't want to stop.

At the counter, sipping-
not regretting anything
but life.
Nobody asks you
after you've been here
so long.
The light tries for exposure
and quickly dims.
It knows too.
I'm not walking the streets
for people
or the lack of rain.
Just counting steps
that I can see happening.
Somebody waves
to the man behind me.
The day had an asterisk
and changed its mind,
minutes untranslated.

>>25351713

Yeah I fucked it. Consequences of fingers running faster than brain. Maybe I can write something like "an avalanche answering gravity," as second line, which isn't really neat either but better? Idk

>>25347221
Taoists claim by the ingestion of a peach seed you can perform alchemy which can make you seemingly catch on fire and generate fire. So yes I’ve heard of it specifically in that context. I wouldn’t believe such a video. Taoists have restrictions against vulgar displays of mysticism and magic.

I'm quite poor at verse, so this is one of the few poems I've ever properly completed:

Dear, I live for the first time,
for I do not know how to court;
knowledge comes from prior lives,
and I've known nothing of the sort:

If lives on lives I had lived,
surely then you would fain have me,
but I'm hit with golden shot,
the lone laurel my prize to be.

I've read this happen before
to a better false god than I:
the nymph he chased - she was changed
to a laurel, but did not die.

Apollo cleaved to his tree
and, though loving he could not do,
brought from her the laurel branch
to crown the kings and athletes true.

Since a god can never die,
They will not be born again to learn
love's lessons in wooing arts,
so passions unrequited burn.

If I seek to learn love's ways
I must die in the inward part;
through contrition comes new life,
and then dear, I shall earn your heart.

>>25353547
I can only say I wish the rest of the poem was as good as the first stanza. Far, far better than the stuff usually posted here, though. Bravo.

It's a different temperature, the same architecture.
Something has been offered—
her long legs in the moonlight, the muted polish
catching silver, the white everywhere.
The look that says 'well?'— not a question:
a question seeks information.
Here's to making space for someone, to give them
a chance to participate in their own accounting.
The eyes level, unhurried.
Seeing an act noticed, not yet acted upon.
She trusts you to know what she's giving.

I have left for the place of my death;
With bated breath
I trudge my way
Through the mire at my lover's request.

I would sleep if I just had my way;
I'd gladly lay
upon your breast
And relax with the passing of days.

But my way is now lost
And I wonder what cost
I'm to pay at the place of my death;
I would die at my lover's request.

>>25354004
This SOUNDS like a poem but I'm not sure it actually is one. Not sure it would be one even if I knew what the hell was going on. But knowing when tone managed to be uncringe is a start, at least.

Unintentional comedy though in

her long legs in the moonlight, the muted
polish catching silver

since girls don't as a rule polish their legs do they?

>>25354011
This looks like one of those mucho-rhyme mucho-repetition French forms like Rondel or Rondeau or something. It might work with some kicking about.

Don't like this much:

With bated breath
I trudge my way

Because "bated breath" means holding your breath, waiting for something. Motionlessness is the key. Trudging through mire isn't something you do with bated breath. It's something you do with lots of heavy breathing.

>>25337812
I like the last line. It deserves to be stolen and put in a real bit of writing.

>>25341218
Does what it sets out to do without pretension. And I like the way they're RUNNING. Not just ‘moving’.

RUNNING is why they've got so far through the word — almost to the end! If they were only walking, the word would have to be “giffrae”.

>>25354339
Its probably AI bro, like most of the shite in these threads.. unfortunately.
You're right, most people will notice these types of things

File: Martine's legs (HCB, 1968).jpg (824 KB, 2229x1500)

824 KB JPG

>>25354469

I think people will be able to read a line not as an instruction manual and understand that legs have nails, which can be polished.

>>25354354
Out of curiosity -- do you like any of the original poems in the thread?

If you do, which parts did you enjoy, and what would you workshop with them?

How do I get published other git gud? Just submit to random websites that no one reads other than other people trying to get their poems published on them?

>>25336491
I like this except for the body rust part which is just forced assonance with bus since the concept of being mechanical isn't developed at all really

Take that out and it's a winner

no no
we sexxo down
like good cardio
and bear dick
but bear doesn't cover it
like anime blue
in the sac now
summer sheen
so polishing indoors
and girl with touchy nipples
we go for it in the chatbox
dirty talk something
say sorry in the pillow

>>25355340
nta but it works for me. that doesn't stand out as strained language

>>25355340
It's alright, but a few things make it glaringly amateurish, which is fine for a beginner, but here's what I'd change:

First off, smoking cigarettes is the biggest cliché in modern poetry, so opening with that feels pretty weak. The poem also hangs on to that with the whole first stanza, going in to great detail without saying anything new.

Second stanza lists out various ways self-destructive activities, but the repetition of "getting drunk" feels unnecessary. Even if it's a confessional, a skillful poet would use interesting language to his advantage to avoid these pitfalls.

Also, if the poet wants to invite the reader to the destruction, some sensory details would go a long way. The language seems too vague for a poem like this.

In the blue waters of the Carribean;
Where the sea and sky calmly greet
A ship appears before the spyglass;
Like so many others you meet

It suddenly raises its crimson banner
Too close and late to flee the feign
Resolve and sky both turn to black
As the clouds break with grapeshot rain

The thunderclap of smoking powder
Too loud to hear their splintering cry
The banner in the wind is soaked
As the rain pours from the sky

>>25355337
Pls

>>25356430

Do you have Instagram? Get Instagram. Make sure to post pensive people with their back turned watching fuck all in the distance and write something really traumatic. If it didn't actually happen to you, all the better.

the memory of your touch is losing its texture
I’ve handled it too much, it’s wearing thin in spots. threadbare.
it hurts to remember. I don’t want to forget
because it’s all that I have.

Bye.

Pontiblans, or som
e things
musicality: fartrumpet
eek, eek, la vosier
this is all on a good day
when finger grows feet
inside tenebrous hole
but! already said
better
by pornhub blind monk
4k closeup, messy
im really not into acid free
i gue
ss

What beauty persists inside a briny dream?
The pebble mountain calls for me to go
I press on against the riffle current's flow!

File: Backhoe — Gary Snyder.jpg (98 KB, 720x660)

98 KB JPG

>>25351701
Getting perilously close to "prose with line breaks" but I think GS is generally just about good enough to avoid that charge.

File: In The Desert — Stephen Crane.jpg (44 KB, 500x560)

44 KB JPG

>>25358106
"Poems by people who are much better known as prose writers" is a little subgenre all of its own. Most of them aren't much good, it has to be said. Often the author only publishes them (or re-publishes them) after he's made his name with prose.

File: Storm In The Black Forest(...).jpg (66 KB, 473x398)

66 KB JPG

>>25358109
I guess DHL doesn't fall into the above category because his verse is well-known (even if not as famous as his novels).

Of course you might agree with Robert Graves that there's just not enough formal structure here to qualify as poetry:

“ . . . Need I also dwell on the lesser idols now slowly mouldering: on sick, muddle-headed, sex-mad D. H. Lawrence who wrote sketches for poems, but nothing more; . . . ”

— ‘The Crowning Privilege’

File: Rain — Raymond Carver.jpg (46 KB, 500x500)

46 KB JPG

>>25358115
How is Raymond Carver thought of these days? "Short story writer and poet"? Or "short story writer who also happened to write poetry"? Dunno.

This is towards the "un-free" end of his stuff I guess. Clear structure on the larger scale, although each line is pretty loose & conversational.

>>25358106
>>25358115
I'd never read these poems before. Thanks for sharing them, anons

She has brought her own wine glass.
She always does.
It gets noted every time.
And every time it has to be explained:
The Barolo needs the correct vessel.
He is a man of taste, which is why she finds
his wine glasses deeply confusing—
He says they're fine, and they are,
but fine is not correct.
Her friend looks at him looking at her:
Don't look at me.

>>25359065
nahhhhhh

>>25316647

Amongst even the most head strong
Her beauty causes melting knees
How her soft wind plays its sweet song
And makes jealous, envious trees

As she walks through glistening rays
Soft skin, enchanting eyes glisten
Not one followed by scorching blaze
But soft simmer that has each in prison

No cold and iron bars need be
Or seducing sirens tight grips;
Only the thought of your beauty
Found complete with irresistible lips

Yet these words with tough, labored wit
Can not capture your true virtue
Nor has any great muse yet writ
A finer song that sings when I see you

/////
Will she like it? just some girl on hinge ive been talking up

>>25316647
The pornalicious Danton made his way down;
So many of his compatriots were brown.
"How could this be?", he asked at once.
His local police officer was a nonce.
The doorbell kept ringing as it were.
His Deliveroo order was finally there.

Weary, weary was Danton;
His wife had left him,
And he was left a wanton.
She was prudish and prim.
Prometheus therefore called,
But he made no reply.
He could only ask himself,
Oh Lord why?

Half past ten in a taproom with no room for quiet men,
I met an older gent, sharply dressed, for an other time,
Another occasion, or likely, an occupation, which I promptly inquired now for;
"A winemaker" he answers with a mild smile and tired eyes,
"Or used to be, retired now"; in thought, I quiet down,

Shortly after, my jaws snap open as I try to sound wise:
"As is with wine, so too with poems,
You will know if it's good,
If you know it is good,
The contents being the flourish for the name";
Which he riposted with little effort: "Indeed,
at times, with wine and poems likewise,
with flowers, women, love and death too,
The beauty's born from the stories told:
A lone lily-of-the-valley finding it's way
To be laid on the grave of a bride-to-have-been --
A graceful story more tasteful than, say:
Wilted roses brought to an old man's whore".

>>25323082
>>25323084
William Wordsworth is great for beginners as his poems are written in pretty plain English.
John Betjemann too but his poems are fixed on English culture so non-Englanders might not appreciate it as much.
Thomas Hardy has some very interesting concepts and flowery language if that's your cup of tea.

>>25360381
No.
Stop trying to write what you think she'll like, and instead write what you really think about her.
Then cut most of it.
Then do it again and again and again, till it no longer sucks (it'll take a while).

>>25360712
Bro it's some random thot on hinge. She'll like it, if she isn't a cunt that is

Rhymes in 2026 are so fucking cringe.

>>25360892
It’s awful poetry. If she’s a normie, she’ll think you’re a creepy weirdo. If she likes poetry, she’ll look down on you because you lack all talent for it.

>>25360905
Rhymes in 2026 are so fucking cringe
A crime it is, to use words unhinged
Plenty instagrammers, have no grammar
Sucking dry lit manners, to fly corp banners

Rhymes in 2026 are so fucking cringe
Years old vomit from a cheap lexical binge

>>25362421
I think he should send it to her then post her reaction

>>25360381
You can do better. Rewrite it and incorporate some of her features, e.g. the color of her eyes and hair, her personality, etc.
There's no point in writing a whole poem for her if it's applicable to literally any pretty girl on the planet; details make for better poems.
If she's got a brain, she'll be able to tell it's universal as well.

I love pu
ssy
and her friend
s
who help
on my yacht
rocking
ah fuck
yes
petals?

The God Wethaz, the Subtle God Wethaz
Who lives inside the acid guts of Ias
Who stacks a grain of sand atop a grain
And one by one creates a new domain
Wethaz, the one who waits in still repose
Will touch your head to still your violent throes
And you will know the vision he has seen
Of rupture in the cycle of the dream.

File: Stephen Dunn.jpg (77 KB, 640x853)

77 KB JPG

Ah man

>>25362441
I’d wager that anon is too btfo’d to (You) you, but you deserve one

Anybody here speak Russian and know Yegor Letov? There are some good translations of his works and songs available online, but some are just terrible. As a native Russian his poetry/song lyrics hit me harder than anything I have ever encountered in any language.