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Thread: The ets poetry thread

  1. #1
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    Post The ets poetry thread

    Okay, i write. A LOT.
    And it turns out that @Charmingly Miserable is actually a published poet! (some of you probably already knew this, but i just found out.)
    We have been talking a little bit, and decided that it would be cool to do this, to start a poetry thread. Short prose is acceptable too.

    My friend Brandon Selway and i started a facebook poetry group called Meta Poetics that really blew up...y'all check it out if you like.
    Judging by the success we've had there, i think we might REALLY have a killer group here for three reasons. One, we are tighter knit than facebook...well, than my facebook crewanyway. We are of above average intelligence. And finally, we are a very creative bunch. I am willing to bet that more of us write than don't.

    So post your poems and let's all read and discuss each other's work.

    Don't be shy!

  2. #2
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    I will go first. I've already posted this one here once, but i'm proud of it and it's recent.

    Angel Angle

    my sweetest dream (my lore)
    my precious princess
    you're the door
    that opens (hopeandtrustandus)
    and
    endless/nameless/dreamless
    (soaring) we're


    awake and seamless (give
    and take/away) the stress :
    (forgive)
    that bound us mend us
    timeless/fearless/endless
    bending time (again begin this)
    hold me (slowly dance) and cleave
    one to the other and believe
    my
    jesus' sister
    (i'm your brother)
    second...
    cumming.
    angel.
    lover.


    tension/saccharine/pressing
    blessing our undressing
    stressing-clutching fists and testing
    one
    (another)
    two
    (together)
    angel
    angle
    Now i have you singing
    soothing/breathing deep agreeing: (seeing
    home again) my
    GOD ive missed you
    hold me closer
    i surrender.

    -Tyler Lankford

  3. #3
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    This is one of my favorites and it was published in March's edition of Coachella Valley Magazine.

    Dearly Departed

    Though I have been dearly departed
    Life is not far from me
    Where you remain in my heart
    Keep me company tonight
    Warm my bones
    Sing me the songs I once sang
    Offer me a drink
    Tell me the stories I loved to hear
    The night is full of joy
    As you have not forgotten me
    The light from the candles
    Flicker on the face I still remember
    Marked by the days gone by
    How I can recall the time we spent together
    Those moments I know you yearn for too
    It will not be long, my love
    Before you will depart too
    And eternity will be ours to keep

    -Yours Truly

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    Damn, @Charmingly Miserable . That one is LOVELY. You write as though you were living in a different time!

  5. #5
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    So is this thread just going to be me and you, @Charmingly Miserable ?
    I'll throw down another one later today.

  6. #6
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    I am a published poet, as well!

    Here's something that hasn't been published.

    Tonight, in Brighton

    Davey sniffs too much oxycontin after slipping from his
    skateboard on Beacon and slamming his shoulder into
    that fence that divides the inbound and outbound tracks
    of the C line. I poke at the bruising flesh pretending to
    know what I’m doing when really I’ve never even seen
    a broken bone. He squirms; I tell him to go to the hospital
    but his health insurance ran out last June, and besides, they’ll
    know he’s high and start asking questions. He can’t feel
    his left arm anymore. Still, it’s not a pretty sight and he asks
    me if I can take it off and put it in the freezer for later so
    I throw a fleece blanket over him and his pinhole eyes
    roll back in his head, that big goofy smile comes over his
    face and he tells me he always wanted to be a marine biologist.
    “You hate fish,” I tell him, “and you can’t even swim.” His
    grin turns into something manic, subhuman, animal even
    and he says the only way to love something is to understand it,
    then Davey gets real serious and in hushed whispers starts
    telling me that before the infection in his shoulder spreads
    and he dies of gangrene he just needs somebody to know
    where to find his life’s work. I retrieve the laptop from
    his bedroom, navigate at his instruction to discover a folder
    filled with everything Sarah Larkin ever posted on the internet.
    “Jesus, Davey,” I say, taking note of the meticulously
    arranged system of subfolders, dated and labeled, going
    back over a decade. I tell him high school’s been over a long time
    and this is crazy and he needs professional help but he waves
    his good hand to dismiss the notion and says “No, no, it’s not like that.”
    I ask Davey what it is like.
    He says that all matter in the known universe shares a single
    point of origin and swears all of the hang-ups he’s experienced
    in his adult life come down to his inability to accept the indisputable
    truth that he and Sarah are both parts of the same eternal, infinite being;
    that when she cheated on him with Kevin Morrissey in 11th grade she
    was simply expressing the dualistic nature of Davey’s own humanity,
    acting on the very same electrical impulses that drove him to love her
    comprehensively. I open up Sarah’s Facebook page and ask Davey if her career
    and husband and two children were all born out of the same
    electrical impulses that drive him to ingest so many pharmaceuticals.
    His response is a wild cackle, like a wounded hyena
    in a nature documentary where the lions are clearly portrayed
    as the protagonists. “Hush, Davey,” I say, “you’ll wake your neighbors.”
    He coughs a bit on his own laughter and quiets down, looks me dead
    in the eyes and asks if I think there’s a market for narwhal erotica.
    I shut his computer and tell him to sleep on his side so he doesn’t choke.

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    Dude I fucking LOVED that @renholder

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    Kind of too bad this didn't take off. Here's one about a raccoon that ate all the peanuts and came back for the hot ones i hadn't yet laid out whilst camping a couple years back. (those things are scary big at 3am fully hammered.)

    For Ricky ...

    Bold betrayer of my sanctuary, mausoleum
    Past discretion a memory until your return
    Ease and confidence mark your proud gait
    Disturbed you calmly retreat back, one step
    Only to resume again your wanton desires
    Sated, smug, satisfied you disappear, alone
    Our folly made clear in this display of will
    This nights sacrifice mere peanuts to you

  9. #9
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    i KNOW more people write here. I'm gonna post something in "the little things that piss you off" and bitch about no one participating.

  10. #10
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    I wrote this as a reaction to the Newtown, Connecticut school shootings.

    The Pit Of Madness

    Your ghastly reminder
    silenced
    Your shambling inkspot
    fading

    Drawn to end of page
    leaking crimson
    this monolith of
    copper aftertaste.

    Hands fail
    at holding tears
    yet the covering of faces
    fits.

    In a shame of
    a hollowed soul
    the gap becomes
    hope vacuum

    The etched remnants
    of angry words
    left on this small desk
    amid the smoky din.

    As questions float to surface
    the ballast of hurt
    peers around that corner
    God doesn't want you to see.

    Broken becomes us.

  11. #11
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    what powerful verses, @sentient02970 .

    Definitely some heart felt work!

    Thank you, SINCERELY, for participating, man.

    I can't put my finger on why, but this thread, and the very idea of an ETS poetry group REALLY means a lot to me.

    I love you fuckers...i really do
    Last edited by elevenism; 12-10-2014 at 08:30 AM.

  12. #12
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    (This is my response to an unexpected poetry incident in "The little things that piss you off." Since it didn't piss me off, this seems like a more appropriate place to reply.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Charmingly Miserable View Post
    I Know the World IV
    Even though I'm really not into poetry, I have to say I liked that. Reminds me of what I enjoy about Saul Williams's music … so I guess that means I like some poetry after all? I forget that he was a poet before he started doing music.

  13. #13
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    @Joy Prevention Hotline
    this is my favorite Saul Williams poem, though it occurs in a hip hop song.
    It's also my favorite hip hop song...if you flat out hate rap and just want to hear saul, skip to about 2:45.

    but i HIGHLY recommend the rest of it. Gift of Gab of Blackalicious goes off the fucking chain...better than any rapper you will hear on the radio. plus it features zack de la rocha .



    "i can think of nothing heavier than an airplane. i can think of no greater conglomerate of steel and metal. i can think of nothing less likely to fly."

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    Quote Originally Posted by elevenism View Post
    @Joy Prevention Hotline
    this is my favorite Saul Williams poem, though it occurs in a hip hop song.
    It's also my favorite hip hop song...if you flat out hate rap and just want to hear saul, skip to about 2:45.

    but i HIGHLY recommend the rest of it. Gift of Gab of Blackalicious goes off the fucking chain...better than any rapper you will hear on the radio. plus it features zack de la rocha.
    Niggy Tardust was also the first hint that I like some kinds of hip hop, especially what AllMusic calls experimental hip hop. I'd put this in that category.

    I need to beef up my commuting playlist — I actually ran out last week and had to pull over so I could cue up The Fragile — so new music is always a good thing.

    (Experimental hip hop opened me up to stuff like Public Enemy, too.)

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    Diaphanous perch devours the unsteady
    Such is nature that ungracious host
    I lie censored in the garden of exile
    Sight lost in the filament of a fevered pitch
    My skin splinters as my hair draws brittle
    Teeth crumbling under a florescent sky
    The flesh gives way to reason alone
    I now abdicate hope, for life plays most unfair

  16. #16
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    Sun bleached column of rain
    Bleeding clouds seeping through the pastel
    A portal opens

    Waves of heat race forward
    Intrusive now, a light beams through
    Impaling the solipsistic

    A single thought gathers momentum
    As her screams become intently unfocused
    The child of Anil is born

    Breathing shallow now
    Sight dims to accommodate
    So silent this rhythm has become

  17. #17
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    Thanks for the kind words and Likes, guys. I hadn't logged in in a while and it was really nice to see. Appreciate it.

  18. #18
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    the rose is
    in bloom
    when you enter
    a room
    so fragrant
    and bright
    you know it's
    not right
    how you simply
    reach through
    thorns that forgot
    how to

    eat you alive

    staked to the wall
    frozen in free fall
    the king of the hall
    is watching

    and oh how
    the roots thrive
    you never even
    had to try
    took that
    green thumb
    broke the rules
    to succumb
    take your spade
    dig down deep
    ignoring all
    you will not keep

    eat me alive

    forged in your fire
    branded by desire
    all i require
    is this moment.

    alive feb 22nd 2015

  19. #19
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    i'll be yours if you'll be mine
    now i guess we're on rewind
    back to the start, will it matter
    we're still us, mismatched patterns

    being yours, like a wave to the shore,
    i return to the source, being yours.

    an orange is still not a square
    we're awake but no more aware
    unless fundamental structures shifted
    the wheat and chaff still haven't been sifted

    being yours, i'll unlock the door
    though i'm so much more, being yours.

    so, yes, i am yours as i'll always be
    what that is worth to you remains to be seen
    i take back the denial and lift the ban
    all so you can have the least of what i am

    being yours, like a wave to the shore,
    i return to the source, being yours.

    being yours jan 26 2015

  20. #20
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    I used to write a TONS of poetry. Even ran my own publication for a while because i felt that breaking into publishing was pretty hard, and I wanted to give people with different writing styles ( like my own) a place to have a voice.
    I think this is the only evidence of the zine left online: http://zinewiki.com/Black_Book_Press

    I still have all my hard copies though. I remember spending long hours at the UPS store mass copying that thing and then more long hours of folding and stapling and sealing envelopes.

    Somewhere I have a box of all of the publications I was printed in (Somewhere) lol.

    Brings back good memories from college though (as I started the zine in my dorm room)

  21. #21
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    I've been rediscovering Ezra Pound recently and found inspiration which that came instantly, then became devastated by a stupid poem I wrote, then in my reaction to my own stupid poem, I wrote something I actually liked and wanted to share instantly instead of forget forever in my journal to just be reread three years down the line before destroying the journal (I have fantasies of burning all my journals, except that requires rereading them. I've gone through a third of them now but haven't gotten to the point of actually destroying them. I may give myself a few more years.)
    Anyways, here it is.

    The snow are my thoughts.
    The garden is my dream.
    The winter is symbolic
    of how frustrating and
    disappointing my artistic
    endeavors have been.
    If you can even call them endeavors.

  22. #22
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    Translation

    A center point defined as origin
    I began as a soul without direction

    Trace vector to concentric radius
    I allowed the world around me shape my path

    Distance determinant of velocity from origin
    I slipped away, from the you, from the us

    A nonlinear function defined by multiple variables
    Nothing to hold on to, adrift in my shame and sorrow

    The center of mass is acted upon by a gravitational constant
    You guided me with a loving hand, unyielding love

    Harmonic amplitude will decay over time
    But years swept me under and you slipped away

    Force in a magnetic field is perpendicular to the motion of a particle passing through
    Your distance drove my will to commit myself, to conquer the dark

    The total amount of energy in a closed system stays constant over time
    Discovery became the story of us, the inner part of us, our core.

    Small differences in the initial conditions of a dynamic system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of a system.
    Together, forever, drifting to that unknown

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by sentient02970 View Post
    Translation

    A center point defined as origin
    I began as a soul without direction

    Trace vector to concentric radius
    I allowed the world around me shape my path

    Distance determinant of velocity from origin
    I slipped away, from the you, from the us

    A nonlinear function defined by multiple variables
    Nothing to hold on to, adrift in my shame and sorrow

    The center of mass is acted upon by a gravitational constant
    You guided me with a loving hand, unyielding love

    Harmonic amplitude will decay over time
    But years swept me under and you slipped away

    Force in a magnetic field is perpendicular to the motion of a particle passing through
    Your distance drove my will to commit myself, to conquer the dark

    The total amount of energy in a closed system stays constant over time
    Discovery became the story of us, the inner part of us, our core.

    Small differences in the initial conditions of a dynamic system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of a system.
    Together, forever, drifting to that unknown
    fucking amazing

  24. #24
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    Sister/lover
    Chance encounter
    Counts her stars we'll
    Dance forever

    Texas sky and
    (Dying/living)
    We collide
    Accept misgivings
    Tried and tied
    (My words, my sentence)
    Miles and steel
    Can't come between us
    Now they've seen us
    (How we've changed! And)
    Endless/dreamless
    (Stayed the same and)
    Rearranged
    Our Things and dreams
    (And far aways)
    (And breaking seams)
    And misty princess
    Endless kiss
    Encounter/chance
    Forever/bliss

  25. #25
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    i took choices
    over chances
    how else can
    one know
    the basis
    of their fancies?
    there is more
    than spice
    and cream
    that covers
    the cake
    or fills
    in between
    if sleeping beauty
    isn't your speed
    or playing
    pretend does not
    meet your need
    speak the truth
    and you will be freed
    is it not
    long past time
    to confess
    to your deed?

    carpe freedom
    may 10 2015

    k.d.

  26. #26
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    oh yes, my darling
    yes, my dear
    rain does have a smell
    and it is clear
    much like its colour
    wet bubbly spheres.
    yes, you can hear it
    as it sings its
    way down
    through the soil
    carving hard ground.
    it calls to the ocean
    its laughter sounds like bells
    and it dances like a rainbow
    all through your cells.
    water is alive,
    my baby love,
    floating in clouds
    or melting on your glove.
    water is life
    my little heart,
    we all fluttered in it
    right from the start.

    i know scent
    may 11 2015

    k.d.
    Last edited by Lew; 05-12-2015 at 12:15 PM.

  27. #27
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    @Lew it's been a long time since i checked this thread.

    i REALLY like the one about water and rain.

  28. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by elevenism View Post
    @Lew it's been a long time since i checked this thread.

    i REALLY like the one about water and rain.
    @elevenism ... you just made my year. thank you! i wrote if for my 8 year old, after we had a disagreement about whether or not water had a smell. (lol, he just phoned as i was typing this to try and lobby to have a rated m game, "to keep safe until i am older. there is only one copy". lol. no dice, kid, but nice try). again, thanks for liking it! i often worry that my poetry is too rhyme-y. <3

  29. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lew View Post
    thanks for liking it! i often worry that my poetry is too rhyme-y. <3
    you don't have to thank me for liking it brotha. I like it because it's GOOD! you can't choose to like something. But i'm damned glad i "made your year!" I'd like to read more!

    And as far as poems being to rhymey, i remember one of my "ultra-hip" friends telling me "dude, you still read poetry that RHYMES?"
    Fuck that shit man. The whole idea that good poetry doesn't rhyme is idiotic.

    For me, a big part of poetry is the "melody" of the words, you know? And a good rhyme scheme is often a good way to help create the "melody."

    Some of my work has VERY intricate rhymes (i dreamed she never left me and that nothing ever changed and that the cloud in which she kissed me never burst into the rain continues falling calling softly sweetly whispering my name i try to rise in vain but still i'm crawling hoping that i'm sane,) for instance.

    And my favorite poets, Emily Dickenson and ee cummings-their work rhymed.

    As for what i worry about, i worry that my stuff is too much of a straight-up cummings rip off.

  30. #30
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    I'm a Shakespeare sonnets girl. What kind of stupid uneducated heathen thinks good poetry doesn't rhyme? Shoot them lest they breed.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrarchan_sonnet

    ----

    To Milton
    ~

    Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away
    From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers;
    This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours
    Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,
    And the age changed unto a mimic play
    Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:
    For all our pomp and pageantry and powers
    We are but fit to delve the common clay,
    Seeing this little isle on which we stand,
    This England, this sea-lion of the sea,
    By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,
    Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land
    Which bare a triple empire in her hand
    When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!

    - Oscar Wilde
    Last edited by allegro; 10-26-2015 at 11:48 PM.

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