first 10 people get a poem

[meshaliuknits]

Nov 26, 2014 16:48:30 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Nov 26, 2014 16:05:28 GMT -5 meshaliuknits said:

Dang it. Late.

last time we did this I know I found you a sewing-type poem.  It only makes sense that now you get a cat poem!  lmao, even the cat in this poem is an asshole (which I love him all the more for).

In Pablo's defense, being dicks is kind of our hobby.

Thank you.

[NewOrleans]

Nov 26, 2014 15:25:11 GMT -5 wawa said:

oh me me! I love these threads. they always send me off into a "why haven't I heard of these people before" google spiral.

You are one of our posters more tolerant of firearms.  Here's an interesting take, told from the point of view of the gun about its relationship with its owner.


My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun

BY EMILY DICKINSON


My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -

In Corners - till a Day

The Owner passed - identified -

And carried Me away -



And now We roam in Sovreign Woods -

And now We hunt the Doe -

And every time I speak for Him

The Mountains straight reply -



And do I smile, such cordial light

Opon the Valley glow -

It is as a Vesuvian face

Had let it’s pleasure through -



And when at Night - Our good Day done -

I guard My Master’s Head -

’Tis better than the Eider Duck’s

Deep Pillow - to have shared -



To foe of His - I’m deadly foe -

None stir the second time -

On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -

Or an emphatic Thumb -



Though I than He - may longer live

He longer must - than I -

For I have but the power to kill,

Without - the power to die -

[NewOrleans]

Nov 26, 2014 16:09:36 GMT -5 bimbi284 said:

Annnnnd I'm late .

I remembered that your grandmother just passed.


Piano

by D. H. Lawrence



Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;

Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see

A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings

And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song

Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong

To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside

And hymns in the cozy parlor, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor

With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
*
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

*glamour in this instance = ghost

[NewOrleans]

Nov 26, 2014 15:28:18 GMT -5 @dontcallmeshirley1 said:

Me!

I think I missed you, so I can't have that!


Balances
Nikki Giovanni


In life

one is always

balancing



like we juggle our mothers

against our fathers



or one teacher

against another

(only to balance our grade average)



3 grains of salt

to one ounce truth



our sweet black essence

or the funky honkies down the street



and lately i've begun wondering

if you're trying to tell me something



we used to talk all night

and do things alone together



and i've begun



(as a reaction to a feeling)

to balance

the pleasure of loneliness

against the pain

of loving you

[NewOrleans]

Nov 26, 2014 16:09:57 GMT -5 ESF said:

This thread is amazing.

Am I too late to get one?

I do not know any poems about makeup or corgis.     

Expect Nothing
Alice Walker

Expect nothing. Live frugally

On surprise.

become a stranger

To need of pity

Or, if compassion be freely

Given out

Take only enough

Stop short of urge to plead

Then purge away the need.



Wish for nothing larger

Than your own small heart

Or greater than a star;

Tame wild disappointment

With caress unmoved and cold

Make of it a parka

For your soul.



Discover the reason why

So tiny human midget

Exists at all

So scared unwise

But expect nothing. Live frugally

On surprise.

[NewOrleans]

Even though she's not here, this is for NitaX

Coal
Audre Lorde

I
Is the total black, being spoken
From the earth's inside.
There are many kinds of open.
How a diamond comes into a knot of flame
How a sound comes into a word, coloured
By who pays what for speaking.

Some words are open
Like a diamond on glass windows
Singing out within the crash of passing sun
Then there are words like stapled wagers
In a perforated book—buy and sign and tear apart—
And come whatever wills all chances
The stub remains
An ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.
Some words live in my throat
Breeding like adders. Others know sun
Seeking like gypsies over my tongue
To explode through my lips
Like young sparrows bursting from shell.
Some words
Bedevil me.

Love is a word another kind of open—
As a diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am black because I come from the earth's inside
Take my word for jewel in your open light.

[NewOrleans]

if you enjoyed this, here was the last time I did it:

pandce.proboards.com/thread/286658/bored-first-posters-get-poem?page=2

[gpw]

NewOrleans if no one has told you lately, you're pretty fucking awesome.

[ESF]

This was awesome. I know very little about poetry so this was a great read!

[gpw]

Good GOD, I just read the one you chose for me last time and I'm in a puddle again.

[NewOrleans]

I am going to be replying in poem form for the rest of the night instead of gif form.

[taratru]

But...but....I was making a piiiiiie!!!!

[taratru]

NewOrleans Here's two I'm currently in LOVE with. If I were teaching, I'd be hitting them hard.  The Olds one brings me to literal tears.

You Are the Penultimate Love of My Life
BY REBECCA HAZELTON
I want to spend a lot but not all of my years with you.
We’ll talk about kids
but make plans to travel.
I will remember your eyes
as green when they were gray.
Our dogs will be named For Now and Mostly.
Sex will be good but next door’s will sound better.

There will be small things.
I will pick up your damp towel from the bed,
and then I won’t.
I won’t be as hot as I was
when I wasn’t yours
and your hairline now so
untrustworthy.
When we pull up alongside a cattle car
and hear the frightened lows,
I will silently judge you
for not immediately renouncing meat.
You will bring me wine
and notice how much I drink.

The garden you plant and I plant
is tunneled through by voles,
the vowels
we speak aren’t vows,
but there’s something
holding me here, for now,
like your eyes, which I suppose
are brown, after all.


AND

I Go Back to May 1937

BY SHARON OLDS

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,

I see my father strolling out

under the ochre sandstone arch, the

red tiles glinting like bent

plates of blood behind his head, I

see my mother with a few light books at her hip

standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,

the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its

sword-tips aglow in the May air,

they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,

they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are

innocent, they would never hurt anybody.

I want to go up to them and say Stop,

don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,

he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things

you cannot imagine you would ever do,

you are going to do bad things to children,

you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,

you are going to want to die. I want to go

up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,

her hungry pretty face turning to me,

her pitiful beautiful untouched body,

his arrogant handsome face turning to me,

his pitiful beautiful untouched body,

but I don’t do it. I want to live. I

take them up like the male and female

paper dolls and bang them together

at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to

strike sparks from them, I say

Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

[Beeps (WOT?*)]

I assume I am about number 27.

[bimbi284]

NewOrleans did you know my husband is a pianist...like...as his job? Cuz if not, woah.

[NewOrleans]

Nov 26, 2014 19:10:09 GMT -5 bimbi284 said:

NewOrleans did you know my husband is a pianist...like...as his job? Cuz if not, woah.

I did not know.  I was just thinking about the first holiday after a loss for you when you asked for a poem and this one came to mind.  

I'm not psychic.  It's just that poetry speaks to all of us!

[bimbi284]

Nov 26, 2014 19:16:44 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

Nov 26, 2014 19:10:09 GMT -5 bimbi284 said:

NewOrleans did you know my husband is a pianist...like...as his job? Cuz if not, woah.

I did not know.  I was just thinking about the first holiday after a loss for you when you asked for a poem and this one came to mind.  

I'm not psychic.  It's just that poetry speaks to all of us!

It's a great poem, and even more so given the piano connection.

Thank you.