I've written a poem a week for a long time as part of a poetry club, never found a good place to post them... thought this might be a good spot to plant a few originals from the past 6 months. Enjoy, discuss, be kind.
This is indeed a good spot. I remember your post from a few months ago also. Keep feeling. Keep writing. There may not be a lot of discussion or critique but for sure it's being read. I've always found Radio Paradise to be incredibly receptive to original creativity. Many of us; myself included, have often complicated thoughts and emotions and find them hard to articulate. Poetry isn't like an HOV lane for high volume traffic. Often it's more like a dirt road, as yet unpaved and without conditional access...
I've written a poem a week for a long time as part of a poetry club, never found a good place to post them... thought this might be a good spot to plant a few originals from the past 6 months. Enjoy, discuss, be kind.
for america
pretend you don't care send a thought, or fake a prayer A-K shells still lying there bodies lay in disrepair.
no amount of gun control will fix a land without a soul no law upon a dated scroll will be enough to pay this toll.
no check inside a voting booth no eye for an eye nor tooth for a tooth can ease the pain or start to soothe the quest for an answer, a fragment of truth.
mental health don't mean a thing or video games or bad parenting or CNN cutaways to children crying for this is our price to let freedom ring.
Will LeTendre
Terms and conditions
Growing old is getting old live to die is what we're sold is there life and what is death when we breathe our final breath
A final drive in our old car we won't have to go too far bring the wine lets have some fun make out until the daylights done
Call the kids, say our goodbyes one last look into your eyes the car hum echoes in my ear our final act of our final year
A haze it grows so thick inside you lean on me I almost cried been so much for me to bare to understand how much you care
Going now its closing time clouded head, slurred rhyme Even after all this fuss I see Charon has come for us
Will LeTendre
Silhouette my silhouette
The obscurity of my shadow is that it's always there even in dim starlight it's hanging on somewhere.
Was near a total eclipse I saw my outline gazing at my rippled white blanket where shadow snakes were grazing.
It's been here since the start but I can't help but wonder will my shadow still stay with me when I'm buried six feet under?
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Jul 27, 2019 - 4:46am
More of Everything by Joyce Sutphen
The people who made me possible came from places in middle Europe, riding steamships through the middle of the nineteenth century. They didn't always get their right names, and if they wrote home, I never heard.
The people who made me possible worked hard clearing the land, tree by stump by prairie grass, hauling rock off the fields and gravel to the roads. They seldom stopped to consider if here was better than over there––
wherever that was. If they regretted anything, they didn't say, and they didn't tell stories about the old country; my people didn't make a fuss about being born or dying early–– they always died early––which
explains why they loved weddings and christenings, birthdays and the Fourth of July––any time they could sit at a picnic table listening to a polka band, going back many times for more of everything.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Jul 23, 2019 - 5:40am
The Road by Dana Gioia
He sometimes felt that he had missed his life By being far too busy looking for it. Searching the distance, he often turned to find That he had passed some milestone unaware, And someone else was walking next to him, First friends, then lovers, now children and a wife. They were good company–generous, kind, But equally bewildered to be there.
He noticed then that no one chose the way— All seemed to drift by some collective will. The path grew easier with each passing day, Since it was worn and mostly sloped downhill. The road ahead seemed hazy in the gloom. Where was it he had meant to go, and with whom?
The solemn pond displays the summer night Perfect in the rondure of its speculum, The sky set out in order, light by light. Serenely a muskrat noses through the lines Of stars; the cool reflective moon sways in The water that trembling languidly but once Now settles, steadies itself again, and shines Impassive within the astonished O, again Moveless, upon the waterâs plane immense. Something has happened in the world this night Of rare consequence for some time to come, Whether or not it alters the final sum.
Fred Chappell
Chappell is a favoriteof mine. Thanks for this.
You're welcome
M only acquainted with him but I shared a visit with he and his sweet wife recently over a beverage. He fascinates me. The Shadow Box collection is so amazing...
I love love love his fiction. I Am One of You Forever is one of my favorite novels. Please tell him so, for me.
I will next time! I see them occasionally at a local establishment.
The solemn pond displays the summer night Perfect in the rondure of its speculum, The sky set out in order, light by light. Serenely a muskrat noses through the lines Of stars; the cool reflective moon sways in The water that trembling languidly but once Now settles, steadies itself again, and shines Impassive within the astonished O, again Moveless, upon the waterâs plane immense. Something has happened in the world this night Of rare consequence for some time to come, Whether or not it alters the final sum.
Fred Chappell
Chappell is a favoriteof mine. Thanks for this.
You're welcome
M only acquainted with him but I shared a visit with he and his sweet wife recently over a beverage. He fascinates me. The Shadow Box collection is so amazing...
I love love love his fiction. I Am One of You Forever is one of my favorite novels. Please tell him so, for me.
The solemn pond displays the summer night Perfect in the rondure of its speculum, The sky set out in order, light by light. Serenely a muskrat noses through the lines Of stars; the cool reflective moon sways in The water that trembling languidly but once Now settles, steadies itself again, and shines Impassive within the astonished O, again Moveless, upon the waterâs plane immense. Something has happened in the world this night Of rare consequence for some time to come, Whether or not it alters the final sum.
Fred Chappell
Chappell is a favoriteof mine. Thanks for this.
You're welcome
I'm only acquainted with him but I shared a visit with him and his sweet wife recently over a beverage. He fascinates me. The Shadow Box collection is so amazing...
The solemn pond displays the summer night Perfect in the rondure of its speculum, The sky set out in order, light by light. Serenely a muskrat noses through the lines Of stars; the cool reflective moon sways in The water that trembling languidly but once Now settles, steadies itself again, and shines Impassive within the astonished O, again Moveless, upon the waterâs plane immense. Something has happened in the world this night Of rare consequence for some time to come, Whether or not it alters the final sum.
smoke rises from trees now gone I think of these friends that came from seed their shade, their colors, their leaves now brown we tidy up their broken bones the rains are here, the rains are here desert winds blow no more along with fearsome flame relief once more , the rains are here we labor deep with sweating brow, must tidy, tidy, tidy cause the rains are here as we end our day in reverent peace the curling smoke haunts the valley view our blackened hands, our face with ash relief the task is done once more and as rains dance on our roof of iron we celebrate the rains are here, the rains are here.
The solemn pond displays the summer night Perfect in the rondure of its speculum, The sky set out in order, light by light. Serenely a muskrat noses through the lines Of stars; the cool reflective moon sways in The water that trembling languidly but once Now settles, steadies itself again, and shines Impassive within the astonished O, again Moveless, upon the water’s plane immense. Something has happened in the world this night Of rare consequence for some time to come, Whether or not it alters the final sum.
smoke rises from trees now gone I think of these friends that came from seed their shade, their colors, their leaves now brown we tidy up their broken bones the rains are here, the rains are here desert winds blow no more along with fearsome flame relief once more , the rains are here we labor deep with sweating brow, must tidy, tidy, tidy cause the rains are here as we end our day in reverent peace the curling smoke haunts the valley view our blackened hands, our face with ash relief the task is done once more and as rains dance on our roof of iron we celebrate the rains are here, the rains are here.
A saturated meadow,
Sun-shaped and jewel-small,
A circle scarcely wider
Than the trees around were tall;
Where winds were quite excluded,
And the air was stifling sweet
With the breath of many flowers,—
A temple of the heat.
These were bowed us in the burning,
As the sun’s right worship is,
To pick where none could miss them
A thousand orchises;
For though the grass was scattered,
Yet every second spear
Seemed tipped with wings of color,
That tinged the atmosphere.
We raised a simple prayer
Before we left the spot,
That in the general mowing
That place might be forgot;
Or if not all is favoured,
Obtain such grace of hours,
That none should mow the grass there
While so confused with flowers.
By Andrea Fisher (on what may be her last day on earth)
Rest for the Living
The best rest for the living Is not oblivion But hearing the hot tires of passing cars Hiss by in the cooling rain, Or the dry leaves of the trees by the window Shuffle like a restless crowd, Or well-known voices murmur close by, No words but the sounds familiar, For even as we turn our stiff, blind faces Away from the baffling world, Our bodies hum like empty shells With songs of other creatures, sung In an ocean of which we are part, And in our weary hearts, In the weary marrow of our bones We want to feel life going on around us, To know that it will go on, Even while we nestle, quietly, Curling around our heartbeats, Curling into sleep.
By Andrea Fisher (on what may be her last day on earth)
Rest for the Living
The best rest for the living Is not oblivion But hearing the hot tires of passing cars Hiss by in the cooling rain, Or the dry leaves of the trees by the window Shuffle like a restless crowd, Or well-known voices murmur close by, No words but the sounds familiar, For even as we turn our stiff, blind faces Away from the baffling world, Our bodies hum like empty shells With songs of other creatures, sung In an ocean of which we are part, And in our weary hearts, In the weary marrow of our bones We want to feel life going on around us, To know that it will go on, Even while we nestle, quietly, Curling around our heartbeats, Curling into sleep.
"Love is the wind, the tide, the waves, the sunshine. Its power is incalculable; it is many horse-power. It never ceases, it never slacks; it can move the globe without a resting-place; it can warm without fire; it can feed without meat; it can clothe without garments; it can shelter without roof; it can make a paradise within which will dispense with a paradise without.â
