In humanodon's post What are you streaky at he and eightbitsamurai both say they are streaky at writing. Well, here's a challenge for any writer. Sit down and write a poem. Don't think about it. Don't worry about form or grammar (that's right lil and _refugee_), because nobody will be "judging" this. It's just an exercise.
Here's mine:
How many people here know my name?
The old Big Boy looks faded and worn
I don't smoke anymore
She died three years ago
But I'll smoke a cigarette in her honor
What do you mean I can't smoke inside?
I told you, she died Was the parade always like this
Men walking dogs and kids on bikes
Hard candy tossed by women in tights
I sneak off to the cemetery behind the gazebo
Where we carved our names
In the tree by the mill pond
Where Jamie pooped on the sidewalk
and laughed as you passed The gravestones are old pre civil war
Some are so old the grass has grown over
We smoked a clove here when we were thirteen
Passed it around and waited for feelings
Your fingers touched mine in the passing On the bus our legs touched
We pretended not to notice
Walked the tracks to the river
Where the green patch of grass
Made us feel grown up and refined
We lived in that lie
Until the train passed by
Then we hurled rocks at the cars
and collected our pennies
Flattened I'll smoke a clove now
And pretend to share it
Hand it to nobody
and take the bus alone You didn't die, I was kidding
But you might as well have
Remember the time we were almost on the Ricky Lake show?
That actually happened
You didn't die
I did
How's that for a twist? I'm so sleepy
that my peepys are going to close on his pee-pee and its going to get weird #fetishpoetry2014
Oh my god I completely forgot that I even actually submitted this.
I was like TNG wants me to do poems but ref knows I hate contemporary So I thought I'd rap instead There's no track / I'm still legendary Ain't no way I could do this 'thout soundin corny as fuck It's a good thing I rhymed with fuck / 'cause lots of words rhyme with it like suck or buck, or yuck Fold my arms like darkwing duck That's the end of the rhyme, I'm stuck Then cackle like a maniac, hubski I'm ownin That ain't a metaphor, these bars keep me zonin Call me 7 Samurai, I'm ronin Reading Jojo I'm shonen Playing smash and I'm pwnin Ain't heard that phrase since '04 Wanna work out but I'm sore Can't pay for classes I'm poor They say I act like eeyore That ain't true...I just hate you. Peace.
walk from the car to the stairs
pluck a little tooth of glass from the ball of my foot
toss it down the hall for somebody else to find
i dig in my purse for the keys you're already holding
hate this city
but every place is the same
yeah i guess i could
help you with that
I enjoyed this: "toss it down the hall for someone else to find." -Been there.
Wondering what I did It doesn't matter what I said Change deep inside Shattering My mind stutters What keeps me inside I do not know
I don't think we can make this last At least not now when nobody Wants to believe in anything Least of all my believing in you --- Because we are young and Our hearts don't matter so Let's spend the night breaking Everything and everyone around us --- It all ends the same way Me passing the first stone And all at once we stop talking And look to see where it lands --- The soft ground beneath our feet Reminds me crawling outside As the rain falls down but Maybe it's just falling in my head --- Maybe it's an excuse to say That I don't know how I feel And how you should feel When everyone else is falling apart
Nice timing. I am actually just 9 days into my generative exercise in which I write a poem every day as quickly as I can. Now, I don't know if this works or not, but as I mentioned in the writing podcast, for me writing poems comes out of stitching pieces together. What that tends to look like, is I hear something or read something that strikes me and I put it in my phone or on little scraps of paper and then later I run them through the ol' brain and out of the fingertips and see what comes out with those words from earlier. Today I have this: Most people drown quickly: a twenty second struggle,
minute and with all the grace of a banana swallowing
a banana slug. Missed words: they, their, are, with,
were, these, fur, skin, warm, little, inside, etcetera,
the surface is as tense as it ever was and the body goes
slack, drifting down under the salvation, down under
the tears the sun refracts through and comes to rest
in a little box, an offering to the earth as if some debt
were owed, some deed to be collected on and filed
away, a debt to the soil as if life were ever clean, ever
free from the debris cast off from all those myriad stars.
1. The Odd Request I know you say you love me, You probably know what's best. You're so pretty, I'm so ugly, I feel I can't deny your request. I don't mean to question smugly, I gladly do all the rest. I know I shouldn't let it bug me. Okay, I'll poop on your chest. 2. Ode to Eileen I wish you had a crazy switch. I'd turn it on when we're in bed. And I'd leave it off All the rest of the time. 3. Final Attempt I'm not a very good poet. But I'm good at making rhyme. Bob Dylan wrote a damn fine song, But couldn't play in time. Bobby needs a metronome, I just need instruction. The vacuum cleaner doesn't work, It doesn't get the suction. This is a terrible poem, But it's just one verse. I wrote one about chest poop, So I guess it could be worse.
And You're an Asshole Addendum 2: as humano knows I have problems with line breaks. I tend to work on them after the poem's on paper. If I were to edit this, the line breaks would change. I will edit it, just - not here, not now :) A3: This is a companion piece to a poem called "I'm An Idiot."
Addendum: I was thinking about saying writing is something I am streaky at, but I have somewhat more stringent parameters for writing than most. I've worked on/written a poem 7 out of the last 11 days and on days i haven't done that I've worked on prose. (Supposed to put up a new blog post today...it may not be today...But by tomorrow.) How many times can I go "here
we go again," hear me out,
I'm going to be different now:
I'll get in fights with your sisters,
throw green bottles at doors, I'll shout
if I want to, I can climb the ladder of God
to heaven and the moon and no one
will stop me. You, though? You?
Still insisting you make things awkward,
it's fun, still two fingers on a ledge,
the body that hangs below. Caught
in a bear trap with plastic and mortar
teeth. You could hit me all day and I'd keep
with my laugh, bare those reddened
animal teeth at you, come on now,
do it again. Do you think repetition
hurts me? Only so much as do it again.
Have you felt the world spinnin so softly as you gather the reigns, Just to ease all you troubles and ride off to from whence you came, Can you blame me sweet sister if I struggle to remember your name? Can you really hold out hope and belief - it just sounds like a game!/ Have you lost all your thirst for knowledge down that river of sin, Tell me more, tell me honest, tell me truth, just tell me when you begin I can tell when your lying cause your dying just to hold back a grin, Don't you worry, Virginia, this round i'm sure to let you win/
If you're like me you know that your past will soon fade out with time, And you'll rewrite the history - you'll make it so you don't seem so blind, And when Jesus comes back from the corner store just lookin to unwind, He'll be sure out of luck, out of money, ain't no green in this town he could find..
It's high school again
It's homecoming again
It's prom again, and again and again
It's errands that seem so important again
It's finding all the little stains on your car seats as you vacuum again
It's finding a pair of pants that aren't wrinkled again
It's being worried about over or under dressed again
It's a spontaneously racing heart again. But, It's not frightening
It's not stressful
It's as natural as breathing
It's calm confidence
It's original
It's soothing as it burns like whiskey
It's a bandshell filled with enthusiastic amateurs
It's gently waving grass and camp chairs
It's a quiet space between eyes
It's our third date
He stared at his bloody hands. His own brother, strangled to death by him. He looked around. Bodies. Bodies everywhere. Fat Thin Misshapen Bloody And broken arms were torn off and eyes were gouged heads were broken noses torn off chests blown into tiny pieces he felt his heart pounding nobody was alive after the war everyone had eventually died. a shudder. he was the last man alive. as he gazed amongst the piles of skin and limbs he realised something all of this civilisation all of this goddamn advancement the technology the sociology the languages the religions the philosophy the sciences all of it a fucking waste
what good was it now? He knew of the process of diffusion, osmosis, the complete works of
shakespeare, the amount of degrees in a triangle, the names of the Brontë sisters The internet Television E=MCsquared but what is it worth now? Nothing When you have nobody to talk to about it, knowledge is worthless warm charcoal pulsated against his blood red feet He saw the fiery wall in the distance power was nothing now the dollar was once again a piece of paper the guitar a piece of wood and strings books just ink and paper humans just flesh and bone
there comes a time when death no longer is a tragedy it is merely a statistic billions of people murdering each other that isn't a tradegy some people say once you kill a thousand you've killed them all some people say one hundred some people say ten but you know what I say? I say one. Once you've truly looked into somebodies eyes while stabbing them their eyes piercing through your soul then you've killed every human to have ever lived
no longer will he feel the warmth of human touch no longer will he be hugged kissed
perhaps it was for the better? perhaps we were doomed to do this anyway nobody deserved life he heard a lightning bolt and rain started to pour down this time the rain pierced the skin it melted and singed the rags he wore his hands were more bloody before he found a barrel and ran inside it inside it was marked H20 He vaguely recognised it
the coal soon became an unbearable sludge of toxicity piles of people drifted down he thought he might as well live with nature he tore off his clothes threw them into the ever-changing river now he was one again now he could pretend to be a tree or the last species of bird or a planet or a star or me or a human again but these faces he had in his head melted he no longer remembered his mothers' face or his brothers or his mothers all he could see now was black charcoal and all he could feel was the cold hard metal against his back
the last person should he have a legacy a remaining feature? he thought. was there something he should say or do as a human? to let people know? who was there too know? he was the last goddamn person on this planet he laughed tears ran down his face he stood up outside as the toxic sludge burnt through layers of his skin
he pulled out a rusty knife left inside his belt was human communication that necessary? could he live without them? I guess he'd never know
he raised the knife and pressed it against his skin slowly pushing it deeper in then he slid it in to his neck he gasped and then a warm tingling feeling rose on his neck he felt warmth for a brief moment he saw the sun shine again then pain seared he collapsed in agony screaming screaming for somebody to hear him anybody but there was no answer out of breath he said one last thing "why." "why the fuck did we do this to ourselves?" "humans had so much to learn and then." "and now" "we're nothing." then he fell onto his back