poem thread!!!

post a poem here's mine

How Did It Get So Late So Soon?

How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before
it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the
time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?

Theodor Geisel
also known as Dr. Seuss

Now the world has gone to bed
darkness won't engulf my head
I can see by infrared
how I hate the night

now I lay me down to sleep
try to count electric sheep
sweet dream wishes you can keep
how I hate the night"

Douglas Adams

but I added a verse of my own
from my country year

now the mice come out to play
running on me as I lay
while pointlessly I pray and pray
how I hate the night

I took the thread less travelled by
and it has made the difference.

that I wrote a while ago. This is, BTW, fairly depressing.

Dreary day with no sun to shine
Envelops me like a shroud
Life force sucked from me
And thoughts of greyness loom
We are only as free as the days
That surround us--
Each waking moment is a trial
Waiting to overcome--
Overwhelming
and beat us into submission.

Our lives of freedom are a lie
Our free choice remains only a far away thought
As the days, the minutes, the once happy hours
Turn into a silent, stalking
Killer, as we slowly die
From fear and desperation.

I like it! :D

I haven't written a lot of poetry lately. I seem to stick to similarly depressing political essays.

It developed out of another, endless set of rainy days here in Mass. It simply gets more monotonous the more they stay around.

My Grandmother's Purse


a recipe, yellowed & ragged
faded words in a long-remembered hand
wrinkled slips of paper
notes pressed between rarely opened pages

an embroidered, neatly folded hankie in a dusty, shelved purse
a 1957 dollar bill tucked into a tattered wallet
left there by sentiment in my Grandmother's purse

a creased valentine from an 8 year old, now past 56
pictures of her at MY age ,looking older than her years
she saved that valentine, as I now save pieces of her

long gone now, she was so much..
the insignificant tangibles linger beyond the grave.
faded pictures, aged paper,an unfinished doily

saved because it's hers

In my mind, I can see my own Nana reading about yours. She, too, looked older than her years in pictures that I remember. She died when I was only 9.

My other grandmother was a witch. She died when she was about 71 or 81, but I was never close to her. She was frequently mean to me when I was a child.

Thanks for the evocation!

You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.

I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.

You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.

You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.

You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,

And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.


Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.


In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.


If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.


Note: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori translates to "It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country."

Sadly, Owen died in the final weeks of World War I

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.


"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
  Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
  And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
  And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
  He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
  He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

written my Junior year for english class

the assignment

a poem
a poem
I have to write a poem

So now how can I show'em
I can't possibly write a poem

Oh curses oh curses
I can't write in verses
And my literary manner isn't
Iambic pentameter
I don't have the time to make my words rhyme
Nor the zeal to make them feel real

I am full of fear
For the due date is near
And my peer editors suggestions are riddled with questions

It's impossible
I'm sunk
I'm destined to flunk

No time to fret
No time to stew
My incomplete thoughts I'm handing to you

Okay, I'll try.

The Lakers inbound to RedCloud. He dribbles around the poem.
If he doesn't stop this mocking, I'll go home.

The fans are getting all hot and toasted.
Slam dunk! The poem just got posted!

I would climb to the top of the tallest tree
The top of the world as far as I could see
Swaying in a gentle breeze without a care
So quiet and still, no one knows I’m there
The wind whispers sweetly just out of reach
Million year old wind is what I now breathe
The sun passes by with the clouds in tow
They throw shadows on the world down below
From my high perch I can bend God’s ear
He can’t ignore my questions from way up here
If I don’t get any answers this time around
I won’t try so hard back down on the ground

I can see Mr. Lawless sweeping off the street
His wife watches everything from her window seat
Funny man, the street will just get dirty again
Mr. Lawless must be sweeping just to stay sane
Old Mrs. Lawless never ever laughs or smiles
He might need to keep on sweeping for miles
I watch as the Osako’s work in their yard
They make it look easy, but I know it’s hard
Japanese prisoners of war, she even has a scar
Their garden is the most beautiful by far

When I sleep, I dream that I can fly
It’s not hard to do, just jump real high
I feel so free without the ties of gravity
Not like a bird, my mind controls me
Only when it’s dark outside so I won’t be seen
All night long, no one knows where I’ve been
I can’t let anyone else know my skill
They’ll think me nuts and give me a pill
From the top of a cloud I can bend God’s ear
He can’t ignore my questions from way up here
If I don’t get any answers this time around
I won’t try so hard back down on the ground

© 8/29/04 Trudy C.

Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom
Room Room Room Room Room
Womb Womb Womb Womb Womb
Soon Soon Soon Soon Soon
Tomb Tomb Tomb Tomb Tomb
Zoom Zoom Zoom Zoom Zoom Zoom

YEAH YEAH
Lovey Dove

So you talk that baby talk.

Do you walk that baby walk? (This line MarBelle deliver with both spout and little teapot handle, she with her kissy lips that need be seen for she be so cute in this her doing)

YEAH YEAH
YEAH YEAH

Rune moon luna,
Luna soon bloon pop.
Rune moon luna,
Luna soon bloon pop.

Bloon Bloon Bloon Bloon Bloon
Bloon Bloon Bloon Bloon Bloon
Bloon Bloon Bloon Bloon Bloon

Pop!