I am opening this tread for people to post their original poetry.

I'll go first, it seems only fair, as I began the thread.

My daughters like this poem. I wrote it about 5 years ago. The way the poem appears on the page is that every other line is indented almost to the end point of the sentence above it. The way these posts work, it will not allow me to type it out that way. I do have an idea. I'll try to use a character as a space holder, so I can stagger the lines.

Boxing with Cupid

Are you waiting for something
** ** to grab your attention,
drop you like the boxer's glove,
** ** knock you silly,
arms drop and knees bend,
** ** as your body tumbles to the mat?
Is it stars you want to see?
** ** So that you know
It's love
** ** and not some other disorder?

I was picking lima beans at sunrise,
and the blinding sun came up like it did
to John on Patmos, and I picked a poem.

Recoils of Marksmanship

The ground is bare, the light intense,
Four hundred yards away the targets rise
At some vague distance of defense.

The targets rise like shadows in the cave,
Dark birds at morning taking wing to scour
Wind-heaped barrens where no sweet birds sing.

"All ready on the firing line," one calls,
Out-trumps the readiness of lines to fire.
Aim librates through the nest of men,

Down human contours to dark auguries.
And, truly, what if there are
Trees and sunshine around the symbols?

Command to fire at will is called, and fire
Unwilled descends: Baal's altars burn,
Projections wormwood heat-crinkled air.

The ground is bare, the light intense,
Four hundred yards away the targets rise
At some vague distance of defense.

Tom

Tom, thanks for the poem, which was as interesting as I would have expected. When I saw your prefacing remark, I thought, what a great title or idea for a poem, picking lima beans at sunrise. I would have worked with the homeliness of that idea, being me, but you have other aims and targets in mind than I would.

DWill

Saffron, if you ever come out with a volume, please title it "Love and Other Disorders."

DWill

I love it! If ever I pull enough worthy poems together to make an attempt at publishing, I will call it, "Love and Other Disorders." I feel inspired!

Ninety two and full of pain
Hannah Sutton died two weeks
Before the storm of her name
Shook pine cones and hidden
birds' nests from the trees.

Life will be no longer seasoned
By her wit. One day she offered
Me a cat. "I can't," I said.
"I have bitties." Hannah smiled,
"Your bitties won't hurt my cat."

bitty -- Southern dialect for newly hatched chick

In Praise of the Carolina Littoral

The sand washed away from hard rock like beards from old men
And the water ran down dark mountains like old men drinking white wine
And tumbled to sounds and bays where the sea wears a necklace of sand
And churns the moving land of graves and twisted trees and history passed into forgetfulness.

Barefoot in hot sand, two girls once carried a basket of crabs and stood
Taller than girls stand now. Life's purpose was clear, inlets open,
Free course for the wine-dark sea.

Sand rolls in the waves,
Salt in the air.
Seagulls circle,
Killdeer cry.

Stoneless land of few fruit
Sown with sharks' teeth
Yaupon, live oak
Fields of bear grass for the cattle of the sun.

Sandbars rise at the balance of forces,
Assuring footing. Grecian curve and straightedge
Against waves from the dome of heaven.

A fig bush by a weather-stained house
Reached to the second story,
Unpicked fruit that yields true flavor.

Sand rolls in the waves,
Salt in the air.
Seagulls circle,
Killdeer cry.

Thank you, Tom. I'm so glad you've post your own poetry!

Thank you, Saffron. Your turn. Will has something hidden away too. And Carly has a perpetual poetry machine running in the back of her mind. And the shy lurkers are waiting for a leap of faith to post.

Tom

I'm working on it! I tried to write or rather convert a poem of mine to an Elizabethan sonnet. I was not successful. If I can get the origional poem back together I'll try posting it.

Saffron
p.s. DW? How about you? Anything to contribute?

Here is a poem written by Andie. This poem was written by my Niece's child who is in the 5th grade. I thought it extra ordinary but I know nothing of poetry. What do you all think of it. Lawrence

"I Am"

I Am
gentle and curious
I wonder
if I will get married
I hear
joy in every moment
I see
beauty all around me
I want
to control my fiery temper
I am
gentle and curious

I pretend
I have superpowers
I feel
as if I were on top of the world
I touch
people's lives every day
I worry
when I hurt somebody
I cry
when something I love dies
I am
gentle and curious
I understand
when something has to die
I say
I have an open mind
I dream
about people I love
I try
to understand my life
I hope
I live life to the fullest
I am
gentle and curious

Thanks, Lawrence for posting the poem. It is lovely. The poem flows well and visually the structure is pleasing (which one of my daughter's insists is important). Andie seems to be insight beyond her/his years.

It's funny when I pulled out my box of loose papers and almost poems, I hardly recognized my own words. Here are two poems written in 1996.


Ideas

like a cherry ripe and waiting to be picked
I can reach it
snatch it
but as I put the cherry in my mouth
the sweat juices choke me
I choke and sputter
struggling for composure
the words will not come will not be commanded into complicity
they run from my lips, my mind
as the juice splatters with each gag.




Friction

We walk near each other
I can feel the pull of your gravity
straining to maintain my position, footing, grounding
so as not to come too near
I will ignite at the slightest brush of your body
like your son's caps that we played with in my drive way
dragging the rock across the strips of red paper
little pockets of gunpowder
trilled by the rapid succession of little explosions

It really is an odd feeling to see poetry you've written, but not seen for many years.

Sweet juices, I think. Friction definitely belongs in your book of poems. It has immediacy, involvement, tangency, structure -- objective features of a good poem. I could defend it in court.

Tom