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Original Poetry

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 9:41 pm
by Saffron
I am opening this tread for people to post their original poetry.

Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 10:20 pm
by Saffron
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?

Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:31 pm
by Thomas Hood
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

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:43 am
by DWill
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

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:46 am
by DWill
Saffron wrote: and not some other disorder?
Saffron, if you ever come out with a volume, please title it "Love and Other Disorders."

DWill

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:37 pm
by Saffron
DWill wrote: 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!

Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 9:14 am
by Thomas Hood
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

Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 2:59 am
by Thomas Hood
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.

Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:05 am
by Saffron
Thank you, Tom. I'm so glad you've post your own poetry!

Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 11:29 am
by Thomas Hood
Saffron wrote: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