Poetics and Poetry Discussion

Trapped within the Minds of Poe
By: Adam M. Snow

Once upon a nightful somber,
entranced within a loreful slumber;
a murky pass it feels to be:
this dream, this world it calls me.

Dragging, falling deeper within a void,
my mistress Fear and I devoid.
Clinching my chest, my racing heart pounds,
alone in darkness with many sounds;
one in particular from a raven afar,
'Nevermore.' said he with my ears ajar.

Intrigued was I by an outspoken raven
perched upon a branch, in a realm of non-haven.
'Nevermore.' said he, spreading wings to flutter,
" Where am I?” I whispered in terror, utter."
" All that I see or seem
is it but a dream within a dream?"
but the raven he quoth again, 'Nevermore.'
lost I feel, lost evermore.

The raven vanishes, taking me back to slumber;
waking again with my eyes a somber.
Finding my hands and feet a bound,
above a pit with a pendulum confound.
Approached by a man thought to be dead,
Poe he spoke with so much dread.
'We loved with a love that was more than love.'
spoke he, as I lay watching the pendulum above.

It swings with a flutter as it slowly drops to me,
my voice is muted; I am force to see
as the pendulum drops, my flesh gets torn.
My eyes again fell somber as I forlorn.
I close my eyes welcoming death,
getting ready to take my last breath.

I feel it wash over me, it is just that;
my memories flashing like tat.
This nightmarish of a dream, I feel forsaken;
my sorrow; I could not awaken.

SHE

She lives on a moor in the north.
She lives alone.
Spring opens like a blade there.
I travel all day on trains and bring a lot of books—

some for my mother, some for me
including The Collected Works Of Emily Brontë.
This is my favourite author.

Also my main fear, which I mean to confront.
Whenever I visit my mother
I feel I am turning into Emily Brontë,

my lonely life around me like a moor,
my ungainly body stumping over the mud flats with a look of transformation
that dies when I come in the kitchen door.
What meat is it, Emily, we need?

....................................................................

Nude #13 arrived when I was not watching for it.
It came at night.

Very much like Nude #1.
And yet utterly different.
I saw a high hill and on it a form shaped against hard air.

It could have been just a pole with some old cloth attached,
but as I came closer
I saw it was a human body

trying to stand against winds so terrible that the flesh was blowing off the bones.
And there was no pain.
The wind

was cleansing the bones.
They stood forth silver and necessary.
It was not my body, not a woman’s body, it was the body of us all.
It walked out of the light.


From The Glass Essay, by Anne Carson

My Kind of Love Poem

Why must you be
So far away
I long for the freedom
Of living in your embrace

I long to do
What I want with you
Day by day
And through each night

Thinking of you
My days are spent
Oh you
My elusive retirement

Neo Onder Water (maybe a pseudonym, ya think?) , who's from " Netherlands" sent me this lovely and inspiring poem. I was truly touched by his insights about how to use poems to get French girls into bed....

i cannot rhyme like jefferson
especially in english or on personal purposes
in the after hours or in a dead like rat coffee house
i use to tell to the girls
do you know jefferson?
some say no and i cannot help but to recite one of his poems by heart
for the others i always say: 'let me tell one of his fav'
often we end in his parent's bed
hald drunken and maybe it's better
than in her marital one
for my forties, i have tried the big jump
to write some english poems on my own
but only with french girls
though i believe sometimes it's not very useful
when they see me naked,
for not apparent reason
they always google and giggle

Winter Wonderwerk

Blou lippies met gebreide mussies,
rooi neusies met sagte sneusies
& pers vingers met onbeheerde bibbers
... Dis wel hoe als begin

Maar dan kom die stywe drukkies,
vir lang rukkies
Die warm kouse met lekker sopsouse
& `n maaltyd van vleis en rys
met warm sjokolade sous op koue roomys

Later `n bietjie nader aan die einde...
verander helder vlamme in somer verlange
groen gras word bruiner as boombas
& vrolike somer rokkies verander in warm koffie met suikerblokkies

Wonderwerke word orals gesien,
want buite val sagte flokkies op roosbossies
& Yskristalle skitter in watervalle

Dan...
soos `n dief in die nag word die snerpende winde al om my klein huisie bevinde, maar vir die koue sal ek my nie skaam,
want net die winter bring my gesin so` snoesig saam

When you look at your poems list and it says " online" beside certain poems, what does that mean?Surely they're all " online" ?

OK! I'm calling it the Flying EFL (English as a First Language) Poetry Squad, and we're here to help you ESL poets withdraw from your English-language addiction! If you think it's a better idea to write poetry, that most difficult literary form, in your second or third language instead of in your first language, who you gonna call?The Flying EFL Poetry Squad, that's who! !

A wee challenge. This poem was my take on what a poem should be. As a reply, how would you address the same title?

*What is a poem?



A poem comes in many guises.
A good one almost hynotizes,
drags a reader to the end
as if they'd found a long lost friend
Wakes in them, familiar feelings
makes them smile or leaves them reeling.

Says so much in so few words
or sometimes says so little
It glorifies exotic birds
or simple cuckoo spittle.

A poem has a humane hook
that leads us to a notion.
A cellar door through which we look
and share the poet's true emotion.

A poem has a tale to tell
beginning, middle and ending,
and if it doesn't rhyme...oh well
that doesn't really matter.; ¬)

Who wants to form a flying squad of concerned poets to encourage all these ESL poets on PH to compose poems in their first language?If they really want to write poems in English (why?) , they can ask a good first-language English-speaking poet to translate their work. I'm tired of laughing so hard when I read their deformed ESL poems that I snort coffee out of my nose.

Evolution....................................... new history

Isn't that inglorious
to deny the FACT that
we are fostering a devil inside,
And secretly abide
The villainous creed
And adorn our evil deeds
And envenom the world around.

Let's embrace
Those forgotten pages
Taught by the ancient sages
From Cro-Magnon to Homo-erectus
“We slaughtered our fellows and dinned on their flashes”
Ah! We the Homo sapiens
A savage creature
Evolved through ages

Veiling our ignorance
In words rhymed in rhythm
And dress our nudeness
In Gucci, Lacoste, Armani and jack n Jones
Ah! the truth hardly known.