Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you.
And there you are--an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.
...

These fine days have been my ruin.
On this kind of day I resigned
My job in 'Pious Foundations'
On this kind of day I started to smoke
On this kind of day I fell in love
On this kind of day I forgot
To bring home bread and salt
On this kind of day I had a relapse
Into my versifying disease.
These fine days have been my ruin.

...

Some smiles are just masks,
Hiding storms so none to see.
Acting fine in front of everyone,
But your silence knows everything.

The heart says to hold on,
But the brain speaks to move on.
From your past hardships-
Is likely impossible by those gates.


...

BELOW, the street was hoarse with cries,
With groan of carts and scuffling feet,
With laughter worse than blasphemies,
Was choked with dust and blind with heat,
This room was still--too still for peace.

It heard the livid words we said
Of hate and passion, watched us where
I sat, as one beside the dead--
You lay with all your glorious hair
Flung on the crazy bed.

The moment's passion ended brought--
Ah, child, to you what did it bring?
What could it, but one hideous thought
To us so tired of everything,
And hating what we sought?

--So tired of all this grey room meant,
Of life together, shackled cold,
Or bound in flame so different
From the swift, white desire of old,
The old, divine consent.

Poor room, so meanly intimate!
Our dirty clothes sprawled on a chair,
Combs, candle-ends, and grimy plate
Littered the table, paper and hair
Forlornely choked the grate.


...

I hear an army charging upon the land,
And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:
Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,
Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers.

They cry unto the night their battle-name:
I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.
They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,
Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.


...

Sometimes I feel like I'm crazy!
Solidly crazy, Desperately crazy
Aware I'm doing wrong, still trying
Hang me thrice, still breathing
Struggling to be something
Suffer with everything
Seem like death's friend calling.
...

She was aweary of the hovering
Of Love's incessant tumultuous wing;
Her lover's tokens she would answer not--
'Twere well she should be strange with him somewhat:
A pretty babe, this Love,--but fie on it,
That would not suffer her lay it down a whit!
Appointed tryst defiantly she balked,
And with her lightest comrade lightly walked,
Who scared the chidden Love to hide apart,
And peep from some unnoticed corner of her heart.
She thought not of her lover, deem it not
(There yonder, in the hollow, that's HIS cot),
But she forgot not that he was forgot.
She saw him at his gate, yet stilled her tongue--
So weak she felt her, that she would feel strong,
And she must punish him for doing him wrong:
Passed, unoblivious of oblivion still;
And if she turned upon the brow o' the hill,
It was so openly, so lightly done,
You saw she thought he was not thought upon.
He through the gate went back in bitterness;
She that night woke and stirred, with no distress,
Glad of her doing,--sedulous to be glad,
Lest perhaps her foolish heart suspect that it was sad.
...

Here I am in the garden laughing
an old woman with heavy breasts
and a nicely mapped face

how did this happen
well that's who I wanted to be

at last a woman
in the old style sitting
stout thighs apart under

...

Time she spends without a pause,
Half sleep, half food, a silent cause,
A gentle smile, a fleeting gleam,
She works like an endless stream.


Like a machine with tireless might,
Resting briefly between the night,
Her arms bear the weight alone,
Carrying dreams she's never known.

...