pick one of your poems and tell me all about it

[bronzeage]

The adult version of Folies Bergere we saw in Las Vegas was definitely topless, so is that illegal?

It's a local law.

The local Gold Club, which is an upscale place is inside the Baton Rouge city limits. The girls there are completely bare. The club in the poem is in another parish (Louisiana version of county).

It's a surreal situation. Government feels it must enforce some kind of moral code for the public good, so the line is completely arbitrary. In the Gold Club, dancers can sit on a man's lap and rub her bare nipples in his face, but he cannot touch her with his hands.

In the other parish, patrons are not allowed to touch the dancer at all. All customers must be kept 3 feet away from the stage. This is a fairly new law. At the time of the poem, it was the custom for the dancer to kiss the customer to thank him for the tip. This started to get out of hand as dancers became more and more familiar with customers. Hands went inside of shirts and crotches were rubbed. I don't know who complained, but new rules were made.

 

[butters]

The Perfecting Red Dress

I want a red dress, one covered in hearts;
One that tells my body that I love its shape and its art.

I want a red dress, one that clings to my curves;
One that will make people give my body the respect it deserves.

I want a red dress that causes gasps at my inner beauty;
One that stifles all spitefulness and stupidity.

I want a red dress that renders all my wishes fulfilled
I want one that makes people be less superficial;

I want the perfecting red dress.


I wrote this poem about a year ago in an attempt to work in rhyming couplets and come up with something that expressed my desire to be valued for who I am rather than judged by my looks. It's preachy, which is an issue for me when I move away from the imagistic, narrative style that I've been developing. I think the ladies here will relate to this sentiment even if the delivery is clumsy. I don't think the I'm much of a form poet 9other than haiku and tanka).

this comes across to me as wanting people (including yourself) to see your body, see your inner beauty, as one and the same. the perfecting dress would reveal the wonderful you as a whole, with no division between flesh and soul. do i think it could use some tinkering? sure, but it sends out a strong message (at least i received it as a strong message). the perfecting dress is really a truth-lens.

I like this. I think every woman wants that dress. I have a red dress that always makes me feel better when I wear it. I have a poem sort of similar to this actually.

I want to be like

I want to be like
the girl from Impanema-
only tan, young and lovely
being so beautiful as to
not worry when I walk
at the front of a room-
making the crowd "ahh"
in a red dress-
classy, unattainable,
porcelain, pearl-wearing
fashionista-
commanding the room
like a movie girl
smiling, coy
Audrey Hepburn-
cause i'm vital
and i'm living
at the age of seventeen and three quarters-
forever

I forgot that i'd even mentioned a red dress in this one! haha. I obviously wrote this when I was a bit younger.

now this one feels to be all about youth's desire to be 'seen' - only youth tends to see 'beauty' as whatever's fashionable at the time externally... for me, the beauty of the narrator's core lies in the vitality of 'and i'm living/at the age of seventeen and three quarters -/forever'. that is most likely the age most of us really began coming into our own as individuals - few or no responsibilities, the excitement of boyfriends, love, partying, uni whatever.... sparkling days, dramatic days for some, days of horizons to be discovered... so much fire. it is an age i would imagine many of us ladies can slip back into (memory-wise) and love being that age.

 

[bflagsst]

My Ada(whom I adore),

A bunch of bricks fell on my foot and I thought of you. I thought of you in your November costume earlier, but at the point of contact I thought of you in your birthday suit(September issue.) If you're curious, the brick you scratched my name in fell the hardest. I figure the mason is gonna get mad about the additional imperfections we've added to his brick—having a bit knocked off the corner and all. But now it's so wonderfully polygonal instead of as normal as any other brick—I should bury it so they won't find it. If you like me 'x' → [ ]

-Ivan(Son of Demon)

 

[Esperanza_Hidalgo]

Chipbutty, I can't resist this thread!

Timeless Orgasms

This poem is an excerpt from a novella I wrote set in the 1950's Southern farming community. The Novella has sat on my hard drive for about a year and 1/2 now, needing my final edit (arghhhh!). It needs editing because I wrote when I had little experience (not that I have much now).

Two women of differing social and racial backgrounds make love for the first time. They both are attracted to women, but never acted upon the attraction. When the act is committed, they figure out what to do pretty quickly and are somewhat clumsy because of the need.

Needless to say, despite enormous turmoil and conflict in the story, there is a bittersweet ending.

Uhm, yes, I wrote it because it kinda got me and my partner off. I can't help but relate stories and poetry to experiences, just changing settings such as the year and place. It is likened to spilling bits of my love life to the world through fiction. So much of what I write is because of my experiences with her and my mentor. Perhaps I'm a closet exhibitionist and Lit provides a private outlet.

The poem could use a nice little trim, but I'll keep it like it is because of the stage it was written in.

Ok, I prattled on.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Lady Elevator Operator

Very nice!

 

[butters]

Timeless Orgasms

This poem is an excerpt from a novella I wrote set in the 1950's Southern farming community. The Novella has sat on my hard drive for about a year and 1/2 now, needing my final edit (arghhhh!). It needs editing because I wrote when I had little experience (not that I have much now).

Two women of differing social and racial backgrounds make love for the first time. They both are attracted to women, but never acted upon the attraction. When the act is committed, they figure out what to do pretty quickly and are somewhat clumsy because of the need.

Needless to say, despite enormous turmoil and conflict in the story, there is a bittersweet ending.

Uhm, yes, I wrote it because it kinda got me and my partner off. I can't help but relate stories and poetry to experiences, just changing settings such as the year and place. It is likened to spilling bits of my love life to the world through fiction. So much of what I write is because of my experiences with her and my mentor. Perhaps I'm a closet exhibitionist and Lit provides a private outlet.

The poem could use a nice little trim, but I'll keep it like it is because of the stage it was written in.

Ok, I prattled on.

i visited and left you my comment x
i know you wish to keep it as it is, but i left you what i felt to be its core if you ever think again about a rewrite and want someplace to start.

 

[Esperanza_Hidalgo]

i visited and left you my comment x
i know you wish to keep it as it is, but i left you what i felt to be its core if you ever think again about a rewrite and want someplace to start.

Hmmm,
now that might end up as something special with an edit--
thinking.

Maybe a version 2 is due.

 

[vrosej10]

this comes across to me as wanting people (including yourself) to see your body, see your inner beauty, as one and the same. the perfecting dress would reveal the wonderful you as a whole, with no division between flesh and soul. do i think it could use some tinkering? sure, but it sends out a strong message (at least i received it as a strong message). the perfecting dress is really a truth-lens.


That's pretty spot on. Everytime I try to write in form (excepting haiku and tanka) it stifles me.Everyone would want to own that particular dress.

 

[Senna Jawa]

a solution

This thread feels attractive. Thus I look at one poem or another by me like Abraham looked at Isaac, and the poem screams: go ahead, take my own life away from me, everybody thinks that it is your right to murder me--just know that I will be alive or dead but never enslaved by you or anybody else.

Hm, I couldn't bring myself to bringing here any of my poor creatures. Then I got a funny idea. I can bring here a poem in Polish. Especially a poem which was blatantly-fragrantly misread and misinterpreted. All these pseudo-poets and pseudo-readers refuse to read the words, to read the phrases, to take them seriously--they don't take words and phrases seriously in their own poems, so why should they show care when it's mine?! As you see the problems with the poetic and pseudo-poetic environment are international, they transcend the ethnic boundaries (something to celebrate in the other thread ).

Suddenly I hear quite loud energetic music. I go to the balcony to see which of the neighbors or pedestrian is the guilty party. The music on the balcony was not as loud as inside my room. That's how acoustics works sometimes, I thought. But no, it was my radio-alarm clock. Then I realized that the song was in Spanish while my neighbors are all Indians. Well, I've turned the alarm off, it's time to go.

 

[butters]

this is less about attempted murder than detailing the events of conception - apt for a porn board, surely, SJ?

 

[Senna Jawa]

this is less about attempted murder than detailing the events of conception - apt for a porn board, surely, SJ?

The "porn + conception" combination sounds like an accident at work.

 

[Epmd607]

The onus is never on the reader of poems to understand precisely the expression of life circumstances by the writer of poems. This is a thread that is different because it undermines the mysticism of symbol and attempts to make a poem an A : A expression between reader and writer.

 

[butters]

few of us here, i'd lay odds, have interested peers offline with which to discuss how being a poet is or how we came to write something. if you do, then fabulous; if you don't feel you need that egress and are quite content keeping it all inside, then that's great too. what this thread achieves is to allow us to share some of those moments - personally, i love getting to know what was going on in the poet's head/heart as they composed a write. though i'd add that i'd prefer to find this out having read the piece first and experienced it through my own various lenses of distortion.

 

[butters]

The "porn + conception" combination sounds like an accident at work.

hmmmn, on occasion serendipitous

 

[mynameisben]

Here is a haiku I wrote this past summer:

Moonlight Silhouette

putty on the walls
frozen taco semen balls
no one ever calls
​

Now I am going to tell you about it.

First, the title. "Moonlight Silhouette" was chosen, like most titles, to capture the theme of the poem. But it also contains important clues that help demystify what at first glance appears to be a poem of utter nonsense. A Silhouette is a dark profile, and one cast by moonlight is darker still. Indeed, this is a dark poem. It is a snapshot in the life of a woman who works by the light of the moon, a prostitute.

"putty on the walls" - sets the stage. She lives in a house (or perhaps just a room) in an ill state of repair. Visible putty on the walls brings to mind either poverty or apathy, and both speak to a bleak existence.

"frozen taco semen balls" - This is the meat of the poem. Four words make it clear that the poem is sexual in nature. Taco = pussy. Balls = testicles. Semen = "contractual obligation is satisfied." The odd man out is Frozen, which I will get to in a moment. The sequence of the four words in this line is crazy and chaotic, which in itself icaptures the chaotic lifestyle of a woman who juggles a nightly stream of meaningless sex with multiple, anonymous partners. Frozen refers to the lack of real passion, as it is with sex without love. Frozen also refers to a sense of being trapped, and of being desperately lonely.

"no one ever calls" - drives home the point that her clients see her only as a utility and not as a person. If anyone cared one lick about her, they would have picked up the phone and said hi. She laments the fact she has no friends and that, although her life is filled with sex, it is devoid of love. Her life is without texture or color, as empty and black as a silhouette cast by the moon.

 

[Senna Jawa]

digressing

hmmmn, on occasion serendipitous

OK, this did it...

A (long) time ago my oldest child told me that she likes word "serendipity". Her remark stayed with me for a long time, thus I had to write a poem in which I used this word--see:

http://www.literotica.com/p/digressing​

(It's Literotica, not me, who messed up the format of this poem, and of many of my other poems too).

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Here is a haiku I wrote this past summer:

Moonlight Silhouette

putty on the walls
frozen taco semen balls
no one ever calls
​

Now I am going to tell you about it.

First, the title. "Moonlight Silhouette" was chosen, like most titles, to capture the theme of the poem. But it also contains important clues that help demystify what at first glance appears to be a poem of utter nonsense. A Silhouette is a dark profile, and one cast by moonlight is darker still. Indeed, this is a dark poem. It is a snapshot in the life of a woman who works by the light of the moon, a prostitute.

"putty on the walls" - sets the stage. She lives in a house (or perhaps just a room) in an ill state of repair. Visible putty on the walls brings to mind either poverty or apathy, and both speak to a bleak existence.

"frozen taco semen balls" - This is the meat of the poem. Four words make it clear that the poem is sexual in nature. Taco = pussy. Balls = testicles. Semen = "contractual obligation is satisfied." The odd man out is Frozen, which I will get to in a moment. The sequence of the four words in this line is crazy and chaotic, which in itself icaptures the chaotic lifestyle of a woman who juggles a nightly stream of meaningless sex with multiple, anonymous partners. Frozen refers to the lack of real passion, as it is with sex without love. Frozen also refers to a sense of being trapped, and of being desperately lonely.

"no one ever calls" - drives home the point that her clients see her only as a utility and not as a person. If anyone cared one lick about her, they would have picked up the phone and said hi. She laments the fact she has no friends and that, although her life is filled with sex, it is devoid of love. Her life is without texture or color, as empty and black as a silhouette cast by the moon.

do you think anybody got the meaning without the explanation? Being too obscure isn't doing the reader any favours

 

[mynameisben]

do you think anybody got the meaning without the explanation? Being too obscure isn't doing the reader any favours

Thank you, Spell. I appreciate your comment.

It wasn't obscure by design. I almost never get feedback on anything I write, so it's really hard for me to tell if there even is a reader, let alone know whether they got my meaning or not.

The ultra concise format of haiku demands something extra of the reader to "get it," provided there is something there to get beyond what's on the surface. Moonlight Silhouette may be superficially obscure, but clues to its understanding are purposefully and heavily present.

I don't think I'd be doing the reader any favors by writing only on the surface, either.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Thank you, Spell. I appreciate your comment.

It wasn't obscure by design. I almost never get feedback on anything I write, so it's really hard for me to tell if there even is a reader, let alone know whether they got my meaning or not.

The ultra concise format of haiku demands something extra of the reader to "get it," provided there is something there to get beyond what's on the surface. Moonlight Silhouette may be superficially obscure, but clues to its understanding are purposefully and heavily present.

I don't think I'd be doing the reader any favors by writing only on the surface, either.

I don't wish to sound mean but has it ever occurred to you that no-one leaves feedback because they don't understand? It's no good being that deep that nobody can find you. Sorry I really don't want to sound harsh and everyone has to write how they want to and I'm the last one to lecture about haiku (not my forté at all) it would be interesting to know what Senna thought as he is far more experienced and proficient than I

 

[Senna Jawa]

it would be interesting to know what Senna thought

Now, and regardless of my quote-unquote qualifications, I have to respond . (Earlier I have decided not to). I'll comment directly under the original Ben's post.

 

[vrosej10]

Here is a haiku I wrote this past summer:

Moonlight Silhouette

putty on the walls
frozen taco semen balls
no one ever calls
​

Now I am going to tell you about it.

First, the title. "Moonlight Silhouette" was chosen, like most titles, to capture the theme of the poem. But it also contains important clues that help demystify what at first glance appears to be a poem of utter nonsense. A Silhouette is a dark profile, and one cast by moonlight is darker still. Indeed, this is a dark poem. It is a snapshot in the life of a woman who works by the light of the moon, a prostitute.

"putty on the walls" - sets the stage. She lives in a house (or perhaps just a room) in an ill state of repair. Visible putty on the walls brings to mind either poverty or apathy, and both speak to a bleak existence.

"frozen taco semen balls" - This is the meat of the poem. Four words make it clear that the poem is sexual in nature. Taco = pussy. Balls = testicles. Semen = "contractual obligation is satisfied." The odd man out is Frozen, which I will get to in a moment. The sequence of the four words in this line is crazy and chaotic, which in itself icaptures the chaotic lifestyle of a woman who juggles a nightly stream of meaningless sex with multiple, anonymous partners. Frozen refers to the lack of real passion, as it is with sex without love. Frozen also refers to a sense of being trapped, and of being desperately lonely.

"no one ever calls" - drives home the point that her clients see her only as a utility and not as a person. If anyone cared one lick about her, they would have picked up the phone and said hi. She laments the fact she has no friends and that, although her life is filled with sex, it is devoid of love. Her life is without texture or color, as empty and black as a silhouette cast by the moon.

This is most probably pseudo haiku, not haiku. if it is haiku, it is what's called a shopping list haiku, this is not a good thing. Haiku generally contain two images set beside each other, very occassionally one. End rhyme is ABSOLUTELY NOT allowed. It dominates such small poem. Assonance, consonance, alliteration, if subtly done and it contributes. Almost no one uses the five-seven-five count anymore. You have some good images but they don't interact with each other. Compare, contrast, associate is a good rule. Plus haiku are universally supposed to be present tense and that last line isn't and its a comment. But feel free to ignore me; I'm the local haiku nazi.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Now, after writing what follows, I have doubts about posting it. U'r welcome to demand that this post is removed, and moderators are welcome to do so. Just don't ask me to edit my post

Here is a haiku I wrote this past summer:

I am sure you wrote your text last summer, I am not sure what you wrote, I am sure that it was not haiku.

Moonlight Silhouette

putty on the walls
frozen taco semen balls
no one ever calls​

​

First, the title.

Haiku don't have titles (there is a minor, subtle, interesting complication here, but lets keep things simple). Make a safe assumption: either you write a haiku, and then no title; or you give your poem a title, and then you have haiku no more. If an author provided a title for their haiku, it would be like cheating. (You don't want to cheat, do you? ).

"Moonlight Silhouette" was chosen, like most titles, to capture the theme of the poem.

I don't know about "most", but you are right that it is common. Unfortunately! Don't do this. A title, when one is provided, is another element of the poem. It follows, that it should serve poetry. It should not be assumed that the standard role of a title in poetry is "to capture the theme of the poem".

But it also contains important clues that help demystify what at first glance appears to be a poem of utter nonsense.

It seems like you work in a wrong mode. You think that you can write--just like this--something that "appears to be utter nonsense", and then you can demystify it with the title. Thus your title would be a cheat sheet for the reader. Don't count on such schemes. And they are certainly alien to haiku.

Keep in mind the following principle: the poem on its basic lowest level must make a perfect sense (except for some rare "exotic"--meaning "strange"-- poems, which do not belong to the main road of poetry; such poems don't care about making any sense, they at the most play with the bits of sense for special effects). On the higher, metaphoric level, a poem does not have to be sharp or have a unique sense. On the contrary, on the metaphoric level certain vagueness, moodiness, multitude of interpretations, ... are even expected and often considered as advantage (as a rule). But when the direct images and actions in the text don't make sense or don't fit each other, then the author's excuses, that s/he had deep thingies in their super mind, will help exactly nothing--the text will still be junk. In short: the author may be a GENIUS but their poem can be garbage anyway.

A Silhouette is a dark profile, and one cast by moonlight is darker still.

Silhouette is not a profile (it could). Silhouette does not have to be dark. It can be white too. And the expression "Moonlight Silhouette" is not crisp, perhaps is simply incorrect, or an attempt at poetic license. Native English speakers can be more helpful. To me "Moonlight Silhouette" is the silhouette of moonlight, just like "cow silhouette" is the silhouette of a cow. Thus "Moonlight Silhouette" makes very little sense to me, nothing enjoyable at this moment (there is still a slim chance, despite such a somewhat unfortunate start, that the rest of the poem will clarify/demystify this flashy expression).

Indeed, this is a dark poem. It is a snapshot in the life of a woman who works by the light of the moon, a prostitute.

It's just your absurd opinion. It's obviously false, as shown by the text of your poem. When the claim (your interpretation) about an object (here your poem) does not apply to the object at all, as in this case, then such an opinion in common sense language is called "baloney". Do apply common sense when thinking about poems.

===

Going back to the issue of haiku. Haiku is mostly totally pure--it does not use any similes, (internal) metaphors, word games, ... The language is straight, the words mean what they mean, and the images stand for what they stand. While it's not a strict dogma, novices should stick to it for a longer time, should not try to justify their violation of this rule of the purity of the language and thinking.

Only globally, the whole haiku itself rather should amount to a metaphor (where the metaphor may depend on the interpretation; we may say that we deal with a family of metaphors). The same holds for many other poems too. That's how they transcend their subject matter.

 

[vrosej10]

Agreed. You said this a whole lot more eloquently than I could. It took me two years of solid practice before I could hit it and occassionally produce a decent haiku. I'm getting published now but it was a struggle and its hard to write both English poetry and Japanese forms concurrently because they require conflicting mindsets, the absence of the author being the biggest one. Haiku is a rigorous game.

 

[Senna Jawa]

English poetry and Japanese forms require conflicting mindsets, the absence of the author being the biggest one.

It's true that there is no room for author's ego. An author can have themselves in their haiku but just as anything else, like a stone or a cat or a winter coat. For instance, Issa appears in his haiku as a partner for flies, etc., like one more fly. Possibly, Issa haiku is not a middle of the road haiku but often more on the haiku fringes.

 

[vrosej10]

It's true that there is no room for author's ego. An author can have themselves in their haiku but just as anything else, like a stone or a cat or a winter coat. For instance, Issa appears in his haiku as a aprtner for flies, etc., like one more fly. Possibly, Issa haiku is not a middle of the road haiku but often more on the haiku fringes.

I like Issa. His poems are very sad and kind to animals. He had a shitty life from memory. I love Basho's crow poem. Pound's Metro Station poem gets so close to being its equal.