who do you think you are?

[JCSTREET]

not a challenge (inspired by one someplace else), just a thread, to post your poetry about what makes you you


here's mine:

who do i think i am?


think? i know:

i am dust and starbrites
collective consciousness of nanoseconds
a cumulative mass of memories
responses-past of physical
and emotional
stimuli

i am
white-water and the sunlit stream
waves and rain and colder condensations

i am prism
mirror
pupilled iris and lake's surface
—way-station of oxygen
human-manufacturer of other, older gases

i am the electric spark of life
the pump and slew of bodily parts
their flex and calcification
the untold power of a mind
that lives beyond parameters of flesh

i am the hand held out
the shoulder
the soft heart and the wise
bender not breaker
adapter-survivor
honed where once blunt
tempered by trials

stripped naked
—the learner of lessons—
i clothe myself in light and shade
of my own choosing,
in humility, honesty & understanding
aware of my own faults

i am
celebrant of humanity
judge of transgressions
the mouthpiece and the scales
in balance
in justice
in honour and in truth
for it matters
to me
who. i. am

​

.

Some good poet-laureate lines there, Butters, to whit:

i am
white-water and the sunlit stream
waves and rain and colder condensations

i am prism
mirror
pupilled iris and lake's surface

----there is more but those immediately charmed me

 

[Tzara]

Tzara I am overwhelmed with gratitude and respect.

Don't be. I wanted to comment on the poem because I liked it and wanted to talk about it.

That's kind of what poetry's about.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I am the girl who died three times
in three cities. First at ******
under the weight of a man
full grown, the metal
of his buckle clanking on the wood
of my twin sized bed.

When I woke, I was silent as spring,
Persephone walking to the surface, quietly.
Walking back to my mother's helpless arms.
What joy voice was left had curiously
hidden in my pencil.

I am the girl who died three times
in three cities. Second was at nineteen
skidding on black ice in a '62 Chevy Impala.

When I woke, I was Odin under gauze,
having traded pretty in the night for a different
if not better sight. I am the girl who died

three times in three cities. The last time
you were there. You know how and why.

When I woke, I was the Phoenix,
ashes in my wake.

You'll have to change the second line or I'll get into trouble for not insisting it's taken down.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Speaking volumes

My life's book is one of paragraphs,
each chapter carefully stowed away.
Some under darker bindings, with no
illustrations to give a clue as to what
lies within. Chained and tightly locked.
.
It's probably my imagination, or lack
of it, that I should remember the past
as only mountains of rocks to climb,
crusades to fight, forgetting flowers
nestling in crevices, to bloom as far
as the eye can see, through vistas
to the horizon, spilling over the page.
.
My chapters are of different lengths,
although this last one lurches forward,
and the foxing on the pages, betrays
my book's age with the leather split,
but now that's from sweet blossoms
escaping to trail through shared lines
of your words of love and longing.
.
My book no longer over, begins again.

 

[todski28]

I'm the shattered-knuckle x-ray at 3am
when binge drinking lapped up the salt of excitement
and stabbed it hard into your ribs
like heart burn for keeps

the shattered jaw from a fathers love
the struggling to belong in a sense of wandering
sorrow
the projectuon of fear because I was too big too young
when female teachers sent me from the class before I got in
simply because they had no way to control me

the priveldged class
swinging dick
the battered and assaulted
the carwreck no one helps you from beneath
the only things handed to me were fractured bones
life advice on what not to be
and a taste for hard drugs

I asked my wife how many times
had she been stabbed?
Shot at?
Had random men hurl glass bottles at her
along with abuse because she had a flat tyre late at night
and was changing it on the road way?
How many times had she had men try to fight her simply so they could claim a victory over the strong
How many times she had been struck with pool cues
sticks
bricks
metal poles?
How many broken bones she'd be given by someone elses rage?
How many times she'd been asked to put away her camera when taking pictures of her own children

She slapped me when I laughed at her
scoffing because
she thinks I'm priveledged

Where was she during this weeks 5 days of 40-45 degrees of heat....
at home in the aircondioning with the kids
the sweetness of a temperature controlled life
my pores stink of sweat and pain
grinding myself to dust
streaks of dirt stream down my arms
and face
a rivulet of mascara
as my body leaks the silent tears of exhaustion
and my mind wills it through another hour
because I have to provide
have to do something to be worth anything to anyone
have to do it harder and better
have to lift more
be more

I understand why
always have
Its the priveldge of the wage gap
sucking it up for 85-100 hours a week
enduring for their sake
I am sysiphus
but i trudge my weight with dignity
not spite or pity or hatred
I roll that stone
and picture what they have better than I did
because I'm willing to throw myself
behind this rock
and push

I fucked up many times
broke the rules
broke people
broke myself against the river
trying to dive from the bridge

And here I sit
nursing my aches
in proper stoicism
punching words onto a screen
shouting a silent defiance
to no one who cares
because a lived experience
is only a cudgel used by the weak
to validate that weakness

who am I
simply a cis-white male
relishing my extra priveledge
...yeah that'll do

 

[AmericanTrash]

This is the poem I am commenting on.

The poem was gently edited by Bronzeage by necessity but later edited by me for clarity. Thanks again for the commentary.

 

[Piscator]

Paperback

If I were a book,
I’d be a paperback

Not the type the Beatles celebrated
maybe a quasi-comic dark mystery
with a nondescript graphic cover and
perhaps a dedication to mother
but no glowing reviews,
in fact no reviews at all.

Buried in a secondhand secondhand
bookstore in an iffy neighbourhood
on the free side of the buy
one get one free counter.

Never to be illuminated by
the bright lights of
Kimble® or Kobo®
e-readers or those
who use them.

But if somehow,
you picked it up,
I hope it might draw
a smile or possibly
a sigh at what
might have
been.