Non-erotic poetry (that is, Poetry)

[_Land]

Oh my _Land, you know what I love.

Fire escape lullaby.

Thank you

Laura
my doo-wop princess
married jazz and poetry
campfire songs in girl
group harmonies, crashing
chords through three-octaves,
her mezzo-soprano soared
over New York's clattering
cacophony, neon proud or whisper
soft that silken range worn close
to the skin, a weaver's daughter
born for the loom's desire*



Quoted end phrase from "Emmie," Eli and the 13th Confession

Wow, did you have this filed away for just this moment ? This is beautiful.

"neon proud or whisper
soft that silken range worn close
to the skin,"

Effing amazing line

 

[Angeline]

Wow, did you have this filed away for just this moment ? This is beautiful.

"neon proud or whisper
soft that silken range worn close
to the skin,"

Effing amazing line

Nope, I was just riffing on what you wrote so thank you for inspiring me.

 

[42BelowsBack]

New essay up, this time with works cited and bibliography:

In case, one would like to suffer: https://www.literotica.com/s/the-poetics-of-dreaming-in-borges

(Comment curated 01/22/26)

In rereading your essay I appreciate the work put in and your enjoyment in writing it. I stand by the original 5 Stars I gave it.

 

[_Land]

In reading your essay I appreciate the work put in and your enjoyment in writing it. I gave you 5 Stars. But I don’t agree. I however am a fan of Foucault, in particular his discourse on Governmentally.

I have read it as well and enjoyed it. The writing was superb regardless of opinions.

I have been working on this since it was first posted


Burrow of Becoming

He dies a little
each time he writes
each letter a coffin nail,
each sentence a resurrection
with someone else’s voice.

Not truth.
Not meaning.
But the quiet ecstasy
of unknowing knowing,
where the world justifies itself
only as
an aesthetic sigh.


A mole tunnels
his palace beneath the skin
cracks
with every heartbeat
of the earth.
He patches.
He frets.
He listens for enemies
that may only be
his own breath
echoing back.

No doorway is safe.
No structure perfect.
Peace is a project
he never finishes.

Somewhere above
another him watches,
concealed behind brambles,
imagining himself
safe inside.
Dreaming
the burrow whole.
Dreaming
the dreamer
who dreams the burrow.

He becomes two:
the builder
and the watcher,
the ghost
and the god.

The pages multiply
a burrow of text,
a soft repetition
of death and return.
In this abyss,
only voices.
No names.
No flesh.

Only the sacred labor
of dying well,
over and over,
until even the dying
becomes
home.

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

New essay up, this time with works cited and bibliography:

In case, one would like to suffer: https://www.literotica.com/s/the-poetics-of-dreaming-in-borges

I read it. One word, brevity. Apply it. 5 Stars.

 

[NivKay]

Thanks for the feedback. It was published as a chapter in a collection of essays in “Literature and Sensation” by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2008, and of course it was never meant to be the last word on the topic. It’s certainly not The Bill of Rights! It proposes further discussion, so disagreement is part of our DNA, but perhaps, in the spirit of discussion, you could point out what aspect of it you disagreed with and why? Why did the argument fail, or did not quite hit the mark? What did I not consider? @42BelowsBack @SpermFactory

As for applying brevity, how do you think brevity would have have helped, in what way? Did the argument lose its way? What was unnecessary to my argument? @MrMrsMrsMr

Thank you all for reading it!

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

Thank you for contextualizing your essay

Brevity works well when communicating complex ideas. Brevity can extend your audience range. Brevity is a useful mechanism for bridging an intellectual divide. Especially when supported by a well branched research ethic.

Even though poetry is often an individual act. We are all on the same page. Organically creating a Lit Poetry workshop.

 

[NivKay]

I am, as I said, appreciative.. just wanted to see other side, that’s all!!
Thank you again.. will be posting another soon!

 

[42BelowsBack]

Thanks for the feedback. It was published as a chapter in a collection of essays in “Literature and Sensation” by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2008, and of course it was never meant to be the last word on the topic. It’s certainly not The Bill of Rights! It proposes further discussion, so disagreement is part of our DNA, but perhaps, in the spirit of discussion, you could point out what aspect of it you disagreed with and why? Why did the argument fail, or did not quite hit the mark? What did I not consider? @42BelowsBack @SpermFactory

As for applying brevity, how do you think brevity would have have helped, in what way? Did the argument lose its way? What was unnecessary to my argument? @MrMrsMrsMr

Thank you all for reading it!

To disagree is an agreement of value.

A brief reply. Coleridge’s arguments are Western Centric. As are the others cited.

Western thinkers access Kublai Khan through the lens of interpretation. Language matters.

For example in Korean, the water holds the cup. This is distinct. For English language speakers the cup holds the water. This is difference. In Bruce Lee’s Art of the Intercepting Fist, water becomes the cup. This is interpretation.

As we know, the world is perceptually and culturally diverse. Western philosophers often discount this. In Western culture we inhabit the same mental space individually as a collective. As do our poems. This does not apply for all cultures. An example is the existence of three gender identities in some pre Western contact languages i.e they have male and female specific gender based words; they linguistically recognize the existent of a third gender through non binary gender pronouns. This is alien to Western thinking.

‘…Coleridge argues, “…imagination is the mind in its highest state of creative insight and alertness…”

Fighting to preserve life is a creative act. I experienced fighting as my mind in its highest state of creative alertness. When unforeseen, fighting for your life is instinctive, not an act of imagination. CQB is bodily poetry in motion.

This is not a commentary on the quality of your essay. I realize you understand that. There are others that don’t.

I apologize, I will be more careful with my comments in the future. NivKay, I am here to explore my own thinking on poetry, to hear others. To appreciate diversity. To write poems. To find my voice. Not to debate poetics.

I’m in the hole NivKay. I want to write a poem.

I appreciate you for sharing.

Best,

 

[Wat_Tyler]

>snip<

Fighting to preserve life is a creative act. I posit fighting is the mind in its highest state of creative alertness. Fighting for your own life is instinctive, not an act of imagination. CQB is bodily poetry in motion. To disagree is an agreement.

>snip<

I had never considered this and yet it makes perfect sense.


It also explains why I like watching predators prey, and also watching prey escape.

 

[_Land]

Western thinkers access Kublai Khan through the lens of interpretation. Language matters.

Like trying to convert a Tanka written in Japanese to English or a Western Tanka to Japanese poetry!

The moment Poetry becomes contained by a theory it no longer becomes mine. It is no longer an art form.

The moment poetry becomes properly theorized from whatever perspective the universe will shatter.

Can you contain the universe in its infinity
from our single view and voice from this rock we live on?

Part of the reason I enjoy reading poems. even the crappy ones that are not well crafted or just jinky rhyme scheme or nonsense to me is because it's someone else's perspective it's a different view of the universe

The poems that I wrote 20 years ago wouldn't align with my view of the universe now.

As roles expand, understanding is widened new perceptions become visible and can be expressed.


Theorizing anything has value in our current knowledge and understanding but every theory is just a notch in the belt of our expanding world of poetry/universe


From This Rock
(a response in perspective)

I write from this rock
small, spinning, loud
with the hum of our own importance.

We name stars
we’ll never touch,
map silence
as if it can be owned,
call it theory
when it merely leans
against our limitations.

Poetry,
they say,
should be structured
but breath isn’t.

Try converting
a tanka into English,
watch the soul
slip out the seams.
No translation holds
what the wind meant
in the original tongue.

I don’t write
to define the universe.
I write
because I can’t contain it.
Because some nights
my view stretches
no further than the edge
of my skin
and still I reach
for the stars
with ink.

The poem is not the point.
The point is
I was here
and this is what I saw.
My version of light.
My angle on truth.
My breath,
cracked and offered.

Even the broken rhyme,
even the janky verse
that limps instead of sings
it matters.
It is a fragment
of someone’s cosmos,
a different window
into the same unknowable dark.

What I wrote
twenty years ago
was true,
then.
Like Saturn from a child’s telescope
crude, but still beautiful.
Still real.

The moment we fix poetry
to a doctrine
is the moment
it stops breathing.

The universe doesn’t speak
in couplets.
It speaks
in collapse, in bloom,
in the wind off a page
that’s still being written
in a voice we haven’t earned yet.

And still
I try.
From this rock.
This flicker.
This unrepeatable vantage.
I try.

 

[42BelowsBack]

Thanks for the feedback. It was published as a chapter in a collection of essays in “Literature and Sensation” by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2008, and of course it was never meant to be the last word on the topic. It’s certainly not The Bill of Rights! It proposes further discussion, so disagreement is part of our DNA, but perhaps, in the spirit of discussion, you could point out what aspect of it you disagreed with and why? Why did the argument fail, or did not quite hit the mark? What did I not consider? @42BelowsBack @SpermFactory

As for applying brevity, how do you think brevity would have have helped, in what way? Did the argument lose its way? What was unnecessary to my argument? @MrMrsMrsMr

Thank you all for reading it!

On Kafka, for the 2025 a poem a week

Unknown Man


diaspora on a street corner


Circa (is Jazz)


My steel strings
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah

On my Street Corner!
Swollen feet,
boot licks
laceless!

Chika-chicka -Kafka

My stage is
a Box car
Rolling, Cadillac,
Castle.

my geetah EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah
EeeeUuuwooo-chika-chikahh -Kafka!

A disused train my thought cocoon
hungover the cotton in my mouth
is a disused rail-yard
in my throat this gravel,
-a stream bed singing

EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah
My fate was never in ahh your rail-car
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah

My song slip in a sip of whiskyy
life long my head a miasma,
you put your Judgin
in my tin cup

EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah

Hunger is ma money thief
mah belly romantist
maa boney hip, flask, in my body
hunger is a mean faced hand
in my body skinny sun burned clock

Chika-chika-Kafka, my steel strings
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah

Somewhere on a Street cornah!
Kafka, you were merely standing there.
Momentarily.
Historically.
Forever.

While I was EeeeUuuwooo-there ah-ah
singing illegitimately with you
chicka-chicka Kafka
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah

Knee high, to your shoe lace
calling your name, making
my steel string go
EeeeUuuwooo-ah-ah
Chika-chika -Kafka



No 7 of 52. 2025 poem a week challenge

 

[_Land]

The Meeting

She said
I had a firm grip
on the presentation.

Asked if I could
lay it out
one more time
for those in the back
who hadn’t quite
felt the impact.

So I spread the figures
slowly
tongue pressed to teeth
and walked her
through every rise
and drop.

She gasped
the margins were tighter
than she expected.
She wasn’t sure
she could handle
this much
growth
without adjustments.

I offered
to go deeper
into the data.
She bit her pen.

“Please,”
she whispered.
“I want the full spread.”

Her assistant blushed
when I mentioned
bottom lines.
Someone dropped a folder.
Papers spilled
like secrets.
No one bent to gather them.

By the time we wrapped,
her blouse was wrinkled
from leaning in
too close.

And I
needed
a shower
before the next call.

 

[WCSGarland]

Okay, so this non-erotic poem is already published. It's gotten one vote - one star. Is it as bad as that one vote indicates?

 

[_Land]

Okay, so this non-erotic poem is already published. It's gotten one vote - one star. Is it as bad as that one vote indicates?

It's a bit hard on the tongue, it could just be the format. but remember this is literotica not poetry monthly.... I wouldn't rate it a one, but I wouldn't give it 5 either. You have other works I enjoy a lot better. IMHO.

I had someone who was offended by the subject matter one star and comment that they didn't like 'this" at all, someone else gave it 5 stars....

Same guy one stared my poem for Laura Nyro and said it wasn't original and subtly called it plaguerism..... He comments on a lot of poetry..... Must be his full time job ..... Lol

The point is don't worry to much on the ratings..... Your not, and your poetry isn't meant to be every one's cup of tea


_Land

 

[WCSGarland]

It's a bit hard on the tongue, it could just be the format. but remember this is literotica not poetry monthly.... I wouldn't rate it a one, but I wouldn't give it 5 either. You have other works I enjoy a lot better. IMHO.

I had someone who was offended by the subject matter one star and comment that they didn't like 'this" at all, someone else gave it 5 stars....

Same guy one stared my poem for Laura Nyro and said it wasn't original and subtly called it plaguerism..... He comments on a lot of poetry..... Must be his full time job ..... Lol

The point is don't worry to much on the ratings..... Your not, and your poetry isn't meant to be every one's cup of tea


_Land

Yeah, the format is a bit complicated. Perhaps too complicated for some. My wife said it reminded her of some existentialist poetry from the 60's... just the kind of stuff she'd expect from me. Thanks dear?

 

[_Land]

Yeah, the format is a bit complicated. Perhaps too complicated for some. My wife said it reminded her of some existentialist poetry from the 60's... just the kind of stuff she'd expect from me. Thanks dear?

Don't feel to bad I wrote seasoned veterans for my wife's love affair with salt and pepper shakers......

She wasn't impressed either

 

[Angeline]

Okay, so this non-erotic poem is already published. It's gotten one vote - one star. Is it as bad as that one vote indicates?

I agree with Land: I wouldn't be too concerned about one-votes at Lit, at least not on poems. People vote the way they do for all kinds of reasons as I'm sure you know. They don't like you, they want their friend to get a better score and on and on. I've had poems that were on the top list one-bombed into oblivion. I trust feedback I get here way more than votes.

I did vote though and gave the poem a 4 though in my mind it's more like a 3.75 or so. It's not "bad"; you write well, good flow and word choices. The problem I see is twofold. First, the lines are long so it's a lot to get through, especially given that it's so abstract. And this being Lit most readers won't be so interested. Second is that abstract topic. I think I understand the poem and there are plenty of poets who write abstract, vague or convoluted poems that are considered great. But I think most readers prefer poetry that's more concrete and narrative. It's not a matter of good or bad imo, but what the average reader prefers.

That's just my opinion.

 

[WCSGarland]

@_Land & @Angeline
Thank you both for the feedback.

 

[melimelissa]

I agree with Land: I wouldn't be too concerned about one-votes at Lit, at least not on poems. People vote the way they do for all kinds of reasons as I'm sure you know. They don't like you, they want their friend to get a better score and on and on. I've had poems that were on the top list one-bombed into oblivion. I trust feedback I get here way more than votes.

I did vote though and gave the poem a 4 though in my mind it's more like a 3.75 or so. It's not "bad"; you write well, good flow and word choices. The problem I see is twofold. First, the lines are long so it's a lot to get through, especially given that it's so abstract. And this being Lit most readers won't be so interested. Second is that abstract topic. I think I understand the poem and there are plenty of poets who write abstract, vague or convoluted poems that are considered great. But I think most readers prefer poetry that's more concrete and narrative. It's not a matter of good or bad imo, but what the average reader prefers.

That's just my opinion.

Concrete poetry may fall from heights,
That can feel Promethean: quiet
Critique may provoke
Thoughts of a sugar coat,
If base feedback does not cause a riot...

Complex ideas are just not the goal:
Convoluted verse does take a toll,
Simplicity's designed
To behead the "best" line,
Spiking it on a feudal, wood pole...

Though to represent fine metaphors,
So delivery's true, clear and sure,
You must grease the spike,
And row boats (through the night)
To rescue dead dreams "best" before..

Harsh critics chuck them in the drink,
In hopes (like Moore's head) they will shrink
From living memory,
As doggerel stays key,
With shite writing, (phewfff), saved from the brink...

Méli

 

[_Land]

Concrete poetry may fall from heights,
That can feel Promethean: quiet
Critique may provoke
Thoughts of a sugar coat,
If base feedback does not cause a riot...

Complex ideas are just not the goal:
Convoluted verse does take a toll,
Simplicity's designed
To behead the "best" line,
Spiking it on a feudal, wood pole...

Though to represent fine metaphors,
So delivery's true, clear and sure,
You must grease the spike,
And row boats (through the night)
To rescue dead dreams "best" before..

Harsh critics chuck them in the drink,
In hopes (like Moore's head) they will shrink
From living memory,
As doggerel stays key,
With shite writing, (phewfff), saved from the brink...

Méli

Ah yes poetry’s gallows sport:
Where verses swing short of the port,
And critics in wigs
Throw literary figs
At lines that dare dance out of court.

I brought a haiku to a duel
Where limericks reigned and rhyme ruled.
The sonnet took fright,
Villanelles died of spite,
And blank verse was mocked as a fool.

Still, we row on, oar by cliché,
Through meterless fog and wordplay,
With metaphor oiled,
And irony boiled,
Serving satire on silvered cliché.

So let them hurl pomp from their perch
We pen from the pew, not the church.
For wit is a thief,
Stealing structure for grief,
Then laughing while burning the verse.

 

[_Land]

They came armed with rhyme
I unsheathed five-seven-five
and left the field hushed.

 

[melimelissa]

Ah yes poetry’s gallows CAN sport:
Verses THAT swing short of the port,
And critics in wigs
Throw literaL figs
At lines that dare dance out of court.

I brought a haiku to a duel
Where limericks reigned and rhyme ruled.
The sonnetS took fright,
Villanelles died of spite,
And blank verse was mocked as a fool.

Still, we row on, oar by cliché,
Through meterless fog and wordplay,
With metaphor oiled,
And irony boiled,
Serving SILVERED satire LIKE COSTLY PATÉ.

So let them hurl pomp from their perch
We pen from the pew, not the church.
For wit is a thief,
Stealing structure for grief,
Then laughing while burning the WORST.

A cliché's well-worn; so I feel
You're unfair and reckless in claims,
Marrying unearthed past to fresh verse,
It's hardly repeating old aims;

If you disagree, then you're wrong: and I'll mock
Baseless tries to do these verses down,
I appreciate that some will knock
Tedious crumpled rags, badly sewn...

Into Kennedy measles - MAGA fools,
Who, cluelessly, forget parody,
Of healthy living, depressing, uncool:
Fluoride loss rots humility...

(In sum)

I equate returned Tudor head* - see
Post axe in hard-worked poetry.

*of STM - see recent press

Méli
----
PS: I reserve the right to be justifiably annoyed at your stupid piss take.
You really do owe me an apology - so grovel in verse that actually scans. if you can
(see my corrections in UC to your lazy scrawled limericks above ) -

All good poetry - even humble limericks - needs attention to detail and proper scansion to be worth setting down, regardless of content.

PPS: I'm not really annoyed - but please think before you piss on others' work in your enthusiasm for decrying rubbish writing.

Méli

 

[melimelissa]

They came armed with rhyme
I unsheathed five-seven-five
and left the field hushed.

truly following
the correct haiku metre
might justify hush

(your silent (ed) syllables queered the pitch for me a little)
Though your content is far better than my hysteria

Méli

 

[_Land]

A cliché's well-worn; so I feel
You're unfair and reckless in claims,
Marrying unearthed past to fresh verse,
Is hardly repeating old aims;

If you disagree you are wrong: I will mock
Such baseless fries to do verses down,
I appreciate that some will knock
Tedious rags, so badly sewn...

Into Kennedy measles - MAGA fools,
Who, cluelessly, forget parody,
Of healthy living, depressing - uncool
Fluoride loss rots humility...

(In sum)

I equate returned (STM) head
Post axe in a hard-worked poetic thread.



----
PS: I reserve the right to be annoyed at your stupid piss take.
You really do owe me an apology - so grovel in verse that actually scans if you can
(see my corrections in UC to your lazy scrawling above)

PPS: I'm not really annoyed - but please think before you piss on others' work in your enthusiasm for decrying rubbish writing.

Méli

Oh but satire wears many a face
some drunk, some divine, some debased.
To mock is an art, not a tantrum, dear friend,
and parody’s punch must land at the end.

You speak of cliché with a scholar’s disdain,
yet dress rebuttals in yesterday’s chain.
History’s threads, when stitched with new flame,
burn louder than those who just curse the frame.

Let Kennedy cough in his chlorine-free sleep,
let fools take their fluoride out with their teeth
we’ll sip irony sharp from chalices cracked,
and duel with quills where dull minds retract.

_Land