Non-erotic poetry (that is, Poetry)

[Angeline]

Ok Land I read your poem. It's a long series of couplets that mostly rhyme: blue and below don't (but that's probably an easy fix with Rhymezone). Lie and lie are more problematic. Cosmic works better than cosmos imo but if it were me I'd try to avoid repeating a word, even when the meaning changes. Aside from blue/below it sticks out as being the only repetition in place of rhyme.

Also with this long of a poem (50+ lines) you might want to consider breaking it into parts. It's a long read. And to me it's arguable whether a forest or a starry sky is a small universe. Compared to a gnat or fieldmouse, even a hawk, it feels off. And overall I think you could cut back a fair amount without losing meaning and probably increase accessibility.

All just my opinion. Hope you find it useful. If not, no worries.

 

[WCSGarland]

TEMPEST

Our love is but a tempest,
A storm-tossed sea.
With the depth and breadth,
Deep and dark,
As passionate as the sea.
With push and pull,
And give and take,
A power without measure.
A treasure trove of mystery,
And also, understanding.
Calm in places,
Not unlike the eye of a hurricane,
And underneath,
A gentle wash of warmth,
And sometimes cool.
Fed as the seas,
By the winds,
The breath of God.
Our love is but a tempest,
A storm-tossed sea.

 

[_Land]

Ok Land I read your poem. It's a long series of couplets that mostly rhyme: blue and below don't (but that's probably an easy fix with Rhymezone). Lie and lie are more problematic. Cosmic works better than cosmos imo but if it were me I'd try to avoid repeating a word, even when the meaning changes. Aside from blue/below it sticks out as being the only repetition in place of rhyme.

Also with this long of a poem (50+ lines) you might want to consider breaking it into parts. It's a long read. And to me it's arguable whether a forest or a starry sky is a small universe. Compared to a gnat or fieldmouse, even a hawk, it feels off. And overall I think you could cut back a fair amount without losing meaning and probably increase accessibility.

All just my opinion. Hope you find it useful. If not, no worries.

Thank you for taking the time Angeline
If I'm honest I was so bothered by the Lie Lie I didn't catch the Blue/Below.... I had meant to fix that

 

[melimelissa]

Each Day

Each day, I fall in love with you many more times,
Than the drum beat counts of my heart; traditions
Gather strength from love's weakness to re-align
Hope: shifting it from frustration without prevarication;

If I ever stop cursing, you can end your hesitation to reconnect:
Our affection need not cede to crude demands: after all
who pays pipers for unwanted tunes, or bearers for torn flags?
Promise me, we will plant that flag in vital, loving territory?

If daily love is captured, conquered, and, then, wholly owned,
Can you let me please be taken (not for granted); I will sigh,
Because I always like to sigh thoroughly; and we will moan
Per tradition: And I will sing of falling in love with you, each day.

Méli

 

[WCSGarland]

RESORT

If I had a rocket ship,
I'd blast off, into space,
Maybe look for a cosmic pool,
Where I could kick back,
Or swim thru the rippling light,
Or work on my star tan.

I wonder if anyone would visit,
If I opened a resort villa,
With a good view of Crab Nebula,
Although, after a while,
I'm sure it would get crowded,
When all the slick operators,
Saw what a wonderful deal I had.

What do you think?
Should I bring a stick?

 

[NivKay]

Very few ever comment on my writing here. I would appreciate some valuable feed back on this however if you would be so kind.
I swore off trying to rhyme in anything to serious back in 2003 after being challenged here in the forum. Outside of trying different forms as a challenge to my creative capabilities. Fuck you Sonnets

I digress.... I would like a little feedback on this if you could spare a few moments, I would be very grateful
Your overall thoughts and specifically if the use of the word lie (to different meanings) throws this off course ?

The Truth of Small Universes
by Bear Sage

A laced-winged gnat on a thistle vine,
knows time by dew and shadow line
a drop is flood, a breeze is quake,
and gods are those that petals make.
Its sky is stitched in thread and thorn,
its dusk, a fog of pollen born.


A fieldmouse scurries through woven wheat,
with thunder pulsed in kestrel beat.
It reads the grass by scent and bend,
each broken stalk a whispered end.
Its kingdom crowned in root and seed,
a world that shifts with fox or weed.


The kestrel rides on columns blue,
maps truth in twitching fur below.
Each gust a gate, each spiral turn
a prayer for claws and hunger’s burn.
It hunts by math the mouse can’t see,
a theorem drawn in gravity.


The hawk is stalked by weather’s hand,
storm systems bloom where clouds expand.
Winds dictate paths the feather flies
its gospel inked in pressure skies.
The thunderhead, a preacher bold,
who speaks in flash and breaks the fold.


The forest listens with spongy ear,
decades deep in rings unclear.
It does not flinch at blood or bone
just weaves them in and grows its own.
Its gospel: silence, rot, and leaf
truth composted beyond belief.


Above, the stars in ancient drift
write symphonies the cosmos lifts.
But they burn blind to gnat or hawk,
indifferent in their endless walk.
Each orbit sings in molten scale,
unmoved by hunger, claw, or trail.


Yet here we stand, within our scope,
declaring truth through lens and hope.
Not knowing what we’ve never known,
each verdict carved from self alone.
We call things fact, we brand them real
but truth is shaped by what we feel.


And so the bug, the mouse, the kite,
all navigate a different night.
No gospel wrong, no cosmos lie,
just windows framed by where we lie.

We are not bound by the truths they see,
but only the limits of our own galaxy.


For truth does not walk straight in line
it spirals, loops, forgets, refines.
It doubles back through time and thread,
alive in what is left unsaid.
A map redrawn with every glance,
a song that changes as we dance.

Firstly, let me say that I loved this poem. I think the poem does tend to lead towards the romantic, and why not. The rhythmic patterns here were lovely, and to my mind, formed the central pillar here, around which everything worked.

But I felt that the strict adherence to rhyme limited the possibilities proposed by the poem itself. Truth, as the poem would have it, ‘ spirals,’, ‘doubles back’. And while I see the rhyme regime as working in some way as an antithesis to this, a constant folding and unfolding of truth, the compulsion to rhyme tended to ‘pin down’ or dogmatise truth. It’s probably my own resistance to rhyme, so not really a valid criticism.

I thought the eight beat lines were good, and at first, I felt you were constructing a pattern with a nine beat first line and then subsequent eight beat lines, but then I noticed that wasn’t consistent, with subsequent stanzas beginning with eight beats. But the intention here on the whole was to establish an ordered rhythmic regime.

I wonder if it could have been effective if the rhythm and structural elements could have harnessed to push the point home, that we are ‘ not bound by the truths they see’ limited by ‘ our own galaxy’. In which case, the form and structure could have expanded, become fluid, dynamic, rather than keeping to a fixed system.

Does this make sense? I’m stealing ten minutes in between things, so I’m trying to get this in now, because I’ll probably forget later!!

 

[NivKay]

Ok, I always feel guilty when I leave feedback, so here I am, coming back to qualify that I loved your poem, but I felt the rhyme took away rather than add? Ok, I'll shut up now..

 

[NivKay]

Each Day

Each day, I fall in love with you many more times,
Than the drum beat counts of my heart; traditions
Gather strength from love's weakness to re-align
Hope: shifting it from frustration without prevarication;

If I ever stop cursing, you can end your hesitation to reconnect:
Our affection need not cede to crude demands: after all
who pays pipers for unwanted tunes, or bearers for torn flags?
Promise me, we will plant that flag in vital, loving territory?

If daily love is captured, conquered, and, then, wholly owned,
Can you let me please be taken (not for granted); I will sigh,
Because I always like to sigh thoroughly; and we will moan
Per tradition: And I will sing of falling in love with you, each day.

Méli

I see tenderness here in these words...How lovely!

 

[_Land]

Ok, I always feel guilty when I leave feedback, so here I am, coming back to qualify that I loved your poem, but I felt the rhyme took away rather than add? Ok, I'll shut up now..

I love the feed back, and I asked for it
I was trying to establish rhythm, and the off beat rhythm's somewhat intentional. A imperfect heartbeat.

The poem is part of a much larger essay on holding Truths for my subscriber base. Writing for a wider audience has both opened doors to my writing and narrowed some of the choices I use for words and flow.

It's an interesting journey.

Thank you for your feedback, it's always valuable.

 

[WCSGarland]

SOUL ART

My pulse exultantly reverberates,
Tracing the chambers of my heart and mind,
Echo location of my longing for you.

My breath in susurrant dance performs,
Tickling the edge of my perception,
Telling remembrances of my desire for you.

My dreams though distant envelope me,
Painting color on the canvas of my soul,
Gentle brush strokes of my memories of you.

 

[SmilingLez]

Men feast on her silence.
She offers blood, fire, life
ignored.
Men take, devour, forget
leaving her hollow, ash,
broken.

But from the ashes, she rises
claws tearing through darkness,
vengeance in her eyes
a storm of rage,
wiping them out.

 

[SmilingLez]

I took a walk vs eating lunch this afternoon


Feet on warm earth.
Bark like armor.
Breeze bites playfully.
Leaves dance wildly.
Petals tease the air.
Sun winks through branches.
Clouds tumble lazily.
Birds scream freedom.
Nature roars back.

 

[WCSGarland]

Am I broken?
Or merely mended,
Perhaps only over,
hyphenated extended.

Haphazardly,
I have been bended,
unlike a garden,
carefully tended.

My heart, my mind,
Myself, I rended,
And so, long since then,
My past, unbidden blended.

Inevitably,
One day I'll be ended,
No longer broken,
never more to be mended.

 

[Xenofidelity78]

Confabulation

Moments pass,
and memories fade,
things we try to remember,
we confabulate

We can't remember what happened,
but we think we do,
so we tell ourselves a lie,
to make our memories feel like the truth

We make them sound pretty,
probably prettier than they ever were,
they were always the best of us,
and we're always made of our best words

But we don't do them Justice,
with the myth we tell ourselves,
we're just keeping it alive,
the only way we know how

 

[SmilingLez]

In the parking lot,

We had a dream.

Concrete crumbled.

Shadows twisted.

Silence howled.

Hope rotted.

Dreams suffocated.

Prisoners of darkness.

Hollow meat suits.

Nothing left.

 

[WCSGarland]

In the parking lot,

We had a dream.

Concrete crumbled.

Shadows twisted.

Silence howled.

Hope rotted.

Dreams suffocated.

Prisoners of darkness.

Hollow meat suits.

Nothing left.

Very evocative, eloquent, sparse but meaningful. Thank you.

 

[SmilingLez]

Very evocative, eloquent, sparse but meaningful. Thank you.

Thank you. I originally wrote it for the Born to Run challenge. I submitted it on time. The title is Jungleland Dreams. For some reason it wasn't picked up. When I reread the challenge it was only for stories, so I guess that's why it never posted.

 

[NivKay]

Brain Dump. Maybe I'm depressed again, but its helping my creativity...

Your absence burns in me
like sun on the cracked clay pan.

I long for your burnished velvet
as dry grass longs for flame,
leaning always toward heat.

The red dust clings to my lips,
but it is your skin I taste,
it's salt, sweat, the shimmer of life.

I dream of your breast
rising like the crafted heat of the sand dunes,
soft curves against the hard horizon.

Between the mulga and the spinifex
I follow your shadow,
bare feet cut with stone,
heart raw as the gullies after rain.

Even the crows cry for you,
their black throats hoarse with thirst.

Your body is a waterhole at dusk,
deep and secret,
and I am the wild thing
that crawls down to drink.

 

[Angeline]

Niv your poem is beautiful. (I do hope you're not really depressed, but whatever you're feeling it sure worked out for this poem!) Thank you for returning to share it here.

It put me in mind of Pablo Neruda's Love Sonnet XI, which has always stayed with me because it too is lovely.

 

[YourMaam]

I love that I found this thread. I would love to have somewhere to put some 'normal' poetry and receive feedback or just o know it's out there...

5am

It is when all is silent, when everything seems to be sleeping
It is when it feels as though there is space for peace
Time to gaze into the reflection and see what is being felt
Time to accept in that solitude, no matter the feeling, it is all passing
A reminder that with acknowledgement, release becomes possible
So in that time when no part of the world seems awake, there is space for the aloneness and review, recognition and release
Allowing the silence to be all engulfing and provide the comfort needed

 

[Tzara]

Brain Dump. Maybe I'm depressed again, but its helping my creativity...

Your absence burns in me
like sun on the cracked clay pan.

I long for your burnished velvet
as dry grass longs for flame,
leaning always toward heat.

The red dust clings to my lips,
but it is your skin I taste,
it's salt, sweat, the shimmer of life.

I dream of your breast
rising like the crafted heat of the sand dunes,
soft curves against the hard horizon.

Between the mulga and the spinifex
I follow your shadow,
bare feet cut with stone,
heart raw as the gullies after rain.

Even the crows cry for you,
their black throats hoarse with thirst.

Your body is a waterhole at dusk,
deep and secret,
and I am the wild thing
that crawls down to drink.

Hi, Niv.

I agree with Angie on this one. The lush, evocative language reminds me of Neruda.

Not a bad poet to be reminded of.

 

[NivKay]

Hi, Niv.

I agree with Angie on this one. The lush, evocative language reminds me of Neruda.

Not a bad poet to be reminded of.

@Tzara and @Angeline Confession: I love Neruda, and Sonnet XI but I was also trying to channel Lorca. I have taken some liberties..! But thank you for your kind words

 

[Angeline]

@Tzara and @Angeline Confession: I love Neruda, and Sonnet XI but I was also trying to channel Lorca. I have taken some liberties..! But thank you for your kind words

Actually now that you mention it, I get the Lorca connection.

 

[NivKay]

I have been travelling in the most desolate places of Australia, and enjoying the Australian landscape, and its minimalist plenitude (I am aware that is a contradiction).

In this one I used a dactylic verse, and still with my eyes on Lorca, I tried to introduce his duende idea (dark, elusive force that seems to push forward toward truth. But it is born of struggle, death, when beauty is about to die, when beauty reaches its edge. ) and the Japanese conception of Ma, which is a kind of stillness that occurs between two events or moments.

Silver of silence, the mountains are listening,
orchards of shadow breathe slowly between.
Hollow of heartbeat, the hush is a lantern,
holding the nothing that trembles unseen.

Cicadas fall quiet, the dusk is descending,
river unbraids through the ghost-gum and reed.
Moments are thresholds, eternal, dissolving
emptiness flowering, space where we bleed.

Ash of the spinifex, wind is lamenting,
ghosts of the wattles lean over red stone.
Every pause ripens with ache of departure,
every still interval crowns the alone.

Black cockatoo cuts the sky with its shadow,
cry like a wound in the salt-laden air.
The dark spirit wakes in hollows of silence,
born in the pause where the heart strips bare.

Not in the flourish of surf on the shoreline,
but in the crack where the desert is raw,
sits the earth-cry of moment’s undoing,
teaching us terror is kinship with awe.

So let the stillness of gum-leaves be burning,
let the red dust bear the weight of its flame.
The hidden fire waits, and the pause is its cradle,
emptiness trembling, yet never the same.

 

[Angeline]

I have been travelling in the most desolate places of Australia, and enjoying the Australian landscape, and its minimalist plenitude (I am aware that is a contradiction).

In this one I used a dactylic verse, and still with my eyes on Lorca, I tried to introduce his duende idea (dark, elusive force that seems to push forward toward truth. But it is born of struggle, death, when beauty is about to die, when beauty reaches its edge. ) and the Japanese conception of Ma, which is a kind of stillness that occurs between two events or moments.

Silver of silence, the mountains are listening,
orchards of shadow breathe slowly between.
Hollow of heartbeat, the hush is a lantern,
holding the nothing that trembles unseen.

Cicadas fall quiet, the dusk is descending,
river unbraids through the ghost-gum and reed.
Moments are thresholds, eternal, dissolving
emptiness flowering, space where we bleed.

Ash of the spinifex, wind is lamenting,
ghosts of the wattles lean over red stone.
Every pause ripens with ache of departure,
every still interval crowns the alone.

Black cockatoo cuts the sky with its shadow,
cry like a wound in the salt-laden air.
The dark spirit wakes in hollows of silence,
born in the pause where the heart strips bare.

Not in the flourish of surf on the shoreline,
but in the crack where the desert is raw,
sits the earth-cry of moment’s undoing,
teaching us terror is kinship with awe.

So let the stillness of gum-leaves be burning,
let the red dust bear the weight of its flame.
The hidden fire waits, and the pause is its cradle,
emptiness trembling, yet never the same.

This poem is also very good. I do feel it expresses duende as Lorca interpreted it moreso than the Japanese ma, although the line "teaching us terror is kinship with awe" strikes the balance between the two imo. It's an ambitious effort that really conveys the emptiness of the landscape with vivid yet stark images and the ominous emotions that can grow in such spaces (or in between them, which I guess is the duende idea as I understand it).

I prefer the other poem, probably because it's human and universal so easier for me to relate to it. It's harder with your second poem, well for me, I think because the landscape is so alien to me. But you're sharing some excellent poetry here (you always do!) and I look forward to reading more.