Volume 1, Issue 2
Parsat's note: Another ten pages of poetry, another issue! It's been great to see the spontaneous thoughts that arise from our fellow poets, it really is quite illuminating.
Disclaimer: I repost poetry in the same regard as a poem would be reposted in a contest judging. I acknowledge that your poetry is your own intellectual property. As no one objected to me making a digest, I have assumed that by posting in the thread you allow me to compile your poem if I see fit. If you hold objection with me reposting your poetry, please contact me in my comments. Thank you.
Poems:
aknerd
XD lmfao
Culture reaches new low
LOL
has to be much worse than hell
:0 OMG
The internet's not for me
^^ jkjk
I'd take reality anyday
Pazx says: "Poor sucker who has to create a poem out of an emote and an acronym." I'd say he's absolutely write, but aknerd pulls it off with aplomb and a healthy dose of sarcasm. MoonFairy gets the "WTFOMGBBQ line" award for giving this first line.
Xzeno
It's a bloody business!
Signing papers, nothing more.
It's a bloody business!
There's nothing to abhor.
It's a bloody business!
People do it every day.
It's a bloody business!
We have to live some kind of way.
It's just a bloody business.
Said the spider to the fly.
It's a bloody business,
where good men go to die.
This poem was followed by a good amount of self-castigation...but my reply is that cliches are cliches for a reason. They represent something that speaks to many people regardless of their situation, and your poem speaks. Great control of meter too, you do me justice.
aknerd
What you see is not me - I have died
I do not notice those who cried
Or who kept dry with pride
Or my now-never-bride
Or mom at my side.
To death I ride
My life denied
Wish I'd
tried.
I've always thought concrete poetry is difficult to find around AG (i.e. a poem that has a shape). However, the well-placed rhymes make it so that you can even hear it as concrete poetry, running from the top of this inverted pyramid to the point. Truly impressive.
samy
But I never did;
Express the love I had for you
Tell you what you were to me
Explain that you were my life;
My love
My soul
And now I never will.
Its openendedness is the source of its power. Is it between a man and a maiden? A man and his God? A man and himself? Or something completely different? Whatever the subject, it really got me thinking.
MoonFairy
Staring into the Night
I see
How amazing dark can be.
Stars are glistening
People asleep
Looking into the water
You can't tell how deep
All is quiet
You are alone
To ponder the thoughts
Of places unknown
Streaks of soft light begin to show
Light clouds caress the sky
The night begins to fade, although
You will see such beauty when the day says good bye.
This poem is one of a bunch here that illustrates MoonFairy's poetic strengths in introspective description and simple but effective diction. Keep it up!
Avorne
Lay a flower
Upon your grave
Symbol of life
It slowly fades
Just as you
Faded from life
The poem is quick, but at the same time it seems to fade just as life and the flower did. It is futile, short, and perhaps in true Hobbesian fashion, a bit brutish in its honesty.
DarkestNite
The dew upon morning grass
Makes the world seem so pretend
Like shining gold or brass
As if nothing can hurt it in the end
Blink and it disappears
Like shimmering salty tears
It won't last long
Enjoy Memory's song
The moral is familiar, the figurative language is familiar, the rhymes sound familiar, but when you look at this poem in the sum of its parts, it feels much more than just familiar. Our memories are invariably rooted in the Earth, it seems, and we don't know when both will vanish all of a sudden.
aknerd
In the evening sky
Lies the unknown
A mystery to me
I traded sunset baseball
A yellow ball bouncing
in the cul de sac
For closing duties
A vacuum and a mop
The evening sky
Must be meant for others
For the young, old, and homeless
I wonder if they still play
Does the yellow ball still bounce
Or was it thown away with my memories
It's the familiar theme of the loss of childhood and innocence, but explored in a haunting new way. One comes to think that this yellow ball is not just the baseball soaring through the air, but the answer to every trouble, or the source of all power, or an opportunity foregone.
Kyouzou
Forever Falling
Overcome by chaos
Realizing a rocky landing
Even dying
Venues of greatness; unreached
Ever so many things to do
Realizing the end has come
I get an image as I look at the progression of this poem. I think of those old Looney Tunes cartoons where the cartoon character suspends in midair for a bit and gravity kicks in a second after they realize they're not on land. That instant of realization is embodied in the alliterative first lines, as they become comically suspended in denial, before they plummet. That's the event symbolized in that very middle line, and as they fall their life rushes past their eyes.
CommanderDude7
Ha. I get it.
I feel so proud.
I wear my smile smugly.
I walk taller than before.
I cant be defeated.
I rock.
I don't think I've seen a poem that emphasizes the simple-minded nature of self-absorbed folly so simply and so effectively.
EnterOrion
There is a land,
Inside our heads,
Across the sea,
Where insanity spreads.
Once within,
There is no escape,
Gripped by death,
Your mind lost shape.
Given the time,
You'd feel alone,
Yet there is someone there,
Someone made of stone.
If a poem could be misty and mysterious, this would be it. Who can fathom the depths of the mind? There's an outline here...tentatively.
pHacon & Kyouzou
The girl screamed
The sounds of time,
Life passing us by
Things ever changing
A baby's cry
New life begins,
A world of nothing
Pens him in.
A child's whine
Shattering peace,
Seeking not
but attention.
A young man's song
Courtship starts,
The cycle
Starting ever again.
The girl screamed
Hulking shadows surrounded her
Tears now; pouring from her eyes
Footsteps echo, another shadow
Shots fire, A man steps forward
A last minute rescue?
No, another assailant.
In this case, Kyouzou got ninja'd by pHacon, but both were so good and so different that I wanted to double feature them in the same spot. One talks of life and one of death; one is abstract, and the other is a physical description. That's the awesome thing about First Line Poetry...it's quite open ended, and all dependent on the poet.
Kyouzou
Day's glory has come
A blazing sun peeks over
The horizon's orange rim
Soft rays of light
warm the cold earth
Drops of dew evaporate
to reappear another day
An excellent depiction of a sunrise. A good example of a poem that is more than the sum of its parts.
slayguy8
I love the smell of asphalt in the rain
The sharp sting in your nose
with the pitter patter of the rain
with the wind in your hair
you have everything to gain
you breathe it in
you let everything go
I love the smell of asphalt in the rain
I have the same feelings too whenever I smell asphalt in the rain...it might not be the greatest poem from a technical point, but it serves as a good example for what we look for in first line poetry.
MRWalker82
Left me with questions
and a longing to learn
what was that song
that my heart heard
answers which may ne'er be gleaned
for whom was she singing
what did the melody mean
my heart left pounding
and my mind awash with dreams
From the standpoint of my religion, Proverbs 1:20 is the verse I thought of. Wisdom sings, but few heed its call.
EnterOrion
I lie down for a long time,
For several minutes,
For several hours,
Wait for the bells' chime.
I lie down to sleep,
To lay awake,
To die in pain,
For my life to weep.
I lie down to dream,
Of golden wheat fields,
Of pharmaceuticals,
To cry a stream.
I pray not to die,
For this is my last,
The end has come,
An eternal lie.
I lie down to sleep,
To sleep forever,
To dream forever,
What I have sown I shall reap.
And now I die.
The ending is totally different than what I expected from the first stanza. It's the finality of death that echoes in a strangely hollow fashion in this poem, and it rattles the bones. Nice ABCA rhyme scheme too.
aknerd
No greater band of brothers have I met
Than Barry, Brandon, Bob and Bret.
Every day to work they went
Every night at bars they spent
Time together, until the sun set
When Bret was taken by his heart (too weak)
The three mourned for a week
At work his shoes they filled
At bars his drink they spilled
But they still missed a brother, unique
Then Bob was destroyed (smashed by a truck)
The two aware of their fading luck
Hurt too much, work did not rebound
Into their drinks they drowned
The last half sunk into muck.
Brandon took too many chances (shot by a dealer)
The one lost his only healer
Now he's alone, homeless
Drinking liquor in excess
His wife leaves, never again to feel her
Last of all, Barry removes himself (a rope)
The rest dead, he couldn't cope
In their office, a plaque reminds
In the bar, stools miss their behinds
A fragile fraternity, never any hope.
The word that comes to mind is "virtuosic." Well, perhaps the limerick meter and rhyme is wonky in places, but the point remains that it really goes beyond what you would expect from the realms of FLP. Very well done!
Kyouzou
The ruins of a golden age long gone
Glimmering in the light of a sunrise
Evidences of long gone world at war
Peace, harmony, progress, happiness
All destroyed in one fell swoop
How fragile is this delicate peace?
Normally I'm not such a fan of free verse, but this poem really hit to the center with me. Who knows what empire this could have been describing? Or will an archaeologist a thousand years from now think these thoughts when they see the ruins of our civilization?
aknerd
Have you been where I have been?
Caught in a time between was and will, existing right now,
right here, free of the needless, groundless, dispensible
redundancies that sting us like so many needles, needing
only what exists right now, right here, watching as all
the excess exits, and I become an exile unto myself, my
own floating isle interjected into the present, the aisle
inserted, implanted, and embedded where no shoppers can
find it except me, a free radical finding another to live
in, becoming inseperable, growing unified with this present
from the eternal Now, a drop joining another until I am
where and when I am, a single entity, a place but a person,
the past and future no longer falling, no longer
collaspsing for they have crashed long ago, no longer
anything to fall from, for I am unattached from all but
this Now, no longer watching the falling past, the
regressing future, for my drop, my now, my self, completes
my vision.
I am where all I can see is me.
Have... have you been there?
This is definitely an example of performance poetry...that long run-on sentence in the mouth of a talented orator could be a powerful statement of being in control of yourself and yourself only. And we have all been there, but rarely have we had the faculties to describe a feeling in which we experience only with our presence.
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Thanks for reading! Comments, questions, suggestions all welcome in this thread. Hope to catch you for the next issue!
