Poem Response 20

Eating Poetry
Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.

There is no happiness like mine.

I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.

Her eyes are sad

and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.

The light is dim.

The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,

their blond legs burn like brush.

The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.

When I get on my knees and lick her hand,

she screams.

I am a new man.

I snarl at her and bark.

I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

Found at: http://poetryoutloud.org/poem/237702

This poem disturbs me.

I mean, sure, don’t we all love poetry, yay us. But seriously? This is a bit much.

And what is “the bookish dark”? How can a dark be ‘bookish’? Scary, surreal, deep, forboding, mysterious, ironic, those are all fine adjectives! I just really don’t understand! So, here’s me thought. If you have an idea as to what a “Bookish Dark” could mean, you should tell me! Write a comment, and help me out some here! It’ll be fun! Poetry is always more fun when you experience it with other people. And if anything else sticks out to you, (Like the first line to me “Ink runs from the corners of my mouth” it’s delightful!) Tell me that too! And we can make this fun, mildly disturbing poem into something really fun!

Poem Response 19

The Arrow and the Song
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend

Found at: http://poetryoutloud.org/poem/173890


I really like this poem. His flow is fantastic, the rhyme scheme is surprisingly easy, his words sound like lace, and the poem as a whole is simply marvelous.

I wish I knew what his song was about…

Have you ever had one of those moments where a thought you had forever ago is suddenly brought to mind, and it forms new clarity because of an experience? Or a feeling you thought was long since gone is re-awakened when someone from the past walks into your life again?

I feel like that is what his song was about… a thought or a feeling, and as it left his lips, it sort of slipped away into his past, as he continued forward. He forgot about it, almost, until one day he found a friend and the song was alive in them.

This poem is just cool to me.

The Unknown

The Unknown

One can always tell

When he lingers nearby

Clad in foreboding shades

Which glimmer for the joyful eye

Dwelling beneath darkness

Residing around the bend

Dancing with Hope’s willowy frame

Harmonizing Fear’s laments

He speaks as a quiet whisper

In the corner of a lonely room

Promising life changes

Of untold fortune

After you first meet him

You feel completely lost and alone

As you watch him captivate

A treasure that felt like home

He isn’t all evil

Simply unstable, unsure

And after you encounter him

You’ll be better than before

For, through pain he makes strong

The beating of a broken heart

He opens your eyes to others’ pain

For you have been where they are

He makes you grow, reach, and stretch

And though the process is painful

But one day, you will look and see

That the scars make you beautiful

The unknown is such a scary place in our lives. I really don’t like it. I genuinely like to know what’s going on in my life! So, when I find myself caught in that moment of, “Oh gracious… what is happening…” It’s really easy to feel like you’ll be there forever. And you tend to skip back and forth between fear and faith, hope and reason, reality and what you see beyond this moment. Sometimes it is so easy to get caught up in the here and now, that we forget that… in 24 hours, today will be yesterday…. And soon, it will be last week, then last month, then last year… then “That bad time several years ago”… but we’ll never be in it forever. Every second brings us one step closer to the end of this chapter and the beginning of a new page.

That’s one of the things I love about life… it’s always going…

This poem format is a,b,c,b,d,e,f,e, etc. so basically, every other line rhymes!

I hope you enjoyed!

Never Stop

 

Never Stop

She had gorgeous, star-filled eyes

And adored long-winded love letters

Butterflies filled her constant daydreams

Where love was a thought she could savor

She’d never been touched by its fragile wings

Her heart was unbroken, unchipped

She’s never fallen head-over-heels

Her heart: a beat never skipped

He’d been broken uncountable times

Pain was his ever-present friend

His soul hid beneath a hardened shell

He’d become a master of playing pretend

Their meeting was accidental

Somewhat awkward, at best

He, in dirty jeans and greasy hair,

Ran into her neatly pressed sundress

A curse left her perfect lips

As her glass vase hit the concrete

A pale hand flew to her astonished face

As it shattered to bits about their feet

Apologies seeped from her every pore

‘Till finally his laughter cut her off

Somehow she ended up in his arms

As he tried to make the apologies stop

They separated awkwardly

Then he offered to walk her home

The sky was quickly growing dark

She didn’t mind not being alone

They window shopped along the way

He asked to replace the broken glass

She waved him off, which was good

He’d offered money he didn’t have

On that day, that first day of love

Their hearts melted along with the sun

They talked and laughed about everything

Neither knew they’d found their one

Days to weeks, weeks to months

Moments blurred into the following

Seasons changed from Spring’s new Life

To the sound of Winter’s wind blowing

His deep, easy laugh filled her dreams

And she loved the look his eyes held

In moments where nothing was said

His eyes proclaimed all the words he felt

She wished she could always live

Forever and ever, for the rest of her days

Inside the precious, passionate love

That he expressed within his gaze

Her bright eyes made his dark days shine

In his arms she felt safe and warm

Her smile became his silver lining

And his secrets called her heart ‘home’

Christmas lights lined the frozen streets

Snow blanketed the frostbitten ground

A fireplace warmed the two lovers

His whispered singing, the only sound

Her head pressed gently against his chest

From her mouth escaped a small sigh

He stilled his voice as she quietly said

‘If God took me now, I wouldn’t mind”

Silently, he stared at her

Melting her heart along with the snow

Then, pressing his lips to her trembling ones,

Was the most tender kiss either had known

After a while, he stood up to go

His arms releasing her beautiful form

As his truck gave a rumble, he smiled goodbye

And drove into the snowstorm

She lay in bed, he filled her mind

As she pulled her sheets up close

Sleep flirted with her dancing eyelids

Until then the phone rang and she awoke

Groggily, she put the phone to her ear

Then heard the words she’d never forget

“He’s been in a bad accident

It doesn’t look good, get here quick”

In a haze she walked into his room

There was talking, but the words were lost

As she looked at his broken body

O’re his head, bandages were crossed

She grasped his hand. He met her gaze

Scared tears slipped from her eyes

He leaned her cheek to his own,

And whispered, “Come on, Silly, don’t cry”

Then, to his jacket on the chair,

He motioned with his weakened hand

Quietly, she reached for it, gave it to him

Though she truly did not understand

From its pocket he revealed

A ring with a diamond on top

And Just before the loud, constant beep

He breathed, “My love for you will never stop”

I’ve always had an odd attraction to beautiful tragedy. There are many types of tragedy that I dislike intensely, but bittersweet tragedy has always been a point of interest for me….

I wrote this poem because of a friend who showed me a website that had sad short stories. One story was about a woman whose boyfriend had told her not to open her Christmas gift until Christmas day. He passed away soon after, and she waited 7 years to open the package…

Inside laid a ring.

I wanted to cry so hard when I read it… The story was so sweet, but at the same time so heartbreaking…

I wanted to write a story like that of my own! I wanted to take people down a journey of love and happiness, where it ended with the promise of forever, even if one of the people is gone…

So, I began to write, and above is the finished product.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you have a great day.

  

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For a Moment

For a Moment

Time’s a vapor we cannot hold

Can’t be bought, can’t be sold

It’s ours for now

Then gone somehow

We can never elude time

It is sublime

Moving always

Quick to replace

Each existing moment with the next

And you’ll possess

Its enjoyment

For a moment

This was originally a minute poem. (Which is A poem with exactly 60 syllables. <60 syllables, one syllable per second, making it a “minute poem” which someone thought was a clever idea> This poem is made up of 12 lines, four lines per stanza. The syllable count is 8, 4, 4, 4, per stanza and the rhyme scheme is a,a,b,b, c,c,d,d, e,e,f,f, and that’s all there is to the formula of this poem!)

But I didn’t like it the way it was, so I changed it. So now it’s a nothing poem! Just a poor, forgotten version of what once was…

But I like it. It’s an individual.

Anyway, the basic idea of this poem is simply that time is such an easy thing to take for granted! But we honestly only have each moment for a moment. And we don’t get it back. See? Watch this:

This moment is gone.

The first time you read it, you had that moment! And now it’s gone.

Boom.

That just happened. 

And I do believe my job here is done.

Stand

Stand

He is the quiet voice

In a noisy, crowded room

A very small plant

Needing nurture to bloom

His home is deep within

The everyday, the ordinary

Careening through their every pore

Making them extraordinary

He is the firm platform used

To make a halting stand

He makes strong the quiet, the shy

With nervous, shaking hands

He partners with Passion

And together, they trek close behind Love

Offering lasting changes

For those who care enough.

Courage.

Sometimes I think courage is seen as a gigantic character trait that flies in the face of anyone who happens to look at the life of someone displaying it. Courage can be seen as the trait of those waging wars across the sea, or of those whose lives are flashed in the media as having overcome hardships… And I do believe that those people are courageous, and I believe they deserve our admiration!

But I also believe that the face of courage, more often than not, is in the little moments that no one knows about.

It lives in the moments that are sometimes ordinary, such as a girl making a new child at school feel welcome, are small building blocks of courage. And the same drive making that little girl reach out to someone outside of her own comfort zone will be the same drive that will one day allow her to do great things.

It’s courage.

It is the feet we use to walk through open doors of change.

It is the heart beating within every good cause, trying to make a difference. Love, Passion and Courage…

Those three things together can make anything possible.

 

Poem Response 18

I Carry Your Heart with Me -E. E. Cummings

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in
my heart) I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
I fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart(I carry it in my heart)

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179622

This poem as a whole is so beautiful… and the words without the parentheses are phenomenal as well…

“I carry your heart with me.

I am never without it.

I fear

no fate

I want no world

And you are whatever a moon has always meant

And whatever a sun will always sing is you

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows

And this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart “

There is a part of me that feels like this is what love is really supposed to be. The Bible talks about two individuals becoming one in marriage, and I think that idea of “oneness” is so much more than simply saying “I do”.  It really is becoming… one…

I think this poem is talking about an aspect of that. Having one person so close to your mind that they live within your consciousness. Everything takes on a different light because of them. You carry them within yourself, and they become the reason the world looks the way it does. The whole world is different, because you are different. You aren’t simply “you” anymore, you have someone else adding to every single moment of your life, whether they are with you physically, or simply within your mind. They’re there. Always. And you’re never really alone, or never really acting from yourself, parts of you have been overtaken by this other person. They influence you in ways you never thought possible, and somehow you become a different, better version of yourself, because you aren’t alone. You have your other half.

And that is just cool.