poetry/prose

[margot]

Please post your poetry/prose if it is good and not teen angst type.

Thank-you.

[darkon]

I've done a ton for Creative Writing class... let me post some my favorites... and one's I can actually access on my home computer (I've written a lot at school).

Article Noun Preposition Proper Noun

Article adjective noun past-tense verb preposition article adjective noun. Preposition article noun past-tense verb Proper Noun past-tense verb article adjective noun. Pronoun past-tense verb preposition article noun preposition possessive noun. Noun past-tense verb adverb preposition article noun. “Article noun present-tense verb article adjective noun preposition verb noun,” past-tense verb Proper Noun.

“Pronoun past-tense verb,” adverb past-tense verb Proper Noun, “Pronoun past-tense verb preposition article adjective noun preposition Proper Noun.”

Proper Noun past-tense verb. Pronoun past-tense verb preposition article noun preposition possessive noun. “Pronoun,” pronoun past-tense verb, “Adverb verb preposition possessive adjective noun.”

Article noun past-tense verb preposition article adjective noun. Article noun past-tense verb preposition pronoun.

That was part of a PowerPoint I did of Conceptual Writing which my teacher called "brilliant." I may post the whole thing here someday.

[Ceraziefish]

^I like that.

Anyway, I read a book about anarchism and it kept mentioning dada poetry. Intrigued, I looked into some, and I decided that anyone can write this shit. So here is my attempt at dada poetry.

The poem is called "Jesus has eight pets."

:Today some random shit happened.

::::::::::::::I'm going to indent

::::::::::a few more times than I

::::::::::::::have

:::::::::::::::::to.

::::::::I'll send this poem

::::::::::::::into a dada poetry contsest

::::::::::::::::::::::::and

::::::::::::::I will win.

:They will say

::::::::"It's so

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::avant garde!"

:And I will say

:::::::::::"No,

::::::::::::::::::::it just

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::sucks."

EDIT: There's supposed to be a lot of weird indents in there but it doesn't like to work. I'll try to get it going.

Second Edit: Okay, just imagine the colons are spaces.

Edited December 25, 2005 by Ceraziefish

[margot]

well the thing to respect about DADAism is that it helped to pave the way for modern art.

Edited December 26, 2005 by Lindsay

[Ceraziefish]

Makes no difference to me. Modern art is cool, Dadaism is not.

[Mithrandir]

Yeah, dadaism, for the most part, pisses me off.

[darkon]

The thing with dadaism is, well, look at when it peaked. It was right smack dab in the middle of World War I (Which, more than anything else, paved the way for modern art). We've never, ever dealt with the horror that was felt in Europe during World War I. Hopefully we never will. The thing with Dadaism, also, is that it likes to blend with Surrealism in many regards. So I tend to like a bunch of Dadaism. Some of it is not that good, but amazing at the same time when you wonder exactly what that person saw and heard every day. But Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst are all associated with Dadaism and I love them. And then there is Neo-Dadaism (done in the 60s mainly) with names like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Claes Oldenburg. Many of the Pop Artists are also lumped into Neo-Dadaism.

And, now, a few pieces from my Creative Writing book.

A Yellow Day

The day was a calm, breezy afternoon in the early weeks of fall. I forget the exact date, but it came at that time when the color yellow was everywhere. The trees were painted in a hue of yellow that was neither too bright nor too dull. School buses covered the roads and made the people who drove yellow cars no longer stand out. I was looking outside from a window at the dentist’s office. Service was awful – I had been there for thirty minutes. As I sat there, I noticed the two women next to me were also watching the festival of yellow on the outside. Just as I noticed them and they noticed me, a bright yellow school bus seemed to slip over a yellow leaf and fly straight into a yellow hatchback. What was mustard now was ketchup. I looked at the girls next to me, both I red shirts, seated in strawberry-colored chairs. We then looked outside as three red cars had stopped to oversee this scarlet afternoon. Contrary to my previous assumptions, the yellow car had run a red light to signal the noisy start to this red afternoon. I looked down at my red, sun burnt hand which I got when I traveled to the ocean last weekend. I then looked at the two red-haired women, who were in red shirts, and sitting in red chairs next to me. Nobody spoke a word.

Time Travel

I wish I could go back

To the days before Windows XP

To the days before 2001

To the days before Code Orange

I wish I could travel

To the days before middle school

To the days before First Eucharist

To the days before uniforms

I wish I could journey

To the days before Power Rangers

To the days before grilled cheese

To the days before teeth

I wish I could wander

To the days before I had hair

To the days before I had a brother

To the days before I had a memory

[FaultyClockwork]

I've done a ton for Creative Writing class... let me post some my favorites... and one's I can actually access on my home computer (I've written a lot at school).

Article Noun Preposition Proper Noun

Article adjective noun past-tense verb preposition article adjective noun. Preposition article noun past-tense verb Proper Noun past-tense verb article adjective noun. Pronoun past-tense verb preposition article noun preposition possessive noun. Noun past-tense verb adverb preposition article noun. “Article noun present-tense verb article adjective noun preposition verb noun,” past-tense verb Proper Noun.

“Pronoun past-tense verb,” adverb past-tense verb Proper Noun, “Pronoun past-tense verb preposition article adjective noun preposition Proper Noun.”

Proper Noun past-tense verb. Pronoun past-tense verb preposition article noun preposition possessive noun. “Pronoun,” pronoun past-tense verb, “Adverb verb preposition possessive adjective noun.”

Article noun past-tense verb preposition article adjective noun. Article noun past-tense verb preposition pronoun.

That was part of a PowerPoint I did of Conceptual Writing which my teacher called "brilliant." I may post the whole thing here someday.

Did you write something out and replace the words with what they are (noun, adjective, etc.) or did you just write that out as is?

Here's a poem that goes with a picture.

Element #10

Neon is the light of our lives, we drink it in and glow green or blue or red or yellow. Neon permeates the night, what was once the domain of moon and stars is now taken up by friendly Ne, wonderful Element #10. #10 heralds the Gods of food and drink, of stores and fuel. It beckons to its fat fryers and shelves of books, its gas and cars and computers, its nexuses; malls. It beckons to everything and everyone. People kneel below Element #10 in awe at their Metal table altars and sit at their wooden bar dais. The Golden Arches enter the eyes of children and speak to them; the glow reflects upon their irises and plays with their minds. Beyond the arch is one of these many Gods, St. McDonald, patron Saint of heart attacks. Life stirs under Element #10 as people quaff alcohol in its beauteous glow or slip a packet of meth out from between a raver’s breasts and into their pockets, as the lights strobe above. Element #10 blurs the night, just stand in the middle of a busy street and look down towards the cars and signs and open your arms wide to

#10. Take a picture and watch it ~b~l~u~r~ in your sight. The car lights, the neon, the people meaning nothing and going nowhere… Everything… wrapped together. Stand in the street and let the head lights of a car pull you in. Someday we will all belong to Element #10. It pulses a bit in each of our minds now and again. It fills the bustling streets and bars, clubs and stores, all with its exalted glow and it casts over the pointless din of night a lucid veil of silence.

[FaultyClockwork]

This Was Once a Good Poem

This was once a poem crafted artfully,

Was once a work of art made beautifully,

But, it seems, my sculpture melted in the rain sorrowfully,

And what was once a pool of clarity

Is a wretched puddle wrought with mud.

I’ve lost the fruit of mine own tree,

It seems my muse has left of me,

And I assure tis plagiarism you see,

For such silly rhymes penned merrily

Cannot be the remains of what was once a good poem.

Because my tongue has failed on me,

There are no visions left to be,

And writer’s block stands mournfully,

I’ll end this poem presently…

Because quite frankly I can’t come up with a good ending.

[JesusTheNinja]

A piece of prose poetry: I got some compliments for this one in my Writing class, so I'll post it for y'all. I honestly have no ear when it comes to my own stuff.

This Dead Place

I look out the window of this soccer-mom van, Pink Floyd in my ears, and I can see that this place is dead. I look out that window as I pass through and I can feel it through my entire body; this place is dead. Not the plants, not the animals, not the people, but this little world within a world, this hushed and silent stretch of the road between here and there.

Ghoul-faced houses stare at me from a thousand yards; ancient, lonely barns and new, circling development houses alike, age makes no difference; they are all lacking that spark of life. The green of the trees is lively and vivid and wrong, the painter having used too much of one color, but unable to determine which. Their alien color branches do not move, do not sway the way they ought to in the wind that should be blowing, but isn’t. Storm clouds up above threaten silently in the sky, but are utterly impotent in this place. The flashes of light and thunderous reverberations that would tear through the air in any living landscape are far too much to ask of this place. And just as still are the phone and power lines that, just like the sky, carry no sound or electricity.

A car drives by with a mannequin at the wheel; his face cut from a Sears catalogue and glued to the window of an add for some SUV. His head, unmoving, positioned at an angle, black sunglasses covering unnatural eyes, hair that shouted ‘party animal with a steady desk job’. He drives past, and is replaced by other cut out cars with human shaped dolls inside, all as stiff as you would expect from mannequins. Birds stick in the air, not flying, not soaring: stationary in the atmosphere, the fruit within a gelatin dessert. Those two white birds, so commonly a symbol of freedom, are as still as the trees, as still as the wind that should be blowing, but isn’t, as still as everything else in this dead place.

[No Sad Endings]

I've done a ton for Creative Writing class... let me post some my favorites... and one's I can actually access on my home computer (I've written a lot at school).

Article Noun Preposition Proper Noun

Article adjective noun past-tense verb preposition article adjective noun. Preposition article noun past-tense verb Proper Noun past-tense verb article adjective noun. Pronoun past-tense verb preposition article noun preposition possessive noun. Noun past-tense verb adverb preposition article noun. “Article noun present-tense verb article adjective noun preposition verb noun,” past-tense verb Proper Noun.

“Pronoun past-tense verb,” adverb past-tense verb Proper Noun, “Pronoun past-tense verb preposition article adjective noun preposition Proper Noun.”

Proper Noun past-tense verb. Pronoun past-tense verb preposition article noun preposition possessive noun. “Pronoun,” pronoun past-tense verb, “Adverb verb preposition possessive adjective noun.”

Article noun past-tense verb preposition article adjective noun. Article noun past-tense verb preposition pronoun.

That was part of a PowerPoint I did of Conceptual Writing which my teacher called "brilliant." I may post the whole thing here someday.

......that's, um. Special.

[FaultyClockwork]

A piece of prose poetry: I got some compliments for this one in my Writing class, so I'll post it for y'all. I honestly have no ear when it comes to my own stuff.

This Dead Place

I look out the window of this soccer-mom van, Pink Floyd in my ears, and I can see that this place is dead. I look out that window as I pass through and I can feel it through my entire body; this place is dead. Not the plants, not the animals, not the people, but this little world within a world, this hushed and silent stretch of the road between here and there.

Ghoul-faced houses stare at me from a thousand yards; ancient, lonely barns and new, circling development houses alike, age makes no difference; they are all lacking that spark of life. The green of the trees is lively and vivid and wrong, the painter having used too much of one color, but unable to determine which. Their alien color branches do not move, do not sway the way they ought to in the wind that should be blowing, but isn’t. Storm clouds up above threaten silently in the sky, but are utterly impotent in this place. The flashes of light and thunderous reverberations that would tear through the air in any living landscape are far too much to ask of this place. And just as still are the phone and power lines that, just like the sky, carry no sound or electricity.

A car drives by with a mannequin at the wheel; his face cut from a Sears catalogue and glued to the window of an add for some SUV. His head, unmoving, positioned at an angle, black sunglasses covering unnatural eyes, hair that shouted ‘party animal with a steady desk job’. He drives past, and is replaced by other cut out cars with human shaped dolls inside, all as stiff as you would expect from mannequins. Birds stick in the air, not flying, not soaring: stationary in the atmosphere, the fruit within a gelatin dessert. Those two white birds, so commonly a symbol of freedom, are as still as the trees, as still as the wind that should be blowing, but isn’t, as still as everything else in this dead place.

I like that, except I'm not sure the line, "his face cut from a Sears catalogue and glued to the window of an add for some SUV" makes sense. I know what you meant, but adds don't have windows and it should be properly rearranged.

But it's really very good, and I can relate.

[amy]

Jesus, technically it's really well executed, *applause to imagery*.

I don't think the subject is really good though, it's a bit of an easy target, and I've already heard so many people complaining along the same lines.

[No Sad Endings]

A piece of prose poetry: I got some compliments for this one in my Writing class, so I'll post it for y'all. I honestly have no ear when it comes to my own stuff.

This Dead Place

I look out the window of this soccer-mom van, Pink Floyd in my ears, and I can see that this place is dead. I look out that window as I pass through and I can feel it through my entire body; this place is dead. Not the plants, not the animals, not the people, but this little world within a world, this hushed and silent stretch of the road between here and there.

Ghoul-faced houses stare at me from a thousand yards; ancient, lonely barns and new, circling development houses alike, age makes no difference; they are all lacking that spark of life. The green of the trees is lively and vivid and wrong, the painter having used too much of one color, but unable to determine which. Their alien color branches do not move, do not sway the way they ought to in the wind that should be blowing, but isn’t. Storm clouds up above threaten silently in the sky, but are utterly impotent in this place. The flashes of light and thunderous reverberations that would tear through the air in any living landscape are far too much to ask of this place. And just as still are the phone and power lines that, just like the sky, carry no sound or electricity.

A car drives by with a mannequin at the wheel; his face cut from a Sears catalogue and glued to the window of an add for some SUV. His head, unmoving, positioned at an angle, black sunglasses covering unnatural eyes, hair that shouted ‘party animal with a steady desk job’. He drives past, and is replaced by other cut out cars with human shaped dolls inside, all as stiff as you would expect from mannequins. Birds stick in the air, not flying, not soaring: stationary in the atmosphere, the fruit within a gelatin dessert. Those two white birds, so commonly a symbol of freedom, are as still as the trees, as still as the wind that should be blowing, but isn’t, as still as everything else in this dead place.

Wow, excellent imagery man. The subject matter has been done, yeah, but I think your sense of metaphor was unusual and piercing enough to make it fresh. (Of course, this is also a subject I don't believe can be overdone per se - perhaps rehashed in an ironically unoriginal fashion too often, but when genuine? No, not overdone...)

[Gundampilotspaz]

Standing by the seashore

If this thing could speak

What would it say

of us

Standing on its shore as if

I was just another stone

or speck of sand that has sat here

for a million years

“How young and cunning is this race

that dares to scar my face

It matter not in the end

for such scars shall mend

In the vast well of time

I will be the one who wins,

For in another million years

again alone I'll stand, no fear

no fear”

This timeless being I sit besides

causes me to lose mine own

perspective, in its vast wake

I am nothing but a speck of dust

This speck of dust slowly fades

and becomes part of the larger plan

but never shall it fade from its place

always shall it sit, no fear.

It needs work, especially the line spacing, but this is something I've had for a while, and I'm a bit proud of.

[No Sad Endings]

That's pretty good, actually, the only thing that doesn't sit right with me is the last stanza.

[margot]

u__u I entered this in a poetry contest but now I can see it is pretty bad.

You count the days in card stocked pills because it makes the months go faster

Your fingertips said I was as beautiful as the concrete walls on 20th street

I cried for the emaciated weed, collapsed like a Mexican girl's dress

We covered each other in mud, French and independent, until we finally flowered together

Strong and yellow and twisting around the old victorian houses until we met every old sole

c'est la vie, photosynthesis.

[Ceraziefish]

This story is essentially derivative of Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan, but the interesting thing is I wrote this story before I read that book.

Taking a deep breath, 7Joe walked out of his meeting, flushed with victory. He had been promoted to office head, and his new clone was ready, both on the same day. He walked downstairs and out onto the street, boarding the bus to his apartment. On the way, he straightened his long hair, feeling very pleased with himself. It seemed a long time, indeed, since he had felt this good. The last instance of emotion this intense seemed a lifetime ago, and perhaps it had been even longer.

On the way inside, he spoke with the apartment attendant, 2Sam. 2Sam was a cheerful man, though circumstances had recently taken a dive for him.

“Even if they evicted me from my house, well, I guess it isn’t so bad,” said 2Sam, instictively rubbing the spot on his face where his scar had been.

“Heh. You got off lucky, a few days on the streets. Last time, I got shot in the head.”

“Really? Damn. How was it?”

“It was... It was an experience, I’ll say that.” Both men laughed, and 7Joe continued up to his room, to change into some new attire befitting his higher rank in society. He took this opportunity to play some music, classic punk from the twenties, and checked on his newly shipped clone.

He watched the child twist and grow in its vat, slowly but noticeably becoming larger. It was biologically ten or so, and beginning to outgrow the first layer of the nerve connector. By the end of the day it would be ready for use.

The sound of loud music crashed around 7Joe’s room, worming its way through the little bits of furniture and falling out the open window. Out on the street, several people were annoyed by the interruption of their monotony. A few blocks down, at the police station, an agent was dispatched to look into the problem.

It took a few hours to process the request for an agent, but when it did come, the selection was one of the precinct’s finest men. This particular agent was named Agent 395, and he had been put into service a few years ago. He was a straightforward vatgrown Agent, seemingly cloned using the genes of a particularly creepy looking psycho-killer and some sort of doberman. He was overly hairy, strong, and carried himself in a manner that suggested he wished to kill everything in sight. Being in his presence was unsettling to anyone, especially so to people who had encountered him in the past.

395 slowly strolled down the sidewalk, staring down everyone he met, until he reached the apartment building that 7Joe lived in. The building was five stories tall, white, and entirely inefficient. It was a remnant of an age past, when the building code had not been as strict, the city density laws not as strict.Walking towards the door, he calmy reached into his coat pocket and removed a Desert Eagle. Grasping it his right hand, he reached out to the door with his left. Upon touching the clear glass, the door was disrupted in such a way that it immediately, and quietly, fell to pieces. Small shards of safety glass fell across the lobby, and rested on the floor.

2Sam, dutifully at the desk, looked up in horror. Quickly, though, he realized exactly who 395 was, and returned to his work. The phone number for the glass company was lurking around his database somewhere, and the City would pay for any damages.

“Excuse me,” said 395, loading his gun. “Do you know where I might find a Mr. 7Joe?”

“Just a moment,” replied the attendent, opening his book. “Fourth floor. Apartment 12.”

“Thank you,” said the agent, quickly approaching the elevator. When he was inside, he pressed the button for the third floor and it immediately began climbing. However, it was an old elevator, so it took time to reach the fourth floor.

7Joe had just finished checking on his clone as he walked into the hallway. It was ready to be put into action at any moment, which cheered 7Joe immensely. The symbols of his office, a black suit coat and a black tie, were about him, and he cut a fine figure as he strode down the hall. His hair fell to his neck now, making him look all the more like the veteran of capitalism that he was.

Reaching the fourth floor doorway, 395 pulled a small chunk of C4 from his Standard Issue explosives kit, stored in a surgically implanted receptical just below his right lung. The bit of explosive was stuck to the doorway, and 395 leaned out of the way before detonating it.

7Joe was waiting for the elevator at that very moment. The result was that he was severely maimed by the rush of door that came cascading towards him, bearing him a short five feet before crushing him against a nearby wall.

However, he was quite a hardy man, and could take a few knocks. There will be time for writhing in pain later, he told himself. Summoning his great strength, he forced the elevator door off of him and onto the ground. Dusting himself off, 7Joe was disapointed to see that his left arm was fractured in three places. Straightening it out, he decided that a quick splint would have to do.

He looked up at the Agent and realized, with some relief, that at least he wouldn’t have to wait for the arm to heal.

“Citizen Identification Number 6455-0492-3668-57, 7Joe, you are to be punished for your disturbance of the peace. In accordance with the laws of City Noise Ordinance #1532, ‘any and all noise that is broadcast to the public without general public consent shall be swiftly stopped and the offender will be fined a minimum of $140,000.’ 7Joe, we at the precinct know you are in possession of a $160,000 clone in your residence, and we have decided that your punishment will be death and Instant Reincarnation. Please note that any further transgressions will be accompanied by further retribution.” The Agent calmly fired twice, piercing 7Joe’s heart and face.

Nerves flared, the connector sparked, and the creation of a new life began. This was the only time that Joe really had to himself, a peaceful time while his personality and memories moved themselves around, squeezing into slightly different patterns and ways of thought.

Slowly, he could move again. He looked at his hand, and as he did, the life-giving fluid of the vat drained away, leaving 8Joe with the awful pain of hunger.

The first thing that 8Joe heard was the sound of his old body being scraped off of the wall. He dressed and, walking out into the hall, slowly integrating his consciousness into this new body. Instant reincarnation was always a little taxing on the mind, and 8Joe thought it would be nice to relax across town at his favorite bar.

He handed a tip to the teenagers cleaning up the deceased 7Joe and rode the slightly patched elevator down to the first floor.

“Hey, Joe,” said 2Sam. “Agent done his business?”

“I didn’t expect they’d get me so soon after the last time. I think 7Joe only lasted a month or so.”

“Oh well. Hey, some mail came for you.”

“Great, thanks. Hmm, looks like my grandfather had another heart attack. Old bastard, he’s running up a fortune in cloning fees.” The two men pondered this though. While 8Joe had a sizable credit limit, the attendent was only good for another two or three lives. “Well, I’m going to go have a drink. Want to come?”

“No, I’ve still got to contact the glass company, get them to replace the front door.”

“Ah. Sorry about that. Tell you what - I’ll get little Daniel something nice for his birthday next week, and we’ll call ourselves even.” 2Sam nodded silently thanking the richer man. 8Joe crunched some safety glass under his foot, before walking out into the night.

[Bittersweet Endings Only]

This was my research paper for my braindead multicultural health class. The teacher gave us an absurd assignment, basically asking for a confession to the crime of racism, and the story of how her class had redeemed us. By that point, I'd finished five of the six assignments that week (including a movie review and forty goddamn research questions) and it was due the next morning.

I decided to trade one absurd assignment for another.

OMG TOASTER

I got an A in that class.

[No Sad Endings]

OMG I REMEMBER THAT PAPER

IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME

[margot]

XD what did she say about the reportt?

[Bittersweet Endings Only]

Oddly, she never brought it up...

[margot]

:O But didn't she hand it back with a grade???

[Nega-Brent]

Le poem by Le Arsie

Le wind blows like so many winds,

in summer skies le wind doth shine.

Le blue is so blue like so many skies,

in blue sky le blue is so blue like so much water.

Le spider creepy crawls of up le fountain spout,

down come le rain and wash le spider out,

Le sun it goes up and dry up all of le rain,

and le spider doth creepy crawl up le spout again.

[Ceraziefish]

*Le tear.*

Zat was, how you say, magnifique.