poetry

I am a pane

Of tinted glass.

A window,

Smudged with debri. Read more »

That Taunting Spider

All the memories,

All the days gone by,

All the hours I spent with you,

Are gone.

Because everything that was right,

Was wrong.

Everything that I knew to be true,

Was nothing more than a well spun lie,

By the spider that taunted me from its web,

Where it looked down upon me and smirked,

Because it knew. Read more »

"If you cannot be a poet, be the poem."

~ David Carradine ~

1361414334.wav

I’m not sure at the moment,
if I can really hear you,
your lips and all your mouth is Read more »

Running

Speed

Color filtering through Clouds And Trees

Arms Spread

Happy And Awake

  Read more »

I hate texting more than you will ever know

It’s impersonal, time consuming, and disruptive

You don’t hear the other person

You don’t see the other person

All you get is a terrible end product filled with “LOLZ”

I hate it. I HATE it. I HATE IT.

I’m having a nice conversation their phone vibrates

A finger goes up “just give me a minute”

I’m here.

Flesh and blood before your eyes

And you’re talking to that improper idiot

Who seems capable of only one word replies

It’s crazy how people subject themselves to this,

These twisted rules that comprise of

When to use a smiley

How long to wait to respond

Lack of proper punctuation

Mandatory mutilation of the English language

It’s insanity

A waste of time

Taking five minutes to try to word

Tweak, modify, re-word

Something that could have been said in 20 seconds

It actually confuses me

I will concede

Texting has a time and place

During class, in a restaurant, when parents are around

It’s perfectly acceptable when trying to be discrete

But when I’m with you

And we’ve both taken a seat

Please be considerate

*buzz buzz*

brb just give me a minute

They want words

They want elequent words

They want twisted, heartwrenching words.

I give them words.

They want sentences

They want flowing, blending

Writhing sentences

Like snakes; twisted snakes

Writhing, snakelike sentences.

I give them sentences.

They want poetry

They want something to make the numbness disappear.

They want a replacement for that dark, void of a hole.

They want something to make them laugh.

They want something to make them cry.

I pretend that

I give them poetry.

I wish for elequent words

And writhing, snakelike sentences

Sentences that link together

And give us poetry.

I wish for an idea

To give me words

And sentences

I wish for an idea

So that I can pretend

To give them poetry.

If I gave you photos,

would you throw them away,

like you did with me?

Would you laugh at my stupidity?

Thinking you'd enjoy something I've made,

what a fool I've become. 

I don't know what there iS lefT

to say to you, 

but I hope one day we wiLL get the chance

to sort this mess out.

LOng days pass, and i just wish that

eVErything turned out differentlY.

This Open ended sentence

is driving me crazy.

If I never Utter another word to you again,

I just want you to know:

Snow

Snow is a beautiful thing!

                                                                                                      Nothing is as beautiful!

                                                                                                      Oh! How beautiful! Read more »

Snow

Snow is a beautiful thing!

                                                                                                      Nothing is as beautiful!

                                                                                                      Oh! How beautiful! Read more »

My palms are open,

my heart is open

and my doors are open

to you and your words

which will probably fill me

with no good.

My thoughts are closed, 

my veins are closed, 

my eyes are closed;

I am still waiting for you

to wake me

from my sleeping beauty nightmare.

Hello everybody, and welcome back to another round of Man vs. Machine!  I got a lot of good feedback on last week's episode (starring Emily Dickinson, who defeated Robopoem with her mad writin skillz), and by request, this week's poetic pugilist is...Edgar Allen Poe!

Edgar Allen Poe, much like Dickinson, seemed destined to be little more than a local storyteller, although he became quite popular in certain venues.  He is credited with scores of short stories and hundreds of poems, and is considered the father of the modern crime novel.  As a lover of all things sinister and macabre, he no doubt would have relished the chance to go toe-to-toe with a faceless, soulless, deathless, all-knowing opponent such as Robopoem.

So strap up, Mr. Poe; let's see if you've still got it.  Our human competitor will start us off with his 1846 poem, "A Valentine":

  Read more »

  Read more »

  Read more »

These endings that come before beginnings

only screw with my mind.

Why is it dawn and dew

before I have even

fallen asleep?

I needed

the

time to sleep.

Now there are

only pressures of this

new day, and all of it's

lies before I found out the truth.

Preconceived ideas. I never doubted you,

but now this love is over before we even kissed.

I can't love someone who doesn't understand

grains of sand

and

      how

                          they

                                                              land.

Ok, so people seem to think I should make this a weekly thing, so I will!

Robopoem: a soulless, tireless machine programmed with one goal: to create the best poetry possible.  And it will not rest until it has accomplished it's primary function.  It has access to the entire English language, from Old English to modern slang.  It can generate more words in a matter of seconds than most humans could write in a lifetime.  What mere human can stand against it?

Enter Emily Dickinson.  A shy, reclusive girl from Massachusetts, Dickinson never received much attention for her work in her lifetime, but has since become revered as one of the greatest American poets in history.  A tremendously prolific writer, she authored some eighteen hundred poems during her career, many of which have been immortalized in the literary canon.

So who will prevail?  Man (or woman, in this case)...or Machine?  You decide.

Ms. Dickinson will start things off with "Hope is the thing with feathers":

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.      

  Read more »

A cold heart

is no good.

It can't beat.

It only breathes mascara and cigarettes.

Frigid and empty;

snowflakes clotting icy veins;

cold blooded.

Shivering underneath the December sky,

the twinkling prisms

and diamonds

burned out.

All that is left is a cold heart.

I don't want daydreams

or night dreams.

I want real life

with you here

with me

with you

and your hands

with the fingers that fit perfectly

with my own.

I don't want cold salty tears.

I want the ocean

and the pounding surf

that makes us seem so small

in a world that proved to be too big for us.

I don't want doors closing that led to other open ones.

I want you

at my door

with flowers 

and an apology 

for why you took so long.

Light and dark, good and bad,

The two can mix all too easily in this world that is mad.

These two can become extremely hard to distinguish,

One doesn’t always know whether a choice will illuminate the dark, or the light, extinguish.

Sometimes a good choice will lead to bad,

Sometimes a good choice isn’t to be had.

Sometimes when you try to light the night,

The light doesn’t work, and the dark wins the fight.

“Go with your gut,” many people say

When you’re confused, and can do naught but pray.

But what if your gut is also confused?

Does it have its own “gut” to trust when it doesn’t want to lose?

Between light and dark is gray,

Neutral, safe, a good place to be, many say.

In the gray lies compromise, safety, and never gut-choices,

But if our world was only gray, would we even have voices?

With word insufficient 

there seems nothing 

else to do but to

write

Words spell out 

emotions and 

finally I see what I 

feel

The poetry in the callouses

of your hands Read more »

Who's on first?

Who's on second?

Who knows?

I don't care!

Silly stage act

Of Costello and Abbott

Butter, milk, yogurt, and cheese

I eat them any time I please

A must have when I climb rocks

Is those Darn Tough socks!

One thing in common

Is their name of Cabot

Kill the wabbit!

Kill the wabbit!

This funny little cartoon

A parody Wagner opera

Listening to Elmer

Causes bad speech habits

But as you can see

There are no guarantees

As the rain drops and plops

That my writing will stop

Even when I'm in Rabet

I have a writing habit

Who's on first?

Who's on second?

Who knows?

I don't care!

Silly stage act

Of Costello and Abbott

Butter, milk, yogurt, and cheese

I eat them any time I please

A must have when I climb rocks

Is those Darn Tough socks!

One thing in common

Is their name of Cabot

Kill the wabbit!

Kill the wabbit!

This funny little cartoon

A parody Wagner opera

Listening to Elmer

Causes bad speech habits

But as you can see

There are no guarantees

As the rain drops and plops

That my writing will stop

Even when I'm in Rabet

I have a writing habit

There you are!

You help me

You hurt me

On to success

Or to failure

I can't seem to

Ever conrol you

But I can control

You all the time

Sometimes you're good

Sometimes you're bad

But most of the time

You're just my habit.

Lightning flashes, distant clashes

Skies cry as neighbors make their dashes

Under shelter, it's not the same

As dancing in the pouring rain

Hair dripping, feet pounding

My clothing soaked through, it's astounding

Your gaze cuts through me, a slash of heat

Thousands of hands clap out the beat

Distant drum strokes, spinning lights

This lovely part of August nights

And you're pressing close, our dance begins

Breath blows warm on ocean skin

Bare feet scrape soft on pavement floors

Seeking something never yours

Our responsibilities worlds away

Feels like you were here to stay

Tripping now, clumsy hearts

Fall too hard, tumble apart

So sad our moment lasts only now

As knives of sun cut through the clouds

Summer breezes scatter traces

As people fall neatly in their places

You in yours and me in mine

And only raindrops still keep time

As our cover shatters, you are gone

As quickly as the blinding sun

Under shelter, it's not the same

As dancing in the pouring rain

The house of mirrors.

The house of glass.

So similar,

so different.

Both give reflections,

yet one reveals whole truth,

while the other distorts it.

Dragons fly within the souls of the worthy

They also fly within the world of the unworthy

But they chose not to show themselves,

For who within the unworthy shall appreciate their brilliance?

Dragons stay hidden within the realm of a dark sky

As they fly around the world looking for an unlucky snack,

And quicker than a ravenous hawk, 

They strike and end their food’s life

And their hunger in one snap of their jaw.

As dragons know quite well,

The unworthy make the greatest food,

And posses the best bones that double as toothpicks!

So, if you have dragons within your souls,

You know that you shall not become food,

That when a dragon crosses your path in this world of unworthies,

You shall be passes over and live for yet another day. 

It's a new year outside and the air tastes like
treetops and laundry and wind and cotton clouds. Can you feel
all the escaped shadows that climbed out of their dusty cardboard boxes
and were beat into breeze with a broom on the porch? Their eyes and their
cloudy gray skin wash across the winding cities, draining down pipes and
between concrete cracks. The wind's hands will pull their crumbled shadow arms
in the dizziest dance they're ever known, around trees and boys and girls with
sun-bright hair. It will be a mad frenzy of dusty feet and frayed notes.
The wind breathes light and clean and warm, and let's forget,
let's forget, let's cut up cardboard shadows and fall in love. Let's pick up
a ripped brown leaf and a dead green leaf and let them fly, let's taste the sun and
breathe the sky.

Writing Words

by Paige Tuttle

(Editor's note: This was selected for publication on vpr.net. Each week YWP selects a top story to be highlighted by Vermont Public Radio. If you'd like your piece to be considered, RECORD yourself reading the piece and upload the mp3 the audio. Put in the keyword podcast. For more selections: http://www.vpr.net/program_archive/229/)

You may think I'm only good for writing words.

You may use me only for your advantage,

You might only pick me for my flower or smiley face pattern

But let me just say that I am more then just an utensil to help you get your task done.

You have no idea how much pain I have to endure just so you can sharpen me to the point.

Then I just break.

Then once again you sharpen me.

You sharpen and sharpen and sharpen me. Oh the pain.

You sharpen me until I am just a little stump.

Then you throw me in the plastic bag next to your teacher's desk.

In that bag I find comfort for only a short time. Read more »