Walking downtown
Between steel structures
I’m reminded of your eyes
Their shallow vastness
Void of any emotion
No stars to shine
No planets to observe
Just the steel greyness
With the black hole center
Staring at me without blinking
As you held my hand with obligation
Not want, or even the neediness of closeness
The words you spoke spat out like shards of rust
A termination, a cessation, a denial of responsibility
Floated down through the cold, damp air
Landing on city streets like ash
A once burning sun imploded
Trampled by masses as they passed by us
And took you with them
Fading from my mind
My memory sits now in his eyes
The birth of a new star
The one you passed by
Faster than Light
And now that you are gone
Buried deep beneath the earth
We can finally see the stars
Cheatham Hill Easter*
In the shade of Kennesaw
Where they shine the cannons now,
Where the wheel’s unchanging law
Beat the weapon to the plow–
We went hunting Easter Eggs.
How the sun had gilded Spring
While we joined the children’s play,
While the planned remembering
Hid behind our joyous day.
Here the blood of Illinois
Flowed into an open field.
Here embattled man and boy
Multiplied the reaper’s yield.
Here the pines of Cheatham Hill
Shed to stuff a trench’s mouth;
And the children, never still,
Could not stop for North or South.
We went hunting Easter eggs.
*Civil War battle of Kennesaw Mountain and Cheatham Hill. We hid Easter Eggs on the battlefield.
Essence Unalterable (published in DLAJ-1968)
It’s sad to see the old woman dance–
Almost like the little girl in high heel shoes;
The same trance
Only
One is lonely
For the one thing the other wants to lose.
It’s sad to see the old soldier’s beard,
White against his youngest son’s bright, brown face.
All is cleared
Within:
Where love has been;
Where love will go; and time cannot erase
The sadness of change which take a soul
From where a child might wear it, from his former smile
To his whole,
Seeing, Inner being,
To the essence of his outside while.
I like some poetry, just not pretentious poetry that doesn’t make sense. I just got out of bed, don’t have time for deciphering all that. Poetry is supposed to have a flow, theres no flow if you have to constantly pause it, backtrack and decipher meaning from it at each line. Like, I can tolerate Random Factor’s poetry, because it actually has a discernable output when you read it. Where as I cannot tolerate jerkey’s, or his predeccesor, Orbie’s, poetry, because it intentionally looks like it was written for Thorian Greys and tries to make no sense.
My mentor was once approached by a student who asked her opinion of a poem the student had just written. My mentor noted that the poem would be better if certain changes were made. The student said she would not change a line. “It flows!” she said. My mentor replied, “So does diarrhea; but that doesn’t make it good.”
I’ve published in five literary journals. Thanks, so much to my deceased mentor, Amelia Jo Weir.
Only the most flippant poetry can be read casually. At least give the poet enough understanding to appreciate his/her understanding. This may involve mental work that the casual reader will not do.
Being in someone’s journal doesn’t make it good. Like, Call of Duty is a popular game, but it is not actually good. That being said, I would say your prose is a bit better than jerkey’s. My hypothesis is that the 5 journals you posted in, the people were already in that “frame of mind”, ie. reading butt tons of poetry everyday, so their brains already had the flow to match the flow of the poetry. Those who don’t have that mindset, just don’t get it. I would be like trying to teach an old man how to appreciate the different nuances and glitches of the physics code to beat one of the top 5 world players of Smash Bros Melee. He just wouldn’t get it, because their brains are already hardwired, so much so that medium skilled players, can’t even deal damage.
My poems have been published in Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and California. I have won poetry contests nationwide and have published in a national anthology. I have no need to defend them to non-poetry readers at ILP.
Speaking of decent poets, I miss Rainey and Jonquil. There used to be some good poetry at this site. Aussiente and Arc are left to carry on the tradition.
- Ticking Time -
I would give you back the long sleepless nights
Where I paced the floor in worry
The hours of panicked pleading phone calls
Hoping that he could answer
To wind back the covers of your steel trap bed
Un-silence the treasure that lays within
The unmoving arms of ticking seconds
I am stunned by the cruelty of moment
As each and every minute known
Painfully pushes me closer to a limit
Tightly wound and ready to break
You stole those nimble hands
From the womb in my heart
Where he could have put it back together
Inside the case, who’s face lies empty
Bleeding gears and jewels lay scattered
Senselessly pried out by a knife
Never again being able to hold him
To put my ear against his chest
And hear his loudly ticking future
Welcome back! Good poem!