/lit/ - Literature

crouch

Damp obelisk, encroach upon the gray.
Today's
broth is thin sludge
smudged between branch crevice;
sway less
than drops on see-through panes.
Immobility is servility to this
no-age skyscape, waning
through chainlink fences.
Hence, this is
non-emotional;
now approach in full
consummation a
palate of secondary appalachian
compost.
Soft rain tills the lichened host
displayed in earthy evening;
ground birds ear a seedling
in the moss.

boiling water

i would like to wake up in a bag
a plastic bag with no windows
this is my new home

the walls are orange and sealed
there is no door
i can finally take a breath

no one knows i am in here
that i am dry noodles now
and that is okay

police could never find me
or question me in here
next to a seasoning packet

i am happy, i have a purpose
i will go to a stomach
and I will not be ramen anymore


turning this in for part of a workshop critique in ~7 hours

>>4530525
>i am dry noodles now

if this was supposed to be funny you are fantastic

if not, well...

>>4530525
wow much roggenbuck

Bound in the flow of shadowed masses;
flowed through abysses inbetween ashgrey castles;
I,
with every waxen face that passes,
am glad I forgot my glasses.

>>4530566

here's another


19

i poop my pants at least twice a week
to keep myself on my toes

you really have to concentrate
on what you say to people
when you smell like shit

because there is shit in your pants
because there is shit in your shoes
because you shit yourself

What's the /lit/ opinion on rhyming poetry?

>>4530575
That's amazing, and I actually debate with myself every morning if I want the crisp accuracy afforded by my contacts and that flowing ethereal view without.

Dak-Sha's
An Unexpected Weed

I saw it on the way to class,
On a morning cold and sober,
In a concrete crack, a blade of grass,
I near-strode ever-over,

And several inches to the right
In wake of human forces,
Its neighbor weeds were well-denied,
My footsteps were its fortress.

I lingered at the crack, in thought
Of how it must have grown,
“How far you’ve come, how hard you’ve fought
To just end up alone,”

And I felt angered then, a martyr
For a cause I’d never known,
So like Judas or King Arthur
I had ripped the blade from stone,
Just to cast it off and carry on.

It wasn’t until late that night
I thought about the grass again,
The way it lived on unshared light
When I feared I fell right in place.

"Dear God, in Heaven, have you lost your mind?"
I asked with tears a-face and solemn heart.
Intrinsically exquisit and divine,
The god, in Heaven, left me in the dark

So with my burden left without a lift
And nothing coming from the skies above,
I turned to memory and began to sift
Through photographs and ancient tales of love

Among the misplaced songs and bits of trash,
Discovered I a part of me I've lacked.
Abandoned in an act so blindly rash,
I wondered how I'd lived without its tact.

I knew its name and knew its skill for joy.
I knew its reputation - fearful, coy.

Immediately it told me every tale
Of childhood that I'd forgot in vain.
Its stories hit me like a fearsome gale
And longing poured on me like heavy rain.

To leave behind this former sense of self
With dreams of prodigy, I had no sense.
Just like the son of prodigy, himself,
Perhaps I could return to innocence.

My inner child, I must tell the truth.
I must confess, distress has taken siege.
And since we've drifted I have taken to
A longing hope that you'll come back to me.

And though to date I still glimpse it at night,
My inner child left me without light.

>1
The chickadees wake with the sunrise and shy their slight notes
among snow-laden breezes; in reveille
finches sound off: now one, now another.
But what morning is this for songbirds?
Hear now the cardinals mimic and guess
at your baltering language of laughter and touch
that excites the ear with strange orchesis.
They flush the blank air like a rash;
they are not you.
I favor the mute falling snow,
the waltzless white dust: unmoving and unreminiscent.


>2
Evening rain against the window
glass blends all the world in its clear

mud. Maple and asphalt made alike,
leveled by heaven's balms.

Lights and sirens flare, borne by
catastrophe, and mingle with the skies'

black skin of stars. Traffic
and storm are wed,

and yet we've still to touch.
Between our two hides

in indefinite pause is harbored
a century's worth of want, a sense

of incommunicable urgency, which surfaces
only through ellipsis.

Tacit, too, are these
candles, waxen papavers

that wilt now,
sick with fever

--meanwhile raindrops sound their Pathetique
like fingers that press, at long last,

into their bedmate's flesh, but know
not what urge begs their fall.

>>4531086
Meter's too regular, I think. These days, it's difficult to write end rhymes without them becoming a distraction, and a common way to work around that is rhythmic variation - you don't break out of iambic pentameter until line 7, and by then the reader's already bored by the sheer regularity of it (though I wasn't at all displeased with the heart/dark half-rhyme).
I'd also recommend that you avoid filler words and modifiers that exist for the sole purpose of making your poem "fit" your meter: it should be the other way around.
Examples of places where you do this:
>Intrinsically exquisite and divine
>lines beginning with 'and'
>himself (I see what you're doing, but it's ineffective)

>>4531079
A lot of the above advice applies to you, too.
Also, that Judas mention is out of place.

>>4530580
Heartbreaking.

>>4530525
Oh god, I love this so much.

>>4530444
This just got better and better as I read through it. It's just so -tidy-, you rarely see that kind of cleanliness with poems like these.

last one i'm posting

beethoven

i’m going to be a famous recording artist
i release an album of 23 tracks that average 2.5 minutes
ranging from 13 seconds (an intro song) to 9 minutes (a ballad)
the 58 minute album is 58 minutes of silence
critics rave it is a sonic masterpiece
after a week new music blog websites are created
thissongissilent.com has 400 downloads a minute for a month
the deaf community meets with speaker conglomerates
a team of opera tenor hitmen stalk me and i hire protection to fall asleep

>>4531353
bump

>>4531353
No comprendo.

Just written. Let 4chan be my proofread.
I thought I saw today a god, looking in the mirror
I thought he turned away in shame and then he disappeared
I wonder why he came that day and what, that day, came clear
I wonder if he saw himself (for first) - saw Isaac's Fear

I think I saw myself today, staring into space
I think I quickly turned away and snapped out of my daze
I wonder why my introspection leaves this awful taste
I wonder if these dreams of self can ever be erased

My thoughts were born from chalkboards
My hands are always clenched
My feet are worn from walking
My soul's been rained on - drenched

I think I'll see myself someday, walking by a mirror
I think I'll walk right on my way and quickly disappear
I wonder what might come that day if something may come clear
I wonder if I'll feel okay - if it will bring new fear

Just written. Let 4chan be my proofread.

I thought I saw today a god, looking in the mirror
I thought he turned away in shame and then he disappeared
I wonder why he came that day and what, that day, came clear
I wonder if he saw himself (for first) - saw Isaac's Fear

I think I saw myself today, staring into space
I think I quickly turned away and snapped out of my daze
I wonder why my introspection leaves this awful taste
I wonder if these dreams of self can ever be erased

I think I'll see myself someday, walking by a mirror
I think I'll walk right on my way and quickly disappear
I wonder what might come that day if something may come clear
I wonder if I'll feel okay - if it will bring new fear

My thoughts were born from chalkboards
My hands are always clenched
My feet are worn from walking
My soul's been rained on - drenched

bump

uh uh uh
Black people, black people,
lotsa melanin, get wit it
drankin juice, get wit it
not brown, imma niglit

you black son? GODDAMN
you wite son - GEDDAFUCKOUTTAHERE
you on weals? I AMN
other possies - BEWARE

[An Prosaic Interjection]
Now I ain't sayin niggas are the best
or anything knowwhatimsaying
they just carry the most firepower (shyyiiiit)
they just bump the hardest toons
grind the biggest booties
and wear the swaggest gear

WOOF boy I'm thirsty
WOOF niggas get durty
WOOF nigga I ain't thirddy
WOOF nigga I give you a fiddy
to smile like P Diddy (anon crew yo)
(buy our merch nigga)
(so we can smoke weed nigga)
(damn u just a suburban wite kid aincha)
(money b blind hahahaha)

>>4532016
dis some serious white ass shit. i'm talkin' vanilla-as-vanilla-can-be, snow on a february morning, never-come-into-contact-with-the-sun-shit.

man, no disrespect o nuffin', but you seriously gotta rethink yo white ass. shit, even mitt romney'd think yo ass is too white.

eating corn.

today i overheard a girl
saying that
the only thing about almonds is
if you want to get any nutritional content
you have to chew
“you may as well be eating corn”

i don't think it's true
but i know what she means

>>4533448
Frustration
Consciousness threatened
Blind eyes in palm
Couldn't see even if he saw
I'm here for the one it was
I was foolish back then,
I hesitated.
Laying down an L.
Combustion.
Winds blowing against me.
One with sand made from emeralds.


at the summit
theres nowhere to go but down
just hope you figure out that you're falling
before you hit the ground

>>4533467
didn't mean to quote

Is it cool if I write some of my spanish ones? I hope someone can read them.

Encendí, esta mañana,
más temprano que nunca
la lámpara del alba
sobre tu lecho,
y puse el alma, oscura, de pantalla...

Como las guías mustias
de una guirnalda,
caían de tus hombros de novicia
los brazos, sin color, sobre las sábanas.

En la boca, marchita por la fiebre,
una tonalidad malva
sustituía el rojo de los besos
con las violetas de la marugada.

Estabas muerta. Pero no sentí
en tu actitud, en tu silencio, nada
que no indujera a recordar la onda
de una hermosa guirnalda deshojada.
La tristeza de ser
te había abandonado entre las blancas
cortinas entreabiertas de la aurora.

Andabas, libre de tu corazón,
por las colinas trémulas del alba.

¡Cúanto hubiera querido
no remover el agua
de tu sueño
con el rumor de una palabra humana!

¡Y qué no hubiera dado
por mirar en su fondo, al fin trenzada
al tallo de tu cuerpo,
la yedra melodiosa de mi alma!

I wrote this a few years ago, after I read Cortázar's story "El río". I found it a week ago and tweeked it a little.

At night
life melts away;
There is only
beauty.

------------------

The spoken words burst open.
A thick-smelling wound,
foul flesh,
carcass of better days.

It is the white walls that annoy me
the clean floor, high ceilings.
It is the cool, empty space.

Again I see myself in other's words,
my hand stands still,
feeling the blow
that never came.

-----------------

A small fish
disturbs the pond's surface.
The water settles.

>>4533506
It's really good! For some reason I was reminded of García Lorca, Verde Que Te Quiero Verde. The sudden "Estabas muerta" is perfect.

I'll go look for some of my poetry in Spanish..

I once knew a man
Who quarreled with time
For it wouldn't suffice
All the needs of his life

With time wrestled he
Till it was on its knees
Yet the man being kind
Asked little of Time

"Rest on me, please."
Asked the man with a grin
And Time did agree
So it climbed up his wrist

Many a day went by
Until man came to see
That Time being wise
Was the one keeping him

Hay dias de linoleo frio y limon
dias de sol y de espacio, y de briza,
donde el gran mundo esta hecho de terracota
y bajo mi piel solo hay
ventanas abiertas.

-----------------------------

Time Zone

Mirando al agua cristalina. Lejos, se refleja el sol en las olas, calma y silencio. Arriba, las nubes recorren al cielo como la yema de los dedos sobre una piel mojada.

Mirare al horizonte descubierto, mirare al agua y la sal, a las praderas de aguamarina. Lejos de aqui, lejos de la isla de arena blanca, se calienta el ruido de la ciudad al medio dia.

she went back to hatching eggs in the dumpsters behind tumbledrum.

She was apprehended little more than an hour ago. Lo and behold, she admitted to her heroin addiction, though there was no hero in her blood
she went in to try to buy drugs from the evidence room. got her ass blowed out by the chief of police. she's suing St. Johns police department for aggravated pregnancy.

They'll put her ass to the gallows if she keeps up this shit. Fuckin bitch been smackin gack since she could tack
She kicked rocks with nothing but a tackle box of gack and blow jobs as her only currency.

We're all just little
products walking
around talking
and amusing one
another making
more products
and introducing
them to products.
I look down to
see a plastic hand
hammering a
plastic keyboard,
a plastic man or
a plastic retard,
you decide.
A fake thought
may bedevil but
give it a go,
give it a shot.
You've got it
together and
I might be in
pieces but I
have a
very
defined
paradigm.

>>4533506
Translated:
Bursting, this tomorrow,
more timely than never
the pitcher of alba
tastes like your milk
and pushes the soul, obscured, the pants.

like the guys' moustaches
of a ... guirnalda
cayenne of your homeboys of new
the boobs, without color, taste like bath salts
in the mouth, marching for february,
a malty tone
substituted the red of your cheeks
with the violets of the madrigolds.

they're dead. but they don't stink
in actuality, in your silence, nothing
but no one had recorded the (televised) wave
of a handsome dishonest guirnalda.
The sadness of being
your house abandoned between the white
tennis courts entered by the (oldsmobile) aurora.

And the badass, free like your mind,
for the shaking collies of Alba.

When hubris knows
to not remove the water
of your sleep
with the rumor of a human word.

But none of dad's hubris
to see in the folds of your dress, at the final train station
the length of your body
the melodious chant of my soul!

I didn't do this to be a funny guy. I did it because I like seeking meaning in misinterpretations and I assume there are other people who do too.