Go to page:

POETRY SWAP MEET: Poetry we don't usually know about, or?

seekingkate
kateA
Tyrant of Words
Australia 28awards
Joined 20th May 2014
Forum Posts: 2079

Love reading these and it's so good to see Patti Smith in amongst them.  I will be back to enter some of my favourites soon

Jade-Pandora
jade tiger
Tyrant of Words
United States 154awards
Joined 9th Nov 2015
Forum Posts: 5134


Thank you, Kate, that will be lovely!

And after two years from when the inspiration first came to me, this is exactly why I finally started the  Poetry Swap Meet Forum in the first place: what we put into it in exchange for what we get out of it... as the poets we ourselves, in our passion, strive to be.

📚✍️

Hepcat61
geoff cat
Dangerous Mind
United States 33awards
Joined 27th Nov 2015
Forum Posts: 1028


KENNETH PATCHEN 1911-1972

Kenneth Patchen was an American poet and novelist. He experimented with different forms of writing and incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which have been compared with those of William Blake and Walt Whitman.

“As We Are So Wonderfully Done with Each Other”

As we are so wonderfully done with each other
We can walk into our separate sleep
On floors of music where the milkwhite cloak of childhood lies

O my lady, my fairest dear, my sweetest, loveliest one
Your lips have splashed my dull house with the speech of flowers
My hands are hallowed where they touched over your
      soft curving.

It is good to be weary from that brilliant work
It is being God to feel your breathing under me

A waterglass on the bureau fills with morning . . .
Don’t let anyone in to wake us.

Jade-Pandora
jade tiger
Tyrant of Words
United States 154awards
Joined 9th Nov 2015
Forum Posts: 5134


Jackleen Holton Hookway

Holton Hookway’s poems have been published in The Giant Book of Poetry, and Steve Kowit: This Unspeakably Marvelous Life, and have appeared or are forthcoming in American Literary Review, Bayou, Bellingham Review, The Fourth River, Lake Effect, Poet Lore, Rattle, and others.



I’M SAD WITH YOU

my daughter says
when I remind her
she won’t be watching TV
today, and I nod and say
I’m a little sad, too,
about the tantrum
at the grocery store.
I woke up sad, but I don’t
tell her that, don’t say I’m sad
with her daddy for not listening,
just like my mother never listened—
my mother whose sadness
I only just realized
wasn’t my own.
So I know my daughter
won’t understand how I’m sad
for my country, sad
with news, and the fish
I had to flush,
sad with the way endings
just show up, bright and orange
as the living thing, though tilted
to one side, still
and sad, black bubble
of an eye
on the water line.
__________



Jackleen Holton: “For me, this was the saddest week yet in our nation’s recent history, mainly owing to the continuing crisis on the Southern border, and infant internment camps, or ‘tender age’ facilities. While the family separation policy has been reversed by the administration that created it, the fate of many parents and children remain in the balance.”

seekingkate
kateA
Tyrant of Words
Australia 28awards
Joined 20th May 2014
Forum Posts: 2079

Nabaneeta Dev Sen is a Bengali writer.  She has over 80 books published in Bengali covering poetry, short stories, novels, plays etc etc. Educated in Kolkata and the U.S. she is also an acclaimed international scholar and Professor of Comparative Literature and has been awarded many honours.  I came across her in 2016 when I attended the Jaipur Literature Festival.  This poem is taken from her book 'Make Up Your Mind' 25 poems about choice.


The Appointment

We would meet, that was the plan.
With pieces of bridges and towers
Clasped in my hand, my love,
In unbroken time
In infinite space
I would wait for you
Same time -
My youth
Same place -
This earth.

Look
My youth is ready, on time,
This earth, well prepared.
A magnificent bridge has built itself
From all those fragments,
Locking the river into a long smooth stretch.
The broken bits of towers have joined together,
A monumental pillar now pierces the universe.

We would meet, that was the plan.
Look, my love, I am here -

Is unbroken time an ever extending wait?

poet Anonymous


The Emperor Tenchi reigned from A.D. 668 to 671, his capital was Otsu, not far from Kyōto, and he is chiefly remembered for his kindness and benevolence. It is related, that one day he was scaring birds away, while the harvesters were gathering in the crop, and, when a shower of rain came on, he took shelter in a neighbouring hut; it was, however, thatched only with coarse rushes, which did not afford him much protection, and this is the incident on which the verse is founded.





 Aki no ta no
Kari ho no iho no
 Toma wo arami
Waga koromode wa
Tsuyu ni nure-tsutsu.

OUT in the fields this autumn day
 They're busy reaping grain ;
I sought for shelter ’neath this roof,
 But fear I sought in vain,—
 My sleeve is wet with rain.


Vandel_Viaclovsky
Van
Thought Provoker
United States 2awards
Joined 21st July 2013
Forum Posts: 126


Bill Shields was a Navy SEAL in the Can Tho Village in Vietnam for three years. He is the author of several collections of poetry: POST-VIETNAM STRESS SYNDROME, NAM, DRINKING GASOLINE IN HELL, (now collected in HUMAN SHRAPNEL) from 2.13.61 publications, and LIFETAKER, also from 2.13.61.

jingoism

I never wore a yellow ribbon
& I've bled for this country
no flag either
or "WELCOME HOME HEROES" bumper sticker on my car
I can't find one good thing to say
about American teen-agers firing extremely high-tech weaponry
against a virtually unarmed enemy
A parade for our heroes?
A parade for death?
What was the body count anyway?
How many Iraqi children died with our metal in their bones?
I'm not going to make a nineteen year old kid a hero
for having the innocence to kill
I have two Purple Hearts myself
for being young & stupid
& that is not an excuse
to fill a coffin.


FLOORPLAN TO A LEASE

the upstairs neighbors woke me
night after night
blood- thick screams dropped me
to my knees
adrenalin
closing my throat
as I realized it was my voice
waking the neighbor




Jade-Pandora
jade tiger
Tyrant of Words
United States 154awards
Joined 9th Nov 2015
Forum Posts: 5134


Lowell Jaeger

Bigfork, Flathead Valley, Montana educator, Lowell Jaeger is an American poet and Montana's 7th Poet Laureate. Is a nationally recognized poet.  For the past 30 years, he has delighted diverse Montana audiences with readings, lectures, discussions, radio shows, and poetry workshops. He lives in Yellow Bay with wife, Amy, and their children, Bettreena, Jesseamyn, and Aamon.


FISH-BURGER AND FRIES

I’m writing to you, reader, from a McDonald’s Playland,
while my grandkids frolic like hamsters
inside a maze of plastic tubes.

They begged me to bring them here, jumped
up and down, tugged at my sleeves,
said, please, please.
Poems like this are everywhere.

A portly, bearded man in red suspenders
seats himself nearby. A woman enters,
squinting, scanning faces at the tables.
The man waves and wears a worried smile.
The woman waves like she’s fanning back
a cloud of gnats.

I’m dreaming she’s his estranged daughter.
That’s me, chomping fries and a fish-burger,
jotting notes because it’s a poet’s job
to go where people go and do what people do.

Do you ever like to go bowling? the man says.
He’s unwrapped a burger for her, stands
to fetch a straw for her milkshake.
She’s angled sidewise in her chair, not
facing him. Stop stroking your beard like that, she says,
a bit taken aback to hear the words, the harsh tone.

Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth,
said Picasso. Poems like this are everywhere.
Watch me! Watch me! my grandkids scream sweetly.
The man and the woman wobble between
awkwardness and solemnity. I’m swallowing it all,
pausing between bites and scribbles
to mop from this page of my opened notebook
a dollop of tartar sauce.

__________

Lowell Jaeger: “Poems are happening in plain view every day. It’s a poet’s job, I say in ‘Fish-Burger and Fries,’ to go where people go and do what people do. The older I get, I write from the imagination less and less. The world around us is rich and fabulous. I want to capture the world’s richness on the page, and let the world speak for itself.”

Vandel_Viaclovsky
Van
Thought Provoker
United States 2awards
Joined 21st July 2013
Forum Posts: 126


okay and now just for funsies here are three poems written by persons famous for things other than poetry  -


James Dean
(February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955)

"Ode to a tijuana toilet" circa 1955

Portrait of Jim & naked ass
in the mirror (from backstage
it issaid: "IT IS "MORBID!"
it is MORBUND it is asked,
Oh great crusty bowl of no end
SHOWING HIS BALLS TO THE WORLD
Is it Sebastian
yanking arrows out of his butt
or the brave matadors shadow
the last moment in the/mirror
IS IT THE FATHER
who cries it is the "MORBID SON"
THE ANSWER ARRIVES:
Fuck dad, dear dad, fuck you.
The lonely man who can't
get out
from the back of the mirror
great puppet of the other
O breathing life
to the dead on the sand
Dried seaweed that speaks
singing italian songs
on Patchen Place
to the caged girl
The body in a tin can
empty of the soul
The crow is crowing
and two becomes one
THE END
The pen is set aside
the moving finger wrote
and now he takes a shit.

Vandel_Viaclovsky
Van
Thought Provoker
United States 2awards
Joined 21st July 2013
Forum Posts: 126



Ernest Hemingway
(July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961)


Country Poem with Little Country


When gin is gone and all is over
Then horses, bees and alsyke clover
Receive our sorrows and our joys:
Be known as well to all our boys
Without much noise.
On turf on sandy roads and wood
The bee recedes and enters fast
He knows the role for which he's cast
The fighter-bomber lives forever
More truly when they're two together
But left wing shortages occur
Who, on the line, called
A dog a cur?


Paris, 22 December 1949


Vandel_Viaclovsky
Van
Thought Provoker
United States 2awards
Joined 21st July 2013
Forum Posts: 126



Egon Schiele
(12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918)

I, eternal child —
I sacrificed myself for others …
who looked and did not see me …

Everything was dear to me —
I wanted to look at the angry people
with loving eyes,
to make their eyes do likewise;
And to the jealous,
give them gifts,
telling them I am worthless.’



Jade-Pandora
jade tiger
Tyrant of Words
United States 154awards
Joined 9th Nov 2015
Forum Posts: 5134


Vandel_Viaclovsky said:


Omgod, Van...

stunning stunning stunning, all three...

Jade-Pandora
jade tiger
Tyrant of Words
United States 154awards
Joined 9th Nov 2015
Forum Posts: 5134


Ellis McGinley (age 15)



THE FUNERAL

I remember the bagpipes.

There aren’t many things my memory holds on to, but when it comes to my grandfather’s funeral,

I remember the bagpipes.

I remember the squeaking rendition of Amazing Grace, my first-grade self convinced they sounded like geese.

My mother told me they were my grandfather’s favorite, my round little face and wide eyes nodding up at her from the church pew we hovered next to, captured, frozen in this moment like the Mother Mary mourning her son in the stained-glass windows.

I remember his wake, too, the way I slipped from the too-bright coatroom into the chilly drear of the day outside on the iron landing, tip-toeing around the decomposing remains of discarded cigarette butts. I remember the way the flag was folded so sharply in the triangle case by his coffin. I remember the flowers drowning his corpse like he had managed to die in the Garden of Eden, his Adam’s apple paused like he was still just about to swallow, throat white above his black silk tie. I think I remember the quiet moment I slipped up to him, kneeling by the box he’d rot in, my baby hand clutching his withered one.

I can still feel the cold waxiness, the violet veins with no blood left in them. I know his closed eyelids, face turned towards me, the perfumed flower-spice scent of his corpse. His eyelids, artificially built to seem peaceful, couldn’t see me, and I only kneeled, silently, for a second before I left him.

But clearest of all, above the drizzle of rain on young shoulders, the anthers of the lilies trimmed to my mother’s approval as to not get pollen on his funeral suit,

I remember the bagpipes.

poet Anonymous


The Archpoet was a medieval Latin poet who may have had to keep his identity hidden in order to escape the Inquisition

The Confession Of Golias

Boiling in my spirit's veins
With fierce indignation,
From my bitterness of soul
Springs self-revelation:
Framed am I of flimsy stuff,
Fit for levitation,
Like a thin leaf which the wind
Scatters from its station.

While it is the wise man's part
With deliberation
On a rock to base his heart's
Permanent foundation,
With a running river I
Find my just equation,
Which beneath the self-same sky
Hath no habitation.

Carried am I like a ship
Left without a sailor,
Like a bird that through the air
Flies where tempests hale her;
Chains and fetters hold me not,
Naught avails a jailer;
Still I find my fellows out
Toper, gamester, railer.

To my mind all gravity
Is a grave subjection;
Sweeter far than honey are
Jokes and free affection.
All that Venus bids me do,
Do I with erection,
For she ne'er in heart of man
Dwelt with dull dejection.

Down the broad road do I run,
As the way of youth is;
Snare myself in sin, and ne'er
Think where faith and truth is;
Eager far for pleasure more
Than soul's health, the sooth is,
For this flesh of mine I care,
Seek not ruth where ruth is.

Prelate, most discreet of priests,
Grant me absolution!
Dear's the death whereof I die,
Sweet my dissolution;
For my heart is wounded br
Beauty's soft suffusion;
All the girls I come not nigh,
Mine are in illusion.

'Tis most arduous to make
Nature's self surrender;
Seeing girls, to blush and be
Purity's defender!
We young men our longings ne'er
Shall to stern law render,
Or preserve our fancies from
Bodies smooth and tender.

Who, when into fire he falls,
Keeps himself from burning?
Who within Pavia's walls
Fame of chaste is earning?
Venus with her finger calls
Youths at every turning,
Snares them with her eyes, and thralls
With her amorous yearning.

If you brought Hippolitus
To Pavia Sunday,
He'd not be Hippolitus
On the following Monday;
Venus there keeps holiday
Every day as one day;
'Mid these towers in no tower dwells
Venus Verecunda. [a modest Venus]

In the second place I own
To the vice of gaming:
Cold indeed outside I seem,
Yet my soul is flaming:
But when once the dice-box hath
Stripped me to mv shaming,
Make I songs and verses fit
For the world's acclaiming.

In the third place, 1 will speak
Of the tavern's pleasure;
For I never found nor find
There the least displeasure;
Nor shall find it till I greet
Angels without measure,
Singing requiems for the souls
In eternal leisure.

In the public-house to die
Is my resolution;
Let wine to my lips be nigh
At life's dissolution:
That will make the angels cry,
With glad elocution,
"Grant this toper, God on high,
Grace and absolution!"

With the cup the soul lights up,
Inspirations flicker;
Nectar lifts the soul on high
With its heavenly ichor:
To my lips a sounder taste
Hath the tavern's liquor
Than the wine a village clerk
Waters for the vicar.

Nature gives to every man
Some gift serviceable;
Write I never could nor can
Hungry at the table;
Fasting, any stripling to
Vanquish me is able;
Hunger, thirst, I liken to
Death that ends the fable.

Nature gives to every man
Gifts as she is willing;
I compose my verses when
Good wine I am swilling,
Wine the best for jolly guest
Jolly hosts are filling;
From such wine rare fancies fine
Flow like dews distilling.

Such my verse is wont to be
As the wine I swallow;
No ripe thoughts enliven me
While my stomach's hollow;
Hungry wits on hungry lips
Like a shadow follow,
But when once I'm in my cups,
I can beat Apollo.

Never to my spirit yet
Flew poetic vision
Until first my belly bad
Plentiful provision;
Let but Bacchus in the brain
Take a strong position,
Then comes Phoebus flowing in
With a fine precision.

There are poets, worthy men,
Shrink from public places,
And in lurking-hole or den
Hide their pallid faces;
There they study, sweat, and woo
Pallas and the Graces,
But bring nothing forth to view
Worth the girls' embraces.

Fasting, thirsting, toil the bards,
Swift years flying o'er them;
Shun the strife of open life,
Tumults of the forum;
They, to sing some deathless thing,
Lest the world ignore them,
Die the death, expend their breath,
Drowned in dull decorum.

Lo! mv frailties I've betrayed,
Shown you every token,
Told you what your servitors
Have against me spoken;
But of those men each and all
Leave their sins unspoken,
Though they play, enjoy to-day,
Scorn their pledges broken.

Now within the audience-room
Of this blessed prelate,
Sent to hunt out vice, and from
Hearts of men expel it;
Let him rise, nor spare the bard,
Cast at him a pellet:
He whose heart knows not crime's smart,
Show mv sin and tell it!

I have uttered openly
All I knew that shamed me,
And have spued the poison forth
That so long defamed me;
Of my old ways I repent,
New life hath reclaimed me;
God beholds the heart-'twas man
Viewed the face and blamed me.

Goodness now hath won my love,
I am wroth with vices;
Made a new man in my mind,
Lo, my soul arises!
Like a babe new milk I drink-
Milk for me suffices,
Lest my heart should longer be
Filled with vain devices.

Thou Elect of fair Cologne, [ie Rainald of Dassel]
Listen to my pleading!
Spurn not thou the penitent;
See, his heart is bleeding!
Give me penance! what is due
For my faults exceeding
I will bear with willing cheer,
All thy precepts heeding.

Lo, the lion, king of beasts,
Spares the meek and lowly;
Toward submissive creatures he
Tames his anger wholly.
Do the like, ye powers of earth,
Temporal and holy!
Bitterness is more than's right
When 'tis bitter solely.

Jade-Pandora
jade tiger
Tyrant of Words
United States 154awards
Joined 9th Nov 2015
Forum Posts: 5134



Brad Johnson

Brad Johnson is an associate professor at Palm Beach State College, FL, and has two chapbooks Void Where Prohibited and The Happiness Theory available at puddinghouse.com. Work of his has recently been accepted by Flyway, The Madison Review, The Modern Review, The New York Quarterly, Steam Ticket and Willow Springs, among others. Poems of his have been nominated for Best of the Net and for a Pushcart Prize. He currently serves as Poetry Editor of Magnolia: A Florida Journal of Literary and Fine Arts.


THEY SAID IT WAS A WEATHER BALLOON

Eileen’s daughter holds Happy Birthday balloons
at the bus stop when I drop off my daughter.
When I wish her happy birthday Eileen tells me
it’s not her birthday. She just found the balloons
and has been carrying them with her for three days
smiling as everyone who passes wishes her happy birthday.
But as the bus pulls away she releases the string
to wave it good-bye, and she cries as they lift
into the sky as the sun begins to scald the edges
of the morning clouds. Oh no, says Eileen.
The turtles and the manatees. When I look
to the sky I only see balloons. Not turtles. Not manatees.
Eileen sees balloons not as they are but as they’ll be,
as deflating foil and latex sinking into the ocean,
suffocating the animals at home in those silent seas.
I think of how a thing is a thing but also other things,
how we try and say what we mean with language
but words are as imprecise as a drunk sniper taking
aim atop a spinning carousel and how Ezra Pound used
fifteen languages in The Cantos in order to employ
the correct word to perfectly express his meaning,
deciding the three rippled hieroglyphs best expressed water.
As I’m walking home my wife texts me an eggplant emoji
and I can’t tell if this is a sexual advance or a request
to stop at the vegan grocery. Should I respond
with a thumbs up image or a meme of frustrated Nicholas Cage?
So much depends on whether the red wheelbarrow
is just a wheelbarrow or a symbol of American industrialism.
Behind the bushes of a neighbor’s house I think
I spy a giant great blue heron but it’s just a stupid
black smart car parked in their driveway.

__________

Brad Johnson: “This poem was conceived while waiting with my daughter for her school bus to arrive one morning. It’s hard to account for thoughts that arrive that early.”

Go to page:
Go to: