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Who was Walt Whitman before Walt Whitman was Walt Whitman?


rhymeguy

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If for a moment we
forgot all we know
about Whitman, Frost,
Tennyson and Poe,

McCartney, Lennon,
Dylan and Simon,
Eyeda, Saul Williams
and Andre 3000.

If our heroes showed up
as poets unknown
and offered us seeds
as yet unsown;

How would we critique?
What would we say?
Would we suggest
a better way?

Would we realize
the way it would go?
When we first read them
would we know?

Around us each day
in these threads we entwine
are destinies poets
awaiting their time.

We have the dream,
though obscure it may be.
Perhaps it is you.
Perhaps it is me.

 

 

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abstrect-christ

Perhaps indeed. Nice contemplative piece.
structure was good and simple making the message clear.

:-8) I like it.

Pinhead

"Unbearable, isn't it? The suffering of strangers, the agony of friends.

There is a secret song at the center of the world, Joey, and its sound is like razors through flesh."

Joey

"I don't believe you."

Pinhead

"Oh come, you can hear its faint echo right now. I'm here to turn up the volume.

To press the stinking face of humanity into the dark blood of its own secret heart."

"There's a starving beast inside my chest
playing with me until he's bored
Then, slowly burying his tusks in my flesh
crawling his way out he rips open old wounds

When I reach for the knife placed on the bedside table
its blade reflects my determined face
to plant it in my chest
and carve a hole so deep it snaps my veins

Hollow me out, I want to feel empty"
-- "Being Able To Feel Nothing" by Oathbreaker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBPy3xNwwL8

"Sky turns to a deeper grey

the sun fades by the moon

hell's come from the distant hills

tortures dreams of the doomed

and they pray, yet they prey

and they pray, still they prey"
-- "Still They Prey" by Cough

https://soundcloud.com/relapserecords/sets/cough-still-they-pray

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Hi Rhyme Guy, I am loving this resurgence of poets I loved. And I'm talking about you not Whitman or Dylan although they are favorites of mine.

 

I've been trying to write again but have been stalling, I lurk here and read Badger, Douglas, David and Barry's poems and hear their passions and wonder where mine has disappeared to. Their continued contributions have kept this site alive and I check in to read their work and remind myself I was once one of them. Now you and Marti and Joel and Geoff and Abstrect-Christ are back and I'm inspired. I hope you stick around and write more because it is going to take awhile for me to get it going.

 

~~Tink

~~ © ~~ Poems by Judi Van Gorder ~~

For permission to use this work you can write to Tinker1111@icloud.com

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Tinker,

As you probably know from my extended absence I too have been in a drought of sorts. I would stop in occasionally and wish I had something to share. It is good to be back. It feels good to share even if the poetry isn't very good.

 

I hope you too will find your way again. It good to talk to you.

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  • 6 months later...

Just now seeing this. Excuse me for being tardy. Like all the above, I like it, too.

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David W. Parsley

Yes, me, too: late, and liking the poem! Truth be told I got bushwhacked in a college course where we were evaluating a poem. The instructor had a pack of them, withholding the authors' names. I had a number of reasons for not liking the piece under consideration. The instructor responded by pointing out a number of things that the poem was doing. The whole class participated and I grudgingly did, too. But I ended by folding my arms in a disbelieving pose and stated that we were doing more for the poem than the author. Uhm, it was written by Yeats. :huh::rolleyes:

 

Really,

- Dave

 

P.S. I still do not care for the poem, but I did learn (a little) humility...

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