[Chaos]

I thought i'd pop on here for a nice bit of inspiring poetry.. and instead its a raging torrent of spanking and human rights.. *L* well it's a different approach to the inspiration thing!

[GaesII]

There is poetry in this thread.........just may have to search for it!
Me, can't write it at all, even though I do enjoy reading it.

[Orfantal]

Chaos me old pal, does this mean you'll be serving up some of your own offerings again. There are a few bits and pieces here, but you may well have to sift through for them

Trying to get my creative juices flowing again at the moment.

[Chaos]

Not at the moment, my two attempts today were weird, don't write much in the old style that I used before so gotta find a new one

[Orfantal]

Hey mate - what is style but an artificial strightjacket placed around the creative genius that is the poet. Go with the flow, and may the force be with you while I'm feeling so mellow.

[Chaos]

*L* if I didn't know better then I'd say you were stoned

[Orfantal]

haha just temporarily high on life my man normally takes an external stimulus but not how you meant. Anyway tried to get something down last night but failed miserably, other than finishing this off. 1st verse was written a while back and I've added the rest but I don't really think it hangs together or even goes in the direction I was intending.

Dancing in the Dark

In life’s cruel dance
we spin and twirl
like rampant marionettes,
strings tugged and twitched
with reckless abandon.
Eyes wide but blind,
never cognisant of
the hidden hands that
guide our every move.

In life’s tapestry
our threads are taut,
pushed and pulled,
woven tightly in and out
of a thousand other cords.
Ties that bind us in our place,
a hidden spider’s web
to hold us trapped
and keep us to our fate.

In life’s tragedy
we drink our tears
and bless the taste
of such richly bitter wine.
We eat the rotted fruit
of dreams and ambition
and gorge ourselves
on the many flavours
of our broken souls.

[GaesII]

I don't know how long the gap was between penning the original verse and completing the poem, but it doesn't sound disjointed hun:)

Gaesii x

[Orfantal]

Cheers hun - probably six months or more, pretty rare for me to go back to something like that. Tried to match it in, maybe I'm just not happy with the whole thing, which is probably why I'd left it as a fragment in the firt place.

Mind you I was banging my head against a wall last night, metaphorically of course, with little success so at least this was something that I managed to get done.

[GaesII]

That's the problem I have with writing. I just don't have the time to dedicate to it, which means that it often sits untouched for a good couple of months, and any momentum gained is lost.

[Orfantal]

Yeah I know what you mean, and I think I've said before that one of the reasons i like poetry is just that the short format gives me a chance to get something completed. But even with poems it doesn't always happen. Normally once i stop that's it can't go back to it, although I have occasionally gone back and rewritten things, mostly very old ones that were always in rhyme.

[Orfantal]

Regrets

the man stands broken in the doorway
crucified within the frame
pinned in place with spiking pain
heart pierced through with bitter anguish
thorns burrowing towards his brain

Eyes weeping blood he looks in horror
at the silent empty bed
the memory of so much laughter
burns as agony instead
along with every harsh regret

Tongue thick with grief he tries to whisper
articulate the crushing loss
but all that comes is a soft whimper
he relives the brutal murder
of everything that he once loved

[GaesII]

Pretty deep stuff there honey
Like it though, very dark.
Is this a recent one?

[Orfantal]

Cheers hun. Yeah seem to veer between light and dark on a regular basis. You could say that - wrote it while ironing my shirt this morning, finished it on the train. Familiar story, morning seems to be my creative moment. Frustrating as I was trying to write something for a while last night and didn't get very far. Got two more that I need to try and finish off.

I guess this was meant to be pretty ambivalent, could be real murder could be a relationship(s), he could be guilty or not.

[Orfantal]

Here we go then,a few more offerings on the sacrificial altar of criticism.
This one's old:

Jam Today

“I want some jam”
the small boy cried,
not thinking of tomorrows,
and through his smile
a grown man sighed,
a breath of future sorrows.
“I want it now,
I cannot wait.”
A taste of stolen treasure
which bears a price
that he will hate.
A debt that lasts forever.
A young boy’s dreams
have no disguise
just sweet greed that’s uncontained.
But who can see
with childish eyes
that our dreams are wrapped in chains.


This is old but I finished it off last night:

Poetry

The impact of the abstract
and it’s construct,
should not obstruct
interaction and extraction
of comprehension
and by extension such
invention should avoid prevention
of retention of intentions.

As a converse when you read verse
whether terse or interspersed
with deeper meaning requiring gleaning,
then a leaning to the artifice of
edifice, a bewildered build, filled
with detail should not entail
confusion or exclusion.
But should simplify, exemplify
and amplify the poet’s simple thought.

and these are a couple of new snippets:

Enchantress

I chanced upon her face one night
Wan and pale as if captured
Frightened in the moonlight.
Yet for all that bright and fey,
her passion caught within
A cage of icy beauty.
Those tortured eyes transfixed me
and pinned me like a butterfly
still writhing yet accepting chains
that bound me to her will.

Dreams

In dreams I soar on silvered wings
high in the cotton candy sky
to glimpse below with eagle’s eye
the verdant fields so far below.
I taste the sweet and scented air,
the softest wind caressing me
with fingers of deft mystery,
and dance upon that gentle breeze.
But now and then, like Icarus,
I burn with dark and secret fear.
My courage drips like melted wax
and weakened wings slip from my grasp.
I slip and slide into the dark
an endless fall from that great height
through chilling clouds that freeze my blood
and roaring wind that claws my breath.
And as the ground approaches fast
I close my eyes and scream my fright
To find myself awake again
and safely through the wretched night.

Dancing In My Head

I danced alone again last night
in the darkness of my mind,
my eyes were shuttered tight,
I didn’t like the view at all.
I’d thought that you might pay a call,
maybe you just couldn’t wait,
knocked briefly at the door,
banging against my window pain.
But all the music slowed and stopped
in that hollowed vault of mine.
.Patterned on every wall
the silence of a dark design.
Then in the echoes of my thoughts
I cast around for guidance
and grasped the nettle tight,
then barricaded up the door.

and if I'm brutally honest I don't think I'm happy with any of them.

[Orfantal]

Here we go, some more. First one from Friday I think, second is an old one where I had the first 5 lines and added the rest at the weekend. The third I wrote on Sunday and the fourth last night.

Pause for Thought

In the stuttered stretched out moment
Between two hesitant heartbeats
A fear etched stiletto slices
smoothly through flesh and vertebrae
to scrape at tautened screaming nerves.
The curving claws of guilt rip and
Tear the bitter bloody path wide
And bare for all to see
and in that frozen second a
single simple word escapes:
sorry.


Paper Aeroplane

I take a paper aeroplane
and hoist it to the wind,
a flimsy construction
to brave the buffeting gusts
of capricious fate.
It leads me as it soars,
wildly swooping
with every vagrant breeze.
Wings stretch taut to gather
the heated air of burning anger
and we rise above serene.
Cold remorse paints icy fingers
on its surface as we dive and roll
through clouds of cloying bitterness.
We wheel and turn, leaving behind
harsh voices and grasping hands
and we touch only lightly
on the distant world.
A fragile vessel, weak and frail,
subject to every random whim
but it leads me safely home.


World Of Our Own

When I lie down late at night
and the world presses in too tight,
then I look for an escape.
A path that I can take, to get away.
As always I think of you
and every sweet thing that you do
and wish for a secret place
where I can be with you, in your embrace.
So dreaming I slip away
to where my fantasies hold sway,
for a moment hold you tight
and wish that I could stay, and spend the night.
In my dream I cross the miles
and take my chance to make you smile
in a world we share alone
A secret precious home, world of our own


The Well of Mystery

I dive headlong into an ebon pool,
a dark well of deep emotion
that closes over me soundlessly
drowning any protests.
I flounder in the mysteries
I dimly sense around me,
brushing flailing fingertips
as I’m spun in their wake.
Swirling in the eddies I fall
to the slumbering bottom,
out of my depth and lost
weighed down by numbing pressure.
I brace myself and push
upwards searching for the surface
stretching vainly for the light
to fall again, adrift and abandoned.

[Orfantal]

Here's another one. wrote this last night when i wstrying to do some work. Started off on another but lost my way and couldn't finish it, then this one popped up from nowhere.

One Good Turn

I heard a noise in the garden last night,
and peering out in myopic caution
saw a slender black cat with paw
caught and trapped in wire netting.
Hissing in her anguish, she thrashed
and flailed in her distress.
Cautiously I approached, pausing
as she spat in anger and dismay,
inching forward slowly and carefully.
taking time to soothe her suspicious panic.
Eventually I reached her heaving side,
and gently stroked her, calming and
lulling her to an exhausted still silence.
Her eye caught mine as she gazed
in mute but compelling appeal and I slid
my hand down her trembling leg towards
her paw as her pupils darted anxiously.
She watched me taut with rapt intensity
as I eased the netting free and clear.
A moment’s pause then she rose gingerly
testing the limb then licking smooth
the disarranged and damaged fur.
She leaned close in to my sweating hand
And licked it lightly before stepping back
and fetching me a mighty scratch
then fleeing away up the garden path.
I stood watching, clutching my stinging
and bleeding hand and felt a grin
split my face like sunrise and laughed
in irrepressible and uncontrollable glee.


Not even sure it counts as a poem to be honest.

[GaesII]

" Poetry is using words to frame an emotion, an expression, a place, a time, an act…words beyond the obvious, and beyond the evident structure "

This is just one definition of poetry that I found, there are many, and over the decades people have argued about just what is poetry. For me, poetry is something that stirs the emotions, that takes you, for a short time, to another place. All the pieces you've put up would fall into that category, so this latest piece would therefore also be classified as a 'poem'.

B xxx

[Orfantal]

Cheers hun, a definition no less

i guess it felt like a poem when I wrote it, but it's probably the one that would be easier to just turn into a piece of prose, so it made me wonder. Really not sure where this came from other than perhaps a distraction from somethiing else i found more difficult. It may have just been related to the fact that my own cat had scratched the hell out of my arm earlier, and for some reason I was irrationally pleased.

[Orfantal]

Cheers hun, a definition no less

i guess it felt like a poem when I wrote it, but it's probably the one that would be easier to just turn into a piece of prose, so it made me wonder. Really not sure where this came from other than perhaps a distraction from somethiing else i found more difficult. It may have just been related to the fact that my own cat had scratched the hell out of my arm earlier, and for some reason I was irrationally pleased.