The Poetry Thread

[Brian37]

The Fake And The Furious,  (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter) also  post #641 at http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/31771?page=12 my home thread.

The Fake And The Furious, By Brian37

Hagee and Robertson

Rush and Coulter

Even DeePak

Full of bluster



Hinn on a stage

No real doctor

Fleecing the gullible

Furious with anger



Warren's Purpose

Countered by Dan

The fake ringmasters

Exposed by skeptics



The clowns get angry

When they are challenged

They don't like it

When you expose them



Their muscle cars

Impractical

Fueld by magic

Drifting off cliffs



Fast and furious

A race to doomsday

They'd rather commit sucide

If they don't get their way



Their diesil driven

Fantasy book

Has  a vin number

With a death wish



Their rumbels and roars

And pealing tires

They crash and burn

Over selfish desires



They're on the run

Futile speed

A highway to nowhere

They know we see



The expansion of

The universe

Is the real

Fast and furious

[Solitary]

Love is Pain


I touch my lips upon your forehead
And, in leaving from you looking ahead,
this confession let me declare--

You are not in error, who's love I scream
That our years have been but a dream;
Yet if desire has flown away
In a night club, or in a sunny day,
In a band, or in a bed,
Is it therefore hell instead?

All that we experience as a team
Is but a vision inside a dream.

I sit withen the roar
Of a surf-harassed shore,
And I grasp within my hand
grandular bits of the golden sand--

How they flew! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I cry in pain--while I cry in pain!

Oh crap! can I not hold with a tighter resist,
Them with a tighter fist?

Oh hell! can I not save
One from the cold harsh wave?
Is all that we see or experience as a team
But a vision within a dream?

[Mr.Obvious]

Fighting Fossils

I shan't please self-imposed apostles
who beckon me with their chime;
Herders who waste lives fighting fossils,
worn out by the sands of time.
Unaware they are that an empty shell
bereft of flesh, blood and even bone
can not speak but certainly does tell
more than commandments in stone.
Behind the frames of those who went before
there lie ideas which can never pass away;
Even when heroes fade and are no more
their truths and legacies forever stay.

[stromboli]

Which is exactly why in this incantation
I call my verses rhyme
In another life, with depth and feeling
I might have sent emotions reeling
but I just don't have the time.

To Rime like an ancient mariner
about a troublesome bird of woe
Moody words that haunt and linger
About lives both full and meager
but instead just rhyme and go

Once I sought to be a poet true
but life is unfair and ruthless
along the way I realized
that words, like leaden skies
can be epic, but also truthless

so emote and write your epic words
and cast your thoughts upon the water
There's nothing wrong with words that rhyme
it gets you through your day, sometimes
if it don't- well hell, it ought'er   

[Unbeliever]

Poems and equations are similar, in that I can appreciate either, but can generate neither.

[Solitary]

Sure you can, just put down in words what you feel.

  SAND & STONE

          JJ AND I WERE WALKING
          THROUGH THE DESERT .
          DURING SOME POINT OF THE
          JOURNEY, WE HAD AN
          ARGUMENT; AND SHE
          SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.

         WHEN I GOT SLAPPED I
          WAS HURT, BUT WITHOUT
          SAYING ANYTHING, I
          WROTE IN THE SAND ,

          TODAY MY BEST FRIEND
          SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE AND HURT ME.

          WE KEPT ON WALKING,
          UNTIL WE FOUND A NICE PLACE TO REST
          WHERE WE DECIDED
          TO GO SKINNY DIPPING IN BEAVER CREEK.

          I GOT STUCK IN THE WET SAND ALONG THE BANK
          AND I THOUGHT I WAS DROWNING,
          BUT THEN JJ SAVED ME.

       AFTER I RECOVERED FROM
          THE NEAR DROWNING,
          I SCRATCHED
          ON A STONE:

          TODAY MY BEST FRIEND JJ
          SAVED MY LIFE!

          JJ WHO HAD SLAPPED
          AND SAVED ME
          ASKED ME, "AFTER I HURT YOU,
          YOU WROTE IN THE SAND AND NOW,
          YOU WRITE ON A STONE, WHY?'"

          I REPLIED,
      'WHEN SOMEONE HURTS ME
          I SHOULD WRITE IT DOWN
          IN SAND, WHERE THE WINDS OF
          FORGIVENESS CAN ERASE IT AWAY.."

          "BUT, WHEN SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING GOOD FOR US,
          WE MUST ENGRAVE IT IN STONE
          WHERE NO WIND
          CAN EVER ERASE IT'"

          LEARN TO WRITE
          YOUR HURTS IN
          THE SAND AND TO
          CARVE YOUR
        BENEFITS IN STONE.

          THEY SAY IT TAKES A
          MINUTE TO FIND A SPECIAL
          PERSON,

          AN HOUR TO
          APPRECIATE THEM,

          A DAY
          TO LOVE THEM,

          BUT THEN ,

          AN ENTIRE LIFE
          TO FORGET THEM!

         

[Unbeliever]

OK, you asked for it!


Ode to Gaia

Sunlight and water engendered a form,
Once the planet became just a bit less warm,
Made up of bacteria well able to swarm
That could thrive in all climates, endure any storm.

Divinities didn't create planet Earth,
But scientists might just've witnessed the birth
Of an organism of far greater worth
Than deities of cosmic girth.

The Earth was blind, but now it sees,
By the light of its new-found faculties,
A candle lit by those whose knees
Wouldn't bend for kings nor deities.

With instrumentation we can now show
What before we couldn't hope to know,
From protons and photons to galaxies aglow,
From space/time and energy to how life can grow.

We've traced our genetics to eons long past,
When the new molten Earth had cooled at last,
When enough CO2 had been out-gassed,
When the moon first drew tides on oceans vast.

Once life struggled up from wherever it came,
It kept the Earth's temp'rature nearly the same,
Though the sun puts out more of its hot solar flame,
We simply metabolize it like it's a game.

Mars and Venus, our neighbors, are sterile, we've found,
One's too hot, one's too cold, not a bug on the ground,
It's only on Earth that life moves around,
Like Goldilocks here, life laid itself down.

Now we're searching throughout all celestial space
To discover another intelligent race,
For anything there that can maybe keep pace,
But we've heard not a peep, not even a trace.

Nowhere else in the universe have we yet seen
A stable wet planet that's even as green,
A globe with an atmospherical screen,
With a chemical brew that could stir up a gene.

No gods and no aliens do we discern,
We need them the less the more we can learn,
Our fortunes, our fates and our lives do not turn
On whether we're saved or whether we'll burn.

Apparently then we're a planet alone,
All the problems we have are solely our own,
So that what we have planted is what will have grown,
And what we will harvest is what we have sown.





See, I told ya!

[Solitary]

That was great! I can't believe this has gotten into a poetry contest with some really great poems. I have always thought atheists were very creative, and the best comedians, even if religious nuts aren't laughing. 

[Solomon Zorn]

I don't know if I should say what I think. I know some people don't take criticism well, but I think this thread would be more interesting if we critiqued each other. So here goes.

I see a lot of great starts to what could be great poems with a little (or sometimes a lot) of polishing. One of my best teachers once told me, "Never be in love with your own words." In other words, be tough on yourself. I see that as applying to poetry most of all.  I have one poem, that I tweaked on for 10 years before I considered it finished.

Work on your meter. Some of you have terrific rhyme schemes, but that's the easy part of the struggle. If I don't have the cadence, I don't consider it a finished poem.

Even when you forgo rhyme and meter, it's not just some sappy, tug-at-your-heart-strings, anecdote. It has to have a purpose. A message expressed in emotional imagery. Universal themes, woven into an eloquence of language.

I find insightful criticism to be as helpful, as praise is encouraging. Anyone who want's constructive criticism, from others on the thread, just mention that you would like some, and I at least will try to help. And I welcome feedback of any kind on my own poetry.

Poetry is hard to write. It's not for the lazy. The last one I posted took me two weeks to write. But apparently no one liked it.

[Mr.Obvious]

Hit me with your best shot.
I used be a member on AllPoetry, but couldn't stand it after a while on account of it being one enormous circlejerk.
"Oh, you're so briliant. I really like everything in this poem. There isn't a word I'd change. You can really tell you put your heart and soul into this."
Right... There were some poets who I could honestly say something like that to, about some of their poems. But even people who were much better than me made faults and ugly constructions. So I sure as hell knew I had some of my own.
It's only that I find it hard to offer constructive criticism. Because often when you suggest one thing to change, the entire poem must change with it.

[Solomon Zorn]

Hit me with your best shot.

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean by "fighting fossils." But here's what I would suggest to get the meter stable on the first stanza.

I shan't please self-proclaimed apostles,
Beckoning me with their chime,
Who waste their lives on fighting fossils,
Worn out by the sands of time.

Using "herders" and "fossils" in the same line is a mixed metaphor, so I left it out.

It might even work better to stress the first syllable in each line:

Hear the self-proclaimed apostles,
Herding people with their chime.
Wasting lives on fighting fossils,
Worn out by the sands of time.

[Unbeliever]

It's only that I find it hard to offer constructive criticism. Because often when you suggest one thing to change, the entire poem must change with it.

Perhaps the flaws are part of the beauty of the construction, as in the purposeful mistake in Persian carpets, so as to avoid the hubris of perfection.

[Solomon Zorn]

Here's on I've been struggling with for about eight hours. Any criticism is welcome:

“Beyond the Blue”
Solomon Zorn


Sunlight shining on my face
Traveled here from outer space
Moving very fast
Beyond the blue

Crossed a distance to the Earth
More than seven times its girth
In one second passed
Beyond the blue

If you were to time its course
Since it left its blazing source
Eight minutes surpassed
Beyond the blue

Like the sun the stars at night
Bathe our planet with their light
Galaxies amassed
Beyond the blue

Pondering those shining spheres
Looking back so many years
I can see the past
Beyond the blue

Stars that seem to have no end
Finally I comprehend
Space is truly vast
Beyond the blue

[Solitary]

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered your poem weak and wearying, I asked myself, who makes up these fucking rules?  Just kidding, I liker your poetry, and you are correct, it isn't easy to make a poem profound. Poe did it the best in my opinion. I believe he also write the first mystery. Only Truman Capote did anything original in my time that I know about.

[Solomon Zorn]

Here's the same poem, after tweaking it this morning. My aim, with these changes, is tho keep the speed of light as the focus of my fascination through each stanza, progressing from a light-second, to intergalactic distance.

“Beyond the Blue”
Solomon Zorn


Sunlight shining on my face,
Traveled here from outer space,
Moving very fast,
Beyond the blue.

Crossed a distance to the Earth,
More than seven times its girth,
In one second passed,
Beyond the blue.

If you were to time its course,
From the sun, its blazing source,
Eight minutes surpassed,
Beyond the blue.

Looking to the sky at night,
Nearest neighbor shone it's light,
Four years in the past,
Beyond the blue.

Pondering those shining spheres,
Looking back so many years,
Galaxies are massed,
Beyond the blue.

Stars that seem to have no end,
Finally I comprehend:
Space is truly vast,
Beyond the blue.