All I wanted to do was write - at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to make money however I could to keep myself going in some modest way, and I didn't need much, I was unmarried at the time, no children.
quote by Paul Auster
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Song of Money
I had to pay one thing and another taxes
and debts and the cable television bill
the city was always too spread out for me
I didn't have the time to pay it all if I were a millionaire
I would hire a delivery service with a courier
but I have to go in person to the banks and offices
I didn't make it to the teller on time and had to wait
until the following day the following days multiplying
exponentially I don't know what this could mean
Money money that dirty and obsessive thing or dirty
because it's obsessive and above all because it's lacking
or lacking altogether or lacking in the desired amounts
There is an odd relationship between money and desire
and need I won't be the one to examine this in depth
these questions that should interest the Professors no end
A Peruvian writer used to say that money
does not produce happiness but rather produces
a state so similar it's hard to tell the difference
I guess that's a pretty good joke but money
is the 'nerve of war' the most bloodthirsty abstraction
the most powerful weapon the conclusive argument
I write poems so that among other reasons I don't have to
sing songs to money but as you all can see up there at the top
it says Song of Money it was bound to happen sooner or later
poem by Surya Raman
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Poem Propogated By Name And Song
matter it does not and ah i see
that you just like me
serj tanikan as well
since you have his song about have we fell
but it matters not where i am from
simply who i am and maybe if im any fun
simply it also might just a little if im know the arts of
causerie...yet not causerie plagued by love
as i teach myself just to me
and to think hopefully!
i write in poems not prose
yet i am not so arachic as to talk in the language of a rose
anyways it is time for you to respond and maybe be confused
by my circumlocutions maybe even amused
poem by David Knox
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Sonnet: Poetry versus Prose
Some write their poetry almost like prose;
The two are not diff’rent in any way?
How can a thorn ever become a rose?
The grain is grain; the hay remains but hay!
But some write prose with emotions afilled;
Or add some verses in-between the lines;
One can’t become the other, howev’r skilled;
How can the noon be dawn although sun shines?
The functions poems do, prose can never,
Where right words placed, give music and rhythm;
But of the two, the poet’s cleverer;
His work is shorter, neater, and more trim.
All praise the bard; his glory’s forever!
For prose can’t stand the test of time ever!
6-25-2002 by Dr John Celes
poem by John Celes
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The History Poems Have Not Been Written
The history poems have not been written
The poems after Milosz
The Wallace Stevens poems will never be written
I can’t come close
I have tried the Blake poems
But of course I am not near them either
I would like to the ironic intellectual poems
I might be able to do them
I could do a kind of surrealistic association mind poem a prose poem
But I don’t like that very much
The poems of Jerusalem have not been good enough
Poems of propaganda are awkward and unacceptable
The small poems that tell of my life
They are for me the chance at real poetry
And I will continue as best I can with them
The American poems I have not yet found the idiom for
I can be epigrammatic in Emerson Thoreau fashion
But not with the hard New England observing eye
Borges poems I love
And the stories of mind and literature
Making the drama of a life of a storyteller
Interest me
But I doubt I could truly do them well
Imitation can only take one so far
And through it one may lose one’s way entirely
I can really do only what I am
Not the Dickinson poems nor the Hopkins poems nor the Wordsworth poems nor the Keats poems nor the Amichai poems nor the poems of many others whose poetry I love
The Biblical poems have been tried
The poems of cosmic and scientific reflection
I could try to improve them
There are too many different kinds of poems to write
And I cannot write almost all of them
This is another poem about poems and poetry
I have written many for a long time now
Perhaps I need to go elsewhere and write in a new way
A way I have not dreamed or even remotely understood possible before.
The poems of the unknown poetry await me
I will go on but I am not sure now I know in which wa
poem by Shalom Freedman
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What They Will Say
Some times, I wonder if I write for the future.
That may seem like a strange statement to make.
Forty-three years ago, I wrote a poem
that at the time no one wanted to know.
Now it is my best-loved poem
read by countless people around the world.
Thirty years ago, I wrote two poems
and each one won me an award,
but at the time I wrote them,
no one wanted to know.
All of which makes me wonder
if what I wrote in my yesteryears
that then none wanted to know.
Could they all be popular now?
Today I started collecting and retyping
short stories I wrote twenty years ago.
At the time, publishers and agents
didn’t want to know.
Now twenty year on
I am wondering what they will say.
24 January 2009
poem by David Harris
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I Just Do It For the Enjoyment
I hear this all the time:
'Oh?
So you're a writer?
What else do you do?
How much money do you make? '
I write poetry!
'Ooooohhh!
So you like to write 'poooems'?
I use to do that,
When I was in elementary school.
You make money from doing that? '
No.
I just do it for the enjoyment!
'Oh gawd!
You're one of those sentimentalists?
One driven by emotions and unresolved issues?
Confused by life!
And abused by a dysfunctional upbringing.'
I suppose.
But I currently have two books out!
'Nooooo?
But no one's into reading poetry! '
Me either.
I didn't say I read it!
I write it!
'Oh!
Well...
You 'must' be doing it for the money? '
Not yet!
That's next!
'You want me to help you? '
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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I Wanted To Write The Poems Of The Stars
I WANTED TO WRITE THE POEMS OF THE STARS
I wanted to write the poems of the stars
The poem of Beauty and Hope and Inspiration
I wanted to write a poem that helped others
Find Joy and Meaning in their lives -
I write my little poems
Often they are the sad truths of my own little life
Consolations for myself
I think may perhaps echo the souls of others.
I am not what I would have been
And perhaps not what I should be
I am what I am
What G-d has given me to be -
poem by Shalom Freedman
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When The Money Runs Out/Another Poem Will Not Save Me
When the money runs out
Another poem will not save me-
When the money runs out
The poems will be a bit less poetic-
They will seem more meaningless-
All the years of writing them
Will seem more a waste and an indulgence-
When the money runs out
And I am working or trying to work
For not enough money
And guilty at being in debt
And frightened at not being able to pay on time
The poems will seem another kind of thing entirely
And I will wonder how I could have once given so much time to something
That does not make a cent-
When the money runs out
The poetry may run out with it
I will be the slave of small sums
And have lost my time and dedication
To what I have loved most.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Poetic Intrigues
just leave these
intrigues
the morning
is beautiful
and there are
many other
poems to write
did i tell you
that they still
beg to be written?
did i tel you
that time is too
short of the haggle?
did i tell you
that these poems
cannot wait and
that if you let them
wait
they simply go
away without
any word?
write another one
and if someone
wants to own your
creations
let that be
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I Know Only Poems With Rhyme
To the children of the world
I know only poems with rhyme
That stay in tune with ev’ry clime.
I know only poems with beat
That make me stand up on my feet.
When poets all have breathed their last,
And poems are buried in dust,
Then children will come out in time
To dig the poems, black with grime.
And when the cloud of dust is gone,
And children are through having fun,
They’ll throw away poems like lime
But pick up only those with rhyme.
poem by Gilbert Pangyarihan
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Poems are not bread
POEMS ARE NOT BREAD
Poems are not bread-
They are not money
In anyway-
You can write and read
A million of them,
And it will not pay
One small bill.
You don’t have to blame
The poems,
Because
You don’t make money.
But you have to know-
They are not going to save you-
In that,
either.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The power of words
Sometimes when you had
an idea for a poem
you didn’t jot it down
and let it be
to fade away into the naught
as if it really didn’t matter
or your words had lost their power
or was there a hidden fear,
something that you didn’t
want to talk about
or something that you didn’t
want to appear,
something that you were afraid
would kill your luck
or disturb your thoughts?
When we spoke at times
you would sarcastically say
go and write a poem about it
and I wonder if you really
didn’t care about writing
or just not about me
or was it jealousy?
Sometimes when the words
of a great poem came to me
you would demand that I immediately
do something for you
to proof my love
and not give me the opportunity
to capture the sacred words.
Yet, as time went by
and I had to leave
the words came back to you
and great verses appeared
and you said that I could string out
poems to the nth power
and wanted me
to write great messages as well
and I was afraid that card like lines
would kill the magic of words in me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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To The Whore Who Took My Poems
some say we should keep personal remorse from the
poem,
stay abstract, and there is some reason in this,
but jezus;
twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have
my
paintings too, my best ones; its stifling:
are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?
why didn't you take my money? they usually do
from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner.
next time take my left arm or a fifty
but not my poems:
I'm not Shakespeare
but sometime simply
there won't be any more, abstract or otherwise;
there'll always be mony and whores and drunkards
down to the last bomb,
but as God said,
crossing his legs,
I see where I have made plenty of poets
but not so very much
poetry.
poem by Charles Bukowski
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My poems is not Poetry
My Poems are not Poetry
Poetry rhythm is essential part
Communicative act of rhythms
Where words created music
An effect on the reader’s and listener
Words beginning with the same letter
And achieve a poetically effect.
My Poems has no rhythms
For the first time I don’t know
What to say and how to show.
Many words is not my style
Let me say, I like your smile
I don’t think I should like you,
Unfortunately I do.
I'm not sure now how to write
I lost my idea how, where words
Are used in away similar
Creating Music, where you find
Languages of rhymes
I write Prose but not Poetry
Using a regular rhythm
Where vast majority
Of languages spoken and written.
I try to be a barn, the muses were believed and inspire
I try to hard without success,
you already know, I guess.
Anyhow, it doesn’t matter
Usually I do not write
Things like this, I never tried,
for the first time I don’t know
what these lines should say or show.
Allegory, metaphor equated
Meaning lie outside the narrative
Acrostic phase when read together
Alliteration words same letter for poetical effect
Satire is a form of humour
Limerick is a short humorous poem.
And Honestly, I don’t regret
Things I did and words I said.
7. January 2008
poem by Mary Wismer
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Letter To A John
don't ask me why I'm crying
I'm not going to tell you what's wrong
I'm just gonna sit on your lap
for five dollars a song
I want you to pay me for my beauty
I think it's only right
'cause I have been paying for it
all of my life
I'm gonna take the money I make
I'm gonna take the money I make
I'm gonna take the money I make
and I'm gonna go away...
we barely have time to react in this world
let alone rehearse
and I don't think I'm better than you
but I don't think that I'm worse
women learn to be women
and men learn to be men
and I don't blame it all on you
but I don't want to be your friend
I'm gonna take the money I make
I'm gonna take the money I make
I'm gonna take the money I make
and I'm gonna go away...
I was eleven years old
he was as old as my dad
and he took something from me
I didn't even know that I had
so don't tell me about decency
don't tell me about pride
just give me something for my trouble
'cause this time
song performed by by Ani DiFranco from Out Of Range
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Online II
Unmarried fathers,
Unmarried mothers,
And, children are born left and right! !
But, who is now online?
Babies,
With unmarried fathers and unmarried mothers;
Babies,
With married fathers and married mothers;
But, this issue is now investigated with care,
Because, other accessibilities are now found at various locations!
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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I Wanted To Write A Poem For My Children
I WANTED TO WRITE A POEM FOR MY CHILDREN
I wanted to write a poem for my children
And tell them how much I love them
And care for them
And how much goodness and blessing
They have given me
And how grateful I am to them
And how much I love them
And how I worry for them
And pray to God
To help them have lives of goodness and blessing
I wanted to write a poem for my children
So that if and when I am not here
They will have the thought and memory of me
In such a way as to strengthen themselves
I want to help my children
In my death as in my life
I do not know if that is possible
I will hurt them by dying
I may hurt them worse by being sick for a long time
I pray to God
They will be alright without me
I pray to God
They will have families of their own
I pray to God they will have lives of goodness and blessing
And love their children and be blessed by them
As I have been loved and blessed by mine.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poet’s Prayer
Lord forgive me
That I have chosen to become a poet
Forgive me for what I write
The poems of my life
Grant me such devotion
To write the poems that I love
Grant me the love of poetry
That must not distract me
From tenderness
Make my desire last long
Make my disillusion short
Uproot from me these impure desires
From those poems that trouble me
Let not some images confuse me
Let not some metaphors numb me
Let not my dullness sadden me
Let your radiance descend upon
The modesty of my poems
As you once gave radiance
To the prophets who cannot speak
For themselves
Let me be a strong poet
Able to love and defend
the poems for the
women and children and land
Grant me the talent to make
The poems that they may still
Recite and remember
Even when I am gone
In my weakness as a poet
Make me strong
To scorn the poems that are not pure
To shy away from the fires
And flames that do not light
The lives of other men
And women too.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I have a dream
I want to write real poetry
But I’m not sure how I should start
I need someone who can teach me
the basics of poetic art.
I do not know if it should rhyme
and meter is a mystery.
I have the will I have the time.
I somebody will please help me.
I have the urge I have to write
I really want to get it right
What makes it poetry or prose?
there is a difference I suppose.
I know there’s different schools of thought
an ongoing controversy.
I’m simply looking for support
to help me with my poetry.
I have the basic writing tools
a pad a pencil and P.C.
I need to learn the basic rules
which turn prose into poetry.
I am willing to study hard
and heed advice that’s offered me.
By any older wiser bard
who’s skilled at writing poetry.
26-Apr-08
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Poems I've Considered Writing..All Thanks to You..
It seems I'm writing more
Than I have for quite some time..
It's not always good writing
Sometimes It's just a matter of getting out my emotions on paper
Though they say you shouldn't put everything on paper
But,
That wouldn't make me much of a writer then, would it..
I don't do it on purpose..
To be honest,
I can't really help it..
And,
When I contemplate some of the poems I've thought of writing
Since our acquaintance
Well,
Some of the following titles spring to mind..
'This should be interesting'
'I wonder how I'll ever get on in this place'
'I hope I make a good enough impression'
But, then, that's not specific to you, is it..
I'm always worried about making a good impression, doing a good job, working on bettering me...worried about what others may or may not think
I'm not in competition with anyone but myself and sometimes I think that's
Tougher than competing with someone else..
'Ummmm...I don't know what to think'
'Someone thinks highly of themselves'
This would have been about you by the way..
I guess first impressions aren't always accurate
'I think I can trust you'
'Maybe I've made a friend'
'Why did that feel like a date'
'What's wrong with me'
'Something to look forward to'
'Saying Goodbye'
'Hello Again'
'I like having you as my friend'
'Someone to talk to'
'That's...Not..What..! ! ! '
Because sometimes I feel like I can read your mind..
And,
It's not always on it's best behavior, is it..
I hope that doesn't change... it makes me smile.
'I Have to Admit, You're Kind-a Sweet'
'Nooooo! ! ! '
This would have been a funny poem..As would,
'Do you mean what you say, when you say what you say'
But, then.. I think..
'Maybe it's all in my head'
Let's face it.. I am known to think too much, too often, all the time...
It's a minor glitch with my mind...
Then, there was the minor incident where..
'Being Forced to Face That I'm Feeling....Something'
But, that's just hard for me to do..so,
'Bury it, Pretend it Doesn't Exist'
Or
'We Aren't Going to Talk About the Elephant in the Room'
Were poems that were quite appropriate to write..
I didn't write them..
Well, not quite that way..
Some others would have been,
'Uneasy with My Feelings'
'I Wonder What You Really Think of Me'
'Too Bad I Can't Read Minds'
'I'd love to know what your first impression of me was...does it still hold true'
I don't know if you have read my work..
I sometimes think it's you..
But, I figure there's no way for me to know
Unless you give me a clue..
And, maybe you have
But, subtleties are lost on me
Especially when it comes to you..
So I write..
Or contemplate writing poems..
With funny titles
Titles that don't always mean what they say
Or say how I feel
Or are specific to you...
Because writers write..
It's what they do
But, sometimes
My Poems
Might be
Just for you...
poem by Rabia Minhas
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