A Poetry Workshop
got invited to this poetry workshop
telling me
these critics
that they like my work, the way i put my words
like glass,
shiny colored glasses shaped like
ballerinas
in my cabinet
a menagerie of sorts like i am a keeper
of transparent dreams
so there i go, on free board and lodging
and oh yes, the place is so poetic
and i really like the scenery
of shrubs and bushes
and heights
on top of a hill where i can see lines
of sea and land
separated by my
kind of imagination
the sunset
the sunrise
the cool winds at night the
warmer sea breeze during the day
the kind of wind
that flaps the window making a sound
of a slamming door
i remember then the house
of my youth
where papa always slams
the door before mama
and the quarrel so endless
and we were not even
considered
as
creatures of the house
and they all begin
to leave
one after the other
and i remember
they all die
anyway but that is not the end
of the subject of my poetry
i see everything
in the workshop
where we eat and drink and discuss
my possibilities
my potential
as a great poet one day
but it is all in the mind
of this critic
it is all in my mind
until she begins
to dissect my poems
like a cadaver
nerve after nerve
muscle after muscle
bone connecting
to another cartilage
to another bone
until such time that all i see
are dead bodies
of my poems
surrounded by vultures
eating each
rotten flesh
i close my eyes and
feel the
wrong crowd all around me
what they do not know
is
i believe in myself, i still believe
in my
way of putting words to feelings
colors to blandness
scents where the dead are dead
and some
little dramatics where they are needed
just to live
and just be alone and still imagining believing
the beauty in things
in people
in words that flow like a free wind touching my face again
fresh like a flower with few dews still sticking
glistening
till the wee hours of my mourning
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
To All The Disciples Of Pain
come to me, for i will be your teacher
of pain, and lots of its kinds,
nuances and
variations,
come to me and i will teach you
how to dissect pain
identify its flesh and bones
muscle to muscle
cartilage to cartilage
nerve to nerve
to the tiniest cell of this pain
in all of us
we study this pain
we learn what is it really
this pain, like the way how we dissected the
frog nailed before us still alive
numbed & dead in chloroform
we see how the frog breathes
how we skin it how we see how it ceases
to have pain
after all is done
we throw the frog away in some trash can
after we have deprived it of its skeleton
bleached like a blank stare
we ask ourselves how do we
look at it eye to eye
without pity
as we prick it with a long shining needle
deep to its backbone
and then we remember
how pain dissipated in strong chloroform
how we ourselves inflicted it
without any feeling at all
now shall we blame ourselves
having pain ourselves when we ourselves love to inflict them
in frogs in mankind in the person that we also claim to love?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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A Journey Of A Poet
A journey begins with
A thought in our mind
Words are chosen and formed.
Lines of poem
Well Written with meanings
With words of emotions and expressions
A poet starts with
An inspiration of mind,
An aspiration in soul mind
With reflection
On our life experience
We start to
Compose some
Wonderful poetry
Expressing our innermost thoughts
With deep contemplation
To put them in poetry words
A journey begins when
A poet takes his imagination
To a place where
No one ever dream or imagine before.
A poet's journey ends by
Writing another lovely poem
And deep reflection
A poet remains
As a poet
When he or she
Continue to
Write and Share
lovely poems with the world.
poem by Lawrence Hiung
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Poetry Has Its Own Music
POETRY HAS ITS OWN MUSIC
Poetry has its own music-
A mind empty of it
Wonders where it is.
Poetry has a rhythm of its own
Without that rhythm
Dead words dead lines dead pages.
Seeking the rhythm the music of poetry
Flat lines come
And the poem is a parody
Of true poetry.
How many flat and false poems
Have I written
In order
To help me try
To come alive?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Poet Loses His Power For Poetry
A POET LOSES HIS POWER FOR POETRY
A poet loses his power for poetry
He can put down words
But they no longer have poetry in them
Something of the feeling of what real poetry is
is gone.
He strives
He writes again and again
He puts words down in the forms and in the shapes his poems usually take
But he has no poetry in him
He has lost what he is
And all he can do
is strive again and again
Word after word
Silence after silence
To hear within himself again
A voice he does not have.
The poet is writing poetry
And it is not poetry
The poet is dead
And he is pretending to be alive
Is this a poem?
Is he a poet
Is he dead?
Is he alive?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Poems with difference
How does the imagination strike the mind?
Does the brain allow them place to find?
Why they are termed as crazy and dreamy persons?
Does this statement find any favour with reasons?
May be poetic appetite does not allow them to grasp?
Appeal in wordings may not be enough to last
It is as if some is asked to under go test and take medicine
Feeling good inwardly but with bitter test of quinine
We may see enough water available in pot
Put to test while making it very hot
It may turn into vapor beyond certain point
Poetry is also like vapour………………..
Ideas may suddenly emerge in sequence
Mind may pick up and build it as consequence
How to project it rightly may prove as acid test
It may be looked as fine blend of poetry and best
Somebody may try it hard on words skill
Many may stuff it with metaphors and fill
Single sentence may now bear different look
Golden sentences may appear in costly book
Nature, heavenly bodies and earth simply provide
Kind of message, love and passion does not divide
Humanity survives with strengthening of the bonds
Poetic wisdom is stored like enough water in ponds
Easy words, fine presentation and theme crate impact
Love, passion, generosity improve with certain contacts
Poems can rule the hearts with immediate healing touch
Pulse can be felt as if it has enough power to offer so much
Poems can be those who can touch millions and rule
Lessen their worries and react with mind so cool
Poet Kalidasa* was novice and considered as fool
His poems are master pieces without help from any school
Rule the heart, touch the nerve and excel in field
Tremendous response and enough skill to yield
The desirable effect may be seen in poetic world
There may not be going back after developing cold
Poems must find the light of the day
Many may side line you and keep at the bay
You got to sail through and find the way
Stars and sky will be yours with more to say
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
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It Is Time To Write Another Kind Of Poetry
IS TIME TO WRITE ANOTHER KIND OF POETRY
It is time to write another kind of poetry-
To leave behind the self-reflection
The poems on the poet the poem and the poetry -
It is time to rediscover that the world is rich in unsaid dreams
And the poet must see too the beauty of what has been unsaid before
And what has been said many times before -
It is time to write another kind of poetry
And to leave myself as poet subject behind-
I have not yet done this here
But tomorrow and the next day perhaps
There will be other worlds.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Deceased Poets Of Nature
Such beautiful poems to Nature they did write
The poetry we love for to read and recite
May they rest in peace now where-ever they lay
The deceased poets of Nature their poems live today
They glorified Nature and her praises they sung
And though they may be long dead their poems remain young
the poets of the land and the poets of the sea
In their beautiful poetry their greatness we do see
Their poems and their songs I loved as a boy
And their poems and their songs I will always enjoy
The beauty of Nature they did celebrate
And beauty in their words they loved to create.
Great insights of Nature from them we did gain
The beauty of their words with us does remain
We loved them for their poems in decades long gone
The deceased poets of Nature their poems living on.
poem by Francis Duggan
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The Death of Poetry
Poetry is dead and God is alive.
I heard these words and began to cry.
Without poetry what would become of me,
Drowning in a sea of Christianity?
Poetry is dead and long let it lie
With its Thee and its Thy and its Thou and its Thine
May we never see another line
Of iambic pentameter with end-stopped rhymes.
Poetry is dead, and so it shall lay,
Mouldering at the pit of its shallow grave.
And no longer will they give a hoot
For the quatrain stanzas or the metered foot!
Poetry is dead at the bottom of the sea
With its anapests, dithyrambs, dactyls and spondees.
And also eight to sixteen lines
On your innermost feelings or the meaning of life.
Poetry is dead but how long will it stay
Before they resurrect it for another day?
Has it not been just a few years time
Since they said it was God who was dead—
-and poetry alive?
poem by Theresa Haffner
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The New Ezekiel
What, can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried
By twenty scorching centuries of wrong?
Is this the House of Israel, whose pride
Is as a tale that's told, an ancient song?
Are these ignoble relics all that live
Of psalmist, priest, and prophet? Can the breath
Of very heaven bid these bones revive,
Open the graves and clothe the ribs of death?
Yea, Prophesy, the Lord hath said. Again
Say to the wind, Come forth and breathe afresh,
Even that they may live upon these slain,
And bone to bone shall leap, and flesh to flesh.
The Spirit is not dead, proclaim the word,
Where lay dead bones, a host of armed men stand!
I ope your graves, my people, saith the Lord,
And I shall place you living in your land.
poem by Emma Lazarus
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Glass House
Glass house, that once was mine , the sun will shine in on me
You, change your mind, you werent the kind to live on me
I remember yesterday , turn my tears to laugher
Then you left and like a stray, I came running after
(break)
I remember you at night, palm trees softly swaying
I remember all the words you were softly saying
Glass house upon the hill so big and still, the shady lane
Its ours , my love , until the day we say auf wiedersehen
song performed by by Bee Gees
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Not Marble Nor The Gilded Monuments
THE praisers of women in their proud and beautiful poems
Naming the grave mouth and the hair and the eyes
Boasted those they loved should be forever remembered
These were lies
The words sound but the face in the Istrian sun is forgotten
The poet speaks but to her dead ears no more
The sleek throat is gone -and the breast that was troubled to listen
Shadow from door
Therefore I will not praise your knees nor your fine walking
Telling you men shall remember your name as long
As lips move or breath is spent or the iron of English
Rings from a tongue
I shall say you were young and your arms straight and you!
mouth scarlet
I shall say you will die and none will remember you
Your arms change and none remember the swish of your garments
Nor the click of your shoe
Not with my hand's strength not with difficult labor
Springing the obstinate words to the bones of your breast
And the stubborn line to your young stride and the breath to your breathing
And the beat to your haste
Shall I prevail on the hearts of unborn men to remember
(What is a dead girl but a shadowy ghost
Or a dead man's voice but a distant and vain affirmation
Like dream words most)
Therefore I will not speak of the undying glory of women
I will say you were young and straight and your skin fair
And you stood in the door and the sun was a shadow of leaves on your shoulders
And a leaf on your hair
I will not speak of the famous beauty of dead women
I will say the shape of a leaf lay once on your hair
Till the world ends and the eyes are out and the mouths broken
Look! It is there!
poem by Archibald MacLeish
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Unaware of the fact
I am totally unaware of the fact
As why it has deserted me to act
Why no words are pouring in as it used to be?
Why do I feel so helpless and not free?
Yes it is God gift to have grip on writing
No reason can be advanced for sighting
Everything is just before the eyes
One may not depict correctly even if he tries
Of course they may be deeply lying in corner
It has to come out later or sooner
But it has got no use if untimely composed
It will be simply rejected and totally disposed
Words can’t flow until it has free message
Water can not flow in river until has the passage
The well has enough of water in the belt below
It will remain there as it is and not allow
As the fingers move on the head in hair rings
It may generate melody and words may try to sing
It will send pulses to and fro and resonance may start
Align all activities in one action with live active part
As the earth has become barren
It may need fall of rain even
Dry words may find new energy in roots
The greenery may come up for good scenes to put up
Find it not hard to come out the songs
They may come at right time and not at wrong
Your heart and mind may keenly exchange
It will have good synchronization and able to manage
It will have full sweetness and melancholy
The depth of it may be felt and enjoyed wholly
Let artificial things cover as pure illusion
Poetry may flow with natural tune without any confusion
Poems are not just free flow of words
They are holy words spoken by lords
Not everybody can pick it with intensity
Only good poet may find its full use and utility
It may face temporary setback sometimes
It has too some lean and bad times
It may loose sometimes rhythms and tunes
The creator (poet) should not worry over it and fume
Give it a full justice to come out with some reason
Nature too functions well with every season
How the flowers boom in different colors?
The spring has quality to offer more flavors
Don’t be upset if some time the door is locked
Don’t lament if it doesn’t come up and try to click
It will find its way when cuckoo breaks morning silence
Your mind will be fresh and free from being tense
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
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A Spirit Of Poetry!
when a spirit of poetry decent,
it came
In a form of dove
When it came
Jesus became first poet under sun
And Almighty God
Was already, first poet over sun?
Using Poetry in poetic foam
Almighty GOD spoke through poetry
And he is a poet himself
Now his poetry is everywhere, and anywhere
We interact with poets
Words are like soil, are everywhere
Brighter that Sun
His poetic lights lead the way
When he likes
He will come
He will be in poetic foam
To Re-arrange poems
Schedule them in a poetic manner
On a judgment, He will met poets first
And secondly meet
Those who haven't written a poem
To Discuss similes, metaphors and personifications
Future of poetry is in heaven
poem by Jacques Sprenkie Mateya
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Poems About Poems About Poems
Poems about poems about poems-
More poems and more poems and more poems-
Poems poems poems poems poems-
How many poems?
How much poetry
Until there is no poetry at all?
But only 'words' and 'words' and 'words'
Until one goes far away
Where there was never a poem before-
And suddenly hears
“Let there be Light”.
And Poetry perhaps
Is born again.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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O My Pa-pa
Our fathers have formed a poetry workshop.
They sit in a circle of disappointment over our fastballs
and wives. We thought they didn't read our stuff,
whole anthologies of poems that begin, My father never,
or those that end, and he was silent as a carp,
or those with middles which, if you think
of the right side as a sketch, look like a paunch
of beer and worry, but secretly, with flashlights
in the woods, they've read every word and noticed
that our nine happy poems have balloons and sex
and giraffes inside, but not one dad waving hello
from the top of a hill at dusk. Theirs
is the revenge school of poetry, with titles like
'My Yellow Sheet Lad' and 'Given Your Mother's Taste
for Vodka, I'm Pretty Sure You're Not Mine.'
They're not trying to make the poems better
so much as sharper or louder, more like a fishhook
or electrocution, as a group
they overcome their individual senilities,
their complete distaste for language, how cloying
it is, how like tears it can be, and remember
every mention of their long hours at the office
or how tired they were when they came home,
when they were dragged through the door
by their shadows. I don't know why it's so hard
to write a simple and kind poem to my father, who worked,
not like a dog, dogs sleep most of the day in a ball
of wanting to chase something, but like a man, a man
with seven kids and a house to feed, whose absence
was his presence, his present, the Cheerios,
the PF Flyers, who taught me things about trees,
that they're the most intricate version of standing up,
who built a grandfather clock with me so I would know
that time is a constructed thing, a passing, ticking fancy.
A bomb. A bomb that'll go off soon for him, for me,
and I notice in our fathers' poems a reciprocal dwelling
on absence, that they wonder why we disappeared
as soon as we got our licenses, why we wanted
the rocket cars, as if running away from them
to kiss girls who looked like mirrors of our mothers
wasn't fast enough, and it turns out they did
start to say something, to form the words hey
or stay, but we'd turned into a door full of sun,
into the burning leave, and were gone
before it came to them that it was all right
to shout, that they should have knocked us down
with a hand on our shoulders, that they too are mystified
by the distance men need in their love.
The literary life
We went to the house
of Afrikaans poetry together
on weekends and spent hours there
and listened to the master lecture
and met some poet friends
around a table
with a drink or two.
Sometimes the poetry was Afrikaans,
English, Dutch or even German
and we learnt form poets
around the globe.
We discussed what we had
just learned,
asked about his views
of certain things,
or what people in the group think,
discussed poetry, life,
sometimes even politics
and philosophy
as individuals of a group.
We read our poems,
listened to other poets,
reading their own,
analysed every word, every line
comprehending meaning, impact
and sharpened our art.
Your poetry was really great,
from when I read the very first line,
but mine had still to grow
from rhyme into free verse.
At times I hated comments
that forced me to move,
but realized that it was meant
with great goodwill
and even though I was in pain
I sharpened my verse
and free verse brought
a clearer ear, making it
much easier to write
great rhyme.
Now that I had to leave Pretoria,
weekends I really miss
that great writing school,
new poems from great poets,
learning something there,
experiencing poetry at its core,
lectures from that great master
and verses of his own,
but much more
your poems.
poem by Gert Strydom
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A Poet Tried To Shackle My Words
A poet tried to shackle my words,
as if from every poem
the message was stripped,
as if nowhere there was any mastery
of rhythm and sound to be found
as if I had sold my soul
to masses of people reading my verses,
as if I live in disrespect
to the expertise that a great poet
displays in his work
as if every line of mine
was just a wild cacophony
that I had flung together
in a utter hurry
to shower down on crowds of people.
Yet I while I swam against a tempest sea,
sticking to the truth and integrity,
trying to find answers to life’s mysteries
and problems
trying to expose injustice and oppression
there was boasting about a elitis clique
that totally excludes me
but they were going along the path
of political correctness and maybe indifference,
being far too scared to ruffle some feathers,
writing verses sixty times over and over
before they were becoming poems somehow,
before their words were catching some magic
believing that a great poem,
is like a jigsaw puzzle,
that you have got to unravel
with a dictionary,
where simple words can fuse together
with a own type of magic,
lacking in the ability
to find poetry in ordinary things,
to create poetry in lines
that by themselves fuses together
to create something great
but my words kept on coming,
falling into lines,
as if designed by a divine presence
and by themselves fused
into much deeper meaning
than I could find with my own abilities.
poem by Gert Strydom
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All The Poems Remain Written Where They Once Never Were
ALL THE POEMS REMAIN WRITTEN WHERE THEY ONCE NEVER WERE
All the poems remain written where they once never were
The grass and the skies of Whitman form lines in the mind of Baudelaire
The trees and dark cities of the distance form single sounds in the heart of the poet who cares
Night is more than darkness and day more than an early setting out
Each thing influences the other and calls back its own origins and end
We are going somewhere we will never know whether we write eternal lines or not
Over everywhere can be heard in the morning light the selfsame sound that through the heart of Ruth burned the alien corn
Keats is not dead, and Borges is not dead and Kafka is not dead and Wordsworth and all those who wrote great lines are not dead
Poetry is the last first eternity of the living word
And those who can hear the sounds of others greater than themselves in their own lines know
We are all writing down this last poem for ourselves and no one else
Though as we go to pray each morning the minyan tells us secretly
All our prayers together are more than any single poem can be alone
In the grey long distance where no one hears any poem at all
God writes and rewrites for us all the book of the stars in which dread is no longer a name
And beauty bright bright beauty is heard and reechoed as more than we will ever be
God is the only Poetry in the End
God is the Only One who never will be dead..
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poetry Movement
My poems are not sacred
Not something beautiful
-I leave for the afterworld to admire
They are but products
of my pen and mind
-To stay true to these is all I aspire
I don't believe in elitistic poetry
or the words of the Few and Great
-It is the Poetry Movement I desire
I'd like to scream over the rooftops
'Poetry to the people, Poetry of the masses'
-But I know my written words will reach further and higher
poem by Agnes Török
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Life in Motion
I am not regular visitor
To shrines, churches or mosques
Yet I believe firmly in creator
But I find long wait and queues
I am blessed with his kind eye
That sees whole universe with smile
I find no tense moments when stat to write
As the wind carries in sky my little kite
We are held firmly by his wishes
How many may be daily waiting to perish?
Some may be parting with so much pleasure!
And some may be unfulfilled with discomfort and unsure
I did the work with difference
Projected all views through sentences
Might have gone here and there without precision
Yet that was perfect moment with clear decision
I knew no meaning of good poetry
I thought it may fine putting of words like good oratory
It proved little difficult when put into practice
It seemed all the more difficult to fulfill promises
It remained very in tense at heart
Some one rightly said” it is prayer with art”
Not all can sing a praises in his songs
As we are selfish and prove all the time wrong
My heart aches when hear some bitter words
I don’t take it to heart and believe in lord
I close eyes and pray for next good moment
Never bear a grudge in mind or lament
This makes me less vulnerable
I am more confident and capable
Poetic words flow from innocent heart
I think life can make with it a good start
What else can I do to project it properly?
But I have found the way to feel it happily
I think it is pure grace that poems flow directly
Those words create some harmony in mind divinely
Sure those words may be cutting across
People may be finding it boring or clear loss
I take it simple way of reaching to kind people
If little can be done to relieve their problems and troubles
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
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