I Write A Few Lines
I WRITE A FEW LINES
I write a few lines,
I try to tell myself
They are a poem.
But what’s a poem
In a Universe of trillions of poems?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem Of All The Places I Have Never Been
THE POEM OF ALL THE PLACES I HAVE NEVER BEEN
The poem of all the places I have never been
The poem of all the dreams I have not seen
The poem of others poems written in lines I have never imagined
The poem of the infinite – what-is- not and ‘what- will- never- be
The poem of seas and suns and sounds and Shakespeare’s sonnets,
The poem of words and only words whose sounds do not mean what we feel
The poem of all I would not and cannot write
The poem that is not and never will be in me
The poem I do not write
The poem I am not
The poem lost
The poem which itself is not a poem
The poem of the last contradiction and the first
The poem beyond the poem hidden within the poem
The poem which will never be a poem
The poem which is not
The poem I cannot dream.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Is There A Poem For Me Today?
IS THERE A POEM FOR ME TODAY?
Is there a poem for me today?
Is there in this vast universe
One poem for me?
Will G-d who has given me
so many poems
give me a poem today?
I try to write
across this page
I try to say
I have been given a poem today.
I do not know
The lines here now say:
“You in vain and in vanity write
lonely to hear your own name.”
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem I Am Writing Now
The poem I am writing now
does not know if it will be finished
it does not even know if it will be a poem -
it is slowly appearing line by line
and making its own meaning on the page-
Is it worth anything?
will anyone care?
I don't know -
The poem I am writing now
is just these lines
and these lines like all lines
are only small words
in a vast universe
that has long lived
and will probably longer live
without them.
Why then write these words now?
The poem I am writing now is saying,
'I am here now'.
But why should this mean anything to anyone else?
The poem I have written here
is not the poem I would have posted here
It is only the poem I am finishing now
a poem without great love or belief in itself.
The poem I am writing now
is written.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Scribbler's Stymie
Pen and paper in sight
I've got no poem to write
Staying up all night
I've got no poem to write
Although my mind is bright
I've got no poem to write
It's windy out tonight, should I go fly a kite?
I've got no poem to write
My ceiling, it is white
I've got no poem to write
It's 4: 59! Five, but not quite
I've got no poem to write
In your arms I'd feel so light
I've got no poem to write
I've had no sleep tonight
I've got no poem to write
Will you just hold me tight?
I've got no poem to write
Outside it's almost light
I've got no poem to write
It's late, off goes my light
I've got no poem to write
poem by Julia Grace
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A Not a Poem Poem
A Not a Poem Poem
I will not write a poem
For I am not a poet
I cannot makes things rhyme
I’ve tried for quite some time
So will I write a poem?
NO!
I can’t write poetry
I’ve tried to all my life
Once, I tried to write a poem
About a husband and his wife
It sounded really silly
So I crumbled it up into a ball
That’s why I decided
That I couldn’t write poetry at all
Am I gonna write a poem?
NO!
Well, I’ll try to write a poem
But it will be really bad
It will be absolutely lousy
It will be completely horrible
It won’t be up to snuff
People will say, “Who wrote this stuff? ”
Will my poem be good?
NO!
Can I write a poem?
NO!
Will I write a poem?
NO!
Well, what do you know! ? !
I wrote a poem!
And it’s a pretty good poem, too!
I guess I can write poetry if I try
The next time I’m asked to write a poem,
Will I say no?
NO!
There Are Those Who Wait Years To Write A Poem
THERE ARE THOSE WHO WAIT YEARS TO WRITE A POEM
There are those who wait years to write a poem
The fruit slowly ripens inside and then as with Rilke
It suddenly falls -
There are those who write a few lines
And come back time after time
And find the poem after many efforts-
There are those who cannot wait to write a poem
And once conscious of it must write it down as fast as possible
Before it is lost-
And there are those who only in the present writing
Find the poem -
The page suffers many methods and modes
But what truly makes a poem worthy
Is another question.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Cat Poem - with discussion
I must not write a poem
because I want to write a poem.
I must try to write the poem
when the poem has to be written.
Yes but what if my cat dies?
Yes, what if my cat dies
and I know my cat lived a
good and honest life
I can write a poem?
I can can’t I
I can have a cat poem can’t I
Life of an honest cat and that
Yes I know, I said the cat was honest
but I didn’t say that I was, and
I lied about the cat
________________________________
Discussion:
The poem begins as a slightly
finger wagging exercise in telling
people not to write just because
they want to write a poem - it must
be DRIVEN by the poem's insistence
on being written. The poet is
unable to sustain this arrogance
hence the cat. Then, using the
cat as an excuse, writes the poem
but in the end has to admit that
the cat was just a device to break
the rule outlined in the 4 opening
lines. (Secretly of course the poet
believes or at least hopes that the
poem is good enough to excuse itself
and be allowed to break the rule.)
But of course it isn't
poem by by unknown author
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So Many People Have No Poem
SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE NO POEM
So many people have no poem.
No one writes of them and for them,
And perhaps it is not important to most of them.
But for the few who need and want a poem
And cannot write a poem of their own
Shouldn’t there be someone to write for them?
I have tried to write for a few
But not that well either.
Who will write for them?
Who will listen for them?
God Maker of all Poems and Silences,
You Alone can save us,
The makers of poems
And those who are only listeners.
God You Alone-Write their names for them.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Only Poem at the End of the Universe
The only poem at the end of the universe
That will be heard is God’s Poem.
Why then write and write
What will in the end be forever unheard?
We are here now
And we write poems now
Because writing poems
Is what we can do.
Beyond this
‘The lone and level sands stretch far away’.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Why Does A Poem/ Not Want To Begin
WHY DOES A POEM /NOT WANT TO BEGIN
Why does a poem
Not want to begin?
Why does Silence say
It should be all and all?
Why against this
Must ‘Will’ and ‘Ambition’ come?
And force lines
As these lines forced now?
Because I am a lonely man
Who has nothing to do with himself?
But write poems
Which he dreams
Someone someday
Will read.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Wrote A Poem Yesterday/ Can I Write A Poem Today?
I WROTE A POEM YESTERDAY/ CAN I WRITE A POEM TODAY?
I wrote a poem yesterday
Can I write a poem today?
Somehow all the poems of yesterday
Are not as needed
As a single small poem of today.
To have been alive even in the deepest way
Is not necessarily to be alive now.
These lines are my lifelines for the moment
Soon I will be gone
And there will come a day
When no poem will be written.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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There Have Been Many Opening Lines Tonight
THERE HAVE BEEN MANY OPENING LINES TONIGHT
There have been many opening lines tonight
But none has been followed by a convincing poem -
Why is this evening one of trying and failing?
Why can't I at least write one small poem
That seems to me worthwhile?
I am doing better now-
There is a stanza,
And perhaps these lines will be a stanza too.
I have two small awkward stanzas
When I finish this one
I will try to feel I have a poem.
Nothing I do tonight is good enough
Is it better to have a poor poem
Or none at all?
I answer by posting these lines.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Hard
I try to write about my feeling
Though for others they don't have meaning
First few lines I can write easily
But those last ending lines are silly
To write it takes a lots of time
Hours to just complete last line
My few poems are not even complete
I try and try but cant, so I omit
And move to next poem
And finally complete
I now know to write it's too tough
So to all, who pour their feeling on paper "hats off"
The end
poem by Sushanta Rokka
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Poem As Conversations
a poem for ramona
and a poem for jean and a poem for candice
and a poem too for yuri
and a poem too for emma and another poem for hannah
and another poem for allan
and the rest of the clan
they are but
conversations sticking to my mind
and through these poems
i replay them
and you think these are not poems at all
precisely, these are conversations of the living
the living word
the word that still cohabits with us
we let them out from our mouths
but you do not wish to recover them
did you mean them all to be said
with the terms and conditions of truth?
i am recording them
and i am replaying them through these lines
i look where truth
lies
i find some and keep them
and these are these
on these lines
a poem for you a poem for the world that we all make
what we say is what we get
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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For Every Poem We Write
FOR EVERY POEM WE WRITE
FOR EVERY POEM WE WRITE
For every poem we write
Many others not written-
There are more potential poems
In the universe
Than stars,
And more stars
Than all the people
Who have been on earth-
And more people now
Than we will ever write the story of.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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All I Can Do Now Is Write Another Poem
All I can do now is write another poem-
The poems are small,
And do not require the long hours and long years
Of the books-
Like the world as a whole
I seem to have a shorter attention span
And less patience-
A poem can be written and given a name
In minutes not years-
Though some would say a great poem
Takes the travail of years of waiting
And years of work-
But I did not say
‘All I can do now is write another great poem'
Perhaps I have in all the years of the nights never written one-
I can write the poems I write
My kinds of poems
In a fairly short time-
All I can do now
Is write another of my kind of poems-
Whether they be worth anything,
Or not.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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It's Late To Write A Poem
It’s late to write a poem-
It’s almost time to go-
And yet now as I was about to leave
The spirit of poetry came to me
And I feel in me lines that want to be written-
So as I quietly calmly surely write these lines down now
I know
The world can wait a long time for a real poem-
But when it comes
Oh how the sky opens up and the dreams go on happily on their journey.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Have No Poem Now- At The End Of Hoshanah-Rabbah
I HAVE NO POEM NOW- AT THE END OF HOSHANAH RABBAH
I have no poem now-
I want to have a poem now-
I try to write a poem now-
Is this a poem now?
All the lines of my life are written in water.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Lost The Poem I Wrote In My Mind
I LOST THE POEM I WROTE IN MIND
I lost the poem I wrote in my mind
When walking to Shul this morning-
I can only try to recall its thoughts;
‘Walk too fast and the mind cannot hear itself
Walk slowly and listen to the poem inside yourself.
The road ahead the trees the sky
Has a beauty too great for you to write
Thank God for your sight.”
The best lines are forever gone-
A poem to replace a poem
Is not as good as the original-
I wish I had the words for all the beauty God gives me in my life
How wonderful it is to be alive- sometimes
And to be able to write poems – even if somewhat poorly.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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My Ageing Poem
A simple poem I wanted to write
The words were so clear in my mind
But my fingers were numb and sore
Lift a pencil they can't at all
Before a few lines write I could
With my signpen wrestle I should
I tried to read my scribbles
And asked my self how did I fare
The words I saw were all in blur
And were in badly crooked lines
I have but lost my metering
And all my lines did hardly rhyme
My next poems shall not be written
And in my thought will just remain
Be unrecited as they may
Till in my mind they fade away
poem by Pacific Hernandez
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