Seeds and Husks
Look, he said, at the gray squirrel
perched on top the wooden fence
that borders the garden out back.
Study it well before it takes offense
and departs without a by your leave,
scattering hull and seed in its track -
Like a poet with half-formed idea,
who discards reams of dry husks,
seeking the seed within each morsel;
who digests the meat of metaphor
and simile, set in rhythm and rhyme
in lines that defy inexorable time,
leaving images that remain behind
imprinted alive on a reader's mind.
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Critique Of Poetry
A poem is a sorry thing,
Not fit for reading to a king:
It’s often full of silly rhymes
That waste a lot of people’s times.
But modern poets can’t rhyme at all,
Which really is abominable;
Their rhythm quickly gets all out of whack,
Because I guess it just seems like for rhythm and rhyme they don’t have the necessary knack.
Phrases created on demand
Which nobody can understand,
Like wool that's thrown across a fence
And stirred until it is quite dense.
Syntax gets twisted out of shape
Not unlike a grinning ape -
Examples which of, I think cannot,
So, yet to learn have I a lot.
Poems do not make much sense
When talking of abstract sentiments
Or waffle philosophical
On subjects what ain’t topical.
A poem can be so abstruse
It makes you feel you’re quite obtuse;
You scratch your head until it’s sore,
And still can’t follow any more.
So poets often write of love,
Usually rhymed with “heaven above”,
Neither of which they know about -
But mostly they are not found out.
And many a poet is a bore
With simile and metaphor
That fill up many an empty line
With silly thoughts like yours and mine.
A simile is like a ball
(Or maybe not - I can’t recall) ,
Or like a man who runs around
And never seems to touch the ground.
A metaphor’s a stranger’s child,
And so to you it might seem wild;
But just when you think, “This is rum! ”
It up and bites you in the part of the anatomy on which a homo sapiens normally sits.
Now, if you think you’ve got my drift,
Then you have a very special gift,
‘Cause I can’t understand myself -
So, best to leave me on the shelf!
poem by Rory Hudson
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The Squirrel Said
The Squirrel said.
'Attention all! '
He stands tall.
On a wooden fence,
in suspense.
Their Squirrel Head,
Their squirrel said,
'My nuts are gone,
My nuts are gone! '
Did you check under your bed?
Another squirrel joking said,
'Of course I did! ' the squirrel said,
'I am the Squirrel head'.
Maybe you forgot you've ate,
Autumn now, it's not too late,
Just look for more, Squirrel Head,
An elderly wise squirrel said.
0184 Poetry's Triumph
When that strange stirring to a poem comes -
half-heard, half-formed, some seed deep in the mind -
the heart lights up, so eager to explore
the unknown path that listening may find:
obedience, awe, devotion, humbleness
all rise to meet the offering of the word,
and gently, like new father with his child,
tend precious stranger granted to their care.
Then silence turns to music in the mind
and all too solid words form, black and white;
behind the magic of the manifest
remains - less noonday, than unbroken night...
The poet's failure? No, his Muse's power -
if readers hear that seed which spoke the flower.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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If I Were A Poem
If I were a poem
And you were a book
Would you ever read me
Could you take a look
Would you be my rhythm
While I would be a rhyme
Would you even know me
By feeling inside my mind.
And if I were a poem
And you were a book
Would you understand me
With the feelings I have shook
Would you be my reader
With words I have spoke
Then I would believe her
With feelings I have wrote.
If I were a Poet
And you were an Author
Would you ever know it
That I too was a scholar
Would you be my leaf
If I were the tree
Would you feel a need
Could you feel a belief.
If I had the power
And you were the seed
I would be a flower
And you would be like me.
But I am just a pen
And you are my thoughts
You are my poems
And I am what I sought.
Randy L. McClave
poem by Randy McClave
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Seed
Seed
Not perishable
Seed
The ultimate substratum
Of the whole creation.
You are the root cause
Of the entire creation.
You are all pervasive
And in all formed.
You are my seed
You are my root
You are with me
I'm in you.
O my seed
I have no
Other need.
poem by Gajanan Mishra
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A Poet Became His Own Poetry
A POET BECAME HIS OWN POETRY
A poet became his own poetry
And all he could be
Was lines and lines and lines
Inside and outside
Lines and more lines
Off- rhymes
Finding a phrase
A metaphor
Hearing listening
To sounds
His own mind made.
A poet became his own poetry
And went into the long sleep
Of being only what he wrote.
No one can know how
Reading these lines now
The poet and the poetry live
without themselves.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Poem Does Not Have to Rhyme
There are those who think in order for a poem to have rhythm it must rhyme, but a poem does not have to rhyme to have rhythm.
The rhythm comes for the poet’s soul not the rhyming of words.
The rhythm is in emotions that the poet’s poem evokes.
From a soulful cry to feeling of love and from the passion of hate to the awakening of understanding this is the beat, the rhythm of a poem. Now don’t get me wrong if a poem rhyme and has soul it is cool too, but I just wanted everyone to know that a poem does not have to rhyme.
The Poet And The Reader
the poet writes his lines
they are all dead
unless the reader comes
and resurrects them
then the poem becomes alive
and begins to read upon itself
the meaning of its existence
there is a bond between the poet
and the reader
a familiarity comes into play
one says> this is what it is
the other says> i know.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Interactive
I write some lines and you read each word
A word excites you and you take it up to
Seed your fields where you grow your own
Shrubbery of words with tendrils climbing
I look at your garden of words and there is
This word growing into a flower attracting
Me I pick it up this sensual flower and I
Seed it in the lines of my mind now another
Bunch of words like ripe grapes I take one
Swallow it and savor the taste of its sweetness
More lines of words in my throat sliding
Through the lining of my esophagus so smooth
Going straight inside the veins leading to my heart
Sweet, so sweet I could have written the usual
Lines of “ I love you, I miss you” but I couldn’t
There is this roadblock, this writer’s block
The lines stopped, the words are stunted
I stutter, I retreat to my eyes, to see
The face of this woman I love, her eyes
Are gentle, she smiles at me, and waits
For this beautiful silence that gives her life
You stand there, looking for a hint, another
Word to seed the lines waiting to be written.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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On the 25th...
i am repeating
what usual things i have done
and will always be doing
there is always a room for
my silence
how i keep it always as a seed
growing
and just that
forever.... a seed
its fruits are nowhere to be
found
it has never even bloomed
a seed in my mind
like cancer
restrained, controlled,
well kept
now this silence
takes its toll at the count of
ten thousand and five hundred
solitudes.
i take my cup
drink the wine and i am praying
that let it not be taken
Thy will be done.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Seed And The Tree
Who can say for sure as to what came first: the seed or the tree?
If the seed came first where did it come from if not from the tree?
But then if the tree came first where did it come from except from a seed!
So then you'll have to re-ask again that question of the origin of the seed.
An endless circle with no logical conclusion soon appears
until one looks beyond the seed and the tree that it bears.
Although the seed comes from the tree and the tree from the seed
each one grows in the ground of mother Earth which both does feed.
The Earth is the womb of everything living and supports all we know
and then becomes the tomb back into which all forms one day must go.
The underlying essence of all nature is of consciousness-energy-intelligence
that includes and sustains all things despite our ever incessant belligerence.
Has anyone ever heard it said that God is in the form of the world
and so all within it carries a divine spark from which it has swirled.
God is the infinite eternal seed of all existence and can be experienced like this:
usually as an overwhelming love within us and as all power, knowledge and bliss.
So the seed and tree came from the Earth which itself has come from and exists in God
and to enquire where God has come from is useless if we haven't transcended this sod.
The limited mind of man has to merge into that unlimited universal mind of the Creator
only then can we know the original cause or final end of everything and of their Maker.
---------------------
Note:
This should remind one of the other similar paradox being that of 'the chicken and the egg'.
poem by George Krokos
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The Old Rhyming Poet
In his early eighties his best days long gone
But the gray haired old poet he keeps penning on
Though many see him as of another time
Sixty years as a poet and still writing in rhyme.
Though not seen as a mentor to the young poets of the town
He once was the Regional Poet Laureate and he knew of renown
When rhyme it was popular a long time ago
And his hair was as dark as the wing of a crow.
Not hard to tell he's known a far better day
The old rhyming poet that the years have left gray
It has been more than five decades since he was in his prime
Eventually we all become victims of time.
In time as in life few things do seem to last
And verses that rhyme are now seen as of the past
But to him to stop writing would be living a lie
And he will be a poet till the day that he die.
poem by Francis Duggan
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A Poet
What does it takes to be a poet?
A creative mind and soul
Bump starting with
Daring inner voices.
Visualisation,
Imagery, metaphor,
Get into Dreamy world
Solitude place
Drafting, re-draft and revision
Choose your subject matter
Let your inner gut instinct and intuition
Guide you along the way
Create moody feeling
Dreamy and day dreaming
Context, stanza, forms, tones and lines breaking
Writing in different styles
Get rhythm and rhyme to choose you
It doesn't mean a thing if
It ain't got that swing and flow
Re-read, re-write and revise
To accomplish
The finest poem
poem by Lawrence Hiung
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The Seed
In the spring
when the air has warmed.
I
planted a seed
a tiny seed.
I
along with my faith
to Mother Earth entrusted it.
I
hoped she would
nourish and coax the blossom
hidden within that seed so small.
To
spring forth in the summertime
with
its beauty its fragrance.
That all may behold and enjoy.
Until
autumn time
when back it returns
to a seed to sleep
to wait.
To be reborn.
poem by Kurt Hearth
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Sins Of Our Fathers
It's a seed planted
By the history of our forefathers
That is in you and I my brothers
Yes! You too my sisters
Are plaqued by the same seed
The same seed that assumed
A place of comfort
In the garden of my father's father's father,
Further and farther from root level
It found its way through the bark to us the branches
And now as we grow leaves
And new buds from us emerge
The seed find its way to our children and so I pray,
Let us children be not held accountable
For the sins of our fathers
We suffer from self doubt and self inadequacy
We ask ourselves the same question
That others before us asked
Who am I to make it,
When in my family no one did?
The question is in you
The question is in me
Yes! You can trace it back to the seed
The same seed that history
Planted in our forefather's garden
To us poverty is congenital
And mediocrity congenial
But how can I believe in myself
When even my father doubt me?
I guess it all begins with me
As a man thinketh, so is he
So hear me father I pray
Let us children be not held accountable
For the sins of our fathers
poem by BiggRich Shuping
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Widower is hopeless
A widow is the pod shed seed.
A widower is the seed spilled pod.
Seed can remain; pod disintegrates.
A widower is the most unfortunate.
07.03.2002, Pakd
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Poetic Warrior
A poetic warrior with a ball point sword
A typewriter dagger to lose he can't afford
The computer screen or the note pad are his battle field
Inspiration from others are his strong sturdy shield
Negative critics and writers block he can always defeat
Sometimes his heart might be broken still he keeps it concrete
He can take pain and suffering and use it to create
So his wounds can be a weapon knowing others can relate
He is a poetic warrior from the beginning of time
Defending his homeland of metaphor and rhyme
A hero to the reader always saving their mind
In search of shining armor it is him they do find
They are protected from the uninspiring
The ones who are in love with art defiling
It is them he sends spiraling, into the depths of hell
They can feel the truth and the warmth in his rhythm
In his wordplay many messages are unhidden
He is their poetic warrior from the beginning of time
Defending their homeland of metaphor and rhyme
poem by Sam Edison
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Before All Fades to Gray
On late winter afternoons
Before it all fades to gray
Distractions blur mind’s focus
Engendering thoughts to stray
A dark crow perched on a limb
The gray squirrel on the fence
Rely instinct will reveal
Their ordained paths leading hence
No parallel guide exists
For humankind to resource
While sufficient light remains
To secure my future course
Thoughts percolate inside
What purpose or intent
Will providence provide
Before daylight is spent
Heart voices gentle say
Spirit lends light to way
Yet qualms suffuse each day
Before all fades to gray
poem by Mary Havran
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A Well Crafted Word
Why am I so philosophical, a philosopher a long time ago once wrote.
The song writer, script writer, poet and novelist like to use a great quote.
Some poems are written with a catchy rhyme and a theme.
A well crafted word can help and be a great writers dream.
Everyone knows that the pen is mightier than the sword.
A well crafted word can give the reader great reward.
'A metaphor is just like a simile'; An unknown author once quoted.
It's true about all writers I know, they all hate their words being misquoted.
To writers one and all, a well crafted word is always a must to write down.
Just remember this about all writers, they can make great use of a pronoun.
poem by Nichole Kaci McKnight
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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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