Watershed

a turning point in poetry

i bet you didn't expect this did you did you did you

but anyway here is a poem i have a lot more but if you want to know you have to care to read the old thread on the old forums or the old thread here but it is not complete.

anyone knows.

verne doesn't like my poetry she cannot be counted in here. ily verne.

No Lilies At Her Funeral

she wrote the words on a sheet of paper
she even signed them with her name
the pen slipped away as the ink blotted
she buried the document in a drawer
and then she stood up and walked away

calmly she stood in the doorway facing me
she had no intention of being subtle
and without saying a single word she told me
in that split second I knew the truth
her gaze was an oath to the forever departed

they say it's the hardest thing to wave goodbye
they say that it's the worst thing to break up
but in those seconds that we saw eye to eye
when the words of parting elicit a mere sigh
we knew the deal had been sealed that day

I think she passed me once in the corridor
and I knew better than to speak up for once
we knew and we understood each other well
we knew what had happened over the years
there would be no pretty lilies at her funeral.

Token

Shone a bright lamp overhead on the dusty floor;
Aimed in a narrow beam towards the door,
Opened the lock towards his room once more,
Shone a lamp on his last token forevermore.

Lay a note heavily crumpled on the icy floor;
Scribbled in a handwriting well-known from before,
Read the words he had poured from inner stores,
Lay a note next to his last token forevermore.

Intended a goodbye for the beloved one's whore;
Broken was his heart beyond that one oaken door,
Tore it out and splattered it across the crimson floor.
Intended a goodbye that would last forevermore.

Lay the token yet motionless in death's silent moor;
Picked up by the mother doing her daily cleaning chore;
Broke into tears flowing like velvet onto the floor,
Lay the token of his passing motionless forevermore.

She Bows

I woke up on a grey January morning,
Everyone still asleep in the pale light.
Letters from a not so distant past,
Have travelled to oblivion today.

It is the memory of something,
That became nothing with the scorched seal.
Time does not heal - nor does it rub salt
In any wounds, but it provides the tourniquet.

I watched couples kiss the night before,
I was jealous of having lost this fictitious game.
But I'm confident in myself that I have won,
The overdone truths emphasise the ignorance of man.

What once hurt,
Is something that has not stayed
She bowed to herself
She bowed to silly failure.

What once hurt,
Is something that will fade.
She bows to my mind,
She bows to me.

I've always quite liked your poetry, but I like No Lilies At Her Funeral the best out of these three~

so write more

I have way more... the old TCOD vbforums feature a thread with at least 8 pages or so of poetry... I'll post some oldies (King and the Gambler probably.)

New Year's Day

Smouldering remains piled up,
Scattered ashes drift away.
The pyre smothered by time
Scars in the blackened land.

Trees grow not in the waste,
Acidic soil burns their roots.
The fumes poison the grassland
Its charred rings fan outward.

They lit a candle for the damned,
Cursed play with fire took a life.
The irony of painting the dawn
In a worse state than the dusk.

…And Then They Died

a vision of a world covered deeply in cold layers of snow
a thick blanket of white draped over a huge sheet of ice
the weakened sun floats low on the clear blue horizon
the darkness settles for months over these barren lands
a thick veil of death hangs above the desert without the sand

men trudge in the sweeping gale that blows over these plains
an arctic nightmare lost in a frozen wilderness continent
snow dogs carry forth the sled of provisions that they bear
and they walk on makeshift skis fashioned from deadwood
the rays of the sun bounce back to burn their pale complexion

for the bitter antarctic storm blows without an end in sight
weakened faces freeze in the middle of an endless winter night
and only the stars shine invisibly on the endless black dome
there is no shelter under these suns and there is no vegetation
there are no hands to light a fire and no humans to heed the sign

dying breaths of collapsing bodies fade away into the icy mist
as another one bites the snow the sound resonates of a wet thud
the cold is the only master in this wretched outcast region
any living thing is a slave to the power of its wicked nature
and then they died of the frostbite of its cold merciless hands

The Isolated Sanctuary

The green reeds waved solidly in the spring breeze,
White geese swam circles in the pond - wheezed
At invisible passers-by on bicycles, clinking their bells.
A small paradise located at a shallow wishing well.

She always used to sit under the old oak's leaves,
Huddled against the trunk of moss-covered tree.
After she finished the books that she would bring,
She would ask herself - if the world meant anything?

This green grove was her home even in the heavy rain,
She sheltered beneath thick branches from the wet pain.
She would cry tears in sync with the celestial downpour,
A sanctuary the only solace from the world she implored.

One cold day she ran away from her own home - broken,
As a wailing wind whispered the words she had spoken:
"I promise to build my own house under this sacred tree;
Mother Earth: I ask only this one small grace of thee!"

From the fallen branches and twigs a dwelling she built
The leaves of the tree roofed her like a viridian quilt.
She fed on nut and acorn, nourished off the ground,
And ate all the herbs and the roots that she had found.

But she had no company - except for the quacking of geese
And no one held her warm during the cold winter breeze;
As she looked at the snow dripping through the leaves,
She wished to go home; she was fainting from her wheeze.

But the winter took her spirit - left her empty and drained
Her body numbed with cold, her clothes filthy and stained.
And she breathed out her last wisps of vapour in the frost,
Wailing a bitter lament for the waning life that she lost.

Images of Ancient War - Part 1: Battle of Thermopylae

The sun descended on the valley of death.
The pass between the cliffs
Guarded by a thousands.
A Spartan tactic to fight till the bitter end.

They lay in wait, hidden in the bush.
Onward the Persians marched
with legions of swords sky-raised.
Tonight, they called, the Greek lands shall burn!

Xerxes called forth an army, ten thousand men.
Lads with shields and spears,
Charged full on the pass
Straight into the arms of the Greek phalanxes.

Wave upon wave crashed onto the front lines,
Yet Greece stood firm.
Only two Spartan soldiers fell,
As the Medes force was ravaged by better armament.

King Xerxes looked up from his royal throne,
His eyes wide open,
Sent another squadron of men,
The Greeks slaughtered them again, one by one.

Daybreak on the second day of the battle,
Fifty thousand strong
The Greeks still outnumbered,
Withstood the force of Persia with minimum loss.

The Persian horns of battle shouted a retreat,
Xerxes summoned the men,
And as he thought the pass was lost,
A traitor by the name of Ephialtes arrived.

This Malian lad, motivated by the desire of gold
And other perverse richdom
That Xerxes could offer,
Revealed a hidden path around the pass of Thermopylae.

Through the cover of an inky black night,
The Persian force made its way,
To the path Phocia held,
Ready to strike at the rising of a blood red sun.

The rustling of leaves awoke the Phocian men.
Hastily arming themselves,
They retreated to their town,
Under a shower of arrows sent on Hydarnes' command.

Hydarnes' immortal army marched ever on,
Came up behind the Spartans,
Who had remained to fight,
The other Greeks had left to save their own skin.

And this would be the glorious last stand of Greece.
As spears clashed in the dawn,
The Spartan king died,
Yet his disciples fought on and slew brethren of Xerxes.

Even when the Theban forces surrendered, hands raised
They fell back to the hill.
And when their spears broke,
They whipped out their xiphos, staining them crimson.

"Here they defended themselves to the last,
Those who still had swords,
Using them, and the others
Resisting with their hands and their teeth"

But to no avail, as the Persians surrounded them,
Raining down arrows,
Turning the sky black,
Until every last soldier fell dead on the grass.

Persia had torn down the wall of Phocia,
And passed through Thermopylae,
Onwards to Athens,
By a vicious battle with a victory undeserved.

Deathwish

sort of troubled: it's a question
you ask yourself, when you are
sort of troubled: it's a feeling
you get when you are down.

sort of like it just came out
of the blue, when you thought
sort of like it would disappear
but it stayed to mess around.

sort of like the blood crawling
down your skin, when you are
sort of like the world turning,
you've slowed yourself down.

something like faint cheers ringing
in your ears, when you hear
something like your head spinning
in the maelstrom of sound.

it's sort of worse than that though
in your head, when you think
it's sort of worse than before
that day you wanted to drown.

something like you had to give
the one thing, when you would take
something like you could never get
a home to call your own ground.

something like you would never care
about at all, when you tried
something like you could die for
and wish to be drowned out.

well this something you knew about,
all along, when you reached
for the something in your mind
to knock your own lights out.

And Then They Died... is your best.

make more

Have you considered making a book?
Cause i'd sure buy one.

i have more actually i have like 140 pages or so but iono

The Angel and the Whore

I. Birth

Born of the sacred words,
Given to the world by grace.
Shining a silvery light,
Down onto a cold face.

Bear with me until the coming days....
She will arise underneath my rays.
I am the one heavenly servant
Destined to raise this infant.

A smile on a newborn guise.
A cry for a calm mother.
Wept for the milky breast
Silent when it got another.

II. Childhood (Loss of Ignorance and Innocence)

She bore the cross that was given to her at birth,
Draped in the holy white of her celebration.
On account of the spirit that conceived her,
Her voice rang out with a sacred incantation.

Yet the necklace that dangled around her neck,
One day snapped its golden chain cleanly in two.
And the mark of her piety and chastity
Tore the blank halo that she bore clean through.

III. Adult(ery)

On the corner of the street she sat,
A woman in ragged brown clothes.
The white that she once wore proudly,
No more resembles the above betrothed.

She turned over the dimes that she got,
A payment for a notion ill-conceived.
Inside bearing a new seed of life,
But stained with the sin of her breed.

The two broken halves of the chain,
Lay waste on the pavement at her side.
And the money that she earned,
Was spent on keeping her mind astride.

But then her eye fell on the sheen,
Of gold that still glittered with time.
And she took the shards in her hand
And prayed for the coming divine.

IV. Death

They found her lying dead on the black asphalt,
The pendant still glistening in her white palms.
But though they buried her in a churchyard grave,
She had died for nothing more than mere alms

Never

She stood on the hill, looked over the forest -
she would always be up there in my mind -
so far away that having her is the hardest
task I have ever dared to face. I am
not brave enough to tell her how I feel,
and what exactly I happen to feel inside.
I do not know how to tell her for real,
or how to convince her of my honesty,
the thought that this could be reality,
as opposed to a ludicrously horrible scam.

Nor do I know how to convince my own,
to leave before the day breaks on this house.
Nor do I know how to breathe so softly,
and stealthily creep away like a grey mouse.
And I am not so vain as to claim her crown,
And yell to be a part of her beloved royalty,
Her kingdom. I truly believe that I would be
merely the one person that is just right.
And I wish that she would be the one to see,
that loving statement in the proper light.

Drowned In A Forest Puddle

among the fumes I am a wicked waste
breathed poison with sweet aftertaste
I drew hate downwards into my lung
knocked my confidence down a rung

drowning in a puddle of my own juice
self-asphyxiation is such a clever ruse
the essence of feeling bad is reality
sucked into the drainpipe of insanity

stars blowing bubbles in the cool night air
the moon was shot by a cloud unawares
and I stare into the void above the trees
I know I'm hurt but still I don't believe

I've brought myself to believe I'm too wrong
I don't exist in a place where I belong
but when I ask myself if it's better away
I tell myself that for lack of hope I will stay

The images were striking and most of the rhythms and sounds fitted and had the right effect. But why did you start the lines with small letters? They look sort of aimlessly rebellious.

you should imagine the person actually thinking it sort of stream-of-consciousness ly

it's not an ordered thought

Faith in a Pogo Stick

I jumped around on a new pogo stick,
Unwinding and shrinking the coil thick,
I thought that I would jump sky high.
Maybe I would hit a white cloud and fly,
But I fell down to the ground too early,
And left my mind and soul quite surly.

"What?" exclaimed none so sure as I,
"I thought this stick would make me fly!
I calculated its true trajectory
And found the result satisfactory;
But when I mount for an airborne ride,
I fall to the ground in an early tide!"

"You must have faith in the Pogo Stick
Make your jump deft and still quick
Do not forget to lift off with your feet
Ere your flight may premature ends meet,
But most of all believe in your true jump,
Or you shall land in the grass with a thump."

So it was spoken and I followed suit,
I tried to jump from my own faithful root.
Yet still once I took to the summer air
My height fell like I had not jumped there
My faith had failed me in my quest;
I dared not jump for fear of a jest.

"No, my son, you must truly believe
Or the soil will give you a firm reprieve.
Faith must allow you to rise to the sky,
Only this will make your pogo stick fly.
But if you tarry and worry about the breeze
Gravity will call you down with ease."

I attempted to jump once more,
But only failure did that hold in store.
The voice would spur me on by day
And by night its hope would fade away,
But convinced as I was that I must rise
So did all physics endeavor to deny.

And no matter how hard I have tried,
My pogo stick will not jump to the sky;
I have fallen swiftly back to the ground
Hit the dirt with a crashing sound;
Yet I know that if I truly believe
Why on earth would this jump not be real?

Sara Goldfarb Has Left The Building

can see smoke on a screen
dancing lights
who's coming out of the television
who's got my red dress
and my pills
i can't fit into you...

whispered names to call sanity
i don't know what is left or right
bruised arms and howling rain
girlfriend barfed
and all I feel is more pain
the hospital is driving her insane

burned me out on a shot
click clock tick tock
psst sniff
took a whiff of a spliff
got no money
got the time to rot

IN A HOSPITAL BED
IN A SHOCKED STATE
IN A WET BED
IN A GUARDED PRISON