Poetry

Sorry, Geraldo. not everyone is as talented as you (not sarcastic here). Hey guys! Lighten up. Always remember... if ever you are scared of criticism or something... you don't DESERVE to write. I mean, you can't please everybody. There will always be someone who will call you a fool. So, go ahead. You have a wonderful oppertunity to share your works with the world. And worst comes to worst, what, people will think you are a fool/ untalented. So what? Atleast you made an attempt!

And please remember! As long as idiots like me can post... no reason why you shouldn't! Bon courage!

I've still given up.

Quitter.

I was about to start this thread until I found it here.

I really like William Blake. I read "Songs of Innocence" last night. One of my favorite Blake quotes is "If the riches of this world are gifts from the devil and earthly kings, I should suspect I worshipd the devil if I thanked my God for wordly things".

T.S. Eliot has long been a favorite of mine. I discovered Eliot when I was about 13, which was around the time I started getting into good music such as Pink Floyd. Eliot sparked me to set out to create a vast conceptual work. When I was 13 I tried writing an album called "Wasted" which was inspired by the Wasteland. I couldn't write music at the time so it never really came to fruition.

Walt Whitman is another essential. I believe "As I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life" is my favorite of his.

I also like Yeats, Keats, Krane, and Chaucer.

I have an anthology put together by Harold Bloom who is a renowned literary critic. I recommend you check out some of his poetry collections.

Lewis Carroll is also a good one. I enjoy "The Hunting of the Snark".

Here is a bit of my poetry which is isolated from a larger piece.

There laid ladies,
Slacking dirty maidens,
Paid penitentiary workers in cadence.
So forward and forth, I brought them to heaven,
clumsily fumbling a crook with my knee.
I saw the wrinkles and feathers.
I saw the tumbling trees.
Clouds laid out before the eyes of Thelma the dragon, laboring endlessly, birthing the children of blackened holes.
The far encompassing earth mobile, a weapon and truce for bickering,
a stolen compassionate after assistance,
gave me a break, reluctant to listen.

Harold Bloom's name probably appears on 65% of the Anthologies section at any given Borders or B&N-- I know I have a few things he's written or edited. At the same time, I sort of hate him.

A good friend of mine (who actually used to post here) is quite the poet. He goes on and on about Bloom from time to time. I find that Bloom speaks with a bit of bias that has been thoroughly fed by his immense history of reading and writing. However, he is supposedly one of the last of his ilk in the realm of literary criticism. I definitely appreciate his work even though sometimes I disagree with his opinions on certain poets and their poetry.

Here is something I wrote awhile back when I was reading a lot of Whitman.

I Hardly am the man Christ asked me to Be

I confess, in my darkest times, I hardly am the man
Jesus asked me to be, but I digress, sometimes I am.

Alone in the skull I can pace and count my steps,
I can hear the echoes from the walls, and paint them if I wish.
I can hear the devil whispering delusions of eternity,
a life in the vast hole he wants to dig for me,
a crooked path not ending in the light, but a storm.

Mary, I remain positively not amazed.
You are holy but predictable, climbing from your hole,
calling me out as if I am listening.
Peter, blessed enemy, I am one foot away.
You could take me to my grave if you could be so bold.

I, in the state the almighty has created,
cannot bear to take on the sins of the world,
though I have not been made in the likeness of beast,
my words are stricken by a fleeting illness,
and the medicine I eat cannot save me from my end.