Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Shadow Mar 2020
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or ******,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.
Poem by Charles Bukowski
Adham Hassan Feb 2020
I put to thee labors to mine love finally achieve
To thy heart I not to be a name demand,
Not to face the oblivious waves, not to be brief,
Dare not to mine soul erase as thy waves treat the poor sand,
I want to pierce thy shell I want to be a thief,
But mine barriers to thy trials will still stand.
*
I am not a little Satan nor am I a saint,
I was to thy pilgrims their miserable end,
Only I deserve to have thy pearly hand,
As mine winds go mad to thy smile, they faint,
But to thy ship, they won't help nor find thee any land
Use thy heart, thou might notice mine scent.

To thy doubts, thou wish they are right,
But I am not a one able to say.
Maybe if thou art in mine near sight,
mine thoughts of thee may reach the day.
Keep hiding mine sun, but no use it's so bright,
To mine love, thy hope is tracing a leaked ray.


Since I am no Prometheus, I will let thee freeze
Find thy fire and to mine labors do not cease
*
I will do no more and to mine affairs I will head,
Thus, thy trails do never reach an end,
Never reach mine light, nor to thee will I bend,
Not even with thy smile, no more heart shred.
Lillian May Jan 2020
classical pianist,
she's starry-eyed like Starry Night
she's got the aura of oil paints
hands like brushwork
swirling and swishing
eyebrows that twitch with every note
the room lowers by the decibels as she breathes
her heart in perfect pentameter with song
like silk running up along a staircase
sound floating thick and rich
daydreaming
the sounds of purgatory between sleep and awareness
no attention to time or reality
she slips away
oh, that classical pianist.

-LMN
Shadow Dec 2019
Werther had a love for Charlotte
     Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
     She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady,
     And a moral man was Werther,
And, for all the wealth of Indies,
     Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sighed and pined and ogled,
     And his passion boiled and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
     And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, having seen his body
     Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
     Went on cutting bread and butter.
Lillian May Nov 2019
youre my photographer
and im your hepburn(or at some point in a brief glimpse to me we were these) but my face is a little funnier
and neither of us can waltz and
really we aren't even in love like them but
i do however love the sun and the rain in her (hepburn's") old Hollywood voice!
her voice was so picture perfect in that way
and I kind of want to be in love with you (minus the river and that drift wood dancing cause neither of us can dance much less to your ****** gangster rap and definitely not on driftwood) but I also think that being in love with you would be a surprising amount like waltzing to rap music on driftwood on a river
but if there's a world where hepburn has a 'funny face' then who knows maybe we could find a rhythm
or maybe we'd just get very soaked in river water
My words don't Shake like William's,
nor, do they Frost like Robert's.
×
My words barely lead the Way like Ernest's,
nor, do they have Hughes like Langston's. 
×
I don't know how much my Wordsworth like William's,
nor, do my words keep people ******* like Edward's.
×
My words are far from an Angel like Maya's,
 and they are barely Lovecraft like Howard's.
×
Indeed I profess, my words cannot do those listed things, but, my words can be a great expression of me.
×
(sumairu•¶oetry)
Vagish Oct 2019
We rise not to fall, we rise again and again not to gain
It is no supremacy what we pursue
But it’s the amity what we desire


We don’t know from where we come
But we know where we want to go
We don’t have a path but we know how to create one
We covered a long path and still long to go
We rise not to fall, we rise again and again due to pain
A pain deep inside the core
A pain which is shredding me apart
We endure the pain not for revenge
But for the love we want
We don’t know how to do
But still we try enough
Not due to regret but due to contentment
We rise no to fall, we rise again and again
And Believe is what we have…….
Next page