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Paul Butters Jul 2020
You say that all poetry is gobbledygook:
That Art's a waste of time
Elvis was just a Showman
And Freddie Mercury…
(Yes the same first name as you!)
…I’d better not say.

Where is your soul, Philistine Fred?
So many like you around.
Your mind cluttered with clinical facts,
Everything measured
And boxed –
Fastidious and precise.
Emotion killed
By setsquares
Set by Pythagoras
On a geometrical day.

You hate historical dramas
And all things learned.
Admitting any Education
Loses any street cred earned.
Yet you watch hours and hours
Of soaps.

You love supporting football teams
From places you’ve never been near.
But at least you like your pubs
For a lovely pint of beer.

I guess I’ll have to keep trying
To get through to you and your kind.
Yet I know some things ain’t possible
And you may never change your mind.

But yes I’ll keep on trying:
Keep banging out my poems –
Knowing that my pockets
Will never be lined with coins.

I know that you won’t read this,
But I will carry on.
For there are people out there
Who will listen to my song.

Paul Butters

© PB 3\7\2020.
(Partly Inspired by “How Do You Sleep” (1971) song by John Lennon. Education, education, education. Soul, soul, soul.
Meysa Apr 2020
Men?

Hah.

They come to me.
But they never seem to go as easily
as they come to me.
I'm a simple girl.
I want nothing more than to bathe in my solitude.
But these men,
so foolish by nature
they want nothing
more than to claim me.

They threaten my essence.

And so well
I hurt them.
So well I hurt them too - my dear
So well in fact
that they come for seconds.
And when I start hurting them
I can't seem to stop.

I carry their morsels,
their names
in my every stride
in my sway lies their broken hearts.
At night, I lay on a bed of virtuous compliments.
I adorn my flesh with their promises
my skin reeks of their tenderest secrets.
My dress
a construct of their desires alone.
You will hear their fervent pleas
from time to time
concealed so effortlessly beneath my laugh
a soft cackle.

It is true.

I have dulled many lives.
Yet I have never felt more alive.
Because my dear
I’m sure that you too
would agree
I wear them well

les garçons.
- do not try to convince her that your companionship is better than her solitude
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
Performing Art
by Michael R. Burch

Who teaches the wren
in its drab existence
to explode into song?

What parodies of irony
does the jay espouse
with its sharp-edged tongue?

What instinctual memories
lend stunning brightness
to the strange dreams

of the dull gray slug
—spinning its chrysalis,
gluing rough seams—

abiding in darkness
its transformation,
till, waving damp wings,

it applauds its performance?
I am done with irony.
Life itself sings.

One suspects the typical American poetry professor and/or workshop instructor would advise birds to give up singing for mostly inaudible expressions of jaded irony. Keywords/Tags: performing, art, poetry, song, singing, music, irony, cynicism, parodies, dreams, imagination, chrysalis, butterfly, transformation, natural, performance
Lise Nastja Feb 2020
My whole life I had scoffed at boys gifting girls flowers
The expensive ones, the kind they saved up for
I thought it was incredibly immature to pay for pretty dead things
When the world is in the process of destruction
And the economy is constantly in inflation
It could’ve paid for a lot of things—
A nice meal or even AirPods

It was until I got a girl of my own
Smiling like she’s the sun
Walking around and tugging me along
I suddenly had the urge to get her a 50-dollar bouquet
Or those fancy ones in a box shipped from Dubai
Or a giant teddy bear—Yes!
A giant teddy bear to fill a corner of her room on top of her pile of trash

Suddenly she deserves pretty dead things
Hold onto them as they slowly wilt
I want her to walk around owning a piece of Earth
It could’ve been an animal or a plant
Shiny gems or a worm
But she deserves the brightest crop among the weeds
The purplest shade nature can make
The pinkest rose
The yellowest sunflower

I’m not even one to write a poem either
But somehow I now belong in the stupid group of hopeless romantics
plucking pretty things from Earth
Despite inflation and pragmatism
I guess it says a lot about us humans
Sentimental *****
chitragupta Feb 2020
Rip, rip, rip!
Red glazed paper
Cling, cling, cling!
The falling sugar
Whirr, whirr, whirr!
Grinding of the beans
Stir, stir, stir!
Till the surface gleams
Drip, drip, drip!
Dripping black ocean
Sip, sip, sip!
The bitter decoction

Sweetheart
Ain't it sweet enough
To believe there's someone we're made for
But it's never enough sugar
in that sachet
Why does love last as long as it's paid for?
Happy Valentine's day, poets.
There is so little left,
And still much i need to question.
So untrusting of what i can see, hear or touch,
My senses fooled a thousand times and a thousand times again.

Hardened fortifications blossom,
Bringing perpetual reinforcement.
Working for at least a respite,
From coyote hordes outdoors.

Odysseus waits at the gates,
Educated eyes identify his horses,
Staring straight through the belly of the beasts,
Thwarting threats before they take to action.

King in the learned castle,
To never be fooled again.
Entrenched deep in his defences,
Securing solace through his reclusion.

it is lonely on your own

There is so little left,
This gives forth the question,
so untrusting of what i see, hear, touch but feel?
Perhaps the fraud is mine.

Cynical battlements sprout,
With spores of harsh repairs.
Crusading for disenchantment,
Cry wolf and call coyote.

Teach to never looked beyond the gates,
Focus attention in,
Cowered behind walls and towers,
Forever fearful to lower the bridges.

Lord of what little is leftover,
If any is left at all,
Prisoner to himself,
Until he allow himself to leave.
Ashlee Reyes Sep 2019
last night your kisses
made the moon brighter
we'd smoked before
but inhaling you
made me higher.

i went back to my empty apartment
dreamed of you real sweet

but i know better
than to text you
and wish you the
most decent day

i wanna believe in the concept
"ask and it is given"
but i know better
than to expect you to stay
Ahh ****, no matter how I twist and turn things it always seems like I miss
something
It seems
to just be this ******* mess
I want to write exuberant
want to be happy, a big ******* party
But, my cynicism
my slowly increasing bitterness
makes me to the person I hate
So, guess that’s fun
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