#dickinson
I wrote before of Walt and Mark,
And how I was not impressed-
At least to me, their work lacked Skill-
Their work, improperly dressed.
I am not some stuck-up critic-
I don’t have a picky Taste,
But I prefer Skill and meaning-
Which on Whitman go to waste.
A female poet’s also nice,
Though gender means Naught, frankly.
It’s nice to hear a woman’s voice-
Bradstreet never spoke to me.
She took her Power in her hand-
And she went against the World.
She aimed by Pebble- but herself-
Emily, you Were so Bold.
You were wrong, though, you did not Fall-
You reached immortality.
You truly did Fell the World-
A league out, your words struck me.
You are a Poet more worth praise
Than any Walt or Mark.
I think you were before your time-
Sorry Love never found you.
I wonder what you found in Death-
It seemed to have gripped you so-
Were you satisfied -Dickinson?
I hope easy rests your soul.
Jan 9
Jan 9, 2026 at 1:35 AM UTC
It feels like a movie, as if life was plotted out to each varying detail. A movie I am not apart of but a spectators of sorts. Never seeming to join in the rolls we each play.
Slowing tearing at me, never knowing what role I am supposed to play. Almost making me feel as if my role is to watch and see, as this world slowly unravels around me.
Just watching, almost say studying the movements that each individual plays and the effects he or she makes. A movie I can not change, even if I tried with all my might.
But my worst fear of all, the one I am most afraid to see, is will my scene end or will this movie end before me.
Jan 6
Jan 6, 2026 at 11:14 PM UTC
My gibbet is a fine and private place
where a lady may tarry of a summer afternoon
elevated and untouchable--
an ideal love just out of reach
like fruit for Tantalus, all pointless sweetness.
Allen Ginsberg appears from out of the crowd,
pink as a schoolmarm, fat as a Christmas goose
carrying his harmonium
singing about plutonium,
barefoot as any angel, toking on the Golden Blunt.
He looks up, mistaking me for a caught kite
dangling above the street in my gibbet
making other women's children
point and cry
demanding candy or weather reports.
Someone climbs up and ties tin cans
to the bottom of my gibbet
in an atmosphere of giddy holiday.
I die and begin to stink
pieces falling away like confetti.
Here I sway to this very day, high above
the Emily Dickinson Parkway
a paragon of virtue and demure reserve,
dead as hell
black as a bowling ball
ring still on my finger, an ingenue of the afterlife,
until gentrification when they'll take me down
because gibbets are out, they're upsetting,
like poetry,
like dead dodos
like buskers in the subway, beautiful, buried, irrelevant.
_______
Jul 24, 2025
Jul 24, 2025 at 3:22 PM UTC
If Poetry was cornered,
and about to be scorched alive
he would stand still and strong
despite the quivering fear inside.
His murderers would begin to sneer,
watching Death dangle minutes away,
and torcher him before they'd say:
"Any last words, on your last day?"
He'd swiftly swing open,
his delicate pages aflutter
as their wretched smiles
start to crack and sputter,
in shock at the boldness
of being openly sighted
and so very vulnerable
to being instantly ignited
just to save the great works
of all the world's poets,
who poured out their hearts
so purposefully in pen.
They'd see pieces of Poe,
about to exist Nevermore.
The words of Angelou,
with emotion in store.
Frost and Untaken Roads
that now all lead to Death.
Wordsworth's wisest words,
soon to take a final breath.
Eliot and The Wasteland
will find one another soon.
Not even sad Shakespeare
is going to last till' noon.
As the observing evildoers watched,
Poetry paused on a piece prepared:
"Because I Could Not Stop for Death,"
to which they remorsefully stared.
What a shame it would be,
said proud Poetry,
to let these legacies die.
the spirits of every poet
will haunt you if you try!
The mob looked at one another,
and quickly fled the scene,
leaving the ending as happy as
A Midnight Summers Dream!
Mar 30, 2025
Mar 30, 2025 at 5:52 PM UTC
As I swim through the Ocean Breadth,
A Turtle—or the like—
Who fears a Few but not of Death—
Returns The Caller's Hike.
It passes by a kindly Wave—
A gently smiled nod—
Perhaps it grieved a Deed unsaved—
A Sorrow left uncaught.
I make my way to grab its Tail
and question what it knew—
It merely turns its Head to wail:
I am not of the Few!
What more of us should Timing take—
When things were never sown—
But heading backwards has a Stake
of never having Grown.
Feb 15, 2025
Feb 15, 2025 at 2:49 PM UTC
Emily, Emily, called back,
But not set free,
By those who worship
and study thee!
Summers see the young ones
Gather on your lonely grave.
Kissing with immortal tongues,
To desire they are slaves;
But you forgive them blithely,
tell them to proceed,
In your name and memory,
The one thing you knew not was greed.
-Sharon Talbot
Dec 12, 2024
Dec 12, 2024 at 4:58 PM UTC
Emily shmemily,
Emily Dickinson,
Recluse and poetess,
Rendered her rhyme
Idiosyncrously,
Much of her poetry
Reading most cryptically
Much of the time.
Sep 21, 2024
Sep 21, 2024 at 10:01 PM UTC
These days I’ve been looking to the past, to all the women before me. The revolutionaries whose words helped shape the way I see the world; the way I see nature; the way I see simple, ordinary pleasures of life become extraordinary.
These days I let my pen flow freely across the page. I look to all the women before me for guidance because I find myself afraid to speak my own truth. They teach me with words how to live presently, never looking back because there’s no room for mistakes to reside here.
These days we’re on a first name basis. With wide-eyed clarity, all the women before me allow a short glimpse of them as they once were: bright young things full of hope with a cigarette loosely balanced between faded red lips and hands that move deftly over a typewriter. The room is filled with cigarette smoke and incense. I can almost smell it now but the vision is gone with the wind.
These days I seek out: Zelda; Sylvia; Anne; Emily; Joan; Virginia. To all the women before me, I have found you. They’re no longer a black and white still photograph or a short film reel. In those moments, they stay forever young etched in time from decades ago.
These days I welcome you all in my waking dreams. To all the women before me, you are not lingering ghosts being passed by unseen. You are not remembered for how you left this earth but for how, after all this time, you still remain unchanging.
Oct 24, 2023
Oct 24, 2023 at 10:50 AM UTC
The Space—between two Seconds—
Is wider than the Sea—
Is smaller than an Atom—
Is all Eternity—
I slip into Forever
Between the tick and tock
Of ageless Time's forever unwinding
Chronoscopic Clock—
And there I see together—
In perfect Unity—
My Savior—ere and after—
His Birth and Calvary—
Jul 29, 2023
Jul 29, 2023 at 2:55 PM UTC
Because I could stop for Life—
She kindly stopped with me—
The carriage held not just ourselves
but all mortality.
We promptly drove; we knew of haste—
I didn't put away
my labour nor my leisure too
for Her civility.
We passed an industry where workers worked—
At midnight— in the room—
We passed the fields of gazing grain—
We passed a megamall—
Or rather— they passed us—
The cloud unhid a paintful ray—
For certain cotton made my clothes,
my plastics only pay—
We paused before a house that seemed
a miracle in the air—
Its use was scarcely visible:
A trick of tear and wear—
Since then— 'tis days and yet
feels longer than the aeon
we first surmised the turning sky
were toward Temporary.
Mar 4, 2023
Mar 4, 2023 at 2:06 PM UTC
Three poets
rot down a river bed
their body decomposing
except their head
still composing poetry
and recite being dead
where poems still flow
I’ve heard them read
*one was caught
by the sun beam
flickering ripples of light*
*another fought
by a splashing bream
kicking up a fight*
*the third flowed down
the rapid stream
where water foams white*
I, one day went fishing
and caught myself a fish
down the river swimming
quoting Tennyson
Dickinson and Finch
I set it free
because poetry is freeing
Not every line in the end
is a hook
three dead poets can testify
down by the brook
May 3, 2022
May 3, 2022 at 10:59 PM UTC
I want to ride upon those feathers
That cut through sightless, icy night
Or glisten in the sunbeams
And soar throughout the bright
I’d like to know just what she spoke of
When she heard it sings its tune
To hear the notes hang overhead
Ever present like the moon
I want to look within my soul
To see that same thing in its nest
That beautiful thing with feathers
Beneath my very chest
Mar 26, 2021
Mar 26, 2021 at 12:35 PM UTC
put me, lovingly, in a hearse, the way the dusk lays it shadows;
the night threatens to spill off my pores
trying to run from lonely places —
now, it bleeds all over me.
a sight of a mess.
a sight of horrors
and no napkins for wiping.
no napkins for grieving.
some just don't
make it out alive.
tell the daylight i cannot come.
put me, lovingly, in a hearse.
no, i am not made for burials —
it's for the ones left behind;
tell them all
i cannot come.
leave me, my sweet one, lying in this hearse,
the way the dusk leaves its shadows in the arms of the night.
sweet and fragile.
quiet and gone.
send me off, softly.
send me off, mourning.
send me off, for good.
tell the daylight i cannot come —
maybe i'll see her too, so soon.
— fray narte
Mar 9, 2021
Mar 9, 2021 at 12:05 AM UTC
"Hatred" is the thing with claws-
that slices through us all.
And leaves a wound without it healed-
then, captures for it's thrall.
Torn by it's embrace with pride.
It infects all that it leaves behind.
But love could be it's mend
that keeps our hearts enshrined.
I've seen it rip and tear lives-
and play with them like prey.
Yet, never, in experience
it suppresses love with it's pain.
** Based off an Emily Dickinson poem
Jan 28, 2021
Jan 28, 2021 at 8:41 PM UTC
If you must tell a lie, do so well -
Lies likely fall apart
Often crumbling due to bumbling
A speakers deadly demise
My passion is the lonely lie
Lone creates shine
A lie must deliver cleverly
Or all would align -
Aug 6, 2020
Aug 6, 2020 at 5:37 PM UTC
“We play at paste,
Till qualified for pearl,
Then drop the paste,
And deem ourself a fool.
The shapes, though, were similar,
And our new hands
Learned gem-tactics
Practising sands.”
-Emily Dickinson.
Jul 9, 2020
Jul 9, 2020 at 1:35 AM UTC
i wish i’d bled enough;
my wrists — sore from scratching,
from trying to crawl
out of this treacherous skin
my lungs — dry from screaming.
my lips — chapped from chanting prayers;
one for each gravestone in my brain —
different dates
for a single name.
and i wish i’d bled enough —
died an enough number
to never die again,
but my wrists, they still have spaces for my wounds
and my mind, it still has spaces for my tombs
and tonight, i will hold funerals
for the parts of me that bled to death,
for the parts of me that in the caskets lie
and for those that still
are yet to die.
Oct 3, 2019
Oct 3, 2019 at 8:10 PM UTC
My mother said they say the dead are blessed
but i don't think so,
i wake to my dream's afterimage overlaying
the ceiling;i stay laid in place
envisioning myself
gorged in holy water, purging away any memory
hitherto
but that's just not the way it goes;
Sat here as the vinyl needle scratches the same
scabs,as a tired revolver—
leaks **** of sound,thick repitidous clouds which
lead to nowhere and nothing—
a bored, ambient crackle,
In the poetic spirit, it reeks of home
but reminds me I am I, alone
And in the conversing-sense
it gives me a ******* migraine,
it was one of W—’s favourites
when it's tune was still entact
But alas, it is what it is, outside is a world
i've grown too sore to mingle in
(dare i say a multiform delirium where
it's both too typical and too unpredictable
((daren't i blame another reason?)))
Regardless,i'll stay inside another day
and skim and retrace the life that brought us here
to **** the time.
If nothing else.
Aug 12, 2019
Aug 12, 2019 at 2:52 PM UTC
dear painted mask slipping off my face,
wet mildewed socks clinging to weary feet,
molasses on my hands shrouded in gloves of lace –
you in the cracked mirror, you rotten, rancid, discarded piece of meat.
o, knotted wicked web of thread,
the faucet of my eye leaks.
emily’s funeral in her head –
it took three weeks
to admit the rot the plumber missed.
to cry when the evening light is dying –
to say that i’m sad – to say i’m ******
to watch and feel my circuits frying.
blinded and fooled and beaten, i ran and crashed into not-love –
maybe i’m an idiot, because i still can’t tell a pigeon from a dove.
Jun 11, 2019
Jun 11, 2019 at 11:36 PM UTC
i am that Fly--
the one that Crawled across the sheet--
her last sound and Sight
and i want You to know--
its not my fault, she Would have died-- Anyway
We flies get a bad rap--
we carry Germs- never met one myself--
Across food i tippy-toe-- i only take One bite-
from that little Bite--
she would not -- could not die
But let me set the record Straight--when
she finally went still-- was i Glad--
one less Swatting and shooing-- but
its not my Fault, she would have died-- anyway.
Mar 6, 2019
Mar 6, 2019 at 7:43 PM UTC