"beckett" poems
Bury me in Paris, when my heart stops and my eyes open wide,
next to Beckett or Sarte & de Beauvoir, ménage à trois.
Bury me in Paris, where the tourists go,
on the Champs-Élysées, or near the home of Picasso.
Bury me in Paris where the Seraphs scoff and roll their brown eyes
and the saints sell paints on the edge of the Seine’s grime.
Bury me in Paris between the pavement and le Métro,
take my body to whatever stop, just go.
Bury me in Paris on a winter’s night,
beneath the Louvre pyramid light.
Bury me in Paris with Lady Liberty in tow,
make my bed next to de Balzac, next to Marceau.
Bury me in Paris at the foot of l’Obélisque
accompanied by pharaohs, exhumed.
Bury me in Paris, leave me there, I guess,
in the hotel room overlooking the Arc. I, fully dressed.
Bury me in Paris while listening to Robespierre’s final scream,
the silence drowned out only by the guillotine.
Bury me in Paris, Montrouge, your angel calls to me,
that one who serves macarons at the head of the Tuileries.
Bury me in Paris, with the Angel, unimpressed,
next to her, I, in eternal rest.
Bury me in Paris, toss me off Bir-Hakiem, splashing,
or under tour Eiffel in the springtime night, waking.
Bury me in Paris, my body yearns to be free and true,
but if I am to die in New Orleans, bon Ange de Montrouge,
Bury me there with the jazz worms, singing:
“Angel, come to me, come to me, Angel, come.”
Jul 31, 2013
Jul 31, 2013 at 3:26 PM UTC
Twentysomething Emo
looks at teenage Emo
and laughs.
It was something purely aesthetic,
with brain chemicals churning
and wiry bodies yearning
under the guise of straightened bangs
and perched beanies,
skin tight black outfits
parading the dusty grounds of Warped Tour.
Twentysomething Emo is the real deal--
lamenting over high school salad days
because real life is so unsure,
college degrees and full-time jobs,
watching friends and lovers come and go in our lives.
After a long day of responsibility and groveling,
we drive home (or somewhere just as distant)
with our emo anthems blaring through the speakers.
We scream the songs back at them,
truly feeling the words for the first time.
I'm the same age as William Beckett, Adam Lazzara, and Pete Wentz
when they wrote these songs--
and though the bangs have receded
and the jeans have slackened,
I am perpetually Emo.
The unrequited love and the nearing distant future--
it's come too soon.
I hope thirtysomething Emo looks back
on my meandering twentysomething Emo
and laughs--
as he plays the melancholy tunes pouring out of the speakers
with some more of life fading away in his rearview mirror.
This town gets smaller every day.
Jun 12, 2016
Jun 12, 2016 at 12:45 AM UTC
You told me once that I am your favorite writer.
I was hesitant and unsure. Your innocence might jinx me this time. Then you laughed, as you always do, like a child giggling while waiting the rain from the summer sky. Everything becomes clear. After all, whatever comes from you is never you.
Of course, you are as always an empty being.
Your emptiness tells many stories. Your emptiness fools me. Your emptiness is the real vessel of soul. Your emptiness is a parchment for budding thoughts. Your emptiness is a magic.
No wonder, I fell in love with that emptiness. I just do not know if emptiness loves me back.
Or, was it me who stares at the abyss long enough that a centenary gone by.
1900: The Boxer rebellion begun. Freud published his Interpretation of Dreams.
1903: The Wright brothers marked their first flight. In turn, Curtiss decided to invade the sky.
1912: Titanic anchored to Atlantis, to its final resting place.
Two years after, the first World War broke out. Horses galloped to the killing fields.
1925: The first among many trials of the century began. That day, Darwin risen for the second time.
1934: ****** became Fuhrer. The world becomes a theater. “Absurd,” says Beckett. “Cruelty” for Artaud.
1939; 1941: Second World War broke out; Pear Harbor bombed. Asia Pacific meets its infernal fate.
1945: Three mushroom clouds seen: New Mexico, Hiroshima, and Nagazaki.
1960’s: Humanity becomes obsessed with multiple wars: cold, space, nuclear, music, universities; not counting the mutants who played major roles in between.
1986: Itay wrote a letter to Inay. The letter reached Manila after a few days from Jeddah.
1989: Capitalism won. Berlin wall fell like a paper plane after its victorious flight. My parents met for the first time. Months later, they decided to cut the cake and get married.
1993: The World Wide Web saw its day. I was born.
Twenty two years later, I met her. A year after, Phil Collins sang once again Separate lives.
That time, I know, I will never be your favorite writer.
Dec 26, 2016
Dec 26, 2016 at 6:34 PM UTC
As a teenage boy I used to fall asleep at night
listening to the graveled voice of Ernie Harwell
fashion for me word-images of the exploits
by a band of superheroes called the Detroit Tigers.
In those semi-lucid moments before slumber,
I could see the shimmering outline of my destiny:
you see all American boys are meant to be Tigers.
So imagine my confusion, when I fractured
the right talus bone my Junior year of high school,
even putting on weight around the middle,
where no athlete worth his pin stripes would gain.
My karma had begun to take on mass.
I began to acquire knowledge, as the only perceived defense
against some parallel universe impinging upon reality.
Oh, I had everyone convinced, even my keenest teachers
believed I was destined to make my mark in scholarly pursuits.
But no one saw the crying ego of one meant to be a Tiger,
nor how that bottled up the emergence of the Man.
Never reconciled, the Man curled up in fetal dormancy.
Lifespan became synonymous with interstellar drift.
And every encountered star of knowlege was dwarfed,
having long ago collapsed of its own gravity.
Still the heavens of knowledge are auspicious,
so I looked outward, when all the answers lay concealed within.
Only as my life left the outskirts of occluded reality
did I then begin to inherit from my instinctual id,
begin to listen to disconsolate internal voices,
who had known me all along, perhaps better than myself.
The thing is ... the stage has long been set on middle-age,
what props lie about are encrusted with patina,
laden with a dust impossible to gauge or preempt,
made worse by the lack of cast, save one.
Neither Beckett, nor Pinter, could have absurded this.
So, when my acts strike you as quixotic,
when I cut with a penknife through propriety,
it's because I finally remember what it meant to be a Tiger.
Dec 1, 2012
Dec 1, 2012 at 7:15 PM UTC
Increasingly there’s more in my life
A life between barcode
SIM
Remote with apocalyptic news and dire pornographers
life among multiple camera teams
between several videos about a future that all sounds good
blocks of life between advertising and surveys on how
Europeans can achieve
the cosmic ****** and a more profitable single currency
living ever more my own life
inside an inland country
where in waiting and loneliness I see greetings
from where I hope to reach the Himalayas and write:
‘Life is no good with Coca-Cola!’
Dan Mircea Cipariu
[Translated by Jon a’Beckett]
New Europe Writers Bucharest Tales, Contemporary Literature Press, Bucharest 2014
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 6:06 AM UTC
I have a little secret
It’s about the place I work
I’m supposed to be a teacher
But a school’s not where I lurk
I spend my weekdays cooking
Serving people tea
I’m not a chef though, in a classroom’s
Where I’m meant to be.
I think if I fry one more egg
Fill one more sugar ***
Spend one more minute worrying
If the ****** teapot’s hot
I might just lose the will to serve
At least the will to fry
I’m so tired of the ‘thanks so much’
The ‘have a good day’ lie
But please do not misunderstand
I’m not ungrateful for my job
It’s just not what I trained for
Being tied up to a hob
I expected to be in a class
Full of eager faces
Whose imaginations I could take
To so many different places
Instead I’m filling stomachs
Watching people eat and drink
I cook and serve, a faceless drone
So they don’t have to think
I know it’s not forever
This job I’ve grown to hate
One day I’ll take this apron off
Leave the café to its fate
The café will survive I’m sure
In fact I have no doubt
That’s why I don’t feel guilty
That I can’t wait to get out
The café will go on and on
Still serving up its tea
But next time that I see the place
What stranger will serve me?
Will I feel that they are in my place?
That their eggs are not quite right
That their service could be quicker
Their smile a bit more bright
Will I feel that I should tell them
How I once stood in their shoes?
How I thought if I fried one more egg
My sanity I’d lose
I think I’ll save those comments
Until she brings my tea
I won’t want to discourage her
While she’s still serving me
Besides she may enjoy her job
Who am I to wreck it?
Just because I missed the world
Of Austen, Keats and Beckett
She knows just where her future lays
I thought I knew the same
So why do I still keep a secret
Like it’s a source of shame?
I shouldn’t moan about my job
The wolf’s not at the door
It’s only bad days when I think
Just what did I train for?
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 11:06 AM UTC
mini
[=small car]
mal
[=preface
as in 'malformed']
minim
[=musical note]
al
[=aluminium]
minimalism
is
art
in
its
simplest
form
its
fundamental
features
in
words
[start again from the top]
[read beckett]
in
art
[look at stella]
[look at judd]
in
music
[listen]
[hear]
[each]
[note]
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 3:01 PM UTC
Took 287 South
to a Borders
Goin Outta
Biz Sale.
Books may be
anachronisms,
relics from
yesterdays
analog age,
but literacy's
bankruptcy
does have
advantages.
Take an
additional
30% off on
any orphans
pleading
release from
the discount
racks.
Snooping down
the literature isle
Samuel Beckett's
somber face
arrested my
roving
eyeballs.
A stern stare
printed across
5 spines of
his shrink
wrapped
oeuvre
commanded
my arm to rise
to liberate the
face from the
dismal shelf.
In mid flight
my reach
was hijacked
by a Kris
Kringley red
snow flaked
trim tome
standing
open face
next to
earnest
Beckett.
It was "The
Christmas
Sweater"
by NYT
Best Selling
Author, Glenn
Beck.
Clasping at Beck's
book, it inflicted
a nasty paper cut
to my ring finger.
My mind recoiled,
thinking, "serves
you right. Like
Martha, I shoulda
chosen the better
thing."
I'll never
make that mistake
again.
Borders Books
Riverdale
2/20/11
jbm
Nov 6, 2011
Nov 6, 2011 at 3:50 PM UTC
*Walter, I just want to sit on my *** and **** and think about Dante.*
—Samuel Beckett
All this fractures the Wolf. The ancient leaves
amid the ancient woods, wind riffling wind
in eddies she can see but she can’t hear,
the braying of a fatted calf which she
could eat, if she could hear thy call, O Wolf.
The tympani pretend to be a thunder roll,
the crashing cymbals mean to simulate
the distant lightning, all the strings—cello,
base, violin and viola—play the
pizzicato of rain commencing…
The Wolf sits to watch—what?—the floodlights fill
the stadium? the baton poised? the crowd
about to have their daily dose of not
quite silence served up yet again? She hates
that they have come to watch a prophecy.
It’s raining full blast now, the Wolf’s exchange
for music, how things balance out, how rain
fornicates in the forest, with its pools
and puddles, how it tenders lakes and rivers
and shadows… It can’t be! Ahead she sees him.
She sees Dante, the poet of the prophecy,
the one she has to drown. It’s why she’s deaf.
She will not hear him wail. **** him so he will rot
in hell before the other poet comes. **** him
and spare the world another poem about
another world. The rain and music grow
so dense around her soul. She is so quick,
too quick for him to flee. She drags him still
alive, drags him to the lake of his heart.
Sink and die. In Paradise only bubbles rise.
The tympani pretend to be a thunder roll,
the crashing cymbals mean to simulate
the distant lightning, all the strings—cello,
base, violin, viola—play it soft,
so soft, as if the rain is about to start…
The Wolf and I walk the slopes of hell.
When Farinata and Cavalcante
rise up to ask her, ‘Who were thy ancestors?’
and ‘Where Is ***** she howls. O Wolf.
O Tuscan. She howls.
Aug 25, 2010
Aug 25, 2010 at 5:51 PM UTC
~
March 2025
HP Poet: Mike Adam
Age: 66
Country: UK
Question 1: A warm welcome to the HP Spotlight, Mike. Please tell us about your background?
Mike Adam: "Slum east London, dysfunctional violent childhood, playing on bombsites. School, dungeons and kidnappings, sad little boy. Love of dogs and plants and rocks. School: Beckett Shopenhauer, work, college, work university, 1st love lost, travel Asia beaches and mountains, monasteries, monks, Bhodidharma. Work, work, work, Lady J (published collection), retirement, happy at last."
Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?
Mike Adam: "Began writing 10 years old, HP about ten years."
Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).
Mike Adam: "Poems gestate and arrive unbidden, laid like turtle eggs, a little hole, sand flicked and forgotten."
Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?
Mike Adam: "From 1,000 posts perhaps start with the latest few. I call them "mercifully short," easy to read but, given time, you may unpack a great deal."
Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?
Mike Adam:
*"Ryokan:
Why ask who has Satori, who has not?
What need have I for that dust, fame and gain
Montale:
Life that seemed vast
Is briefer than your handkerchief"*
Question 6: What other interests do you have?
Mike Adam: *"Amidst the first suicidal mass extinction in history I am grateful to read new poetry and garner hope from young poets still expressing themselves in beautiful combinations of words so thank you all for that...
Who am I?
I don't know"*
Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much Mike, we really appreciate you giving us the opportunity to get to know the person behind the poet! It is our pleasure to include you in this Spotlight series!”
Mike Adam: "With gratitude, Mike."
Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed coming to know Mike a little bit better. We certainly did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez
We will post Spotlight #26 in April!
~
Mar 2, 2025
Mar 2, 2025 at 4:45 PM UTC
Thank you Beckett.
Thank you Richard Lange.
I will fail better, next time.
Mar 5, 2015
Mar 5, 2015 at 3:31 PM UTC
The names castle and I write books for a living
This talent of mine is completely Gods giving
The genre of the books I write is mystery
I love to explore my characters history
All was going well and I was making a living off the books
Until I learnt my plots were being converted into reality by some crooks
Of course, the police first suspected me
I knew I was innocent so I didn't attempt to flee
And that was when I first met gorgeous miss Kate
My meeting her was a game played by fate
Don't judge a book by its cover; she was a ******** cop
And to catch a criminal at nothing would she stop
So I helped miss Beckett with all the information I had
I really liked her and to have her as a partner I was glad
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 12:10 PM UTC
Our lot was not to stay all night;
In kneeling praise by bathroom stalls.
Alcohol numbed your honesty's bite,
wrote her destiny on the divider walls.
And we weren't the kind to cheat, don't believe,
All the loose lips half-cross town,
Last call patrons who watch me leave,
And shut this ****** down...
Like Zane and Beckett, so convinced,
Their **** would last forever,
Bad enough to make you wince,
If they spend one more second together.
Or Jane and Kinney, young, driven, and full,
Of lust or something similar.
Don't be surprised, you've seen this fire,
The end? ...all too familiar.
And pretty Syd had all the gall,
and Pony Boy thought he knew the score...
but he's just a **** like so much Pyrex,
Stuffed inside his paper *****
But Ashtray Woman with ***** Mouth,
And monster's blood on toilet tissue,
Is just another frightened girl,
With real and dangerous daddy issues.
Now, here, at the close (I'm still glad to say),
You deserve almost everything, that you've won,
Our karma arose ( and, in time, took the day ).
Now I ponder regrets in the hours before dawn,
It wasn't the when, or with whom we may lay,
or the time in the morning before I should be gone,
It's more about how we desired to stay...
When we gazed into stars lying flat on your lawn.
I once craved your poison but, now, in my way,
I'm actually glad
to see you gone.
Mar 24, 2017
Mar 24, 2017 at 11:26 PM UTC
*concerning anti-kantian lexicon completion to understand the notion of a priori (it's a niche interest... c. bukowski explains it better in the book tales of ordinary madness in the chapter titled **** and kant and a happy home... well, not really, if he knew german i’d say that he was truly defining a priori, learning a language rather than unconsciously acquiring one from the first word mama or whatever toddlers say first when they mastered the bladder and **** muscles, which are oddly designed to be consciously / forcefully trained because they're crafted as slacked... weird), let’s say that’s about as much relevant to me as is this scenario:*
an actress about to perform the monologue script
of not i, prior to performance and at the stage
of memorisation asks samuel (beckett): ‘what does this mean?
this one line? it’s bothersome for my conscience,
my sense of meaning and direction, what does it mean?’
then ol’ samuel tells her: ‘back up, bets and back up,
it’s the most self-conscious eventuality of all vague attempts
to stand outside of oneself within the scaffold of using
language - this dismemberment beginning with extracting
thought for the senses to see hear and feel, writing...
this morphing of the substance we consider thought without ethos, ethics,
choices, looking at the zeitgeist... but honestly?
i haven’t got the foggiest idea... i wrote it because i wrote it,
the desired intentions are reserved for those desiring to read it
and leave it.’
like the famous p.s. of human history written by moses on sinai,
the melting of ice enveloping britain and elsewhere up north,
formerly known as the ice age causing flooding elsewhere...
and that metaphor of: lions gazelles... two-by-two, two-by-two
being a metaphor for monogamy... whereas the harems of other
animals like walruses was obviously avoided
and gave us islamic polygamy (added to the fact
that people refer to themselves via the zodiac...
taurus... scorpio... capricorn... or the chinese calendar...
dragons tigers pigs rats and monkeys etc.);
otherwise known as hermeneutics - extraction of meaning
from very concise texts... very very concise texts
which, if taken literally... leave you as quickly as they came,
and make you specialise in geology or biology instead.
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 9:25 AM UTC
~Still life
In the window frame
Empty stare
Through the self-imposed
Prison of glass -
On the windowsill
Candle never lit -
Souvenirs of the past
Painting -
An empty shell
Of a woman, staring
Chiaroscuro background -
Darkness, shade, hardly any light
To illuminate
The inside
Of the jail
Contemplating
Escape?
Suicide?
Waiting
For what
For the end?
Waiting for whom?
Waiting for God-ot!
He, who shall never come -
In vain
Still waiting
Years too late
For the bells to toll
In the window frame
Oil on canvas -
It is me
Through the window pane
Staring through the glass
Resigned
Lifeless
Still life
On canvas
Author Notes:
Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett's - absurd tragicomedy; Godot never shows up.
Oct 14, 2010
Oct 14, 2010 at 2:14 PM UTC
After three drinks, I sit and focus
On the night in Santo Domingo,
Like Greene’s Honorary Consul,
It is “the right measure” for me,
Beckett reads Beckett remembering.
Where he strips man’s inexhaustible
Search for meaning to bare bones.
These thoughts aided by a smooth
Handmade cigar and Carlos Primero,
I wonder as I focus on this scrap of
Scribbles should I keep it, or leave it
On the table, for some ***** to read,
While he smokes the dog-end of
What was a reasonably good cigar?
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 9:34 AM UTC
I am waiting like a girl waits on the bench of the garden for her beau.
I am waiting like those two cobber wait for the Godot. (Samuel Beckett)
I am waiting like the Merchant's wife does wait for the return of her soulmate. (Ezra Pound)
I am waiting like Taran looks for Amar. (Tum Bin 2)
I am waiting like the peacock does wait for the rainfall.
I am waiting like every successful man gets a pat on his back.
I am waiting for the day to hear not the golden words but my ears are waiting just to hear whether am I as important as you are in my life...
Nov 26, 2016
Nov 26, 2016 at 5:51 AM UTC
Watching documentaries about your trendy bands.
The 'Creative Process'. My shaking hands.
I'm inspiration and envy and my own constant shame
Because I'm still Lost to Larsson but by a new name.
I find meaning in nothing and nothing is mine.
I find meaning in water, in four inked red lines.
I fixate and form cycles, I'm Beckett's star act.
I make all these references, I muddle all that.
I'm an artist, I read, these aren't my own thoughts.
I'm not troubled, just open,
And I'm not really lost.
So what can I believe in? Hell, what can anyone?
**** God. **** 'The Classics'
I'll believe in being young.
Jul 6, 2013
Jul 6, 2013 at 9:16 PM UTC
Have you trapped yourself
trying to articulate
gray
Alors Beckett
I don't always comprehend
but my eyes weep
all the same
you bicker banter
circling squares
so much nonsensical purpose
so so naturally
I'm scared to ponder for
too long it's been
too much of too little
(Pause.)
Are we all beggars
of stories
blind to all
but bind to time
seeking sunshine
Are we but a topple
away from the beginning
or endings
Humor me
(Pause.)
Did you keep coming back
leave once twice
five times in all
to spin me away
with two windows
with lights I couldn't place
with falling and entrances
and sheets of cloth
not music
not white
(Pause.)
I am laughing
at the sadness
not blind yet
Do I sit or stand
or kneel
to rejoice
Take your tools
and not quite fools
but keep me awake
I'm in an all too familiar
not quite empty
I've made no impositions
on this all too much family
(Pause.)
How did I get woven
into this game
This isn't mine
no more
my pain is killing
living
still
Listen to me
so so cuckoo
Hear me here
Me to say
Humor me
Sprout
unending
Me to say
There is no more
me
to stay
(Exit Samuel.)
Jan 1, 2017
Jan 1, 2017 at 8:20 PM UTC
i stood before the mirror,
pale as a powdered lie,
with strands the colour of fallen empires
and dignity rubbed dry.
the bleach had no mercy,
the dye had no aim —
i emerged from the wreckage
with only myself to blame.
my scalp, a battlefield,
my pride, a powdered wig.
i whispered threats to heaven
with a plastic comb so big.
the townsfolk fled in silence,
the moon refused to rise,
and even my reflection
looked away from my disguise.
somewhere between brass and madness,
i found a kind of grace —
the lord of bad decisions,
with toner on my face.
so let the ships keep sinking,
let the storm winds howl and hiss —
i’m lord cutler beckett, darling,
and i was born for this.
Jul 5, 2025
Jul 5, 2025 at 1:15 PM UTC
vaguen
(Samuel Beckett, notation on MS of Happy Days)
I
Fire comes bouncing in from the
desert a threat to houses Here’s
what we do says the King to
Rudyard Kipling who is visiting
Stuff wet rags in the eaves throw
the silverware in the swimming
pool And my letters Rudyard
Kipling is thinking will you be
pressing my letters to your
breast as we skid towards
the car Truly diverse people
the King and Kipling one or
the other was always getting
his feelings hurt Above them
a strip of once blue sky now
dark adust
II
Nowadays there are technicians
of despair you can work at it
Going to the Buddhist study
group I pass a thin crumpled
man at a wall his face on the
bricks Behind him another big
black city legs wide apart roaring
Say you aren’t stupid then why
aren’t you happy
III
New guy at the Buddhist study
group Eyes cut to bits I want
he keeps saying So I don’t get
so he keeps saying A bunch
of sage grass has blown onto
his head and grown down into
his mind He shakes hands with
everyone over and over again
at the door
IV
I had previously been to
the Old South Thirty minutes
into the faculty dinner a man
to my left drops his eyes and
his voice says he murdered his
brother with a shotgun when
he was twelve The other diners
appear to have heard this
before On the plane home I
sit across from a vet with a
falcon on his lap It observes
the other passengers severely
Drinks apple juice from a
cup with very small silver
lips
V
At twenty-eight thousand feet
above the uncarved block of
NY state a cricket jumps onto
my coat Vaguen it says
Anne Carson currently teaches at NYU and will publish a handmade book called NOX in 2010. She is the author of Autobiography of Red, Plainwater, and other books of poetry, non-fiction, and mixed genre.
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 11:23 AM UTC
In a classroom of twenty or more,
The teacher walks in with a thought of pride,
"I am here," She thinks to herself,
And we all stand to wish, "Good Morning".
The Teacher teaches Literature,
The Teacher is a lady of fifty-five,
The teacher walks in every day,
With a lot of pride, especially on Saturdays.
She prepares the lesson plans,
Fused with the state as to what is to be taught,
As to what is to be reasoned, and what is to be asked,
She teaches all students who belong to a class.
She addresses the students, calling names and more,
Talks in all platitudes, and looks down upon the floor,
She teaches all students, about romantic outbursts,
She praises Keats and Tagore, but not Beckett or Hurst.
But one fine Monday, there was he,
A Cherry Little boy, Big eyed, Twenty three,
Asked a question about false nationhood or so,
She was a teacher with a lot of pride, as you know...
With a thought of tasty theories, and elitism in mind,
She bashed and washed him down into the drain,
As to not him, but his hopes were drowned,
And this is how the teacher throttled "The Questions,
Which were all around...."
But In a classroom of twenty or more,
'These' students never fail to follow,
'The' teacher walks in every day,
And usually, teaches Literature, on endless Saturdays!
She teaches approaches and Literature, on Saturdays.
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 12:50 PM UTC
now those eidolic dread horses have scarred your slumber, passed 9, passed 10, and even your furniture has silent, open mouthed, nightmares over the too soon dead, dead school friends who never ended their crossings, and see, see, she stoops, in shroud ghastly knelt as in prayer, but you can’t see, see through the tricks of light that scream “she is there”, your crumpling chest boiling as the bones in your legs subside while those, without body, cross the empty room, no need to surmise that which lies bereft and restless may yet have something to say and you, you are the luckless soul who lives upon their byway and now, now the voices, the voices start, those grody sounds, that won’t stop, stop your heart, beneath the floor, within the walls, the precedent for dull footfalls calling, calling to us one by one with no clear sight of saint or villain, a spectral round of hide and seek, directed by a floorboards creak, each time we search there’s nothing, nothing there, but of this guest we’re so aware, who was first, it or us, we can’t be sure, sure it wasn’t brought from distant shores, for it never raised its head or voice before, before that gift from land of Vlad was carried over our threshold and ushered in something, something cold, the bearer of an ancient fear, something as of yet unclear, or are we in thrall of phantoms more explainable
This is a combination and refinement of what were two separate poems, previously published, to make by far a more satisfying whole. I believe it more convincingly captures some of the fear and panic I was trying to convey and should be read in a breathless manner as if you were living in a world that was entirely scripted by Samuel Beckett
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 10:45 AM UTC
after reading irish literature,
you sort of end up cuckoo
with an Apache yawn;
try Samuel Beckett's Watt
and you'll get v.i.p. status for sure.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 7:01 AM UTC