Stagefright poems on Hello Poetry

Djs Jul 2013

With your legs quivering
Hands and arms shaking
Voice cracking
Look up to see the light
The only light
Focused on you
Only you
Look back down
To your audience
Staring
No, observing
Intensely
Right at you
And only you
And as you speak
One more word
Nothing else comes out
But a trace of
Grasping breath
The lights turn of
Or so you think
The people disappear
Or so you imagine
Losing yourself
Somewhere between the stage
Or your thoughts
Thoughts you could've said
Or performed
Either way taking over you
Leaving you in an unconscious state
Lost, confused, and frightened.

*-djs

Not much of a poem, just a really quick write or rant. ANYHOW, what do y'all think of poetry slams? Thought of going to one next month (or next year) but I have no experience, left alone ideas, to even prepare. Any advice or suggestions surely appreciated. Thanks heaps!

Deborah Andrews Oct 2009

Stagefright

It is the brush
that still grows
and slowly dies
from the hazel
string of fire.
Like a violin,
it fills the entire room
with electrity
red-hot, oxygen
making it grow
stronger and stronger.
Until a burst of thunder
claps for an encore.
It must seem to not seem
like that ream
of paper, lying
on the carpet, blank
and waiting for a soul
to touch it with
his fingers
and poke it
with a pencil, and
then, again and
again.
Until he meets
himself in the middle,
and cries out
Halleluia!
It's over,
the flames
disappearing
behind the curtain.

Mateuš Conrad Mar 2016

myth as counter to modern celebrity culture

stagefright! the musical; alternative in terms of Munch's expression: ah! ah! soprano of the silent question exhibited by thinking - silence of everything in the extremes... stagefright - ah! ah indeed, stagefright the musical.

if i'm not being paid -
why would i lie?
the world is big enough
and there enough of us
out there for someone
to cite their life and
be immediately dismissed
as a liar, and everything that
person cites as real to
be treated as unreal -
these are the perks of doing
something without caring
about being paid,
i mean... you'd be really
deluded to have to lie *and
not be paid for it: the whole
system of practising law would
crumble - i am, what you might
call a manfred von richthofen...
i'm in a truthful free fall
an icarus... because i care more
for posthumous fame in the
realm of mythology than in
the modern sense of constant
paparazzi intrusion
like being waved a passport
photograph in-front of your face
every time the camera zooms in
and blinks at you with a spasmodic
irritability of a flash;
i'm hoping to get a chair named after me,
a rocking & vibrating chair to
solve sudoku puzzles in.

Marshall Gass Apr 2014

Stagefright.

As subtle as it may seem I frighten at the pause inflicted
when standing before a knowing crowd
to speak up and be heard.

My brain rummages in a waste paper basket of words
for meaning but finds nothing that will escape my throat
out into the open where eager eyes wait and watch
for the imminent collapse of discomfort
around me like a skirt dropping without an elastic band.

Yet my head bubbles with exotic words all inside the cranium
but no words escape from even leaking outlets.
I slink in fright at what I may say, some unkempt sentence
something funny or fumbling, never intended.

Yet I write such massive volumes of words unspoken
but tempered in some inner furnace and beaten into poetic shape
asking no one for any help, but writing unaided and unfettered.

I write because all the things I want to say have gone past spoken
experience and now desire to be recognised as written words.
When spoken before a mirror they come alive with different meanings
and wander into understanding without jabs and jarrs or prodding.

Many like me have said the same thing when discussed
and I wonder why that happens so uncomfortably.
Best to leave us alone and not bother to seek our words of wisdom
but our written words as reflections of an inner mirror!

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Darren Edsel Wilson May 2020

The Last Test...

A gauntlet, of sorts...
The proverbial frog in the ***, I was.
The temperature of life went from heaven to hell,
and I boiled and drowned in the hate I thought was love.

Question one: who prepared the broth?
Answer: Me...

Stuck in the endless quackery of bottomless insanity.
Tasting the brutal shenanigans of deviant savagery.
I came upon the realization that *** was a tapestry,
that I've been weaving since I was in nappies and won't give up gladly,
but I obsess over the embroidery and the glistening femininity,
what I now know to be delusions of romance and calamity.

Question two: who proved to be unwilling to love in the end?
Answer: Me...

Last question you knave, you hopeless bumpkin.
You wayward host of tasteless pumpkins.
My tactless whims for stagefright dumplings.
Deflated effigies of, "Oh... sweet nothings."
Darling, you crazy, you an expert on bluffings,
Teetering on the cliff, with your pinstriped stuffing.
I carry my shorts on the inside, on the outside I'm long,
Word play is horse ****, but if you understand me, you're wrong.

Question three: who sold their soul for entertainment in the end?
Answer: We...

It's nice to write another one of my nonsense, satirical poems again.
I gave a slight social-critic edge to it, but in reality I tried to focus on my own failings in life, my own troubles. Yet we do not live in a vacuum.
We all share the same mistakes, troubles, guilts and dreams.
So this poem tries to encapsulate that into the idea of taking an exam at the end of one's life to atone for all the ******* we've put ourselves through in this world.
Taking responsibility for what we do/have done in this world is the first step toward solving our issues, yet imagine only taking responsibility at the end of all things when nothing can be done but pay penance. A sad thing indeed...

#shame #world #hunger #despair #tragedy #comedy #jokes #satire #truth #god

matthew scott harris May 2019

Grudging Self Acceptance

Spectators warmth thawed
ICE knoll hunger see stagefright chill
despite this groundswell
of cheers and hearty goodwill,
(though embarrassed by the adulation),
yours truly revered accolades dill

levered heart warming une bill
heave able ecstasy analogous to imbibing
deep draughts of swill,
nonetheless modesty questioned
unexpected praise more
uncomfortable than mill

stone weighing heavily
around my neck, jill
ting joy cuz hermitage existence
finessed fitful eave ville
extant throughout mein kampf,
one long life brutalized, desecrated, pill

lore reed, and excoriated, hence
monastic seclusion inured
like an all encompassing invisible umbril
vehemently hashtagging me,
no matter, this harmless as a falafel
swiftly styled harried tailor

(by trade) "FAKE" ******,
a quiet natured enfant terrible
named T.R.A. Bill
extreme suspicion accepting invite
tubby feted fortunate not
asked to distill

the Mueller Report (unredacted version)
which I memorized at a glance,
electronically scrolling over virtual hill
and dale whew...came close to ****
deer near mauling me, yea along Schuylkill
River way up at headwaters remote...

controlled beast - argh something offal,
thru teaching said creature to use quill
and while killer deeply engrossed
bolted with all dogspeed till
arriving at designated venue,

yes Abbott flush and vulnerable as krill
which highly adrenaline Russian state
found thyself vulnerable to Kremlin
head to foot when humongous Duckbill
U. Crane (albeit friendly) named Doctor Phil
gently snatched these lovely bones of mine

claws dug deep into ill
Eagle lees contractual gibberish
yet experienced no fright during
as if mma mind subjected to piercing drill
excellent preparation (H.) heaving nil
panic attack when staring at bajillion eyes!

Dennis Willis Jan 2021

Syncopate

It's a small thing this answer I have
like a breeze settling itself down
in the bowls of now's hollows
It's the smoothness of night's light
blurring off the edges of silk shadows
where something rests something must
Be turning this air over my arms my back
turning me in to the stirring from dream
frozen to some lost artifice of dark song
it's reinventing it's just venting it's just

I find myself here 'neath waves
of ascertainment an' perspicacity
raking out corners of something
Having taken care of the horse
and the prehensile i moved on
to the choreographer's *******
And the question guilt-free laughs
at my stagefright what is peace

— The End —