WHICH POEM IS BEST? VOTE!!!

[Sunshine]

“Dissolution”

I do not doubt
your Socratic mouth.
Your voice travels like molten gold over rivulets of thought;
the words warmly unspooling
like wisps of smoke stroking my throat, my eyes
before they arrive home.

Two-dimensional
incomprehensible,
but it's all I have of you, in the end.
The flat glass, dull lull, inveterate stare
your facsimile burns through me like an excimer.
I am un-pieced
yet again.

Picasso-an,
multi-colored,
my body slides apart like a brick of butter left out too long.
First my arms, then my knees slip and come apart,
and the head rolls sideways like a wheel of cheese.
Nothing's left but soft ruin and a pooling heart,
gasping like a fish.

Fallible, malleable
but deitific.
I see you witness my dissolution, immobile and indifferent
--but are you?
I detect subtle movements of subterranean feelings
gliding along like wary sharks,
unable to submerge, but afraid to emerge
and face me.

Am I beautiful now
--Sunk, spread, and sparkling beneath a mile of sun-smile?
I can and will forgive you
even for this,
for letting me spill apart, wide as a crime scene,
basking in your stillness, your silence;
your unintentional
violence





"The Mind's Instruction Manual"

Wrestling with fate
a god unknown
you have a mind, your dreams there
move faster
guide yourself
don't lose it
don't change
seize your gifts
don't take away your fate
a mind in season
ask the wall
ask an angel
ask a friend
lose your spirit
don't lose your mind
a gift with no clues
seize an unguarded foe

they can't hear the ticking watch
the numbers make no sense
away from the structured environment
live it
dream it
can't ask the wind
the bears don't respond
football on the edge of a cliff
a mountain asks the time
right back where I started from
hold it
shake it
mold it
hold it again
drop your sky
feel your eye's pain
sense the elderberry
move a nice change
ask again
angels can't climb walls
make a move
seize a superficial countenance
dream an unguarded escape into madness
envision a martyr on the other side of the world

don't try
just be
seize an instrument of power
make an uncharted experiment shine
feel a loss in only one way
protect against repitition of loss
don't end an old one
be the young that you crave
make that flower an indescribable centerpiece
foil the unplans of your dreams
ask the martyr for change
bring a dandelion to a field of daffodils
find the duck among the geese
see the janitor among the movie stars

grand dreams that fly
don't let them leave
feel your mind's last gasp of air
heed the call of the boom
shape the stars
don't let them shape you
make a fold in time
go back on those memories
ignore the pain in hand
hear the silence of the watch
as the two to twenty-three
becomes the call to drift into sleep

feed that hunger
don't heed the imperatives that mean giving up
make a start
end a finish
hide an uncharted guide of fools
make no dreams that can't let walls in
angels swim without the sides
lose the ends
defeat the means
ask a dreamer for the time
don't lose the kisses of the almighty who see
their old dreams were part of your future
those cities will beg for you back
you claimed your own power
now use it
damn the ones who would stand in your way
make them pay
it's not your guide
make them see
don't pay the wage

sift through a rug
feel a mindless gaze
see the eyes that could see yours
observe the walk that is so beautiful
a wholeness that screams at you in laughter
mocking your dreams
the hair of the wise flows in your heart
tame the boom
end the savior
feel a mind's view
take a stab at the pair of eyelids
don't shake the retreating visions
lose your endless prize
seize a martyr in your haystack's needle
feel a gold watch in your only rhythm
sense a dream that guides the pen
seize a symptom

try
make
fight
don't lose that guide
they know you
they knew you all along
I don't realize their power
I've already exhausted my talents
now it's up to you
only you can find the means to dream
the mind's vision of life
guide yourself
let the animals free
let the scorpion and the ram battle
the fool and the eye
and the bull not be stubborn
when you ask for an idea
a fleeting glance that fades
can the lion have caused the guilt and dejection?

dream this again
find a guide
test a moment
dream your eyes in snow
find a mindless child
feed an undaunted heart
ask not your fate
make it what lies in your mind
seize that one last touch
the pouring out of the boom
that sensitive universe
and an incredible sensation of being can be yours
if you guide it within your body
let that mind out and smack the opposition
clobber the cretins
blind the fools
kill the thieves of your dreams
buy back your heart from the merchants
punch the eyes of the opposition
take the mind
take the heart
take the walk
take the hair
take your eyes
grab the boom
pour it out in a pool of sweat
squeeze the pain out with a dream
end the sense
lose your fear
but keep your grip
til the great explosion of the moment.

 

[Sunshine]

Poll closes in 8 days.

 

[Sunshine]

vote vote vote vote vote vote vote


thanks

 

[Jeffster]

Good stuff.

 

[penelope]

Good stuff.

I love that you quote me in your sig. hehe.

 

[Jack Flak]

FREE VERSE? *barf*

*reads ladyjaye's poetry to return sense of verbal aesthetics to consciousness*

 

[pippi]

A appealed, B was too much like a list.

 

[Nihilen]

B was too much like a list.

That's the idea.

 

[pippi]

That's the idea.

Maybe it will appeal to S's.

 

[Jeffster]

I love that you quote me in your sig. hehe.

It's a great quote.

 

[Athenian200]

I like B better than A. It's more... empowering, I guess.

A was still pretty good, but it was kind of sad and placed too much emphasis on things outside the self.

 

[ragashree]

These strike me as making about the same contribution to the noble art of poetry as a certain poster's similarly prolix discourses on this site are likely to make to philosophy. I am sorry to say that my response to them was also similar *eyes glaze over after the first sentence or two once I see where it is heading, scrolls down for an hour or two hoping to find something less pretentious, but more interesting*

 

[Jeffster]

These strike me as making about the same contribution to the noble art of poetry as a certain poster's similarly prolix discourses on this site are likely to make to philosophy. I am sorry to say that my response to them was also similar *eyes glaze over after the first sentence or two once I see where it is heading, scrolls down for an hour or two hoping to find something less pretentious, but more interesting*

 

[Anentropic IxTx]

They're both good!

 

[Jeffster]

Thanks to everybody who voted. The second one is mine, I wrote it when I was 17, and it's still one of my favorites. There's a ton of emotion that went into that "too much like a list." The tiny piece of me that's logical was trying desperately to get through to the usual emotionally lost me, and trying to convince me to get on with my life and not wallow in the disappointment of things that I couldn't control. Thankfully, in the 15 years since I wrote this, I have occasionally remembered to read the manual.

 

[iwakar]

Thanks to everybody who voted. The second one is mine, I wrote it when I was 17, and it's still one of my favorites. There's a ton of emotion that went into that "too much like a list." The tiny piece of me that's logical was trying desperately to get through to the usual emotionally lost me, and trying to convince me to get on with my life and not wallow in the disappointment of things that I couldn't control. Thankfully, in the 15 years since I wrote this, I have occasionally remembered to read the manual.

You are awesome, and I envy your ability to stomach asinine comments. Or criticism.