Poetry....

[tanya]

Have any favorite poems you have found or wrote? Here is one I found this morning... I started to read it and could not stop. It's so well done.. so very touching...


Small Pain In My Chest
by Michael Mack

The soldier boy was sitting calmly underneath that tree.
As I approached it, I could see him beckoning to me.
The battle had been long and hard and lasted through the night
And scores of figures on the ground lay still by morning's light.

"I wonder if you'd help me, sir", he smiled as best he could.
"A sip of water on this morn would surely do me good.
We fought all day and fought all night with scarcely any rest -
A sip of water for I have a small pain in my chest."

As I looked at him, I could see the large stain on his shirt
All reddish-brown from his warm blood mixed in with Asian dirt.
"Not much", said he. "I count myself more lucky than the rest.
They're all gone while I just have a small pain in my chest."

"Must be fatigue", he weakly smiled. "I must be getting old.
I see the sun is shining bright and yet I'm feeling cold.
We climbed the hill, two hundred strong, but as we cleared the crest,
The night exploded and I felt this small pain in my chest."

"I looked around to get some aid - the only things I found
Were big, deep craters in the earth - bodies on the ground.
I kept on firing at them, sir. I tried to do my best,
But finally sat down with this small pain in my chest."

"I'm grateful, sir", he whispered, as I handed my canteen
And smiled a smile that was, I think, the brightest that I've seen.
"Seems silly that a man my size so full of vim and zest,
Could find himself defeated by a small pain in his chest."

"What would my wife be thinking of her man so strong and grown,
If she could see me sitting here, too weak to stand alone?
Could my mother have imagined, as she held me to her breast,
That I'd be sitting HERE one day with this pain in my chest?"

"Can it be getting dark so soon?" He winced up at the sun.
"It's growing dim and I thought that the day had just begun.
I think, before I travel on, I'll get a little rest ..........
And, quietly, the boy died from that small pain in his chest.

I don't recall what happened then. I think I must have cried;
I put my arms around him and I pulled him to my side
And, as I held him to me, I could feel our wounds were pressed
The large one in my heart against the small one in his chest.

http://www.netpoets.com/poems/life/1504001.htm

[denaliguide]

The Men That don't Fit In
Robert Service



There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

[tanya]

I like that one.

[Redpb]

tldr

[tanya]

You sound like 'Beech

That is how I usually am too actually, but that top one got to me! I had to read it all!

[LOAH]

I wrote this when I was 17 and hadn't discovered how beautiful life was yet. It's fiction, so no scars on these wrists.I'll be really pissed if I hear these lyrics on the radio without my consent.


SCARLET RAIN

I wake among demons in my head
I realize now that I'll soon be dead
As I pull the knife down the path of my vein
My self respect, I've brutally slain

I'm through with life for it's lost its charm
To myself and my friends I bring nothing but harm
My world is dark, I cannot see
I grow so faint, I fall to my knees

*Chorus*
What have I done, what can I do?
It's too late now, my life is through.
Black stars crowd my inner thoughts
My pillow stained with Scarlet spots
Overcome with bitter shame
Nothing stops the Scarlet Rain
*

Adrenaline pumps, I'm filled with alarm
As the Scarlet warmth, flows down my arm
My head is numb, My body weak
The darkness now, Reaches its peak

I'm drifting through a world of red
I see the spirits floating overhead
Is this Heaven? Is this Hell?
Only time will clearly tell

*Chorus

Clouds above, fire below
Which way am I headed? I do not know
Singing overhead and screams beneath
I'm filled with suspense, I grind my teeth

What's happening now? It's going away
Now I'm trapped in a world of gray
Is this Eternity? Does it get worse?
Suicide...Is casting its curse

*Chorus

A force is pressing on my body's chest
Over and over, it's being compressed
I'm not dead! I'm still alive!
I lift up my head, and open my eyes

I'm in a blue room full of joyful cries
My friends and family have tears in their eyes
I see the bandage, soiled and stained
Somebody stopped...The Scarlet Rain.

(Written By: Justin Craddock 1997)

Here's a newer one. I wrote this a couple years ago (long after realizing that life is GREAT!).

ALIVE

I relax
I lay my head to rest
Nurturing my sprirt
With the milk from Nature's breast
I start to drift
Through the hallways of my mind
Open up the doors and try to see what I can find

I feel alive

I feel alive

High, up in the mountains
On a blissful sunny day
A breeze rolls through the hills
And lifts life's pressures far away
I gaze into the blue sky
Into infinity
I feel I can wander here
For all eternity

I feel alive

I feel alive

I'm dreaming
Or just thinking out loud
I feel I'm falling
Gently tossed between the clouds
I've been released
From the bondage of my skin
Now I'm free to do the things that drive me from within

I feel alive

I feel alive

Now I can travel worlds
In the flicker of an eye
I can answer questions without ever asking why
I'm guided by the light
That's beaming from my soul
I don't need my body now, my spirit's in control

I feel alive

I feel alive

Some say I'm a genius
Some say I'm a fool
Some say I'm a loser
And others say I'm cool
But it doesn't really matter
As crazy as it seems
But none of them can touch me while I'm sailing through my dreams

I feel alive

I feel alive

(Written By: Justin Craddock 2006)

Kind of hard to believe both of those came from the same noodle, but they did. Did that last one give anyone the munchies.

I'm sure it's kind of hard to "feel" them without the music, but you'll just have to try.

[LOAH]

Another super oldie by me:

SICK IN THE HEAD

People talk about me
I'm sick in the head
I'd rather be dead
Than hear the words they have said

* I always knew that I was gonna be sick in the head, yeah (x2)

And I've just got to get away
From this messed up state
The mountains are really great
It's just the people I kinda hate

*

I don't sleep at night
I toss and turn in bed
Take a look at my eyes
They're plump and glowing red, yeah

*

Someday,
I gotta get away and let my head play and lay by a stream
With laughter I scream
Awake as I dream

*

Sometimes,
My mouth it feels so dry I don't know why but it seems only right
Much to my delight
'Cuz I've been smokin' tonight.

(Written By: Justin Craddock 2000) That one is horribly catchy with the music.


Here's one from recent times:

I GET HIGH

I'm going out for a smoke
But I quit smokin' two years ago
And I've got all these things runnin' through my head
But there's somethin' thatchya gotta know

I've spent all these years bottled up inside
And I've gotta set my spirit free
I found myself a solution
That seems to do the trick for me

*I get high, baby
Light it up and pass it round
I get high, baby
To my head straight from the ground
I get high, baby
This secret I have found
Get high, baby
And it helps me lay the rhythm down
*

Now I can lie down in the forest
Soaking up the energy
And I feel like huggin' all the trees
But they're already huggin' me

And I thank my Mother Nature
For showin' me some love
Even with my head up in the clouds
The view's better from above

So Get High, Baby!*

(Written by: Justin Craddock 2007)

I know, not hard to figure out the inspiration.

Sorry if I ruined an otherwise innocent thread.

[goofball]

All in One,
One in All -
no fall -
Creations home the soul we roam,
Being complete seeming transparent.


--------------------------------------------------


Resonating -
vibrating -
dancing w/ Time,
matching the rhythm
that Being has given,
Truths sine wave,
womb to grave.


---------------------------------------------------


We share a futon, my son & i.
i nightly lay him down to sleep
after Pooh, or god, or Elmo,
& leave -
so he may find for his self the way to sleep.
i return, 30 minutes or more later,
to cover his body,
so restless in its quest.
He is, of course, back on Da-da

[Randi]

WOW! Loah and Goofball poets!
Who would have thunk it?
Nice work guys! Knowing Luke made that one poem especially sweet Jason! :)

I'm a poet too! But I'm not posting any of my blatherings here! Most of it's of the romantic~mushy hallmark variety that would turn even a sensitive man's stomach! But, the poetry I "enjoy" reading is of an entirely different variety than what I write:

I give you Charles Bukowski: One of my favorite poets

me and Faulkner

sure, I know that you are tired of hearing about it, but
most repeat the same theme over and over again, it's
as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange
and off and important to them, it's done by everybody
because everybody is of a different stripe and form
and each must work out what is before them
over and over again because
that is their personal tiny miracle
their bit of luck

like now as like before and before I have been slowly
drinking this fine red wine and listening to symphony after
symphony from this black radio to my left

some symphonies remind me of certain cities and certain rooms,
make me realize that certain people now long dead were able to
transgress graveyards

and traps and cages and bones and limbs

people who broke through with joy and madness and with
insurmountable force

in tiny rented rooms I was struck by miracles

and even now after decades of listening I still am able to hear
a new work never heard before that is totally
bright, a fresh-blazing sun

there are countless sub-stratas of rising surprise from the
human firmament

music has an expansive and endless flow of ungodly
exploration

writers are confined to the limit of sight and feeling upon the
page while musicians leap into unrestricted immensity

right now it's just old Tchaikowsky moaning and groaning his
way through symphony #5
but it's just as good as when I first heard it

I haven't heard one of my favorites, Eric Coates, for some time
but I know that if I keep drinking the good red and listening
that he will be along

there are others, many others

and so
this is just another poem about drinking and listening to
music

repeat, right?

but look at Faulkner, he not only said the same thing over and
over but he said the same
place

so, please, let me boost these giants of our lives
once more: the classical composers of our time and
of times past

it has kept the rope from my throat

maybe it will loosen
yours

[Rev. Coyote]

Here's a poem from James Dickey, fellow Southerner and author of Deliverance. I give you:

The Sheep-Child

Farm boys wild to couple
With anything with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earth mounds
Of pine straw will keep themselves off
Animals by legends of their own:
In the hay-tunnel dark
And dung of barns, they will
Say I have heard tell

That in a museum in Atlanta
Way back in a corner somewhere
There's this thing that's only half
Sheep like a woolly baby
Pickled in alcohol because
Those things can't live his eyes
Are open but you can't stand to look
I heard from somebody who ...

But this is now almost all
Gone. The boys have taken
Their own true wives in the city,
The sheep are safe in the west hill
Pasture but we who were born there
Still are not sure. Are we,
Because we remember, remembered
In the terrible dust of museums?
Merely with his eyes, the sheep-child may
Be saying saying

I am here, in my father's house.
I who am half of your world, came deeply
To my mother in the long grass
Of the west pasture, where she stood like moonlight
Listening for foxes. It was something like love
From another world that seized her
From behind, and she gave, not Iifting her head
Out of dew, without ever looking, her best
Self to that great need. Turned loose, she dipped her face
Farther into the chill of the earth, and in a sound
Of sobbing of something stumbling
Away, began, as she must do,
To carry me. I woke, dying,

In the summer sun of the hillside, with my eyes
Far more than human. I saw for a blazing moment
The great grassy world from both sides,
Man and beast in the round of their need,
And the hill wind stirred in my wool,
My hoof and my hand clasped each other,
I ate my one meal
Of milk, and died
Staring. From dark grass I came straight

To my father's house, whose dust
Whirls up in the halls for no reason
When no one comes piling deep in a hellish mild corner,
And, through my immortal waters,
I meet the sun's grains eye
To eye, and they fail at my closet of glass.
Dead, I am most surely living
In the minds of farm boys: I am he who drives
Them like wolves from the hound bitch and calf
And from the chaste ewe in the wind.
They go into woods into bean fields they go
Deep into their known right hands. Dreaming of me,
They groan they wait they suffer
Themselves, they marry, they raise their kind.

-- James Dickey

[Randi]

Here's a poem from James Dickey, fellow Southerner and author of Deliverance. I give you:

The Sheep-Child

Farm boys wild to couple
With anything with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earth mounds
Of pine straw will keep themselves off
Animals by legends of their own:
In the hay-tunnel dark
And dung of barns, they will
Say I have heard tell

That in a museum in Atlanta
Way back in a corner somewhere
There's this thing that's only half
Sheep like a woolly baby
Pickled in alcohol because
Those things can't live his eyes
Are open but you can't stand to look
I heard from somebody who ...

~snip~

-- James Dickey

EWE!

[sparker1]

I have no poetry to share, but Tanya's poem reminded me of a painting that hangs in the south Carolina state house. The Confederate soldier is providing water for the wounded Union soldiers. He probably could have been tried for giving comfort to the enemy, but became a hero for his courage under fire. In 1977, he was (belatedly) awarded the Confederate Medal of Honor.

[tanya]

I like that

[Bo_Beck]

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim---
That sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned, when he reached the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgram near,
"You are wasting strength in building here.
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build the bridge at the eventide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head.
"Good friend, in the path I have come." he said,
"There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been naught to me
To that fair haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him."

[tanya]

I like