poem a day

[moches]

hey, everybody. I'm writing one poem a day about things that tickle my fancy. mainly because I need to begin kicking my ass into writing mode.

anyway, feedback and suggestions are always welcome!

poem per day

here's today's poem, just so everybody has an idea of where I'm at right now.

sickness

Notes: I stayed home today thanks (bad word choice?) to a nasty cold. This is just an expansion of some of the thoughts I had today. Another effort to move away from free verse and tinker with structure a bit.

we wake up in excitement
with dreams of all to do
but seldom do we turn our thoughts
to all we have to lose

the meter thuds in tandem
with youthful bodies bent
towards grand ideals of paradise
all lofty sentiments

but gradually
the tempo slows
our dreams out of our depth
we stop—
—sway—
then steady
and try to catch our breath

see, the engine runs on one big truth
it’s yours, just as it’s mine
the one we all try to hide:
that everybody dies.

[Xiz]

I immediately put this into song when reading.
+1 want to see more please.

[moches]

with luck, you'll see more every day!

[gnr61]

Nice poeming man! Makes me wanna get motivated to write too, used to do a ton of poetry but I'm too insecure to do it regularly or without a ton of planning. Gl bro hi five

[moches]

aww, thanks : ))) I think that's the hardest part for me, too...just letting go and writing. without worrying what people will think or what even I will think of my own work. what's important is that it's getting written.

[moches]

today's poem:

may 31, 2013 - wants

wants

Notes: A little bit of reflection to wrap up the end of May.

when i was five,
all i wanted
was a never-ending hug from my mother
and an ice cream cone
draped in neon green and fiery oranges
towering in the sunlight

when i was eight,
all i wanted
was a smiley-face sticker on my nose
and somebody to play four square with me
even if my eyes were smaller
and i couldn’t curl my tongue like the rest of them

when i was ten,
all i wanted
was an A and a “good work!” on my science test
and not to be the last one picked on the kickball team
alone on one side
a mess of foreign faces on the other

when i was thirteen,
all i wanted
was for school to end at twelve-thirty
so i could log on
and escape into a world
where nobody could see the pimples on my face
and i had as many do-overs as i wanted

now i am eighteen
and all i want
is somebody to hear these clumsy words of mine
and the hope that
someday
they will be something beautiful
something to be loved

[TheSaxRunner05]

This makes me want to write again

[moches]

you should go for it, man! I'd love to have new stuff to read : ))

[TheSaxRunner05]

To burn with the fire of a thousand stars
To ebb and flow like the ocean tides
To erupt like a volcanic inferno
To freeze over a thousand ice ages
To ignite a red giant supernova
To collapse into a black hole
To split the Earth with a great quake
To build mountains to the heavens
To devastating planetary collisions
To coalescing of a young star
To the last breath of man
To the birth of a daughter
Another observer of it all

[moches]

awesome! loving the imagery and you have really powerful word choice : )

just so everybody knows, I'd love to see other peeps sharing their poetic power in here

[moches]

shit shit shit I missed both Saturday and Sunday shit shit shit

edit: LET'S PRETEND THESE ARE ON TIME

beauty

Notes: Forgive me, for I have sinned and spent the weekend devouring Hannibal instead of writing. A little try at stream-of-consciousness.

beauty is not always the laughter of children in a park the grass the color of sunshine
beauty is sometimes maybe the reflection of an LED screen you face your eyes burnt out your mind running on gassy fumes and yesterday’s stale coffee
beauty is the silence in the snores that fill the air around you
beauty is the crisp wind of the fan swiveling back and forth in the mugginess of a June night, lining up ever-so-perfectly once a few seconds once a few minutes only so many split seconds in a lifetime

beauty reflected in the mirrors you find in the dark

toenail

Notes: It’s a weekend procrastination two-for-one special! Inspired by real-life clumsiness.

if you can’t find the bottom, you need to dig a little deeper
one cut at a time
with each bite of the apple you take
the red gets a little brighter
the pain gets a little louder
but soon enough you can almost see the roots
of something overgrown something buried

the question is
do you take the time to trim it
with all the care it needs
or do you just kick the damn thing in as hard as you can
and see what’s left when you peel off the ruins?

[gnr61]

forgivable, hannibal rules face (nice pun btw)

imo "beauty" would be much stronger if you could find a way to say what you're saying without ever using the phrase "beauty is" or "beauty is not". i know i'm biased against certain types of poetry, but it strikes me as a kind of hand-holding to ever come right out and say what kind of abstraction you're trying to express (outside maybe the title, which can be a useful place for keys/hints). even just saying "it is" instead i think would be neat

[moches]

thanks for the feedback. I too think it sounds a lot better with a bit more ambiguity, I'll keep that in mind in the future.

too lazy to repost all of my stuff here, but the site will continue to stay updated!

[moches]

today's poem started out as a journal entry but went weird places. it's really unrefined but w/e putting it up anyway

ONWARD WE FORGE

[gnr61]

gj prayer one is the best (of these) so far. the fifth stanza is a nice touch that makes me think some slight structural renovation to the whole thing could make it all really sing but i'm too drunk right now to think mathematipoetically

keep going man this is such an inspirational thread haha. any day now i'll start working dutifully again on the dusty old series of poems i've had tucked away on my hard drive for like 6 months

[moches]

I had a rocking Friday and I wrote a poem about it.

to-do list

Notes: We all have these days, don’t we?

sleep in until the sun burns through the glass and your sheets have become a furnace
then spend twenty minutes holding your little sister’s teddy bear
(well, it was yours before)
rub your hands into the fur, look into eyes eternally pure
hurl it into the air with abandon and fly with it as it falls back down

find a nice quiet park, where the basketball courts are empty and there’s only two hands embracing one another on the benches
sit on the grass, just so you remember what it was like
breathe in forgiveness and humility and wonder and
AWE
at how you are here
in a little stitch of the earth
with only the melody of a child and the laughter of the birds in the trees

wander around the streets with nothing but a five in your pocket and a natasha bedingfield song wedged into your brain
if you see an ice cream shop, enter it
ask for three scoops
two flavors you’ve loved from the age of five
one flavor ripe with the taste of new promise

and if you cannot check these off all at once
check off what you can afford to do
but when nobody’s looking, try and check off one more

[moches]

i'm messing around with rhythms! rhythms!

the train

Notes: On intimacy, connection, and the crappy ventilation on public transportation.

rumble tumble whisper ROAR
bullet rushed straight down the floor
lovely, lonely, hungry, bored
into its carcass people poured

one stop two stops three stops four
faces piled up more and more
lost your hand or you lost mine
two ants stuck in the city grind

four stops three stops two stops one
engine purrs, it’s had its fun
stragglers dotting empty seats
brows dripping in the evening heat

WHOOSH a chugga stutter click
the doors push open, this is it
found you again, bound by design
and i’ll hold your hand if you hold onto mine

look up

Notes: All it takes is one look and everything comes flooding back.

sometimes i melt into the concrete the people pass me by
 but nobody can touch me
 we’re all stuck in bubbles 
one missed call and chats unfinished and unlimited 3G plans trapped in our screens
 what would it take for me to pop my glass barrier what would it take for me to breathe again

look up
from the middle of your jungle

look up into the void

nothing but miles and miles of a black

we turn on our neon signs

and all it does is chuckle silently to itself

where did the stars go?
are they hiding?
are they gone?
can we find them again?

[moches]

today's poem went better than usual.

hidden heaven

with a stomp
and a stare
and a finger in the eye
they will steal every little piece of the puzzle that is you
tear your lego dreams apart
and use the rubble
for yet another batch of concrete

hide them away
in a box
under a desk
behind a screen
hide them away
and build something grand for yourself

almost thirty days into this project now!

[TheSaxRunner05]

There once was a women from Venus
Who said she could Charlie Sheen us
Without a moment to waste
She presented with haste
Her enormous, six foot vacuum cleaner

[moches]

I wrote a poem about poop yesterday.