[Quiet Man Cometh]

Been thinking about making a thread here for a while. I have some stuff over on Deviant Art, wasn't sure what to put here or what I wanted to post out of what I have, but I think I'll start with this one. :)

"Wind Chill"

Shining on doorsteps, the cold
That pinches every hair in your nose,
Nips at your cheeks, ears;
Hits your lung like buckshot.
Fresh, biting air on sluggish skin.
Filled with broken snowflakes,
Budding frost on bare skin.
Moments, precious few, before bone-aches
Fight you for your hands,
Breathing freezes your lips, tongue,
Fumbling,
With dull fingers.
Winter revels beneath your coat
A few steps from the door.

MH.
(Revision #4, Jan. 28, 2012.
Original - Dec. 21, 2008)

My poetry tends to fueled by brief moments of inspiration or experience that may or may not linger, and that lingering can depend on whether or not the poem gets finished or not. The above was built on answering the door for an ordered pizza. ;). Damn it was cold!

I re-write stuff all the time as I look back at it after some time has passed. I never erase the old ones though. I have each revision in my books, or the changes marked in if they are small or I don't feel like writing a poem out again. This revision happend as I was copying it from my book to here. I'm much faster as making poetry decisions than I used to be. ;). Practice I guess. :)

Comments welcome.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

This one reminds me of a poet we read in class this week, Lola Ridge, of whom we came to the consensus that while she writes very nice, very refined poetry, it doesn't really invite further reading or deeper analysis beyond what's gleaned from the initial reading.

Which, as you know, is kind of my thing. :p So, this one, while it reads very nicely, doesn't do a whole lot for me, but that's just my personal reaction to it.

Ms. Ridge, after all, was a very successful, and I assume famous, poet. ;)

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Yeah, there isn't much to that poem, aside from the fact that it was bloody cold. This one might be more to your liking, if I haven't showed it to you already. This would be rant #3 in my cycnical world view.

"No More Believers"

Who takes anything at face value?
Trust is passed as gullibility,
By shaking heads and sighs; patronizing smiles.
Skepticism is the fashion,
Worn like fox fur.
Prove it.
Prove it isn’t.
Games of opposites,
Reflexively siding with whatever claim
Is contrary to the one being made.

Circle sitting in internet cafes;
Modern coffee houses,
Thinking themselves profound
For being blunt
And loudly proclaiming ugly truths
As though they just discovered them,
And have taken the burden of making them known.
Artful expressions of sorrow
And melancholy worn like gaudy jewelry,
The mark of doomed prophets.

So many new philosophers
Adoring denial,
Dropping their fur and rings and hard truths
Thinking themselves enlightened
For resisting the new understanding
Of the ways of the world.
They wear the shattered lenses
Of rose-coloured glasses,
Ceremonially crushed.
Marvel how they believe in the face of doubt!

April 20, 2007. I think this one is pretty much as is. Haven't made much in the way of revisions made. Still a favourite of mine from what I've written.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

That one reminds me Christopher Hitchens. :p

[Quiet Man Cometh]

and I have no idea who that is. :p. Another poet? era? My grounding in poetry is still stuffed firmly in the 19th century with some gradual stretching of limbs into modernism.

I have several ranting poems, though only two of them are really "finished" I'd say.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

No, no, the recently-late Mr. Hitchens was a vocal leader of the New Atheists, as they're called. The content of the poem just reminded me of him. He was an extremely gifted speaker, even if he was something of an extremist. He died last month, I believe.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Ah. Something else for me to investigate. :). And I should start making a list of those...

Fun poem! no hidden meaning here, really, none at all!

"Tap Shoes"

No subtlety. Like it or not,
You're loud, it's what you got.
Faces turned towards you, click click.
Introduced by your shoes,
There's no hiding now.

So dance. Make a beat.
Acapela with your feet,
Bouncing echoes off the walls.
No whispers with your toes, dear,
You shout!

Don't know what you're doing,
Just sound like it.
Tap tap, clickety-clack,
Shake your limbs a little, tap tap,
And kick it up! Weee!

The floor is thrashed, too bad.
The room is yours,
Hijacked on your taps,
Until you're in with a clap,
And out with a bang, tap, tap.

Another old one. June 1st, 2007. Just haven't written much currently that I'm inclined to post here. Might fix that in few, when I get around to it, or when it gets around to me.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Why does the third stanza break away from the rhyme scheme of the first two? It feels much weaker than the others by far. Same for fourth, I think. Otheriwse reads rather well.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

That would be because there isn't a rhyme scheme. It was written more or less as it came to mind, with some tweaks made here and there afterwards. The middle, I suppose, you could call a lull? *Shrugs*

[Arsis_von_Neaera]

I enjoyed "wind chill". It does a very good job of effectively creating the imagery. I agree with Suze though. I feel like if you were to incorporate more substance into your poetry, it would greatly add to the imagery you've created. You're very good at creating 'feeling' and using words at creating a perception, but it might help to create more story and background. If "wind chill" is about a pizza delivery, try including some of his story and perception into it.

Dunno though, just thoughts. I really did enjoy the imagery though, of both of the poems on this page. "Tap Shoes" had a little bit more of a story to it, and I think that, again, had it incorporated a little more substance to that story, it would have been fantastic.

Check out the song, "A Tap Dancers Dilemma" by Diablo Swing Orchestra, you'll enjoy it. Your poem reminded me of it.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Neither of the poems are "about" much really, besides what is there already. I'm very much one of those 'art for art's sake' sort of people, at the same time though, you've hit the nail on the head when it comes to the trouble I have writing stories.

With "Wind Chill" for isntance, it's not about a pizza delivery. That was the inspiration. The focus was the feeling of being *that* cold, so the pizza guy was irrelevant to the situation.

I do write poetry with more substance, but I find I have a more difficult time mixing the two ideas, art and substance. My poems tend to lean one way or the other.

Unfortunately, my work that I like best I do not put online because I am trying to publish, so I can't show most of what I would call my best work. Often, if I feel like being artistic, I will write a poem. If I have a point to make, I will write a piece of flash or very short fiction. If it's something longer, than I write a short story. Even deciding medium can trip me up sometimes.

Thanks for your comments. :)

[Quiet Man Cometh]

February 4, 2012.

"Destitution"

Poem removed November 18, 2012.

[Arsis_von_Neaera]

That's fairly epic.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Not sure how to interpret that :p.

There's another half, but it's more for decoration than any actual substance. I felt like rhyming more, or maybe just writing another couplet.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

I've decided not to seek publication for this one, so here it is. I wrote it in November, 2011 but revised it slightly just this morning, maybe half an hour ago or so. I added one half of a hyphenated word and moved the period. That's often the extent of my tweaking, and then I ponder Oscar Wilde's comma for half a second.

"Boatman"

Letters fleck on gravestones
like so much leaf litter,
windblown down the cemetery hill.
Among legs of the black-suited procession,.
penny-red leaves gather thick.

MH.

Been in a poetic mood lately, which does not bode well for my class work, and the other way around as well. I've decided to axe one of my short stories and turn it into a poem instead. Drafted it out last night, need to properly craft it now.

[Kiddiss]

Hiya, Quiet :3

I really like your poems. The first, IMHO, doesn't need a story. The imagery is so detailed, I felt like I was standing half frozen in a blizzard.

I think my fave is Destitution. It's blunt- stoic words to convey a stoic feeling. I don't usually like poems that short, but yours just *pops* in my head.

Keep 'em coming, please ^_^