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avoid
you can not let them get close, like a tsar,
you can not let them to get to know you
and you can not let them see who you are
you can not tell them how much you like them
for you are a monster deep down, a clown
a faceless, pit of hatred and disgust
a manipulator, abuser, drown
them, betray them after earning their trust
but you don't have a personality
you are scared of the smallest commitment
you are scared of all kinds of rejection
you are even disgusted by yourself
not worth a dime, narcissistic crazy
man, in your world, filled by anxiety
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Thanks for the poetry! Very interesting to read.
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"the game is like a battle of two reaching for infinity"
I liked that a lot
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switch
I often flick it on and off, by choice
or not. Vivid to create and push through
colder, to give it to my other voice
joining my sole friend whom to me stays true
when it's amiss I can lose my temper,
but sometimes I hate the brightness, blinding
me in my quest of becoming bitter,
not an holy one, but to my liking,
I feel safer on this path, of self harm
at least more so than with the other twin,
though with each embrace I hear the alarm,
I still come back to my cold harmful kin
at night I always turn it off to sleep
each day I feel around and be a sheep.
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You consistently write in the demanding sonnet form. What are your thoughts on the sonnet, and on other forms of poetry?
Each line pretty strictly contains ten syllables and you keep to the tight rhyme scheme of the sonnet, so you seem dedicated to some more formal, traditional elements. But not when it comes to rhythm - i.e. if I am not mistaken, you seem to deviate from iambic rhythm, and actually to be quite free with rhythm. What are you thoughts on rhythm in poetry generally, and what role does rhythm play in your own poetry?
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I try to stick to sonnet, the rhymes are something wrong but not on purpose, I'm not a native, and I don't stick to the rhythm as I find it nearly impossible, I try it from time to time, I did it recently and it's hell.
When it comes to poetry, I think it should at least rhyme, and the numbers of syllables is a plus to me, but from what I've seen on internet there are lots of modern poetry that a more free. If the syllables or rhythm is awkward that is not an issue to me, but not rhyming lines is really weird as it sounds more like quotes or text more than poetry.
Rhythm is something I should try to work on, but I find it very hard so I'm not too sure if I'll switch to the next gear or stay with the false sonnet aspects.
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I agree that rhymes are pleasant! And of course you are totally right to say rhythm is ignored by lots of modern poets - but then so, sometimes, are rhymes 
Seems like you are doing great without rhythm and if it's difficult to add I can see why you would decide you don't care about it. Definitely don't need to work on it, I was just wondering about the modern flair in the very traditional form. And I don't mean to suggest the sonnet is "false"! Just interested to hear your thoughts.
That said, if you are curious to see examples of English poetry without rhyme, Shakespeare wrote (mostly? a lot...) in blank verse, which is iambic (unstressed/stressed) pentameter (five feet per line, i.e. ten syllables) WITHOUT rhymes. Milton, who is the most epic poet in English (by far) in my opinion, actually wrote as the preface to Paradise Lose an explanation for why he rejects rhyming altogether.
And then Chaucer, probably my favourite poet, wrote mostly [actually I think exclusively? I can't think of an exception, save his prose obviously) in heroic couplets - AA, BB, CC, etc.... so he was addicted to rhyme. So, even just between the three greatest English poets there is the full range of views on rhyming: from rejecting it entirely, to using it sometimes, to using it always.
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There are moments of really nice poetry and then sometimes it's like it becomes convoluted by words. Anyways there's an S on "stay" "to me stays true"
switch
I often flick it on and off, by choice
or not. Vivid to create and push through
colder, to give it to my other voice
joining my sole friend whom to me stays true
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Is rhythm only about stressed unstressed and the numbers of syllables or does it go deeper?
If it does and you have any resources to learn about it I'll be glad to look at them, if you don't have the resources I'll probably look for some on my own don't fret it.
I will also take a look at those authors works, I only know of Shakespearean sonnets.
I have to look at enjambent and "prosodie" (french word).
Quick edit, I see what an enjambent is, I think "half" enjambent are good too (when you have a meaning, then it add another little aspect to it!) and prosodie seems to be the rhythm too (still not sure if there is more than stressed unstressed, maybe the musicality doesn't have a name while it gets specific to a poem).
I corrected it, thanks for the input, it is indeed the whole challenge to stay constant through the whole poem(s).
My "dream" is to write (a) poem(s) telling a story and keeping the imageries alive all along, and adding multiples layers of meaning to it would be awesome, but I'm really far from any of that, I don't work on it enough, I always say I'll work on my poem, but as soon as the first draft is over I have the urge to publish it and be done with it. I also don't read poetry, and don't practice, laziness laziness...
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On February 18 2018 02:25 Gurderoy wrote:
Is rhythm only about stressed unstressed and the numbers of syllables or does it go deeper?
If it does and you have any resources to learn about it I'll be glad to look at them, if you don't have the resources I'll probably look for some on my own don't fret it.
I will also take a look at those authors works, I only know of Shakespearean sonnets.
I have to look at enjambent and "prosodie" (french word).
I corrected it, thanks for the input, it is indeed the whole challenge to stay constant through the whole poem(s).
My "dream" is to write (a) poem(s) telling a story and keeping the imageries alive all along, and adding multiples layers of meaning to it would be awesome, but I'm really far from any of that, I don't work on it enough, I always say I'll work on my poem, but as soon as the first draft is over I have the urge to publish it and be done with it. I also don't read poetry, and don't practice, laziness laziness...
Well that sounds like a great goal. I think the stress unstress thing is how the poem get's a musical quality. A quality other than if it were prose. Almost like how music seems to have a meaning.
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To be technical, "rhythm" is a more general term than "metre," which is what I am really referring to.
Rhythm definitely goes deeper - the repetition of sounds is an example of rhythm, and alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds) is very common way of achieving rhythm. Old English poetry used alliteration and not rhyming. Rhyming entered English at the time of Middle English, whose superstar is Chaucer. Middle English is what you get when you combine Old English and French, and the French poetic style, like other romance languages (and especially Italian, which was very influential at that time through folks like Dante), was to rhyme.
The trouble is that rhyming words are less common in English than in the Romance language, so a non-rhyming tradition has always remained.
Metre can work in a lot of different ways. The most common way is by the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line.
Take a look at the closing couplet of Shakespeare's sonnet 80 (chosen at random).
Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this, my love was my decay.
Let's figure out the metre of these lines. This process, figuring out the metre, is called "scansion".
To start, we want to know what is stressed, and what is not. Sometimes, guesswork is involved and it's not clear. Sometimes, placing a stress differently changes the meaning of the sentence. But in the vast majority of cases, scanning a poem will be intuitive.
' = unstressed
- = stressed
' - ' - ' - ' - ' -
Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
' - ' - ' - ' - ' -
The worst was this, my love was my decay.
There's a pattern alternating unstressed and stressed syllables.
Metre can be written in a special language, sort of like sheet music. We combine the syllables into feet, like so:
| = division of feet
'- | '- | '- | '- | '-
So we have five pairs of '- (unstressed, stressed). Actually, '- has a name: "iamb". And a line with five feet is called a "pentameter". Obviously, "penta" means five, and meter is meter. So the name for:
'- | '- | '- | '- | '-
is "iambic pentameter".
Shakespeare wrote his sonnets in iambic pentameter.
If unstressed-stressed is called an "iamb", what's the opposite? A trochee is a stressed-unstressed ( -' ) combination. The other combinations, stressed-stressed, unstressed-unstressed, also have names. Look them up on Wikipedia and you'll see them all, including feet of three and four syllables.
Rhythm can be used to add weight or lightness to a poem. Take the opening line of Prufrock:
' ' - ' - ' -
Let us go then you and I,
''- | '- | '-
This poem is sometimes called "free verse", and that has led some people to imagine it has no rules. But it definitely has regularity. Here's the first line of the next stanza:
' ' - ' - ' - ' -
In the room the women come and go
Notice a pattern? The line is longer, but
''- | '- | '- | '-
it is only an extension of the same rhythm from the first line. Another stanza begins with:
' ' - ' - ' -
And indeed there will be time
''- | '- | '-
See what I mean? Eliot, modern though he was, was not ignoring rhythm.
The anapest at the start (''-) gives it speed, sets it flowing fast. That's exactly what Eliot is trying to achieve - he's talking about how people pass their lives without stopping to notice things, so he makes even these lines skip forward. The opposite effect occurs from multiple stressed syllables - the line slows down, and often sounds heavy or emphatic.
I think of Milton describing how God defeated Satan in the war of the rebellious angels...
Him the Almighty Power
Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruine and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms.
I admit, I'm not sure how to scan these lines... maybe...
- ' ' - ' - '
Him the Almighty Power
- - ' - ' ' ' - ' ' -
Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie
? But I really want to stress "from" and even sometimes "Al" in "Almighty".
The point is you don't need to get too crazily technical... but it can be helpful to think about, for instance, a stressed-stressed combo is heavy "Hurld headlong", it's slow and emphatic. But an anapest skips with some speed.
And then Milton brings in other factors: look how long this sentence is - reading it aloud is a challenge because there is no punctuation, you can feel the sentence as if it is freefalling down from great height. And the alliterating "h" and "f", and the alliteration of "down" and "dwell", and then "durst defie" etc...
So in short... no rhythm is not just meter. It's a whole musical sense for the words. But meter is a powerful tool and every classic poet employs it, but as you rightly say some poets these days do without it.
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Thank you for the explanation, I'll experiment with rhythm as soon as I get an idea!
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fantasia
wrong princess wanted, rescue tale of time,
tis quest I choose to chase with sword and shield
in hand. Waiting my time to shine, my prime
ephemeral, a lesson learnt, and healed
away that furrow, wisdom stillborn, strife...
a dream: to relish newly indexed chef
an oeuvre: old car and not cut edge, rife
technology. Why not both? 'Cause... my clef!
is not yet set, for this part or misplay
I instrument. Sounds like it... bad cadet!
wish not that I could orchestrate a play,
a practice partner, I'd had like to met.
the pot used to cook for our father's boys
I'd like to find, stir, that would make my joy.
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LMAO I loved your zerg one.
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the beach
I live, where the beach is an ideal
not all have seen it, yet it's a shared dream
some arrived on one, some born in a creel,
some die next to it, it's part of our whim.
I've got an image of it: yellow sand
strong in numbers, to the eye limitless,
as the water it married, cold and grand,
shingle and black sand are not my mistress.
some countries have no beaches, weird fate...
I swim poorly, run poorly, paltry smith,
don't know how to fish, how to navigate,
all that as unknown as a foreign frith...
I don't want to go to the beach, so why
to my kids, I wish them the beach... that's wry
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getting home;
after the high, free falling, feeling down,
nearly over, time on this road is short
soon getting home, back to choke, back to drown
my tears I'll swallow and my snot I'll snort
back in my throat, replacing the poison
got 'nuff of that, back to being sober
the high has died out, come back to reason
naught changed, stayed the same, stayed mediocre
did not find love and did not find friendship
drunk, food junkie, lazy ass getting fat
losing the gain weight, not enough hard ship,
back to my hole, small and grey as a rat
I failed again, a v p d maybe,
next page, next chapter, will drive me crazy
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the quill's life
stuck in the same cycle high down high down
twelve steps dance, twirling around the blue post,
fight the odds but remain one with no gown
to swirl. Behind those silent bars, my ghost.
for as long as the vase hold the liquid,
bit of my blood, lots of my sweat. Bubble
or a cell in this body, my own squid
like ink on the walls for my weird scribble,
my voice, the same one silent in the flesh,
stuck in this cycle, running in circle
now getting old, no longer staying fresh
it's not a dance, it's sisyphus ripple,
once more I leave you there, end of my road,
do not worry, i'll be back to unload
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story
the lowest, the more it hurts my frail back,
peak reached, think the descent'd be easier,
but the weight keeps on piling like a stack,
if you trip, that's your downfall, wit stranger
you gathered no treasures on this transit,
didn't kill any dragon, didn't become king,
your shire you're still looking for sir hobbit,
late so not a wizard, got no gold ring,
turn the page, close the first book, your own pleas,
aiming at writing a nice trilogy,
but you got no more ink, no ideas,
perpetual writer block, page empty
you get by a name, that many ones share,
you are on a trip, that many took, err
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butterfly
fleeting moments, as the butterfly wings
you accepted it, bath in the effect
you entered the garden behind the wings
forever spring sweet scent, present's perfect
you left the cocoon for another nest,
from green and young crawling caterpillar,
to beautiful creature, your form the best
feeding on light and the slimy nectar,
always some red birds trying to catch you,
afar cold and grey winter approaching,
your cousin's a moth, often feelings blue
but for now you enjoy the flowering,
colourful, ephemeral, majestic
emperor, warrior, feel fantastic
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worst of its kind
time to quit the childish like fantasy,
close your eyes just to open them anew
stop being whiny, crazy and lazy
move your fat ass and shake out of the blue
realize that you are in the sewer
life is above, you're still one of the ants
you're repulsive, stink and are a shitter
you are one of the garbage no one wants
suicide would hurt those cursed to like thy
you'll have to go through a a normal life
you owe that to the unfortunate, wry,
who'd kill you to take your place with a knife
do not cry,nor laugh, do not rant either
hide, stay silent, stop being a bother
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EPT
