The Great Doper Poetry Reading

Cafe Society
1

I was walking home from work and thinking about poetry. I have fond memories of poetry readings from when I had a life and got out more. I also know that there are many hidden poets out there - people who wrestle with copy machines or bulldozers all day, and scribble in secret, when no one is looking. My stepfather, a sullen guy with the head of a mountain goat, keeps a black book filled with poems about the sea and the fields, from when he traveled Europe.

If anyone else has something they’d like to share, please post it here. There are only two rules:

  1. Only two pieces per day, per poster, please.

  2. If you want feedback, please say so in your post, otherwise, people are kindly asked to keep their critic’s hats in their boxes.

I’ll show you mine when you show me yours :wink:

Happy posting!

2

85 6
My lady friend wears tin cans
like a
fine spanish
dress (the whole city strokes faith as though it were silk)
my lady friend says
that her job is
all
numbers
(every man that punches a clock should punch
himself as well) my lady friend
responds to personal
ad in russian sewing magazine
and sets fire to
lily pads while
counting broken marbles
(deadliness is close to godliness)
(godliness is close to loneliness)
my lady friend started cooking
liverwurst to save
her dear old soul (lies are made of rainbows)

feedback ok

3

little dog outside
always goes “yip yap yip yap”
drives me fucking nuts

4

I just saw the Bad Poetry thread in IMHO, and I think this is a nice counterpoint. Feedback on all my writing is welcome, either in here or via email. OK now that someone else has posted and this isn’t a total wankfest, I will share two of mine.

Junction

Lost near the reddish junction
veiled in pink dust at red dusk

She saw the ocean, once
dreamt of it and
imagined herself far from home

Dressed and downstairs, galloping
past her white parents
streaking lean legs
tight crimson t-shirt leading the charge

Limp okra crisp chicken and red mud behind the shed
slow honeysuckle hanging
by the porch and stolen beer at sunset
diving
into swimming holes with all her clothes
or not, when she has her sisters.

Dancing around and around the dry earth
wailing out the oppressive song of
summer cicadas

In August, everything is lulled by the heat,
and shimmers in silence.

~kfl

This next one is one of my Buffy fanfic poems. I have one or two poems written in each character’s voice and two whole series, a Willow one and a Buffy one. This is my Giles poem, and it’s one that got a great reception at another messageboard.

Choking Hazard: (may contain small parts)

I never knew you
when you were playing with Barbies
your Red Riding Hood was a stranger to me

I couldn’t have been of use then anyway
except ready with iodine
to blot your knee orange
when you fell off your big wheel
in suburbia

You don’t sleep with a teddy bear
I handed you a crossbow
No pink plastic afternoon tea parties
I handed you a sword

I have never held you
and yet
I cradled your life in my hands
I held it
And I have never begrudged the weight

But I think sometimes
I wonder
about tea parties

Show me what I have missed

And we can mourn together

~ kfl