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Literature Text
We looked like giants, striding along the
fences; grass in lonely spots of childhood memories
burned in our minds by the sun
of summer days
and we shrunk again among the crowded streets of the city,
with building blocks of our own,
as to rival God's.
were swallowed up in Babel
with a sign that read "Bank of America."
and in our despair we
disappeared in the rain.
Our forms were traced in snow angels,
while our shadows slept 'til the spring.
And in the halls of universities, they would
cower beneath our feet.
We owned the world.
We made it known
as we walked together, hand in hand,
and glanced occasionally with delight
to find our counterparts
had done the same.
We melted with the smoldering clouds of the twilight
And like cigarettes, we burned and smoked with the haze.
Like fallen leaves in Autumn,
Or the tall grass by the canals in the summer,
We stood together,
And disintegrated, piece by piece.
In the night, we would hold each other close,
In our laughter or tears, or river-stone faces,
And weld together, made new
And cool into one figure
in the shadows of the stars;
embers from the heavens
fading slowly until dawn.
The following days pulsed and raced through our minds.
It showed in monochromatic blurs
Of Irises, Roses, and Jasmine in the morning.
A schizophrenic dream twirling blindingly before us,
Like strobe lights or carnivals,
Like drugs or amusement parks
Like birds or like buzzards
On this wonderful merry-go-round,
We lived and we died.
We were lost in the moment,
And the moment lost in us.
And when the ride finally stopped,
We were vomiting and dizzy.
We blinked with each footstep
when we could open our eyes.
Our heads twisted and bobbed
As the world changed its angle.
And saw each other plainly,
For perhaps the first time.
Our shadows were equal
And stared into our souls.
The winter would cut us
And we’d crack and bleed together.
We shared our pain together
under Nature’s granite face.
and watched and cried in horror
as the drops
had smothered our family.
We crawled into our apartment
And lay down on the floor.
Our shadows still sobbing by the fire.
We reeled and railed
In spasms by the lights of Hell.
And wished, once more, for the warm, soft glow
Of cold mornings.
And as the winds blew,
Our fingers slipped softly away.
We twirled over grass in the baseball fields.
We spun in all directions, quickening our pace
Like a silent, black-and-white movie.
With cigarettes and drugs, we burned into oblivion,
As the last leaves of the tree hit the ground in the Autumn.
We owned the world.
We made it known.
Withered in the pile of the dreamers like us.
Still happy in the sun,
As we all clung together,
Still one in the shade,
And enjoying our lives.
And The cigarette
On the table
Of my old apartment office
Burns over the remains
of another anarchist love poem.
fences; grass in lonely spots of childhood memories
burned in our minds by the sun
of summer days
and we shrunk again among the crowded streets of the city,
with building blocks of our own,
as to rival God's.
were swallowed up in Babel
with a sign that read "Bank of America."
and in our despair we
disappeared in the rain.
Our forms were traced in snow angels,
while our shadows slept 'til the spring.
And in the halls of universities, they would
cower beneath our feet.
We owned the world.
We made it known
as we walked together, hand in hand,
and glanced occasionally with delight
to find our counterparts
had done the same.
We melted with the smoldering clouds of the twilight
And like cigarettes, we burned and smoked with the haze.
Like fallen leaves in Autumn,
Or the tall grass by the canals in the summer,
We stood together,
And disintegrated, piece by piece.
In the night, we would hold each other close,
In our laughter or tears, or river-stone faces,
And weld together, made new
And cool into one figure
in the shadows of the stars;
embers from the heavens
fading slowly until dawn.
The following days pulsed and raced through our minds.
It showed in monochromatic blurs
Of Irises, Roses, and Jasmine in the morning.
A schizophrenic dream twirling blindingly before us,
Like strobe lights or carnivals,
Like drugs or amusement parks
Like birds or like buzzards
On this wonderful merry-go-round,
We lived and we died.
We were lost in the moment,
And the moment lost in us.
And when the ride finally stopped,
We were vomiting and dizzy.
We blinked with each footstep
when we could open our eyes.
Our heads twisted and bobbed
As the world changed its angle.
And saw each other plainly,
For perhaps the first time.
Our shadows were equal
And stared into our souls.
The winter would cut us
And we’d crack and bleed together.
We shared our pain together
under Nature’s granite face.
and watched and cried in horror
as the drops
had smothered our family.
We crawled into our apartment
And lay down on the floor.
Our shadows still sobbing by the fire.
We reeled and railed
In spasms by the lights of Hell.
And wished, once more, for the warm, soft glow
Of cold mornings.
And as the winds blew,
Our fingers slipped softly away.
We twirled over grass in the baseball fields.
We spun in all directions, quickening our pace
Like a silent, black-and-white movie.
With cigarettes and drugs, we burned into oblivion,
As the last leaves of the tree hit the ground in the Autumn.
We owned the world.
We made it known.
Withered in the pile of the dreamers like us.
Still happy in the sun,
As we all clung together,
Still one in the shade,
And enjoying our lives.
And The cigarette
On the table
Of my old apartment office
Burns over the remains
of another anarchist love poem.
This work is copyright- and royalty-free.
Copyright and related rights waived via CC0
---
Hi,
This poem actually isn't new at all. It's just about a year old now.
I wrote this poem last year at around this time, I believe for my Personal Renaissance Project (every year, I use the month of my birthday as a challenge to produce the most and best pieces of art that I can. I almost always lose, but it's kinda fun. Didn't really get into this year, though.) Anyway, last year at about this time, I was trying to write the most beautiful thing that I could. I was breaking out of structured poetry and moving into free verse, and this poem was supposed to be my first true love poem. I'd never been in love, and yet I really wanted to capture that feeling. At first, it was a cynical "love poems are so cliche, even someone without a clue what it is can write a great one" attitude. But this one was different. By this point, I honestly wanted to know what love was, and decided that even though I didn't have a clue, I'd do my best to write the most beautiful thing I could think of and try to understand it. But then a lot of things seemed to get piled on top of me at once, and I felt restrained and depressed. That depression lead to becoming suicidal, and one day, I knew I was going to hurt myself if I left my room. I could see the counter with the little drawer on one side in the kitchen where we kept the sharp apple-cutting knife, and I knew I'd kill myself if I stepped even one foot in that direction. I isolated myself in my room feeling absolutely miserable, and decided to work on this poem to feel better. But being depressed as I was, I felt even worse looking at this wonderful thing I had made. I couldn't stand to see two people happy, even in my imagination, when I was feeling so sad. So I ruined their lives. I wrote what I was feeling, and killed them off. I tried to do it in a beautiful way, but I essentially destroyed them and their happiness for my sake. I ruined what was to be my first love poem. I destroyed love to make myself feel better, and I felt horrible inside for doing it. Since then, I haven't been able to look at this poem. It made me too sad to see it.
Jump forward to right now, and
sent me a note about my actual name, since I said I'd mention it when I turned 18. It was an old note, and it had this poem in it. It's the first time I've read it in months, if not a year, and I'm pretty happy with it. The writing is better than I thought, and it's still sad, but this time it seems more beautiful than I remember. It seems to have meaning to me, and carries a feeling. I like it a whole lot more, and I'm glad that I wrote it. Reading it the first time was like being an anonymous reader, reading an anonymous author, who ironically I feel I can relate to, but still don't understand completely. I find myself wondering "what does this part mean to the author" or "what was the artist's feeling and intent with these lines?" I'm seriously that lost on this. Except for a few key lines that jump out at me in my memory, I forgot all about this. I'm pretty detached now, but it's nice to see something that made me miserable from a readers' perspective, and find merit and value in it.
Sorry for my long explanation for this, but I'm feeling a bit nostalgic, because it's been a year, and also because I think the story adds a bit to the poem. You can't really isolate it from the shift in feeling and emotion that went into writing it. Oh, and I had it italicized throughout the poem, but different parts are meant to be the parts of the lovers and also their counterparts--their shadows as the day and their lives press on. I didn't care for the italics, though, because it was a bit of an afterthought, and I like how ambiguous it is. It can either be the shadows or the lovers in various parts, and it gives it a whole different meaning. It also helps with the image of their love being a shadow that follows them, something vaguely attached, but for the most part left behind. I'll add them back in if it gets really confusing, though.
Comments and critique are much appreciated.
Thanks in advance for reading (and even more if you sifted through all of this description text.)
P.S.
You can find the original version before the day I tampered with it right here: niedec.deviantart.com/art/Poet…
Copyright and related rights waived via CC0
---
Hi,
This poem actually isn't new at all. It's just about a year old now.
I wrote this poem last year at around this time, I believe for my Personal Renaissance Project (every year, I use the month of my birthday as a challenge to produce the most and best pieces of art that I can. I almost always lose, but it's kinda fun. Didn't really get into this year, though.) Anyway, last year at about this time, I was trying to write the most beautiful thing that I could. I was breaking out of structured poetry and moving into free verse, and this poem was supposed to be my first true love poem. I'd never been in love, and yet I really wanted to capture that feeling. At first, it was a cynical "love poems are so cliche, even someone without a clue what it is can write a great one" attitude. But this one was different. By this point, I honestly wanted to know what love was, and decided that even though I didn't have a clue, I'd do my best to write the most beautiful thing I could think of and try to understand it. But then a lot of things seemed to get piled on top of me at once, and I felt restrained and depressed. That depression lead to becoming suicidal, and one day, I knew I was going to hurt myself if I left my room. I could see the counter with the little drawer on one side in the kitchen where we kept the sharp apple-cutting knife, and I knew I'd kill myself if I stepped even one foot in that direction. I isolated myself in my room feeling absolutely miserable, and decided to work on this poem to feel better. But being depressed as I was, I felt even worse looking at this wonderful thing I had made. I couldn't stand to see two people happy, even in my imagination, when I was feeling so sad. So I ruined their lives. I wrote what I was feeling, and killed them off. I tried to do it in a beautiful way, but I essentially destroyed them and their happiness for my sake. I ruined what was to be my first love poem. I destroyed love to make myself feel better, and I felt horrible inside for doing it. Since then, I haven't been able to look at this poem. It made me too sad to see it.
Jump forward to right now, and
sent me a note about my actual name, since I said I'd mention it when I turned 18. It was an old note, and it had this poem in it. It's the first time I've read it in months, if not a year, and I'm pretty happy with it. The writing is better than I thought, and it's still sad, but this time it seems more beautiful than I remember. It seems to have meaning to me, and carries a feeling. I like it a whole lot more, and I'm glad that I wrote it. Reading it the first time was like being an anonymous reader, reading an anonymous author, who ironically I feel I can relate to, but still don't understand completely. I find myself wondering "what does this part mean to the author" or "what was the artist's feeling and intent with these lines?" I'm seriously that lost on this. Except for a few key lines that jump out at me in my memory, I forgot all about this. I'm pretty detached now, but it's nice to see something that made me miserable from a readers' perspective, and find merit and value in it. Sorry for my long explanation for this, but I'm feeling a bit nostalgic, because it's been a year, and also because I think the story adds a bit to the poem. You can't really isolate it from the shift in feeling and emotion that went into writing it. Oh, and I had it italicized throughout the poem, but different parts are meant to be the parts of the lovers and also their counterparts--their shadows as the day and their lives press on. I didn't care for the italics, though, because it was a bit of an afterthought, and I like how ambiguous it is. It can either be the shadows or the lovers in various parts, and it gives it a whole different meaning. It also helps with the image of their love being a shadow that follows them, something vaguely attached, but for the most part left behind. I'll add them back in if it gets really confusing, though.
Comments and critique are much appreciated.
Thanks in advance for reading (and even more if you sifted through all of this description text.)
P.S.
You can find the original version before the day I tampered with it right here: niedec.deviantart.com/art/Poet…
© 2008 - 2024 niedec
Comments24
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I thought this was beautiful. Not a typical love poem but it sounded to me like a love poem nonetheless. I saw it as a story about people who loved each other till death and then remained in love even after they saw each other "perhaps for the first time for who they really were"
I have no experience with love so I'm not the best source to say but I think this kind of reflects the tone of a sonnet by Shakespeare (sonnet 130). That juxtaposes shall I compare thee to a summers day.
There are a few parts I'm I'm a little confused about and from what I read in your description I don't know if you can help me but I figured I'd give it a shot. Why you did the spacing the way you did in the first stanza putting a space before fences and where did the drops that smothered your family come from.
This truly was lovely.
I have no experience with love so I'm not the best source to say but I think this kind of reflects the tone of a sonnet by Shakespeare (sonnet 130). That juxtaposes shall I compare thee to a summers day.
There are a few parts I'm I'm a little confused about and from what I read in your description I don't know if you can help me but I figured I'd give it a shot. Why you did the spacing the way you did in the first stanza putting a space before fences and where did the drops that smothered your family come from.
This truly was lovely.