JUNE youtube RECITATION
IN
SOUNDS OF MODERN VERSE
Perfectionist, I will never be.
Alas, not even in the land of poetry!
Why can I not a mistake make?
It's a poem, after all, not a bridal cake!
Few here, a true classical poem can pen.
Nor can I, even modern verse mend!
So, shall I go on with poetic communication?
Or remove all my poetry, till I meet your qualifications?
To pen, or not to pen?
Maybe, after all, this is my final end.
The heart and truth is not wanted here.
Poems with meaning, replied to rarely, due to fear.
The best poets here, for shame, not read!
What goes on in poetic heads?
3/1/2021
~4~
distracted
surrounded ,
shackled
thoughts
struggle
to escape
finite
observations
contained
by
constraints,
by
scruples,
erupt ..
pour forth...
become surreal
scribbles..
sand
meaning
timelessness
an unreality
metamorphiposis
no place to go:
dusk
dark to dark
leaving tomorrow
at once memories
surface:
set pieces
without location
mirrors of mystery
passive
portraits:
simple
compositions
paraphrases
of
empirical experiences:
suppose I...
incomprehensible
enigmas in words
clever:
incomplete
verbs,adjectives,
nouns
talking to thenselves in verse
Who reads? Who listens?
imaginative
eclectic
elective
ingenious
ingenuous
incoherent
a confused ramble along
a detour
without a compass or map
Sentences that make no sense,
Words that are likewise afflicted.
Messages that are at best dense,
A vessel of verbiage is depicted.
Such is the state of modern verse
Designed to be deciphered by no one.
I doubt it can get a syllable worse,
Though I speak not of all, only some.
Shouldn't a poem present meaning?
Shouldn't it have something to convey?
Should I care what a poet is dreaming
If his/her dreams have nothing to say?
Lofty, soaring phrases are meritable,
Unless composed at wasted expense.
To abide them one must be charitable,
Then seek a poem premised on sense.
David the First
In an old photo
I’m being bathed by a boy
looking quite bashful. . .
the first young man to hold me -
my mother’s only brother.
David Bunker
My first love note came
from junior high’s smartest guy -
shy freckled David,
future doctor of acclaim.
For one month I had his heart.
David Williams
Our poet at Soup -
like the one of Bible times
whose psalms soothed a king -
touches us with modern verse
and blesses us with friendship.
(As I went to enter the contest, I noticed I was supposed
to write of only one famous David. Well, I don't know the famous
ones like i know these three. In a way, my middle one is famous.
I just googled him and saw he was on the short list of nominations
for a prestigioius award naming most honorary of all students who
ever graduated from my high school! and of course, our own
David Williams is famous at SOUP!!)
COMATOSE
Some call it verse without the rhyme
Marcel Marceau without the mime
The wasted words get joined in prose
and leave me mostly comatose.....
Yes busted prose is comatose
like coffins in a hearse
modern verse is for the crows
for making nests or worse...
so proze for those that wind it so,
just can't get a handle on it,
the modern world loves it though,
i just can't place the grommet.
Don Johnson 12-jul-11
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.