It presents such a dilemma when I am forced to choose between posting a poem for public viewing and submitting it (or saving it for submission) to a poetry competition. It seems as if the "system" wants to limit the public posting of such poems; of course, if the poet is significantly accomplished and eminent, such problems naturally dissipate. For example, the purpose itself of submitting to poetry competitions, as well as the complementary issue of being able to come up with good poetry consistently enough that posting some (and thus voiding their utility in competitions) cease to be a problem.
And in creating something of a balance between posting and "saving," I have found a notable drawback: this creates the scenario that all poetry posted is poetry that was at some point deemed "inferior," thereby potentially decreasing the desire for people to read the poetry and also the desire of the poster to continue. This endless downward spiral is terrible and cannot be allowed.
A potential solution? Make it so that poetry that is submitted can have been published beforehand, as long it has not won another competition and there is proof that the author wrote the original poem. Of course, this requires more work to prevent plagiarism, but it resolves the key issue that remained beforehand, namely, the existence of plagiarized submissions. I do not possess extensive (or even that much) knowledge of the anti-plagiarism (and as of now anti-published) "checks" the organizations that run competitions go through, but I believe the burden this solution creates can be mitigated greatly if the competitors are required to provide proof of originality and the like. As for what form this proof might take and how this can be verified, I am not entirely sure. But it's an idea.
I suppose for now I will continue on my current system of posting most of my poetry, only withholding a small proportion in order to use as "competition material." Even that proportion I will endeavor to publish after the competition ceases to be, either having rejected the poetry or having lauded it. In either case, I will add an "originally written" date for informative purposes, and will try to fill the gap where poems were withheld with some shorter, less time-consuming (but hopefully just as interesting) poetry.
Well, there you have it. A bit of a rant, but hopefully some food for thought. Who knows, maybe the system can be changed someday. But for now, on with the poetry!
Saturday, July 29, 2017
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Wings
Humans, wingless as they are,
Will scour the world around,
No stone unturned, near or far,
But quarry yet unfound.
And failing to even replicate
This dreamlike world above,
They simply learn to accept their fate
And so the ground they love.
Despite themselves, a greed remains,
Tearing at their core,
For futile are their avian feigns,
So much they yearn to soar.
A landbound man is twisted by
His own unsightly lack,
For even the smallest fly
Has found his craven track.
And so proceeds year after year,
A rolling stone so cast,
The truth growing ever clear,
That dream wings cannot last.
Perhaps dreams are just dreams,
From every heart the legend sings,
The day of flight will wait, it seems,
For the one who finds his wings.
Who shall it be? Perhaps we see their feathers, glimpses of possibility amidst the mundane. It seems they hide in plain sight. Perhaps above us they soar. Watch for the wings...for they may even be yours.
Note: this is kind of a quick poem, written on a phone in a bus on a road in summer in...
Will scour the world around,
No stone unturned, near or far,
But quarry yet unfound.
And failing to even replicate
This dreamlike world above,
They simply learn to accept their fate
And so the ground they love.
Despite themselves, a greed remains,
Tearing at their core,
For futile are their avian feigns,
So much they yearn to soar.
A landbound man is twisted by
His own unsightly lack,
For even the smallest fly
Has found his craven track.
And so proceeds year after year,
A rolling stone so cast,
The truth growing ever clear,
That dream wings cannot last.
Perhaps dreams are just dreams,
From every heart the legend sings,
The day of flight will wait, it seems,
For the one who finds his wings.
Who shall it be? Perhaps we see their feathers, glimpses of possibility amidst the mundane. It seems they hide in plain sight. Perhaps above us they soar. Watch for the wings...for they may even be yours.
Note: this is kind of a quick poem, written on a phone in a bus on a road in summer in...
On Success
To bid unbidden souls to fight,
To stand unyielding in their light,
To send unwitting swords to fray,
To rejoice their derring-do by day,
And to shelter aft by night,
Thus is the warrior's way.
To lie belying truth at one,
To slander the not-yet begun,
To accost the cost of lies at two,
To affirm the need to follow through,
And desert before the task is done,
As politicians do.
And so can you.
I apologize for the hiatus from this blog; I was afflicted by what I suppose can be considered poet's block. In addition, my schedule was tighter than usual due to a project I was working on. Anyhow, here we are again.
To stand unyielding in their light,
To send unwitting swords to fray,
To rejoice their derring-do by day,
And to shelter aft by night,
Thus is the warrior's way.
To lie belying truth at one,
To slander the not-yet begun,
To accost the cost of lies at two,
To affirm the need to follow through,
And desert before the task is done,
As politicians do.
And so can you.
I apologize for the hiatus from this blog; I was afflicted by what I suppose can be considered poet's block. In addition, my schedule was tighter than usual due to a project I was working on. Anyhow, here we are again.
Friday, July 14, 2017
Not If But When
When all fails to change,
When none bow to authority,
When the lowliest of the low dare retaliate,
When the mightiest of the mighty can do nothing,
When speech turns to drone at meeting air,
When ink turns to smoke while forming words,
When heads turn away at a single glance,
When eyes avert into the shadows,
When the ships fade from the harbor,
When the shop windows cloud with dust,
When the brightest gold dulls to gray,
When the softest throne hardens into stone,
When the night is tainted with screams,
Yet screams yield nothing but spite,
When the day is rife with enmity,
Of insurrection and utter rancor,
When consciousness and sleep are one,
When death and life converge,
When the once-dominant fall before the once-weak,
When the once-weak fell the once-dominant,
When power is leeched dry,
And reshuffled is the fear,
When taken with unsuspected force,
Deny not that the end is near.
For such things are inevitable...at least if history is any indicator. Yes, history, the silent witness to the greatest sins, to the reality that it is never if, always when.
When none bow to authority,
When the lowliest of the low dare retaliate,
When the mightiest of the mighty can do nothing,
When speech turns to drone at meeting air,
When ink turns to smoke while forming words,
When heads turn away at a single glance,
When eyes avert into the shadows,
When the ships fade from the harbor,
When the shop windows cloud with dust,
When the brightest gold dulls to gray,
When the softest throne hardens into stone,
When the night is tainted with screams,
Yet screams yield nothing but spite,
When the day is rife with enmity,
Of insurrection and utter rancor,
When consciousness and sleep are one,
When death and life converge,
When the once-dominant fall before the once-weak,
When the once-weak fell the once-dominant,
When power is leeched dry,
And reshuffled is the fear,
When taken with unsuspected force,
Deny not that the end is near.
For such things are inevitable...at least if history is any indicator. Yes, history, the silent witness to the greatest sins, to the reality that it is never if, always when.
Monday, July 10, 2017
Waiting
I lie,
Waiting,
Recumbent upon the bed of the downy chair,
Adrift in the waking dreams of almost-maybe,
Of perhaps broiled with rather-not,
Of if-only salted lightly with I-wish-it-were,
A sleep timed to the clockwork heartbeats,
Of the forever-eye mounted upon the whitest wall,
An immaculate white,
As opposed to slighlty-less-thans of the doors,
Both the inevitable and the threshold,
Two exits, though one only to lead deeper,
Into the lion's lair,
Into the hall of prison cells,
Where each second plunges one ever deeper into the rather-not,
Perhaps-if-only-I-wish-it-were vanishing into the distance,
With no going back.
And then I am roughly ejected from my nightmare,
Black expunged by overpowering white,
Only to notice
I had never left.
Liberal hyphens! Dark revelations! Inescapable nightmares!
Note: I will use five lines of space for future post-poem commentary as well, for this way the commentary is better distinguished (especially at a glance) from the poem itself. Additionally, this creates some space for thought, something every poem should provide.
Waiting,
Recumbent upon the bed of the downy chair,
Adrift in the waking dreams of almost-maybe,
Of perhaps broiled with rather-not,
Of if-only salted lightly with I-wish-it-were,
A sleep timed to the clockwork heartbeats,
Of the forever-eye mounted upon the whitest wall,
An immaculate white,
As opposed to slighlty-less-thans of the doors,
Both the inevitable and the threshold,
Two exits, though one only to lead deeper,
Into the lion's lair,
Into the hall of prison cells,
Where each second plunges one ever deeper into the rather-not,
Perhaps-if-only-I-wish-it-were vanishing into the distance,
With no going back.
And then I am roughly ejected from my nightmare,
Black expunged by overpowering white,
Only to notice
I had never left.
Liberal hyphens! Dark revelations! Inescapable nightmares!
Note: I will use five lines of space for future post-poem commentary as well, for this way the commentary is better distinguished (especially at a glance) from the poem itself. Additionally, this creates some space for thought, something every poem should provide.
Thursday, July 6, 2017
Tainted Lines
When endings lack strength
Or beginnings clarity,
When the middle is a jumble
Without form or parity,
When the rhyme is crooked,
And the meter uncouth,
When consonance fails,
The diction gone south,
Alliteration acting up,
The repetition stale,
Every word a painful stab
Strategies to no avail,
Decoupled couplets over
Dismembered haikus,
Still-stilted sonnets,
Callow cinquains to lose,
Lines after lines from
Poor to even worse,
But find yourself solace
Within free (uni)verse!
Not so tainted? Ah well; optimism is sweetest in moderation. So be it.
Or beginnings clarity,
When the middle is a jumble
Without form or parity,
When the rhyme is crooked,
And the meter uncouth,
When consonance fails,
The diction gone south,
Alliteration acting up,
The repetition stale,
Every word a painful stab
Strategies to no avail,
Decoupled couplets over
Dismembered haikus,
Still-stilted sonnets,
Callow cinquains to lose,
Lines after lines from
Poor to even worse,
But find yourself solace
Within free (uni)verse!
Not so tainted? Ah well; optimism is sweetest in moderation. So be it.
Sunday, July 2, 2017
A Dying Wish
Close comes the end;
to death append
a sort of life
without the strife
that might have been...
If only when
it all began
there was a reason
brought about
in a wayward route
by some sort of thought
when one thought why not
when one
became a dozen
became a million
became 7 billion
and all
began to fall
into place
for the race
that could only start
if the art
of the rules
and the tools
chosen
by that one
carefully done
so all could be begun
and all that is a dream
could seem
more real
and feel
like the paradise
that would suffice
to fulfill
the will
of the one with the sole
role
because what we wait
for is the fate
of the one.
Anyone.
to death append
a sort of life
without the strife
that might have been...
If only when
it all began
there was a reason
brought about
in a wayward route
by some sort of thought
when one thought why not
when one
became a dozen
became a million
became 7 billion
and all
began to fall
into place
for the race
that could only start
if the art
of the rules
and the tools
chosen
by that one
carefully done
so all could be begun
and all that is a dream
could seem
more real
and feel
like the paradise
that would suffice
to fulfill
the will
of the one with the sole
role
because what we wait
for is the fate
of the one.
Anyone.
Where All Must End
"There is a place where the sidewalk ends,"
Where gray turns black,
Where shifting smoke fills every crack,
Where there lacks a line 'twixt the ground and sky,
Where the dirt can fly,
Where the air can sigh,
Where the warm sun rays will wave goodbye.
There is a place where heartbeats end,
Where none dare tread,
Where the light hangs dead,
Where the sound of footsteps is dulled by the dust,
Where eyes bear crust,
Where bones bear rust,
Where the wind brings death with every gust.
There is a place where colors end,
Where day is night,
Where wrong is right,
Where all the world begins to blend,
Where the skies descend,
Where the buildings bend,
Where all must come to an end.
...including the poem. (that was not a part of the poem) Anyway, this is a poetry experiment I am taking for a spin; with all the talk about endings, here's to a potential beginning.
As for the (possible) series's name, I believe something akin to "Divergence" will be appropriate. If you have not already deduced, the experimental series will consist of poetry beginning with (but likely diverging heavily from) the first line or two of a famous poem. In this case, the first line is from "Where the Sidewalk Ends," by Shel Silverstein. As Silverstein's poem is relatively short, I thought it best to take only the first line.
Where gray turns black,
Where shifting smoke fills every crack,
Where there lacks a line 'twixt the ground and sky,
Where the dirt can fly,
Where the air can sigh,
Where the warm sun rays will wave goodbye.
There is a place where heartbeats end,
Where none dare tread,
Where the light hangs dead,
Where the sound of footsteps is dulled by the dust,
Where eyes bear crust,
Where bones bear rust,
Where the wind brings death with every gust.
There is a place where colors end,
Where day is night,
Where wrong is right,
Where all the world begins to blend,
Where the skies descend,
Where the buildings bend,
Where all must come to an end.
...including the poem. (that was not a part of the poem) Anyway, this is a poetry experiment I am taking for a spin; with all the talk about endings, here's to a potential beginning.
As for the (possible) series's name, I believe something akin to "Divergence" will be appropriate. If you have not already deduced, the experimental series will consist of poetry beginning with (but likely diverging heavily from) the first line or two of a famous poem. In this case, the first line is from "Where the Sidewalk Ends," by Shel Silverstein. As Silverstein's poem is relatively short, I thought it best to take only the first line.
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