Join us every Monday night for drinks at the Daily Kos community political poetry club
Your own poetry is always welcome in the comments
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This is my first poetry diary on DailyKos.
I tend to write about many subjects, not just political. Looking through my portfolio, I realized that many of my older political writings were right-leaning due to them coming while I was still writing blindly. Thankfully, I learned to see...
So, I decided to share some poems about myself. Specifically, they relate to learning to love myself and not letting others control me.
I hope you enjoy.
I hope you will indulge introductions and postscripts to some of the poems.
My father's Path
Leaves of Grass
demolished in a lawnmower's path,
editing the unneeded,
swallowing the words.
Like a greyhound chasing
a mechanical rabbit,
I am destined to finish
my father's second.
Reduction
The proud oak collapses,
pulled down by vagrant vines.
Buried beneath him now
is a field coated with clover,
where we used to sit
and make necklaces in the summer,
and a bed of reeds
that surround the trickling stream.
The raging river
wasted all his energy
on senseless damage.
Now stuck in a deep rut,
the stream runs under the once great oak,
giving life
and a future
to the remainder of the woods.
This next poem is a
sestina. Also, the last words in the first stanza are an
acrostic. (Garden-Ass-Reality-Return-Exited-To Tell...G-A-R-R-E-TT) It was written in a little rage from an ex who tied to lead me on again after not seeing him for a year.
Garrett's Wild Ride
I open the door to him telling me I need to weed my garden.
How can I since he waltzed through, plowing over my ass?
He walked out of my life, shattering my reality
leaving me no hope of convincing him to return.
I just can't understand that after he exited,
he still wants to come back with tales to tell.
I look at him, full those tall tales he is aching to tell,
and I see him for what he is...a rabbit in the garden,
eating all the carrots and cucumbers before exiting,
running back to the wild, still full of animal desires. What an ass
to spread his seed everywhere, only to get bored and return.
He is no longer my master, and no longer part of my reality.
It's kind of funny his distortion of reality.
I've got a control in the secrets I never intend to tell.
He still thinks he has the upper hand. And so he returns,
telling me time and time again how I am his spiritual garden.
Full of himself and basking in his martyrdom, he rides in on an ass
singing hosannas for himself, not realizing his followers have exited.
I sing "I Don't Know How To Love Him" while I exit.
He is still affecting me in ways I wish I could escape. He really
still causes me pain. (Damn that glorious pain in the ass!)
I wish I could confess my desires without weakness, to tell
how I wish we could go back to our sacred garden,
but I know after the original sin, you can no longer return.
But I can! I can plant some new seeds and return
to the garden. I don't have to live alone after love exits.
I can sow my own seed and plant a new spiritual garden,
far away from his hunger. Far away from his illusion of reality.
There are many out there waiting, with true stories to tell.
Life is too fertile to have to wait for shit from an ass.
So although I opened the door for him and his worn ass,
I am not opening my heart and allowing him to return.
But, I'm not letting him know, for to tell
would be to give him the power. With his exit
from my heart, I gained the power. It is my reality
and I can plant whatever I want in my lively garden.
I yell at him that I'll weed my garden when I want. "Take your ass
out of here and don't return until you get a hold on reality."
With that he exits, looking defeated. But I still have a story to tell.
This one has an obscure historical tidbit or two. Many of the items are rumors, but still fun to contemplate. (see notes after)
Your History Lesson
You were created for me out of my rib.
Eve you were named,
and you quelled my lonely existence.
Naked and unashamed we enjoyed each other
and the fruits in our father's orchard.
Or we did until you listened to the venomous
serpent and forgot our sacred promises,
eating the tempting apple of ruin.
You dressed yourself in foliage,
while I am immersed in your manure.
You are not my mother,
though you ruled my life as if you were.
His Majesty Queen Hatshepsut
I bow down before you.
You pushed me aside and crowned yourself,
stealing all my father left for me.
Upon your death, I will erase you,
destroying the temples you built for yourself.
Your restless spirit will never sleep.
Next to my heart is your nose in a jar.
You conquered my existence by struggling
and fighting your way to the sea.
You were called Catherine the Great
by the enlightened ones,
but you ignored the teachings they brought.
Your tight grip on my jewels
kept me close beside you, even though
they no longer brought you satisfaction.
Newton watched you fall, laughing as the horses legs
collapsed, crushing your sexually frustrated body.
Living in your little dream world,
Marie Antoinette, a cherie,
you can play with your multicolored sheep
while ignoring the hunger cries from your subjects.
Crying for bread,
you offered them cake,
not realizing your little dream world
was collapsing around you.
Your head fell into a bloody breadbasket,
your cornsilk overflowing the sides.
You are GoGo and I am DiDi,
along together by a barren tree.
I am singing of a love
that is going nowhere,
while you are sitting
fiddling with your boots.
We wait on a love that isn't coming
and consider hanging ourselves.
Nothing to be done,
Godot has more sense than that.
The Adam and Eve story is pretty straighforward, but the others may not be as accessible.
Queen Hatshepsut (linked to wikipedia above) took over as regent for her husband/half-brother's son before pushing him aside and installing herself as Pharoah. Her reign was peaceful and fruitful, but rumor was that her step-son/nephew held a great deal of animosity towards her, erasing her name and image from many monuments. Scholars not believe this is not the case, and it was actually Thutmose III's son that tied to erase her from history to chore up his own royal bloodline. In the religious beliefs of Ancient Egyptiams, the nose being removed from statues was seen as a way to exile the spirit of a person in the afterlife ny depriving the spirit of a place to rest, as the spirit could only enter statues through the nose.
Catherine the Great did meet and correspond with several Age of Enlightenment figures. She was also rumored to have been a sexual deviant, and there were claims that she succumbed after sexual relations with a horse, but these are false. She was known, however, to take younger lovers after the death of her husband.
The story of Marie Antoinette is well known. There were rumors she used to escape to a smaller version of Versaille and pretend to be a commoner. She was accused of being so flighty that she insisted on having sheep with wool died in different colors, since obviously colored wool came from colored sheep. This is also likely untrue, but she was well known for spending lavishly and gambling compulsively.
The last stanza is based on Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot. If you are unfamiliar, I encourage you to check out the absurd play. It flirts with deep thoughts, but then discards them for a discussion on hanging themselves to get an erection.
I hope you enjoyed these few pieces...