Pathetic And Damp

lover of poetry, etc etc. Pretty much just a Wilfred Owen/Siegfried Sassoon fan page at this point - I apologise in advance <3 come here for sad poems and occasionally some shitty originals from yours truly ig :)) Main bs account: @dorianslayyy

[apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway]

Preface (Unfinished)

-Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, dominion, or power,

-

except War.

Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry.

The subject of it is War, and the pity of War.

The Poetry is in the pity.

Yet these elegies are not to this generation,

This is in no sense consolatory.

-

They may be to the next.

All the poet can do today is to warn.

That is why the true Poets must be truthful.

If I thought the letter of this book would last,

I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives Prussia,— my ambition and those names will be content; for they will have achieved themselves fresher fields than Flanders.

[starryeyeddarlings]

writing these are addictive

[apoemaday]

Edge

by Sylvia Plath

The woman is perfected. Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment, The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga, Her bare

Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent, One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty. She has folded

Them back into her body as petals Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about, Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.

[doebrain]

WHEAT DROWNING IN STRANGE WEATHER

the botanist said wheat can scream. under drought it shivers, emits volatile gases. i asked what it says. he shrugged. he hadn't listened. instead he catalogued the strangulation patterns of wind in barrows. i catalogued my breathlessness in public elevators. every trauma has its own appetite. in 1867 a farmer in derbyshire salted the earth in neat grids because his wife dreamt that angels would descend only onto salted fields. they did not. but moss grew in spirals no one could explain. i think that's love. or its famine.

in the zoo there's a blind tiger. it knows the layout of its enclosure by the angle of sun hitting its whiskers. when children scream, it backs into the corners. a man beside me says it's a mercy, really. to be blind in captivity. i said yes, but i didn't mean it.

wheat cries. tigers cower. moss dreams. none of this helps me forgive the man who turned off the lights before i could reach the stairs. he thought it was funny. i was twelve. when i panic now, my legs become roles & my tongue a mothball.

i am asking whether trauma ever stops growing once it finds sunlight. the botanist said wheat keeps screaming even as it flowers. maybe especially then.

[makingsenseofwhathappened]

hi. just a reminder

your anger is not ugly your fury's not too loud

something that should’ve been safe wasn't but you had to smile through it like the curves were the shape of healing.

of course you’re mad and on fire. that heat kept you going.

it's what kept you alive.

love, someone who knows your spark isn't the problem

[cafe-fotografia]

[leer-reading-lire]

Alguien me habló todos los días de mi vida

al oído, despacio, lentamente.

Me dijo: ¡vive, vive, vive!

Era la muerte.

Jaime Sabines

[dorianslayyy]

A Letter Home

(To Robert Graves)

•One:

Here I'm sitting in the gloom

Of my quiet attic room.

France goes rolling all around,

Fledged with forest May has crowned.

And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted,

Thinking how the fighting started,

Wondering when we'll ever end it,

Back to hell with Kaiser send it,

Gag the noise, pack up and go,

Clockwork soldiers in a row.

I've got better things to do

Than to waste my time on you.

•Two:

Robert, when I drowse to-night,

Skirting lawns of sleep to chase

Shifting dreams in mazy light,

Somewhere then I'll see your face

Turning back to bid me follow

Where I wag my arms and hollo,

Over hedges hasting after

Crooked smile and baffling laughter,

Running tireless, floating, leaping,

Down your web-hung woods and valleys,

Garden glooms and hornbeam alleys,

Where the glowworm stars are peeping,

Till I find you, quiet as stone

On a hill-top all alone,

Staring outward, gravely pondering

Jumbled leagues of hillock-wandering.

•Three:

You and I have walked together

In the starving winter weather.

We've been glad because we knew

Time's too short and friends are few.

We've been sad because we missed

One whose yellow head was kissed

By the gods, who thought about him

Till they couldn't live without him.

Now he's here again; I've seen

Soldier David dressed in green,

Standing in a wood that swings

To the madrigal he sings.

He's come back, all mirth and glory,

Like the Prince in a fairy story.

Winter called him far away;

Blossoms bring him home with May.

•Four:

Well, I know you'll swear it's true

That you found him decked in blue

Striding up through morning-land

With a cloud on either hand.

Out in Wales, you'll say, he marches

Arm-in-arm with oaks and larches;

Hides all night in hilly nooks,

Laughs at dawn in tumbling brooks.

Yet, it's certain, here he teaches

Outpost-schemes to grips of beeches.

And I'm sure, as here I stand,

That he shines through every land,

That he sings in every place

Where we're thinking of his face.

•Five:

Robert, there's a war in France;

Everywhere men bang and blunder,

Sweat and swear and worship Chance,

Creep and blink through cannon thunder.

Rifles crack and bullets flick,

Sing and hum like hornet-swarms.

Bones are smashed and buried quick.

Yet, through stunning battle storms.

All the while I watch the spark

Lit to guide me; for I know

Dreams will triumph, though the dark

Scowls above me where I go.

You can hear me; you can mingle

Radiant folly with my jingle,

War's a joke for me and you

While we know such dreams are true!

Siegfried Sassoon

[apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway]

The Kiss

- Adam Lowe (1985-p.)

We kiss in front of your monument,

our lips pressed like this, the ovals

of our mouths bunched into fists.

-

We hold tight with soft arms,

and tango in rows, our bodies

all faces and hooked elbows.

-

We kiss outside parliament

to show you we’re here. We kiss

in the street. We kiss without fear.

[apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway]

Haram

- Warsan Shire (1988-p.)

My older sister soaps between her legs, her hair

a prayer of curls. When she was my age, she stole

the neighbour’s husband, burnt his name into her skin.

For weeks she smelt of cheap perfume and dying flesh.

It’s 4am and she winks at me, bending over the sink,

her small breasts bruised from sucking.

She smiles, pops her gum before saying

boys are haram, don’t ever forget that.

Some nights I hear her in her room screaming.

We play Surah Al-Baqarah to drown her out.

Anything that leaves her mouth sounds like sex.

Our mother has banned her from saying God’s name.

[apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway]

Midnight in the Foreign Food Aisle

- Warsan Shire (1988-p.)

Dear Uncle, is everything you love foreign

Or are you foreign to everything you love?

We’re all animals and the body wants what it wants,

I know. The blonde said Come in, take off

your coat and what do you want to drink?

Love is not haram but after years of fucking

women who cannot pronounce your name,

you find yourself in the foreign food aisle,

pressing your face into the ground, praying

in a language you haven’t used in years.

[apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway]

Backwards

- Warsan Shire (1988-p.)

(For Saaid Shire)

The poem can start with him walking backwards into a room.

He takes off his jacket and sits down for the rest of his life,

that’s how we bring Dad back.

I can make the blood run back up my nose, ants rushing into a hole.

We grow into smaller bodies, my breasts disappear,

your cheeks soften, teeth sink back into gums.

I can make us loved, just say the word.

Give them stumps for hands if even once they touched us without consent,

I can write the poem and make it disappear.

Step Dad spits liquor back into glass,

Mum’s body rolls back up the stairs, the bone pops back into place,

maybe she keeps the baby.

Maybe we’re okay kid?

I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love,

you won’t be able to see beyond it.

You won’t be able to see beyond it,

I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love.

Maybe we’re okay kid,

maybe she keeps the baby.

Mum’s body rolls back up the stairs, the bone pops back into place,

Step Dad spits liquor back into glass.

I can write the poem and make it disappear,

give them stumps for hands if even once they touched us without consent,

I can make us loved, just say the word.

Your cheeks soften, teeth sink back into gums

we grow into smaller bodies, my breasts disappear.

I can make the blood run back up my nose, ants rushing into a hole,

that’s how we bring Dad back.

He takes off his jacket and sits down for the rest of his life.

The poem can start with him walking backwards into a room.

[stolenhead]

You, the living sea

rolling into me, the shore,

dead thing made of dirt.

[apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway]

Cerberus

- Orignal by me :)

Tear me apart limb from limb

Build tools from my carcass

And destroy the fleshy remains—

Whittle yourself an instrument,

Lull to sleep the other faces

Which tear and drag and chew,

Mashed remains of the day,

Horror stories.

Too raw to tell the lie

From the truths on either side;

You land in the middle

Of the silence and of the blood

Clotting and warping and crying

To rise from the shards

Of minds mangled to serve—

—What purpose do you seek?

You don’t know; it doesn’t matter

Regardless, you will find it alone,

Kicking and dragging and screaming

still singing:

You can use me,

If you want

[apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway]

For Sale

- Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

Poor sheepish plaything,

organized with prodigal animosity,

lived in just a year —

my Father’s cottage at Beverly Farms

was on the market the month he died.

Empty, open, intimate,

its town-house furniture

had an on tiptoe air

of waiting for the mover

on thé heels of the undertaker.

Ready, afraid

of living alone till eighty,

Mother mooned in a window,

as if she had stayed on a train

one stop past her destination.

[apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway]

One For Sorrow

- original by me :)

The warmth of your presence

Of your arm, leg, head against mine

Hand in hand, tucked in tight-

The silver of him glitters,

My gold is dull and metallic.

You remind me of a magpie

Like this. In your black clothes.

I know the rhyme; I remember.

If we stay here long enough

I wonder if I will become you?

I’ll burn alive to keep you warm

You’ll peel the rust away with a smile;

Make treasure of the washed out,

Cheapened bones of me

[apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway]

Poppies

- Jane Weir (1963-p.)

Three days before Armistice Sunday

and poppies had already been placed

on individual war graves. Before you left,

I pinned one onto your lapel, crimped petals,

spasms of paper red, disrupting a blockade

of yellow bias binding around your blazer.

*

Sellotape bandaged around my hand,

I rounded up as many white cat hairs

as I could, smoothed down your shirt’s

upturned collar, steeled the softening

of my face. I wanted to graze my nose

across the tip of your nose, play at

being Eskimos like we did when

you were little. I resisted the impulse

to run my fingers through the gelled

blackthorns of your hair. All my words

flattened, rolled, turned into felt,

*

slowly melting. I was brave, as I walked

with you, to the front door, threw

it open, the world overflowing

like a treasure chest. A split second

and you were away, intoxicated.

After you’d gone I went into your bedroom,

released a song bird from its cage.

Later a single dove flew from the pear tree,

and this is where it has led me,

skirting the church yard walls, my stomach busy

making tucks, darts, pleats, hat-less, without

a winter coat or reinforcements of scarf, gloves.

*

On reaching the top of the hill I traced

the inscriptions on the war memorial,

leaned against it like a wishbone.

The dove pulled freely against the sky,

an ornamental stitch. I listened, hoping to hear

your playground voice catching on the wind.

[apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway]

Before You Were Mine

- Dame Carol Ann Duffy (1955-p.)

I’m ten years away from the corner you laugh on

with your pals, Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff.

The three of you bend from the waist, holding

each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement.

Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.

~

I’m not here yet. The thought of me doesn’t occur

in the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows

the right walk home could bring. I knew you would dance

like that. Before you were mine, your Ma stands at the close

with a hiding for the late one. You reckon it’s worth it.

~

The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh?

I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics,

and now your ghost clatters toward me over George Square

til I see you, clear as scent, under the tree,

with its lights, and whose small bites on your neck, sweetheart?

~

Cha cha cha! You’d teach me the steps on the way home from Mass,

stamping stars from the wrong pavement. Even then

I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello, somewhere

in Scotland, before I was born. That glamorous love lasts

where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine.