Samfiftyfour

Creative writing blog where I will share all things creative writing related although, admittedly, I do lean heavily towards poetry. From thoughts on poems to links to stories to explanations of rhyme schemes... Maybe I'll even share some excerpts of my own writing from time to time. All under the pseudonym samfiftyfour. I think many people could use a resource for seeing poetry that they otherwise would not have seen, either through lack of knowledge/resources or lack of effort. Much of what I post here will be classic. I think even those of us who know them almost by heart could still benefit from a reminder of their existence every once in a while. Whether you follow one of my links to a poem you've never read or to one that you greet as an old friend, thanks for reading. samfiftyfour was born and raised in America as a product of his times. He is a poet, he is a poem, and he wishes to remain anonymous.

[cubaboy]

The many thought the earth was big, The few, they saw the sky.

[theparisreview]

I take for granted that for the imaginative writer, the exercise of the imagination is part of the basic process of coping with reality, just as actors need to act all the time to make up for some deficiency in their sense of themselves.

J. G. Ballard (via theparisreview)

[wnq-writers]

I really hope we cross each other’s paths in the future

pizzaloverdotcom  (via wnq-writers)

[stargazerinmoksha]

I told myself to go to bed, but I’m still awake. I can’t sleep. I’ve written five hundred poems, but my pen is still new. This ink is still soaked with my tears. I’m empty. I never fully understood what it meant; until now. People used to say: I feel empty. I’d laugh. Jokes on me, right? It’s like the ceiling fan. It just keeps spinning. And spinning. And spinning. What about the electricity? Is love what it’s running on? My electricity is gone. My fire is damp. I’m a ceiling fan, that doesn’t provide cool air. I’m a pen that writes meaningless poems. I can keep writing, but you’d never come back. That’s the worst part about being awake. I think about you. Way too much. Want to know something more fucked up? I dream about you. Have nightmares about you getting hurt. But I won’t call. I wake up and you are still on my mind. I can’t fall asleep or be up. It’s one and the same. Love has a way of making you feel like the heavens don’t matter, but the angels look like devils. And I just can’t. I’m sober. I thought being sober would help. I’ve been shrouded by a veil of drugs as of late. Guess what? The pain’s back. Guess who’s been working out? A six-pack of agony armed with doom. Damn. How am I supposed to beat my own gloom? I’ll just sleep. And wake up to more defeat. I lose my sleep for you. I lose my sanity for you. I lose my hours for you. And you’re still asleep like always. When I’m awake with troubles when we were titled. You just slept. I should’ve seen the signs. It makes me sigh. Like the roads have no stop signs, I just keep crashing. Dream after dream. Reality after reality. Memory after memory. Tears after tears. Poem after poem. I’ll just go back to sleep. Sleep. If only it were that simple, right?

#509 - you still keep me up every single night. i don’t know what i’m awake for anymore. (via poetryleftbyher)

[ink-trails]

To the ex-lovers who still read my poetry: these words are not about you anymore but know that I wish you the best in finding the one who will make these lines run like blood through your veins. Perhaps falling in love with a poet was the worst thing you have ever done, perhaps I only gave you promises in writing and never in commitment but please find someone who will show you what it’s like to live these verses instead of settling for people who will just write you into their own pieces.

Apologies from the poet who left scribbles over your heart (via ink-trails)

[ink-trails]

You came with a warning label like the ones I see on the disarrayed orange prescription bottles found in our medicine cabinet of obscure names like Methergine and Imitrex and yet I am more hesitant to take these for my migraines than I am to indulge in you for the sake of being with someone even though your label reads of paranoia during lonely nights, distrust and aggravation, loss of sanity and immense emotional devastation; I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me if I am willing to let you into my system knowing full well that you are the worst thing I can put into my bloodstreams but I guess we all take a risk when we open those bottles of pills and you are no different only instead of a doctor administering the doses, this time, it is a reckless heart that is to blame.

They make the most dangerous drug over the counter (via ink-trails)

[poems-and-words]

[leatherbounddiaries]

Love & Drugs & Stuff

Come. Restore me. Go home to me, I’d be your bedclothes, I’d be your skin, I’d wrap you up in me. I’d be your 7am, the quiet tired sigh, I’d be your wild cry. I’d be your nightmares and I’d be your dreams, I’d be your ecstasy. I’d dance in tongue twisters and I’d speak in tangoes, I’d fly places to find you. Because by now I know that there are too many stars and too few sandstorms, I know about carpet burn and I know bruised knees. I’ve grazed places you’ve never seen - - but I stuck around, I’m on my feet. Because you see, forever is bigger than me and this won’t last but I’ve found a few days free. So we’ll just sleep in simplicity, me without you and you without me. I’ve grown in dark places and I know how to breathe, I know how to see without light. So before you leave remind me, to say to you as you go, before your boots leave the streets and you marry the world, you were the very best thing for me.

[instanceandthephrase-deactivate]

Proven Feeling

A poet That lacks Any demons Is a lunatic Who speaks For no reason, Just as those Who exist Without hardship Have never seen The face of God.

- J. Pigno

[flutters-of-butterfly-wings]

You touch the road more often than most, and leave when I finally remember the curve of your spine.

I guess you’ve always loved the road more than me.

[rootsandwings]

First Tasting

I was sixteen, you were getting up tipsy contentment at the end of a perfect mediterranean feasting

on the Byzantine gold and blue of Valletta’s harbor, sunset staining the sky over sandstone ramparts turned a cheeky sort of color

tart, as if emboldened by the impermanence of tables abandoned for the passeggiata

lost in the sea’s wine glass, you didn’t notice the swallow left behind

a cupped promise of flight poised in the question of time

before waves of invaders would drown the mesa, colonize its leftovers,   smooth and smother all giving

of lip — just like that, I became an insurgent , spied

on you, witless, lost in the far gazing, as men brought up to be masters are wont to do,  thinking they taste the cherry sun in an ocean while I,  no longer dutiful, downed it in a single stolen gulp

© Sophia Pandeya

[overpricedvodka]

White yearbook photos vs Black mugshots for the same crime.

Why did this story get run with these criminals’ school photos, where on the same day, same situation, the article of another group of burglars featured their mug shots? (source)

Same day. Same channel. Same crime. Same author.

So why weren’t mugshots good enough for the white guys who got arrested?  Who already looks guilty before their trial?  Which story plants the seed into a potential jury pool that this is a group of good kids versus this is a group of criminals?

Read More

[blackourstory]

THIS is white privilege. THIS is anti-Blackness. 

[sarahmariepardy-deactivated2018]

Out , of. "Place"

There’s a warmth in others, it’s so pervasive;

I can’t wait to partake in, but I can’t take it.

Even when I appear to fit in, I feel unfitting;

Toothpaste at the breakfast table; off taste.

Out of place; I’m a comma after your space;

Then a strained period before you stopped.

Incessantly writing over, woven in your lines.

Ghost notes; composed of self; I quote myself.

Mama, don’t hate me; I’m a broken home.

Baby, don’t hate me; I’m your plant to grow.

Flagrant risk to all the rules of engagement;

Veneered sophistication; I’m a tangled mess.

Cream filled dreams of cafés, pâtés, canapés.

Unreachable, away; French signs I cannot say.

I must have read them all a hundred times;

Called them out, like were something mine. (Written and submitted by @toyinbeatty)

[endless-unfolding]

come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.

Lucille Clifton, from “won’t you celebrate with me” (via a-pair-of-ragged-claws)

[leatherbounddiaries]

Dedicated to the Orgasms I Never Had

The first time I had sex I felt like the most beautiful girl in the world. I was finally a part of something - someone was a part of me. And that morning was euphoria, walking on clouds, turning metaphorical cartwheels along the ground Could this be love? Maybe.

The second time I bled on your sheets and apologized profusely. You said it was fine and I believed you. This was fine Sex was fine It would get better though, right?

The third time I wasn’t in the mood but you were so why not But it kind of felt like an opportunity I didn’t want to lose rather than something I actually wanted to do.

The fourth time was after I had decided that I loved you I did I do and I was so close so fucking close but not yet, not now, and you fell asleep with your hands on my pubes.

The fifth time we were drunk. You bent me over the back seat of your car and fucked me till I couldn’t feel a thing. The word ‘no’ sat heavy on my tongue until I swallowed it whole because a word like that didn’t have a place in this situation. You see, I loved you, this was love, right? Taking your sense of self-worth and twisting it to fit his sexual satisfaction is love, right? That’s fair, right? That’s what you do, that’s what they tell you to do. That’s what I did, at least.

Maybe I have commitment issues I never see things through I’m just not very good at endings - I start but never finish, I never finish. But who cares, right? That’s not the point All you’ve got to do All you want to do is give part of yourself away You’ve got enough See this skin? I live in this skin. But here, take it, take it for a day - take my body, take my soul - There’s too much of it anyway.

Maybe when I’m left with nothing but broken bones I’ll realise that my body is my home - not some cheap motel room.

And maybe I can rebuild myself out of the words I once decided to swallow.

You cannot read me All you see is something to fuck but you lucked out because my body is a library, these words are free and so much more valuable than my cunt.

I do not need you, my sexual fulfilment does not depend on you.

I will replace your fingers with my art, your tongue with my craft and your cock with my god damn self respect. And I will finish what I started.

[samfiftyfour]

November by William Cullen Bryant

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun! One mellow smile through the soft vapory air, Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run, Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare. One smile on the brown hills and naked trees, And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast, And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze, Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last. Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way, The cricket chirp upon the russet lea, And man delight to linger in thy ray. Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

[hangingoninquietdesparation]

Cornwall

If it ever stops raining I am sure it would be nice but it only ever teems it down like one of those hollow sticks filled with rice the sky is only ever leaden grey the clouds they never go away if I ever think it best to cross the tamar heading west down comes the rain it’s a bit of a pain I should like to see Cornwall at its best but the sodding rain won’t give it a rest I’d love a walk on Bodmin moor but not if its going to pour I’ve never been to St Ives without the rain getting in my eyes from Addington to Zennor Polperro to Puddle and all the places in between whenever I visit the streets are clean constantly scoured by the Cornish rain constantly washed in fresh fallen water I suppose I really aught'er go there again and risk a glance or perhaps visit take a chance but I know from bitter experience that whenever I go spring summer winter or fall it always rains in Cornwall