Tag Archives: Poet

GUEST POST // Back at the start by Whitecatgrove

We return to the beginning, stripped
of our knowledge and rank, bound in white:
a shroud, a swaddling blanket, a bride’s veil,
a drawer stuffed full of rags and bandages.
Trussed up in white and left naked by fear.

The brutal say I don’t learn anything —
that’s why I no longer seek the brutal
as teachers, their blood my blood, their hiss
and spit so familial. Let gentleness
teach me these most difficult lessons

that I must begin again, without rank
or honor to learn a gentle way.
Or perhaps it is the easiest
of tasks: drop your knowledge, begin again
a blank page awaiting a love song —

by WHITECATGROVE
© All rights reserved 2024

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket by Vachel Lindsay

I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.

Man is a curious brute – he pets his fancies –
Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.
So he will be, tho’ law be clear as crystal,
Tho’ all men plan to live in harmony.

Come, let us vote against our human nature,
Crying to God in all the polling places
To heal our everlasting sinfulness
And make us sages with transfigured faces.

by VACHEL LINDSAY (1879-1931)
Public Domain Poetry

GUEST POST // Running on the spot by Topolinopoet

And that’s it
Time now to fold up the earth
And put it away
Those marvellous things you’ve seen
And heard today
machines and exo-build
Infra-plus H
Have gone
If only we could breathe under water

Tremendous mysteries
Of thousands and tens of thousands
And multimillion tears
Folded
All the creatures and the people
Those Long dead
and others
Are of no matter
Believe me

And tomorrow
Forget about the world
folded in on itself
We are concerned only with ourselves
The dying

by TOPOLINOPOET
© All rights reserved 2023

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // To an Old Teapot By Fay Inchfawn

Now from the dust of half-forgotten things,
You rise to haunt me at the year’s Spring-cleaning,
And bring to memory dim imaginings
Of mystic meaning.

No old-time potter handled you, I ween,
Nor yet were you of gold or silver molten;
No Derby stamp, nor Worcester, can be seen,
Nor Royal Doulton.

You never stood to grace the princely board
Of monarchs in some Oriental palace.
Your lid is chipped, your chubby side is scored
As if in malice.

I hesitate to say it, but your spout
Is with unhandsome rivets held together —
Mute witnesses of treatment meted out
In regions nether.

O patient sufferer of many bumps!
I ask it gently — shall the dustbin hold you?
And will the dust-heap, with its cabbage stumps,
At last enfold you?

It ought. And yet with gentle hands I place
You with my priceless Delft and Dresden china,
For sake of one who loved your homely face
In days diviner.

by FAY INCHFAWN (1880-1978)
Public Domain Poetry

GUEST POST // Sincere Pretense by Kevin L. McDaniel

Meeting where “Your insight
is imperative,”
but participation
is optional.

“Let’s catch up
soon,” shared by
people passing
in echoing hallways.

“Love, love, love what
you did there,”
praising mediocre
work.

“Your email must have
found its way
to the abyss of
my inbox,” a common tale.

“No offense but…”
often prefaces
unsolicited
perspectives.

“Take your time,
there’s absolutely
no hurry,”
with deadlines whispering.

“Just jesting,”
comes after,
softening
sharp words.

“I’ll ponder over it,”
a placeholder,
while decisions
drift.

“Wow, you’ve really
surpassed yourself
this time,”
for varying efforts.

“Couldn’t have achieved
it without your
unique contribution,”
when roles blur.

by KEVIN L. MCDANIEL
© All rights reserved 2024