Am I going to be a poet

BDI

Used to live here in a house with 8 more
The parents spent more time inside a pub door,

There’s an elderly neighbour away feeling sick,
He looked in the box to see what’s to nick,
The old single mother long since retired,
Let a roar at this brother to go run and hide.

And hide he did in a park by the deli,
And hide he did in the trees with the tarp,
And hide he did where the people were smelly,
And these musical people thought him the harp.

Arse is freezing on the concrete playing the harp headscarf and nose,
Arse is freezing in the deli park smelling the feet and piss and the clothes.

Nothing was constant all this time,
accept him smoking a bag from time to time.
And his lying and lying
And his wine and wine
And his taking anything he could get his hands on since he was thirteen.
Nobody cared until he started getting big enough to cause a bit of trouble.
Far too strung out to help.
Far too far gone to go far.
Nobody cared till he was big enough to bother other people.
Nobody ever gave him attention unless they were angry at him.
Angry at him for being there.
Angry at him for not being there when he should have been.
Just angry all the time.

Let’s put him in the paper and point the finger and feel abit better and blame social welfare.

Put him in the park and give him some tarp and an injection centre right beside centra. Or spar, or whatever shop he’s sat outside while you take a picture of you giving him a free haircut or your old runners on social media. Let them likes feed ye.

How do they treat ye.

BDI

It’s worrying that when you put up a poem for critique and nobody answers for over a week and nobody posts another poem.

Is it so good everybody gave up or is it so bad everybody is afraid to post their poems because they cringed so much and do t want to risk making other people cringe with their poetry.

Maybe it’s just so meh nobody bothered.

My poor ego.

km85264

I saw the post but the title of “am i going to be a poet” made me wonder why it was posted. I’d recommend if you want a critique that you actually ask for it.
For me the poem has energy, and the mixtures of form are interesting if a little overdone, but my overriding impression from the poem is of a middle class person trying to express the tragedy of a homeless alcoholic/druggie. Maybe I have you wrong and you do live behind Spar, but if not then you might try to explore your own feelings about homelessness.
Kieran

BDI

Thanks Kieran maybe I have got a big middle class these days, most of it comes from memories of my childhood though and things I seen around me. Maybe I’m a middle class person that sees people who started at the same point as me not getting the same shake of dice that I got.
I wanted the start to be simplistic and childlike to start with the youth and just wanting a poem to rhyme then changed it up abit with a wider view.

When you say explore my own feeling about homelessness are you saying I should say

Fella outside shop
Gave me disdain
I couldn’t be arsed to learn his name
I work all day he acts lame?

That sort of stuff?

I appreciate you taking the time to read it. Thanks.

BDI

There’s a stinky man from upwind sleeping where he passes out,
His jocks are stained from from ankle height,
his feet his hands his snout.
I asked him questions he didn’t answer
He mumbled nonsense about his sister
The security man earns money when the stinky mans about.

My sons balance bike is rusty
Like the stinky man is crusty
He asks me for my money
Like I havnt got a budget
Cause he never had a budget
Or he never learned to budget
If he had a house he’d lose it
And probably break the toilet.
I’m not going to fund it
My taxes etc splutter
Like the stinky man will splutter
When he’s talking bout his sister.










Is this better?

Insect Overlord

Are we supposed to have sympathy for the man on the street? Is the narrator of the poem supposed to sound so judgemental?

BDI

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Are we supposed to have sympathy for the man on the street? Is the narrator of the poem supposed to sound so judgemental?

My feedback from the last poem said I was a middle class pretending to be homeless so I did a poem where I was a middle class looking at a homeless.

You are meant to feel how you feel, I can’t be telling you how you feel.

My job is just to make you feel something

Would you like me to be a homeless person or a charity worker? I could be a charity worker coining it in the homeless industry if you want, or a good worker working hard but losing out to the bureaucracy etc.

BDI

Anyone? Two poems? Anything?

Insect Overlord

Wind up merchant

BDI

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Wind up merchant

Are they that bad?

Sheridan81

The first poem has energy and an unusual magnetism. The repetition is engaging. It's like a cross between stream of consciousness narrative and rap.

"And hide he did where the people were smelly," just sounds stupid.

The last lines sound like a lecture and are anti-climactic. I would cut them from the poem and write something else--

"Let’s put him in the paper and point the finger and feel abit better and blame social welfare.

Put him in the park and give him some tarp and an injection centre right beside centra. Or spar, or whatever shop he’s sat outside while you take a picture of you giving him a free haircut or your old runners on social media. Let them likes feed ye.

How do they treat ye."

km85264

I think poem two is - for me- going in a better direction. Putting yourself in the frame makes it more personal, but it does becomes more rhetorical as you go down. My advice, try to explore your own position in the imagery more.
But remember, that’s just my view, your poetry is your thing

BDI

Thanks for your input guys I rewrote it again
Is it better?





In the undergrowth of the people leaves
Shaded by concrete and people leaves
Where brothers go when a brother leaves
Decomposing whilst breathing
And nobody looking.





I wanted to create a picture of people falling off the tree kind of like falling through the cracks.

Honestly there awful, thats my opinion, but your going to get negative reviews so don't take it to heart, i wrote a lot myself starting in my teenage years and well into my thirties, i recently found some of my writings and they are ****e proper ****e so they were promptly burned.

I just got no feeling from what you wrote, the first one started out like a limerick, sick, nick, retired , hide and then deli, tarp, smelly, harp and i was waiting for the punchline.

Maybe a creative writing class or speaking to someone who has experience in this will help, just my two cents, hope it works out for you.

BDI

Thanks for that, I will rewrite it again in a couple of hours, I’m at my sons sports.

BDI

If the bag was full of spuds
I’d give it more interest
If the bag was full of spuds
It would have received more attention
If the bag was full of spuds
I’d put it somewhere safe
To keep it from the fella in the bag.



There’s a lad sat on the sub bench ready
Serious
Head moving with the ball and the tackles
Ready to give it everything
Ready to run through walls
Ready to realise he’s just not good enough
Ready to give up.
He could do with a bag of spuds
A bag of people is no use to him.

BDI

BDI wrote: »

He could do with a bag of spuds
A bag of people is no use to him.

This epithet resonated deeply with me. Symbolic of the existential despair latent within man.

You are now a fully fledged poet. Go forth, and ply your trade.

BDI

Thank you berties horse it’s very easy to say bad things but it takes a real hero to say nice things.

BDI

The sniffling warblers sniffle.




Cold, pointless, spherical,
A windswept beach brown pebble
A sleeveless whimpering sniffle,
Your loft as bald as a tortoise,
All you have in your attic
Grandkids clearing your items,
These words your only purpose.

BDI

Hi windy floating nothing on her way unpress pause when I find remote blanket couch Todd from that thing work to American football noise braces young lad n work wife problems, horsing birds, Fargo Todd from breaking Bemidji Souix falls ted damson Kirstin dunst

Burst and noise and darkness panic, don’t wake anybody in the room and hands like cleavers trying to hit the alarm, don’t wake the wifeher voice at this hour boils a mans brain.




I’m trying a new James Joyce technique.

There is a guy I know who has a charity that can throw me a few hours a week teaching a class but I need to sort my self employed tax stuff, I find that too complicated to bother. Forms make me feel like my privacy is being stripped.

BDI

Silently sitting skin slowly roasting,
Under a sky so blue and so golden,
Making a wish that this moment be frozen
Making a moment frozen in time
Every day we spend in the winter
Reliving days where the weather was warmer.

BDI

Lightbulbs for the working class


Pushing and grunting and freezing and hurting,
A weary soul from the privilege comes cycling,
Through the slums of the working class red back lightly blinking,
Heading for work like a tax paying citizen.

In each direction the sorrow near blinds him,
May have their blinds up
He couldn’t still see them
For they must get dressed in the dangerous darkness
For theirs no lights on Cept the street lamps that guide him,

Can we get light bulbs for the working classes
They must be putting their jocks on in complete darkness
They may need to protest against some injustice,
Think their children are better off with no other purpose
Except leeching the money we have to pay nurses..



I feel like this one is what I was born to write. It’s an early draft but I’d really appreciate if somebody would help me notice the good and bad in it.

Aman_da

I like it! you are so talented, wish you a lot of inspiration!

BDI

Peaceful is a valley or a peak depending on whether it is about to be kicked up a hill or down a hill.

A skull with a bag for a body,
It won’t survive the winter,
If it got any thinner it might snap if I didn’t step over.

I give it a euro if I’m on a date
Careful not to touch it
Just like I drop money in a bucket on my way to spend my wages on landfill.

One per cent at the top
One per cent in the bag
One per cent of what you spend on christmas decorations
One per cent spent on public service art installations
Find a few quid from somewhere to fix what’s forgotten by welfare
It can’t cope in the world forced upon it,
When they decided you can’t do just what you wanna
Because somebody else likes it peaceful
Spending on anything other than people.



I wrote this because I probably felt a bit guilty, the other day I went to one of the few old school Dublin fry up spots left in a changing city for my lunch.

Tenner for a fry so big I couldn’t eat my dinner 7 hours later. Couldn’t finish my work for the day because I was too bloated.

Anyway this fry shop is on a street that any bus that travelled up the Malahide road to town would stop on but doesn’t anymore. It’s just full of sleeping bags and peoples skulls wrapped in skin. Where I was working there was two tents beside the entrance just off o Connell street. I seen two people shaking a man who looked dead, asleep at a postbox on abbey street. On my way back from breakfast he was trying to get to his feet but couldn’t. They were probably trying to move him from the front of their business or checking if he was ok, who knows.

I didn’t stop, hardly anybody did. In too much of a hurry. Went into the bookies, two lads I work with were putting on accumulators, I don’t bet so I just stood in the middle of the bookies looking at the sad acts in the bookies then I looked out the glass panel in the bookies door and I could see two addicts having a chat, like me ma would have a chat with a neighbour or friend she came across while walking through a super market _ just like real people having a chat and I realised we don’t even see them as humans anymore.

I went back to the job I was working on, it was a public service office we were doing construction in, their canteen had a cool coffee machine and we all sat on the rather comfortable seats and had a coffee before going back to work because we were all too full from the fry. It lashed rain when I finished work I cycled by them all again in my top quality rain gear, on my top quality bike in my top quality country.

BDI

Let’s rob each other’s runners
and throw them in the river
I’m drinking so much quicker
Than I used to when I met ye

Let’s entertain a toddler
His life can’t get more oddler
A hotel rooms his household
And our shoutings in his hallway,

Let’s celebrate indecency
Set sail the good ship vagrancy
His little eyes will look and see
Us roaring on our frequency.

Let’s wake up in the morning
Get 4 items for our boredom
Call his boring father Norman
Hes working as a boring storeman
And not boozing and not snorting

Let’s realise we re friends here
And the enemies the welfare
All under the same roof here
I know where you live you rat ye.

LaFuton

here ya go bud, i wrote this while watching the newsporn about another religious nutbag killing people

00:39 02/09/2019
where is the master of this what we call time
are we all just seeking god
this god is everthing but its not enough for some
why are the hungry of soul so aggressive
must i kill as they wish to kill me
i dont want to kill anyone
but if they are attacking me intent on killing me
what should i do
its a foul to let them do their foul deed
i pray to that god that i am right in thought and deed
and if these menboys that wish me harm are demons demented
then mercifully i should propably end them
but i dont have the heart to do it
i know pain
i know suffering
they want to kill me
but i pray for their peace
what should i do if they give me no choice
and if they threaten my mother i must end them
i dont want this
i dont seem to have a choice anymore
im waiting for the clouds to clear

this is not a nice way to be
this is something that should not be

a deck of cards scatterd to the atlantic
this wind this rain this will this pain
no love lost for this funny life

die with dignity

leaveá comment

GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD
im not mad
just solitary

BDI

its a foul to let them do their foul deed
i pray to that god that i am right in thought and deed
and if these menboys that wish me harm are demons demented
then mercifully i should propably end them


That parts lovely, Really flows nice.

Baron Kurtz

Brick Tamland.

BDI

Baron Kurtz wrote: »

Brick Tamland.

I’m not sure I follow why you would just post a name from an anchorman comedy film in a creative writing thread about poetry. What’s it all about?

LaFuton

who doesn't like lamp...

Baron Kurtz

BDI wrote: »

I’m not sure I follow why you would just post a name from an anchorman comedy film in a creative writing thread about poetry. What’s it all about?

He looks at things and words just fly out. Like that bag of spuds, for example.

BDI

Baron Kurtz wrote: »

He looks at things and words just fly out. Like that bag of spuds, for example.

I’ve never seen words fly out of a bag of spuds.

How did you feel for the people in the story with the bag of spuds in it? Was your honest opinion that I should watch what I say?

What would you rather have under your stairs, a homeless person or a bag of spuds?

IAMAMORON

I think you need to write about some new topics. Try to steer away from desperate unsolvable problems, you might relate to them, but if you want people to read your poetry you will have to create an emotion within them, via the vehicle of your words.

Don't be shy, write about how and what you feel. I don't care to read about some lonely junckie looking up the street on a cold day, I can already imagine how dreadful and sad that is.

I want to read poems about how you felt whilst losing your virginity or buying your first lump of hash , or scoring your first goal , or beating up that guy that bullied you ... something that excites you and moves you.

If you are not getting enthralled by what you are writing or trying to portray, no one else will. Poetry is hard work, your poems might go for a lifetime without ever been noticed and enjoyed, be prepared for that also.

Make sure you get some enjoyment out of it, everything you do should be fun and enjoyable.

BDI

What about the guy cycling to work through a working class estate thinking the poor working classes didn’t have light bulbs because their lights weren’t on? Or the one about summer. I feel you havnt read my body of work.

IAMAMORON

BDI wrote: »

What about the guy cycling to work through a working class estate thinking the poor working classes didn’t have light bulbs because their lights weren’t on? Or the one about summer. I feel you havnt read my body of work.

There is no working class in Ireland, everyone either works or they don't. Or they might be homeless and desperate, or they might still be spending their great granddads fortune. It doesn't matter.

Stop stereotyping everything. No one cares.

Write about topics which really invigorate and enthrall you, things that entice you.

Everyone has access to light bulbs in Ireland, this is not the dark ages. Get with it.

BDI

IAMAMORON wrote: »

There is no working class in Ireland, everyone either works or they don't. Or they might be homeless and desperate, or they might still be spending their great granddads fortune. It doesn't matter.

Stop stereotyping everything. No one cares.

Write about topics which really invigorate and enthrall you, things that entice you.

Everyone has access to light bulbs in Ireland, this is not the dark ages. Get with it.

I don’t think you understand. The literary piece is from a posh guy commuting to his work in the city centre. On his cycle he must pass through a historical council housing area which is right on the doorstep of the city. He calls them working classes. He is genuinely worried because all their lights are off. He thinks they are getting dressed in the dark and can’t afford lightbulbs.

I think you struggle to find meaning in my work. Would it help if I typed it in capitals and stuck it in a daily mail headline?

Apiarist

BDI wrote: »

I don’t think you understand. ...I think you struggle to find meaning in my work. ...

You are a poet. So what if you are misunderstood, lots of people don't understand James Joyce, yet he is considered a genius.

I think you should stop treating us to your fine art for free and publish a book.

IAMAMORON

BDI wrote: »

I don’t think you understand. The literary piece is from a posh guy commuting to his work in the city centre. On his cycle he must pass through a historical council housing area which is right on the doorstep of the city. He calls them working classes. He is genuinely worried because all their lights are off. He thinks they are getting dressed in the dark and can’t afford lightbulbs.

I think you struggle to find meaning in my work. Would it help if I typed it in capitals and stuck it in a daily mail headline?

Posh guys don't care about poor people
Posh guys don't commute
There is no working class
Posh guys don't cycle through it

BDI

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Posh guys don't care about poor people
Posh guys don't commute
There is no working class
Posh guys don't cycle through it

Do you know all the posh people?

BDI

victor8600 wrote: »

You are a poet. So what if you are misunderstood, lots of people don't understand James Joyce, yet he is considered a genius.

I think you should stop treating us to your fine art for free and publish a book.

Thanks you victor but if I charged for it the people who need it most couldn’t afford it.

tedpan

You're a poet and you don't even know it..

BDI

tedpan wrote: »

You're a poet and you don't even know it..

Thank you ted pan. Today my boss was pushing schedules on me that I found unrealistic and I thought to myself, why not jack it in and go full time with my poetry, but. I realised I can’t have control of my work if I charge for it. I was thinking of writing a poem about that and the state of the health service.

BDI

The bad reviewers review

Far away from self aware,
Well passed disappointment,
Stinking from what he sniffed last night,
Crying for some ointment,
He creaked and cried and cracked and burned,
He tossed and raised an arm and turned,
Expressing themselves with art they’d lurned?
They need to feel just like him.

km85264

He sat at 2:30 staring into a blank screen
He knew that his boss's boss's boss was earning the millions
he said
What is this?
Why am I doing this?
Where can I go?
What glue is there for me to sniff?
No glue, said God. Just staples.
And blue tac.
Don't forget the blue tac.

BDI

Did he sniff staples and blue tac or does that signify something else?

BDI

Lets burn that rice cooker
You could have boiled it
Could have fried it
Could have campfire stoved it.

You had to have the shiny thing in the shiny magazine.
You had to feel bad until they told you to feel good.
You had to post a picture
You had to order pitcher
You had to advertise to your faux friends
A product you only want to show people you have it,

Social media loves ye
Marketing loves ye
Consumerism loves ye
The one per cent loves ye
But all your friends hate ye
They don’t have a rice cooker.

BDI

Hobbling but exceeding
Pushing against a limited body
His body
Pushed
Mind pushed
Mine exhausted
Too exhausted to think
Earns
Too exhausted to regret

BDI

Soaked. Our hero arrived in work baggy eyed, bleary eyed, his hair gel from the night before had ran down his face in little tree branch streams straight into his half shut eyes.

The morning had started well he left the house on his bicycle, dry sky, no need for raingear, cycled right into an event. One of them storms they name, close the country down for and yet people can cycle through them. Well our hero can anyway.

He also has the power to work all day soaked to the bone now that he has to work all day soaked to the bone. He had a change of clothes he used to leave in the drying room, a shipping container with a fan heater in it, but they were stolen. A couple of scaffolders were very vocal about things going missing and how it was the foreigners but our man of the hour, coffee in hand had seen it all before and was very sure the scaffolders were the ones breaking locks and stealing clothes and tools hoping to go through the pockets later.

Old bleary eyes had drank way more than he should of last night but hangovers don’t affect him anymore, they take the boredom out of the morning when he is still half cut and help him arrive at lunchtime without struggling with hunger or boredom. There is so much protective stuff to put on these days it is like a morning ritual he hates. Into the bag, dig through lunch, raingear, the odd tool, bottles of water, flask, socks he doesn’t remember putting in, eventually finding a glove or glasses then digging again. The glasses really demotivate him everytime he puts them on, they fog up as soon as he starts working, he takes them off whenever he is sure the safety officer isn’t around.

Off he goes on his one man war against the lack of hotel rooms, office spaces or housing. A one man mission to earn enough to fill his house with distractions so that his family will be too busy to bang on the bathroom door when he sits down for ten minutes of quiet when he gets home. Still soaked, nostrils full of dust, hair full of tiny bits of concrete, feet stinking. He doesn’t know if it’s good or bad that his hearing is going from constantly being in the company of drills, grinders and diggers.

There is a new method of pest control brought in by the builders, it involves putting a canteen 15 minutes from the site ensuring nobody has time to get to the canteen and back, so all eating happens on the road, under shop awnings, hard hats, other people, a plastic bag anything really.

He earns more than most salaried or paye workers. He hasn’t got a degree so degree people think he is stupid. He charges for his work so his customers think he is a robber. He lost interest when the kids were rambling on about some YouTube something so he’s in the doghouse there now.

Half thinking of getting a new car on hp just to do something but doesn’t want to commitment. Got a dog 7 years ago and still doesn’t know why. Always in the door when it’s closing, always under the feet when they are moving, always making horrible noises with her mouth and snots when it’s quiet and he is on edge, trying to fix some modern problem like tvs or internet or lego.

Half thinking of building a home gym out of steel brackets he uses in work. A squat rack and pull up cage like they have in modern gyms, nowhere to put it though. Probably wouldn’t use it anyway. Probably try convince his friend to build one so he can use it in his house.

Anyway he thinks , time for action. He heads up four flights of stairs down through the gap between the flights he can see the scaffolders starting the ascent. He heads straight to a pallet of scaffolding poles he had seen them load last night. Wheels them right to the edge of the loading bay and pushes them straight off. Four flights crashing down to the street steel banging off steel a pallet truck scraping, then bashing off the wooden planks, people heard roaring all while he slowly, calmly but most importantly quietly and ecstatically heads to a second staircase where he heads to the sixth floor, climbs his ladder and starts drawing marks on the ceiling to drill later. Oblivious to what happened. Can’t believe he missed it and didn’t hear anything. Inside he is dancing, playing the royal Albert hall, there is classical music coming from his drill, whenever the grinder starts up it sounds like the opening dialogue from the war of the worlds musical. The ambulance sirens reminded him of an N.W.A. song. That brought him back to his youth. A time when he was heading to college. A young accountancy student. A white van pulled up. It was his friend from school being driven by an older man. He didn’t understand why our superstar was going to school when he was getting paid to learn his job. Come join us he said like a witch or cult member, they all laughed. Our hero jumped in the van, his new coworker told him to make a joint and easy E roared from the speakers.

IAMAMORON

Has he worked out where to hide the dead bodies yet?

BDI

IAMAMORON wrote: »

Has he worked out where to hide the dead bodies yet?

Maybe, who knows, I didn’t even know he planned on hiding any.

IAMAMORON

BDI wrote: »

Maybe, who knows, I didn’t even know he planned on hiding any.

Is his wife dead? There is no mention of her in your opening?