we are hardly the beautiful poets
of past generations, that wrote
the sonnet and the sestina to
the crackle of ocean tides,
the serenity of barley fields
and church courtyards

we are the unnatural deformed norm.
poets at the end of some evolutionary cycle,
one step away from walking on all fours,
possessing the scales and horns
that in safety, early earth had us bore

-and we are anything but beautiful

our words don't dance on page in
colorful hyperbole. our words aren't
translatable or prefaced by poetic professors
they will never be honored or win pulitzers
they sit hunched over with potbellies,
bad posture and thuggish glares
always asking: what the fuck are you staring at?

our poems are the bird droppings of
city pigeons and oily headed crows that
take shape in stigmata images under eaves
that old women, holding rosary beads pray over in rote

-but they are anything but pretty

hand in hand, we are what grows
from the cracks in sidewalk pavement:
the defiant dandelion and wildweed,
the projectile cigarette butt and city stench
we are the battered children of war,
the homeless refugees of gutted ghetto's
and crack tenements.

the products of everything broken:
lost loves and battering abusers
and we are not poets by choice,
we write verse with the blood
collected on our fingertips
some fucked up guidebook for
our children to survive by

some of us are limbless, without tongues to speak
and our skin bears the markings of
veteran warriors with barely a reason to live
other than to pen stories for eager eyes to read
some might call this poetry, we don't give
a fuck what you call it, but god please just read it!

we instinctively clutch to our chest
things we find dear. the things we grab
for at the sign of our homes burning:
our children, our pictures, our shit riddles,
and circular conspiracy theories, our words
that run up the borders of soiled newsprint
these things only beautiful to us and no one else
..but they are ours and maybe yours someday

-we are anything but beautiful, our words
are anything but beautiful but we are who we are
we are what our world has subjected us to
and we are as ugly as she is

but our poems, will somehow evolve
way past our death. these words will
ride the chyrsallis of time, our words
are what beauty will be one day to our
grandchildren... only then will we be beautiful

can you find the things that i corrected? you get a lolly if you do. oh, and i stayed away from punctuation.


"we are hardly the beautiful poets
of past generations, that wrote
the sonnet and the sestina to
the crackle of ocean tides,
the serenity of barley fields
and church courtyards

we are the unnatural deformed norm.
poets at the end of some evolutionary cycle,
one step away from walking on all fours,
possessing the scales and horns
that in safety, early earth had us bore

-and we are anything but beautiful

our words don't dance on page in
colorful hyperbole. our words aren't
translatable or prefaced by poetic professors
they will never be honored or win pulitzers
they sit hunched over with potbellies,
bad posture and thuggish glares
always asking: what the fuck are you staring at?

our poems are the bird droppings of
city pigeons and oily headed crows that
take shape in stigmata images under eaves
that old women, holding rosary beads pray over in rote

-but they are anything but pretty

hand in hand, we are what grows
from the cracks in sidewalk pavement:
the defiant dandelion and wildweed,
the projectile cigarette butt and city stench
we are the battered children of war,
the homeless refugees of gutted ghettos
and crack tenements.

the products of everything broken:
lost loves and battering abusers
and we are not poets by choice,
we write verse with the blood
collected on our fingertips
some fucked up guidebook for
our children to survive by

some of us are limbless, without tongues to speak
and our skin bears the markings of
veteran warriors with barely a reason to live
other than to pen stories for eager eyes to read
some might call this poetry, we don't give
a fuck what you call it, but god please just read it!

we instinctively clutch to our chest
things we find dear. the things we grab
for at the sign of our homes burning:
our children, our pictures, our shit riddles,
and circular conspiracy theories, our words
that run up the borders of soiled newsprint
these things only beautiful to us and no one else
..but they are ours and maybe yours someday

-we are anything but beautiful, our words
are anything but beautiful but we are who we are
we are what our world has subjected us to
and we are as ugly as she is

but our poems, will somehow evolve
way past our death. these words will
ride the chrysalis of time, our words
are what beauty will be one day to our
grandchildren... only then will we be beautiful"


nice touch of hope at the end, if one has children and the hope of grandchildren.

cool, a game of "where is waldo" in my own poem. we should market this game and the "children" reference is symbolical, could be literal but i don't exactly consider neruda a long lost uncle but i am a child of his verse ( corny, i know )

i have always pictured myself beautiful, in the "we are the world" kind of way. just thought that i would throw that out there. especially since i doubt that my poems will outlive me in any way, except in the off chance that any one day imaginary children might keep them in a box high on a shelf.

pretty humble words for the #2 on the site i must say. you're aren't giving newbie's any incentive whatsoever. i doubt i need a petition to tell you how important your poems are. you already know that.

it is not false humility. i do not hold any hope to ever be remembered in the future.

the exact point of the poem. very few of us do. its because of what our lives deliver to us that we don't have this hope. but its not our decision whether or not our poems will be considered anything. i think your writing is inspiring. nuff said. its not always your choice sometimes its the choice of others whether your words live on. i've read your poems before publicly and been asked about them by others. thats verse living past you already

brown, i think that this poem is beautiful. i particularly liked the... i was going to point out something particular but i actually love it as a whole. i do like the limbless stanza alot.

I like it, even if I don't actually agree with it -- I think beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And I do hope some of my work lives beyond me, even if the name is lost...

tony, i believe that your work will live beyond you.

and my point, though opaque, was that i too disagree with the premise of the poem. i believe that it is possible to see our beauty in our poetry without the input of the other. i wouldn't do it otherwise. i see beauty whether there is another or not.

And yet, I see the backwards recognition of beauty in this. I believe that dandelions are among the most beautiful of flowers for their hardiness and their intricacies. I see beauty in the iridescence of a pigeon's tilted head. I see beauty in the spirits of the poets and the poems that brownbwi describes in his poem.

We - some of us - don't write "pretty poems"; most of us consider the "pretty poems about the beautiful world" to be lesser, in fact, to turn a blind eye to the truth that is what a poet should be speaking. I see the ending as more a simple truth than a "hope" - I suspect that most of the poets we revere today saw their poetry as necessary and profound, but not necessarily beautiful. Beauty comes with reverence comes with growth and the realization of the truth that's written.

chameleon wrote:

And yet, I see the backwards recognition of beauty in this. I believe that dandelions are among the most beautiful of flowers for their hardiness and their intricacies. I see beauty in the iridescence of a pigeon's tilted head. I see beauty in the spirits of the poets and the poems that brownbwi describes in his poem. We - some of us - don't write "pretty poems"; most of us consider the "pretty poems about the beautiful world" to be lesser, in fact, to turn a blind eye to the truth that is what a poet should be speaking. I see the ending as more a simple truth than a "hope" - I suspect that most of the poets we revere today saw their poetry as necessary and profound, but not necessarily beautiful. Beauty comes with reverence comes with growth and the realization of the truth that's written.

thanks cham. you got the point of the piece rather clearly. you've been seeing my words quite clearly lately i must say. thanks for the read and the words.

actually, the more that i read it the more that i love it. this is wonderful straight from the hip poetry. as i was sitting at a poetry thing last night i was picturing all of these characters that you grouped together in the piece. good stuff, but i said that already.

mayo wrote:

actually, the more that i read it the more that i love it. this is wonderful straight from the hip poetry. as i was sitting at a poetry thing last night i was picturing all of these characters that you grouped together in the piece. good stuff, but i said that already.

funny you said that mayo. i came up with this poem initially when i was sitting at an open mic spot i go to. the characters are very reminiscent of who and what i believe poetry to be right now. from the look of poets to what they are reading about. thanks for getting that from the poem.

I will not go into my feelings about the role of the poet, or discuss my ambivalence toward some of your lines about the poet's perception of beauty in the contemporary world, but I will say that I think this is a wonderful piece. I think it is sort of indulgent, on my part, that I often take so much pleasure in hearing the 'modern poet' described like this: as an outcast, a sort of rebel with a pen, and all that. You have not said anything new here, which I am sure you know, and it's obvious that you were coming at it armed with your own experience, but there were still some lines in here that shook me into thought. (By the way, I didn't mean that as a criticism, just that I have read poems on this before.)

This may be irrelevant, and even seem like a non-sequitur, but it reminded me of a poem by David Lerner. I think the two correlate with each other in a number of ways. I don't know if this is the right place to put it, and I hope I'm not going to piss any of the admin off here, but I thought I would add it here (hopefully you don't already know it).


"mein kampf" by david lerner

all i want to do is
make poetry famous

ali i want to do is
burn my initials into the sun

all i want do do is
read poetry from the middle of a
burning building
standing in the fast lane of the
freeway
falling from the top of the
empire state building

the literary world
sucks dead dog dick

i'd rather be richard speck
than gary snyder
i'd rather ride a rocketship to hell
than a volvo to bolinas

i'd rather
sell arms to the martians
than wait sullenly for a
letter from some diseased clown with a
three-piece mind
telling me that i've won a
bullet-proof pair of rose-colored glasses
for my poem "autumn in the spring"

i want to be
hated
by everyone who teaches for a living

i want people to hear my poetry and
get headaches
i want people to hear my poetry and
vomit

i want people to hear my poetry and
weep, scream, disappear, start bleeding,
eat their television sets, beat each other to death with
swords and

go out and get riotously drunk on
someone else's money

this ain't no party
this ain't no disco
this ain't no foolin a

grab-bag of
clever wordplay and sensitive thoughts and
gracious theories about

how many ambiguities can dance on the head of a
machine gun

this ain't no
genteel evening over
cappuccino and bullshit

this ain't no life-affirming
our days have meaning
as we watch the flowers breath through our souls and
fall desperately in love

this ain't no letter-press, hand-me-down
wimpy beatnik festival of bitching about
the broken rainbow

it is a carnival of dread

it is a savage sideshow
about to move to the main arena

it is terror and wild beauty
walking hand in hand down a bombed-out road
as missiles scream, while a
sky the color of arterial blood
blinks on and off
like the lights on broadway
after the last junkie's dead of aids

i come not to bury poetry
but to blow it up
not to dandle it on my knee
like a retarded child with
beautiful eyes
but

throw it off a cliff into
icy seas and
see if the the motherfucker can swim for its life

because love is an excellent thing
surely we need it

but, my friends...

there is so much to hate These Days

that hatred is just love with a chip on its shoulder
a chip as big as the ritz
and heavier than
all the bills i'll never pay

because they're after us

they're selling radioactive charm bracelets
and breakfast cereals that
lower your IQ by 50 points per mouthful
we get politicians who think
starting world war III
would be a good career move
we got beautiful women
with eyes like wet stones
peering out at us from the pages of
glassy magazines promising that they'll
**** us till we shoot blood

if we'll just buy one of these beautiful switchblade knives

I've got mine

wow. thanks for sharing that undergo. i have never read that piece. that was great, maybe one day i will be able to spit like that. i didn't think i was saying anything new. i think a common thread i see among poets today is this falling back on poetic deprecation. its easier to feel this way with the state of poetry being how it is. i know not every poet that writes here ( maybe not even half) agrees with me. and i didn't write this as a means to a round table discussion on the state of poetry today

but this piece was inspired by going to open mics and workshops weekly and seeing joe blow, who works a dead end job and gets his ass kicked by the world and possibly his/her ex or boss ( gettin too personal right?) and then to still find the strength to pick himself up and go to a workshop or to find an open mic to get some shit off his chest simply because he "has" to. then to hear him or her give us back through verse what the world has beaten them over the head with all day... that is what this poem was about. thanks for the read man, i truly enjoyed that piece you shared as well.

hmm i loved the poem, although i really hope my words will outlast my lifespan and i believe that true beauty is often considered not beautiful by the public norm.

nightmistress wrote:

hmm i loved the poem, although i really hope my words will outlast my lifespan and i believe that true beauty is often considered not beautiful by the public norm.

i would hope to think at some point ignorance catches up. how many times have we heard the term " they were way ahead of their time" when some musician or artist of past generations are being considered? (btw- i am not even considering this poem at that level of greatness, i am more speaking of poetry from our generation as a whole)

brownbwi wrote:

nightmistress wrote: hmm i loved the poem, although i really hope my words will outlast my lifespan and i believe that true beauty is often considered not beautiful by the public norm. i would hope to think at some point ignorance catches up. how many times have we heard the term " they were way ahead of their time" when some musician or artist of past generations are being considered? (btw- i am not even considering this poem at that level of greatness, i am more speaking of poetry from our generation as a whole)

Ha! i doubt ignorance will catch up anytime soon. Would be nice to hear " they are way ahead of their time" instead of the typical refrain. and i totally get the idea of poetry from our generation.

wow! i love this poem! it's one of my favorites of this site. keep up the good work.

bleedingpoetry wrote:

wow! i love this poem! it's one of my favorites of this site. keep up the good work.

thank you for these words. its a great compliment to end quite a shitty day.

wow, man i'd love to hear this read out loud!

Cubangi4l wrote:

wow, man i'd love to hear this read out loud!

thank you for the words. i really am horrible at memorizing pieces but this is one of the few that i am working on memorizing. helps so much with the delivery of a poem when its offered to an audience that way. thanks again. peace.

You are my main man, gracelitious!!! I really have no words for this piece, no sucking meant. I wish I could do a critic deserving of this piece but I don't have the means, However here are some thoughts.

In stanza 1, the last line seems to break the beat somehow, doesn't sound right to me. Maybe is my unfamiliarity with English sounds. In spanish we only have 26 phonetic sounds, in English I don't know how many.

As I started to read I thought the beat was going to stay the same, but it changed, and that sounded good, I think the pace was well used with the messages said.

In stanza 7, but god please just read it! seems out of place, not needed, we are reading it. so I don't think you need to say it. or maybe say it in some other way, more like referring to the fact that many people won't read it.

I think that's all I can say, again, I am way out of your league, I admire your work.

zhaul wrote:

You are my main man, gracelitious!!! I really have no words for this piece, no sucking meant. I wish I could do a critic deserving of this piece but I don't have the means, However here are some thoughts. In stanza 1, the last line seems to break the beat somehow, doesn't sound right to me. Maybe is my unfamiliarity with English sounds. In spanish we only have 26 phonetic sounds, in English I don't know how many. As I started to read I thought the beat was going to stay the same, but it changed, and that sounded good, I think the pace was well used with the messages said. In stanza 7, but god please just read it! seems out of place, not needed, we are reading it. so I don't think you need to say it. or maybe say it in some other way, more like referring to the fact that many people won't read it. I think that's all I can say, again, I am way out of your league, I admire your work.

thank you for the comment. in reference to S7 i was more so referring to poetry as a whole not so much this piece itself. it is a general plea for the audience to hear the voice. this piece is more meant for performance and certain lines are there for audience reaction purposes. (not sure if that makes sense). unless you've seen spoken word performed then i'm sure it is.