<![CDATA[Poetry Forum - Basic critique]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/ Mon, 31 Aug 2026 06:02:14 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[Die-Cut]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27554.html Sun, 30 Aug 2026 20:04:21 +0000 dukealien]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27554.html

Life is made of puzzle pieces–
some events, new thoughts about them,
memories of things that happened,
schemes and dreams that never did.

As each die-cut shape flips over,
future gray to brilliant present,
there’s a moment to consider
where to place it in the past.

Sometimes it’s a straight-edged border
or a corner setting limits;
mostly it will join a pile, once
judged by color, image, kind.

Then, with many upward-facing,
understanding, meaning, slowly
forms but gaps remain, demanding
search among bits pushed aside.

Often missing pieces turn out
to be, not still face-down, waiting,
but a person met, discarded,
for her color or his shape.

In the end, some puzzle-solvers
know beforehand what their final
panorama will portray: they
saw the box-top, read the Book.

Others will delay that closing
recognition of the picture
they’ve assembled, but it finds them
for no life ends incomplete.

I think there may be an idea trying to get out here, but this version seems clunky and unsatisfactory.  Advice would be appreciated.
]]>

Life is made of puzzle pieces–
some events, new thoughts about them,
memories of things that happened,
schemes and dreams that never did.

As each die-cut shape flips over,
future gray to brilliant present,
there’s a moment to consider
where to place it in the past.

Sometimes it’s a straight-edged border
or a corner setting limits;
mostly it will join a pile, once
judged by color, image, kind.

Then, with many upward-facing,
understanding, meaning, slowly
forms but gaps remain, demanding
search among bits pushed aside.

Often missing pieces turn out
to be, not still face-down, waiting,
but a person met, discarded,
for her color or his shape.

In the end, some puzzle-solvers
know beforehand what their final
panorama will portray: they
saw the box-top, read the Book.

Others will delay that closing
recognition of the picture
they’ve assembled, but it finds them
for no life ends incomplete.

I think there may be an idea trying to get out here, but this version seems clunky and unsatisfactory.  Advice would be appreciated.
]]> <![CDATA[Mirror me]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27548.html Thu, 27 Aug 2026 05:25:27 +0000 Deadgone]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27548.html
Many times when speaking to another I would question their sincerity but in this new path I would know lying would be futile because the one listening would already know the truth.

Experimentation is where the new forms and I wonder how far this could go?

The first chapter will be me tip toeing around myself to see my land and whether anybody guards the walls.  If there is an opening incursion will follow and I will discover who governs and who resides. 

Should I start with a deeper conversation or keep it more relaxed and conversational? Which would open me up more and do I consider myself a stranger, a friend or a mirror? I wonder would holding a real mirror help break the ice.

Would I achieve more if I closed all the doors and windows and then started?

Should it be verbal or written ?

Will it cause me pain or pleasure and how will I measure?]]>
Many times when speaking to another I would question their sincerity but in this new path I would know lying would be futile because the one listening would already know the truth.

Experimentation is where the new forms and I wonder how far this could go?

The first chapter will be me tip toeing around myself to see my land and whether anybody guards the walls.  If there is an opening incursion will follow and I will discover who governs and who resides. 

Should I start with a deeper conversation or keep it more relaxed and conversational? Which would open me up more and do I consider myself a stranger, a friend or a mirror? I wonder would holding a real mirror help break the ice.

Would I achieve more if I closed all the doors and windows and then started?

Should it be verbal or written ?

Will it cause me pain or pleasure and how will I measure?]]> <![CDATA[Why I Kill]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27537.html Mon, 24 Aug 2026 17:52:13 +0000 matsunosuperfan]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27537.html Why I Kill

Most people are stupid. They don’t think
for themselves. Their parents teach them
how to balance checkbooks, how to wipe their ass,

and then they go out in the world,
buy real estate in Maine. I don’t know
if you’ve ever been to Maine:  there’s nothing there.

A moose is only interesting
the first ten thousand times, and a woman in a flannel
maybe forty-two at best. 

People like to gaze into the bacillary pools
and say, There’s something down there
like it's an achievement being born.

They look betrayal in the face
and tell it, Fair enough. They say That’s the worst
thing ever when their coffee isn’t hot.]]> Why I Kill

Most people are stupid. They don’t think
for themselves. Their parents teach them
how to balance checkbooks, how to wipe their ass,

and then they go out in the world,
buy real estate in Maine. I don’t know
if you’ve ever been to Maine:  there’s nothing there.

A moose is only interesting
the first ten thousand times, and a woman in a flannel
maybe forty-two at best. 

People like to gaze into the bacillary pools
and say, There’s something down there
like it's an achievement being born.

They look betrayal in the face
and tell it, Fair enough. They say That’s the worst
thing ever when their coffee isn’t hot.]]> <![CDATA[On Acceptance]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27525.html Thu, 20 Aug 2026 03:18:28 +0000 matsunosuperfan]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27525.html On Acceptance

And nights I dream of violence, huge erect machetes
kissing down my neck. You know the poet Anne Carson

snores louder than Minerva? Eros and/or Eris sings
instructions to the dagger hung above Anne Carson’s

skull, she is stoic in the deathroom. When my marriage
atrophied, they removed the heart to show Anne Carson

what decay can really do (Greeks are sluts for mulch). God
maintains a healthy distance from Anne Carson’s garden,

being such a modern girl. It’s all He can do to not
reach down and pluck cymbidiums. I read Anne Carson

in your voice, a rumble in my gut pronouncing
what the tongue can't handle: this morning, betrayal, Anne

Carson’s one poem set in Venice. Oh, you Bridge of Sighs—
it seems a man escaped at night, left one Anne Carson

holding Dido’s bag. In Carthage, a beautiful boy
kisses first, then asks my name. I tell him Anne Carson

and he giggles, holds up a wriggling fish. Do it like
we do it, Luke, he urges. Eat the sucker whole.]]> On Acceptance

And nights I dream of violence, huge erect machetes
kissing down my neck. You know the poet Anne Carson

snores louder than Minerva? Eros and/or Eris sings
instructions to the dagger hung above Anne Carson’s

skull, she is stoic in the deathroom. When my marriage
atrophied, they removed the heart to show Anne Carson

what decay can really do (Greeks are sluts for mulch). God
maintains a healthy distance from Anne Carson’s garden,

being such a modern girl. It’s all He can do to not
reach down and pluck cymbidiums. I read Anne Carson

in your voice, a rumble in my gut pronouncing
what the tongue can't handle: this morning, betrayal, Anne

Carson’s one poem set in Venice. Oh, you Bridge of Sighs—
it seems a man escaped at night, left one Anne Carson

holding Dido’s bag. In Carthage, a beautiful boy
kisses first, then asks my name. I tell him Anne Carson

and he giggles, holds up a wriggling fish. Do it like
we do it, Luke, he urges. Eat the sucker whole.]]> <![CDATA[Blue Herons]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27510.html Wed, 05 Aug 2026 08:43:55 +0000 matsunosuperfan]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27510.html Blue Herons

The world used to be charged with grandeur, some
of which was even God’s, the bisoned plain,
the clouds like artifacts tracking their progress
through men’s eyes, hollowed bones and strings
of endless generation, hills that shimmer
when the wind waves grain across their faces
as a mother folds her cub away
from cliffs as stark as milk—not any more
than seconds in the cosmic memory,
our scampering about between the legs
of taller trees, and still whatever lake
we launched a boat across to get here breaks
each morning with a shattering of wings
too loud for us to notice or ignore.]]> Blue Herons

The world used to be charged with grandeur, some
of which was even God’s, the bisoned plain,
the clouds like artifacts tracking their progress
through men’s eyes, hollowed bones and strings
of endless generation, hills that shimmer
when the wind waves grain across their faces
as a mother folds her cub away
from cliffs as stark as milk—not any more
than seconds in the cosmic memory,
our scampering about between the legs
of taller trees, and still whatever lake
we launched a boat across to get here breaks
each morning with a shattering of wings
too loud for us to notice or ignore.]]> <![CDATA[Last Times]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27506.html Sun, 02 Aug 2026 21:03:34 +0000 dukealien]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27506.html

As age infuses every thing
from pain in hips to length of stride
one cannot help but wonder which
things one will not experience–
the trip to France, the Eschaton–
and even more, such places as
one’s been, but was that time
the last?

Will I see Dallas once again,
or twice, or never?  Who can say
if I will fly the stratosphere,
a passenger, to see Seattle
or Cape Kennedy, as once was,
or the Statue on its fortress,
Liberty, or Death come first,
to know is to have finished, making
questions moot?

But still, I wonder if that shadow,
Love, I’ve missed so many times
unnoticed, will expose itself
or keep on hiding just beyond
my blind eyes shrouded with a pride
which veils its insufficiency
until too late.]]>

As age infuses every thing
from pain in hips to length of stride
one cannot help but wonder which
things one will not experience–
the trip to France, the Eschaton–
and even more, such places as
one’s been, but was that time
the last?

Will I see Dallas once again,
or twice, or never?  Who can say
if I will fly the stratosphere,
a passenger, to see Seattle
or Cape Kennedy, as once was,
or the Statue on its fortress,
Liberty, or Death come first,
to know is to have finished, making
questions moot?

But still, I wonder if that shadow,
Love, I’ve missed so many times
unnoticed, will expose itself
or keep on hiding just beyond
my blind eyes shrouded with a pride
which veils its insufficiency
until too late.]]> <![CDATA[yield]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27502.html Wed, 29 Jul 2026 21:53:05 +0000 milo]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27502.html as if I'm reaching for a friend

and yet the laddered labor's endless
and I another migrant friendless

"oh sullen servant what's the matter
why can you not just climb your ladder

why must you always reach for more
the light, the dark or Pluto's shore."


another rung compresses seasons
the fungal earth that forces reasons:


the trunk, the hips each branch a jaw, Some
sex to push the apple blossom

and then there's Frost - the killing bite
merchant, peddler, murderous mite

Second is the idle thought
the mushy pungent apple -y rot

and yet another rung of drinking
to put to rest such labored thinking

"come scouse the pubs and let's get pissed
and put aside your stupid list"

and that is fine my thinking's slurred
I can't recall the portent third


I cannot make a thot for thee
I cannot make it to list three

I cannot climb the ladder more
cannot seek the light or shore

so I will lift my cup alone
and let it now unyoke my stone

as graphite yields to clicky keys
and wolfram yields to LED's


and I will yield to one of these
and I will yield to one of these]]> as if I'm reaching for a friend

and yet the laddered labor's endless
and I another migrant friendless

"oh sullen servant what's the matter
why can you not just climb your ladder

why must you always reach for more
the light, the dark or Pluto's shore."


another rung compresses seasons
the fungal earth that forces reasons:


the trunk, the hips each branch a jaw, Some
sex to push the apple blossom

and then there's Frost - the killing bite
merchant, peddler, murderous mite

Second is the idle thought
the mushy pungent apple -y rot

and yet another rung of drinking
to put to rest such labored thinking

"come scouse the pubs and let's get pissed
and put aside your stupid list"

and that is fine my thinking's slurred
I can't recall the portent third


I cannot make a thot for thee
I cannot make it to list three

I cannot climb the ladder more
cannot seek the light or shore

so I will lift my cup alone
and let it now unyoke my stone

as graphite yields to clicky keys
and wolfram yields to LED's


and I will yield to one of these
and I will yield to one of these]]> <![CDATA[Friday Night with Opioid]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27497.html Mon, 27 Jul 2026 02:42:39 +0000 matsunosuperfan]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27497.html Friday Night with Opioid


My German friend is lovely. She listens
when you speak, and we’ve got no end
of private jokes. They buried her last week.

My best friend from Japan has gone
ten years without forgetting to give me a ring
on my birthday. His boys have stopped bedwetting,

while I throttle love with my bare hands, cook lavish meals
for one. My doctor is an optimist: “What’s done,”
she says, “is done.”]]> Friday Night with Opioid


My German friend is lovely. She listens
when you speak, and we’ve got no end
of private jokes. They buried her last week.

My best friend from Japan has gone
ten years without forgetting to give me a ring
on my birthday. His boys have stopped bedwetting,

while I throttle love with my bare hands, cook lavish meals
for one. My doctor is an optimist: “What’s done,”
she says, “is done.”]]> <![CDATA[Loss (edit)]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27488.html Mon, 20 Jul 2026 01:15:39 +0000 brynmawr1]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27488.html Loss

Imagine the sorrow
to lose those words
gifted by the idle mind
to bring life again
when the shadow fell
over my shoulder, to feel
how willing I was
mistaking the change in light she might have made
for maybe a cloud’s passing or nothing
more than a lapse in the workings
of my hands as I tend the flowers.


I’ve forgotten most of it
except how I wanted you,
the reader, to feel when the shadow fell
over my shoulder, to know my sudden startle
mistaking the change in light she might have made
for maybe a cloud’s passing or nothing
more than a lapse in the workings
of my hands as I tend the flowers.
]]> Loss

Imagine the sorrow
to lose those words
gifted by the idle mind
to bring life again
when the shadow fell
over my shoulder, to feel
how willing I was
mistaking the change in light she might have made
for maybe a cloud’s passing or nothing
more than a lapse in the workings
of my hands as I tend the flowers.


I’ve forgotten most of it
except how I wanted you,
the reader, to feel when the shadow fell
over my shoulder, to know my sudden startle
mistaking the change in light she might have made
for maybe a cloud’s passing or nothing
more than a lapse in the workings
of my hands as I tend the flowers.
]]> <![CDATA[The Dream I Send You Every Night, But Never Talk About]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27482.html Tue, 14 Jul 2026 21:31:50 +0000 matsunosuperfan]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27482.html The Dream I Send You Every Night,
But Never Talk About

You're strung out fighting sleep 
again, revisiting the latest tragedy
to climb out of your mouth, and this
is called a life. You're stretched out 

over legless trees, 
absorbing oxygen through tiny 
doughnut discs atop an old log
full of worms and salt, circling 

a doped-up lightning bug
till it runs out of juice, 
which hardly counts
as news—but row out with me 

deeper now, where stars don't mind
the lighthouse. Streams of gravity like ants 
run down the oarlocked gunnels. A stray hand
snatches at the currents

pouring from your face
into a heartless silence,
cat or lover, any life
you choose.]]> The Dream I Send You Every Night,
But Never Talk About

You're strung out fighting sleep 
again, revisiting the latest tragedy
to climb out of your mouth, and this
is called a life. You're stretched out 

over legless trees, 
absorbing oxygen through tiny 
doughnut discs atop an old log
full of worms and salt, circling 

a doped-up lightning bug
till it runs out of juice, 
which hardly counts
as news—but row out with me 

deeper now, where stars don't mind
the lighthouse. Streams of gravity like ants 
run down the oarlocked gunnels. A stray hand
snatches at the currents

pouring from your face
into a heartless silence,
cat or lover, any life
you choose.]]> <![CDATA[Intersection With Unborn Child]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27476.html Fri, 10 Jul 2026 17:23:34 +0000 matsunosuperfan]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27476.html Intersection With Unborn Child

What is time
to you now,
little soul? Are you behind

the bright unblinking eye
of this fat crow
nursing a heel of bread

I watch so long
I lose track of myself, missing
the small red hand

that means it’s safe
to cross? Good people
come over to watch me

watch the windows
all night long, blow kisses
to the wind. With love

they warn me
not to waste my life
looking for signs, you

who I can always find
between my ribs
and the stars.]]> Intersection With Unborn Child

What is time
to you now,
little soul? Are you behind

the bright unblinking eye
of this fat crow
nursing a heel of bread

I watch so long
I lose track of myself, missing
the small red hand

that means it’s safe
to cross? Good people
come over to watch me

watch the windows
all night long, blow kisses
to the wind. With love

they warn me
not to waste my life
looking for signs, you

who I can always find
between my ribs
and the stars.]]> <![CDATA[They've got computers now]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27470.html Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:55:48 +0000 matsunosuperfan]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27470.html They’ve got computers now

that can write poetry, read your mind, or paint
the Mona Lisa. Lots of very smart people
are worried about this, which is a massive
waste of energy. There’s no convincing
evidence machines can outdo
artists: have you ever seen an AI agent
board the bus without a ticket, having left
its wallet on the windowsill, distracted
by a blackbird, only to get waved through
by the driver with his stoic spine and fixed
half-grimace, and he mutters
like your father, so you shrapnel
into tears? Yes, but the machine can draw
a perfectly straight line. ]]> They’ve got computers now

that can write poetry, read your mind, or paint
the Mona Lisa. Lots of very smart people
are worried about this, which is a massive
waste of energy. There’s no convincing
evidence machines can outdo
artists: have you ever seen an AI agent
board the bus without a ticket, having left
its wallet on the windowsill, distracted
by a blackbird, only to get waved through
by the driver with his stoic spine and fixed
half-grimace, and he mutters
like your father, so you shrapnel
into tears? Yes, but the machine can draw
a perfectly straight line. ]]> <![CDATA[Et Super Te]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27467.html Sat, 04 Jul 2026 01:58:32 +0000 brynmawr1]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27467.html  
Morning and the gulls cry
sidewalks glistened with early rain
the mood maudlin
amidst the joy.  You’ve found
you become a place
and a place becomes you
the leaving more a resection
the scalpel wielded willingly
inevitably the hand shakes
and a piece is left behind
but a piece is also taken
 
Go and grieve
remember the joy]]>  
Morning and the gulls cry
sidewalks glistened with early rain
the mood maudlin
amidst the joy.  You’ve found
you become a place
and a place becomes you
the leaving more a resection
the scalpel wielded willingly
inevitably the hand shakes
and a piece is left behind
but a piece is also taken
 
Go and grieve
remember the joy]]> <![CDATA[Overthought]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27461.html Tue, 30 Jun 2026 23:43:48 +0000 carahmellow]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27461.html
Overthought 

There will come a day
when life tires of you.
The great abandonment
that leaves you on the other side,
alone.

Go with your middle finger high,
cheeks pulled wide
as its back turns.

You prepared for this
through philosophers’ words,
dog-eared books and 
circled proverbs,
hours spent
trying to outthink
what would never spare you.

Aren’t you glad?]]>
Overthought 

There will come a day
when life tires of you.
The great abandonment
that leaves you on the other side,
alone.

Go with your middle finger high,
cheeks pulled wide
as its back turns.

You prepared for this
through philosophers’ words,
dog-eared books and 
circled proverbs,
hours spent
trying to outthink
what would never spare you.

Aren’t you glad?]]> <![CDATA[And there you are.]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27456.html Mon, 29 Jun 2026 13:10:06 +0000 JohnS]]> https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-27456.html
I’ve come so far,
past the icy fringe of outer rings,
past lifeless moons, pulsating stars;
I stop and drift.
And there you are,

a smear of blue and improbable green,
wrapped in breath so thin
I marvel that anything inside it dares to dream.
I've studied a thousand worlds
from pock-marked rocks to acid clouds and iron plains
and none of them do this thing you do: radiate.
Not with flame. With something I can’t explain.
I have mapped your poles and latitudes,
I've watched the lights you string along your coasts at night,
heard you argue about how to divide a thing
and then call it your own.
I've heard all the thoughts you launch into the void —
those urgent, beautiful, ridiculous dispatches about love,
and sport,
and the price of eggs.

I confess I don't know what to feel.
My people gave up feeling long ago —
we reasoned it away —
yet here I hover, instruments gone quiet,
studying a species barely born but builds cathedrals
and makes war
and weeps at music it composed itself.

I should move on.
There are other systems to study.
I have the data I came for.
But I linger in the dark above your clouds,
the way you linger over something beautiful,
afraid that if you look away too long,
it will be gone.]]>
I’ve come so far,
past the icy fringe of outer rings,
past lifeless moons, pulsating stars;
I stop and drift.
And there you are,

a smear of blue and improbable green,
wrapped in breath so thin
I marvel that anything inside it dares to dream.
I've studied a thousand worlds
from pock-marked rocks to acid clouds and iron plains
and none of them do this thing you do: radiate.
Not with flame. With something I can’t explain.
I have mapped your poles and latitudes,
I've watched the lights you string along your coasts at night,
heard you argue about how to divide a thing
and then call it your own.
I've heard all the thoughts you launch into the void —
those urgent, beautiful, ridiculous dispatches about love,
and sport,
and the price of eggs.

I confess I don't know what to feel.
My people gave up feeling long ago —
we reasoned it away —
yet here I hover, instruments gone quiet,
studying a species barely born but builds cathedrals
and makes war
and weeps at music it composed itself.

I should move on.
There are other systems to study.
I have the data I came for.
But I linger in the dark above your clouds,
the way you linger over something beautiful,
afraid that if you look away too long,
it will be gone.]]>