His hands weaved an image as he spoke. His voice, like that of an artichoke; prickly, yet with the beauty of a blooming flower head. His words stayed the course as men and women meandered on by, adrift in the current of the daily street grind. The syllables splashed against their minds, with each word said; Prose or poetry, with rhyme or reason, it fit the mood with measured ease like a suit bespoken.

This was the poets corner, where you could come to hear a bit of soul roll off the tongue. Pieces that captured the heart and imagination, that stole a breath or two from many a tired lung. Offered freely to the shuffling feet; a little something to give the spirit a tug, to flip the script and kick the mechanical man off repeat.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

"Bagels! Mother fuckin' bagels!" The cart pusher shouted out at the top of his lungs, as he pushed and prodded his money along.

"Hear ye my tales, my heart, my fables!" The poet returned fire as he broke into song.

"Be quenched from the stale, like win and like ale, they'll leave you more spirited than a mother fuckin' bagel!"

He paused at the trail, his face curiously long, although thwart from his sales he knew the rhymester not wrong.

"They'll speak to your gut with your soul in a ladle, now part from that cart and traverse the road less taken!"

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

As Gale walked past the corner she saw a young man waiting to be heard. His face pale from the fright of so many people passing by. She recognized him as the shoeshine kid who would work outside the juke joints. As She got closer and saw him shaking with fear Gale called to him softly. "Hey kid". He turned her way and she tossed him a couple of silver dollars. He smiled and began. 

Mother to Son

 

Well, son, I'll tell you:

Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

It's had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.

But all the time 

I'se been a-climbin' on,

And reachin' landin's,

And turnin' corners,

And sometimes goin' in the dark

Where there ain't been no light.

So, boy, don't you turn back.

Don't you set down on the steps.

'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.

Don't you fall now—

For I'se still goin', honey,

I'se still climbin',

And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

 

Langston Hughes

 

An arousing cough from a sickly man, on a stoop he panned with outstretched hands. His life was now an invalid's dance, it had all but lost the light, the romance. Once upon a time he smiled bright, strong in his will, before he blamed it away on happenchance. And as his soul cried victim, the zealot poet saw his chance.

"You've got to seize the moment, don't leave it to another's hands! Because the power is there if you choose to own it, all the good, but especially the bad! Take back the reins and on mountains you'll stand! Now listen, as I remind you of who you, who I, who we all truly am!"

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me, 

Black as the Pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 

For my unconquerable soul. 

 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. 

 

It matters not how strait the gate, 

How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate: 

I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Artie walked over and found himself in exceptionally unfamiliar surroundings.  Him and poetry were not natural bedfellows, Artie had always tended to find difficulty in going beyond the literal meaning of the words in front of him and wondered how people could wander lonely as a cloud for example.  However at this time of year, he always got a little bit sentimental for the sacrifices of only a few years earlier and found the poet’s corner to be a nice place to end up.

He coughed slightly…

This might seem a little cheesy or indeed out of place however I do tend to think of poetry like this at this time of year

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

Dorian hears some nice poems.. claps as the poets have said them and then realises it wasn't their own work they brought..

That's weird.. he thinks

Why aren't these men.. and woman.. orating what they have written themselves?

He decides to step forward, clears his throat and starts to improvise

As Romeo and Juliet once were once the inspi..

No.. wait..

Second try.. It should go well now

The cold november wind that struck my face..

Oh forget it!

DorianGray kicked against a tree before he sped off, acknowledging how much he sucked at poetry

i dare you to open yourself and show me the nakedness of your soul

allowing me to fall in love with your true being

so then I can kiss each of your flaws

simply because they are the reason for what I find perfect in you

Justice had heard about Poets Corner. Being an avid amateur Poet himself, he was interested in paying a visit. As he arrived, he settled down among the crowd.  Having heard some lovely poems, Justice decided to step forward with one of his original creations. These people didn't know it yet, but they were about to witness the beginning of something great. Something never seen before. Slam Poetry. 

Plagiarism

Play the schism

Where's the vision

In posting someone else's revision

Give me original

please, habitual criminal

Habit to copy

get's you nil. 

Taking a slight bow, Justice leaves the stage. No one in the crowd knew what to do. Feeling slightly embarrassed, Justice took out his pocket poem book. Rifling through it quickly, he came across a well known poem. "Ah" he thought to himself "maybe this will go down better next time". 

The poet continued pacing the common street, beating his feet upon the cracked concrete; arduously baring the soul's seat. He imagined a drunken master, sipping on dregs of gut rot gin; and although they sought differing inspiration, it all spoke to the same silent light within. No matter the path one stumbled, or took to with an upturned chin; it all rekindled the sightless candle, and lit the fire of smokeless glint.

And so the poet spoke once more from the spirit, recounting another guilty sin; with heart in throat, another favored piece is what he'd spin.

Inspiration

Noonday upon the Alpine meadows

Pours its avalanche of Light

And blazing flowers: the very shadows

Translucent are and bright.

It seems a glory that nought surpasses

Passion of angels in form and hue?

When, lo! from the jewelled heaven of the grasses

Leaps a lightning of sudden blue.

Dimming the sun-drunk petals,

Bright even unto pain,

The grasshopper flashes, settles,

And then is quenched again.

Aldous Huxley

Hashtag had only came only to the poets corner to support his friend Ju_St_Ice. But the words spoken by Justice truely inspired him, he had never heard a poem like that prior to today. Deciding he was going to try his hand at it, Hashtag makes his way to the stage, stubbing his cigarette out on the way.
Almost everyone here had never seen Hashtag in these parts of town, so he we wanted to seem confident in his delivery. Little did he know his hands were shaking as he stood in front of the crowd.
"This ones for you pal"

WAR

Brings pain!

Brothers and sisters WILL die

it's a human flaw

do we KILL in vain?

Catsateherface, goodbye.

I still feel you with US

wounds still sore

what's ALL the fuss?

its just war.

"Thank you" he said, exiting the stage, wondering if that was as big a mistake as it seemed in that moment.

There was no way Ducky was going to better these speakers. He would just listen and take the experience in...
He watched as HA_SHTAG appeared on stage, and felt a sense of gladness as he heard his Uncle's name be read out loud in front of the small yet attentive audience. 

Ducky sighed. He felt the feeling of gladness morph into a feeling of empowerment and pride. He knew this meant he was going up on that stage.
Ducky was no poet, but he had recently read about a style of writing from the eastern reaches of the globe, small poems known as haikus.

"Perhaps they will appreciate a foreign twist!" He thought positively to himself.
He grabbed a napkin from one of the empty tables, and a pencil from his jacket pocket and began scribbling. Once he was done, he noticed HA_SHTAG exiting the stage.

"This is it!" He thought, as he moved briskly towards the front...
 

Loss, the bitter taste
Sweet, the taste of memory
Revenge tastes sweeter

Ducky took a deep breath, scanned the room, and continued...

In this thing of ours
We look to those we trust most
Doubt not their guidance
 

He felt relieved to get something, albeit something small, off his chest. Ducky smiled, took a short bow and left the stage as quickly as he'd entered it.

Is is from a collection of my own works.

WAKE UP

To be a wolf in sheep’s clothing
waiting for your entitlement
screaming for respect you will not give , nor have earned.
Being a part the of mass downfall of all society,
as you apathetically refuse to acknowledge the
stripping of free will.


Sitting there in your blissful ignorance,
you choose to remain uneducated .
To the knowledge of their twisted mind control over you.
As you wish to have the heart of a warrior and instead believe the lies that you are but a coward .
To believe in the dogma of god, only because this was what they used to wash your freewill away.

The political correctness of today has deluded the minds of the masses to believe,
That only police violence is against minorities,
It is okay to be who are and believe what you want as long it is the same as what they tell you to believe.
The husband can subjugate the wife to his virile ways and ignore the children his seed has grown.


If you speak against the social norm then they brand you dissent and volatile.


If you step up to them with a fist in air and a defiant finger in the face they,
call you a heretic, an enemy of the state. To stand alone is futile resistance.
To challenge the resistance of the rats covered in fleas,
you need

TO WAKE UP , ,

Be
Dissents
Outcasts
Rebels
Opinionated

Not Subjugated

Your sorrow may feel deeper then the ocean

the feeling coming back like the waves to the shore

but settle into the therapeutic sands 

let the breeze refresh your being and filter through the trees 

Nothing is better than being able to notice the creation of our reality unfolding right before us

to maxine

*Zeitgeist approaches the quaint poet's corner with a glint in his eye, he had always been such a lover of poetry. He takes a back seat listening to fellow Mafioso' sharing some of their favourite poems. The irony of listening to someone who beat someone to death with a hammer last with quoting Frost was not lost on him. Still, he sat there, sipping slowly on his cheap whisky and smoking his hand-rolled cigarettes, enjoying the evening. He pauses for a moment, during the intermission he rises to his feet and says...*

It does seem like this would be an interesting opportunity and platform for us to share some of our own writings and musings. Would anyone else be interested in utilizing this platform for a more regular sharing of our work?

*Zeitgeist turns slowly and returns to his dirty old chair and his cheap liquor*

Jace was so excited to find a place for Poetry reading ever since he realized his love for poetry at the library in Philadelphia and had actually brought a new book from a young poet of the romantic era John Keats of his collective works which seemed to resonate with Jace as he was such a young man who had fears about life and death and used his works to express them, Jace wondered maybe one day if he would write something one day that he would publish or speak out out loud in a forum such as this.

Jace sat down and ordered a coke and listened to the various poets and speakers and commended each of them as they were far braver than he was to go up there and speak, all the while they spoke Jace scribbled in his own little notebook writing ideas for his own works that came to mind as well this new hobby he picked up he would attempt to draw some of the more interesting patrons in the venue. 

Tara flipped through a small book of poetry as she leaned back onto the bench. One particular stanza leapt out at her.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, 

         Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, 

But on the viewless wings of Poesy, 

         Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: 

Already with thee! tender is the night, 

         And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, 

                Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; 

                        But here there is no light, 

         Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown 

                Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.