deviant art

Deviant Login
Buy ArtBuy T-Shirts & Gear Buy adCast Buy Premium Membership
Shop
 Join deviantART for FREE Take the Tour
[x]
The Grammar GangstersBeware the grammar gangsters!
The mafia of the literary underworld.
They saunter into stanzas,
Weapons concealed
Under their trench coats
Or in violin cases.

They can make you talk,
"With just a few well-placed speech marks,"
Leave you shouting! Where you should have whispered!
And pulp your bold statements into quavering questions?
They can, pepper, your, phrases with, commas,
Or bring your piece to a dead.
Full.
Stop.

They'll trap you (between brackets)
As you - dash - to the exit.
Then: punch a blunted colon
Into the gut of your text
Or worse;
Force-feed you a poisonous semicolon,
Then hack/slash your work to shreds.

T
it is not enoughit is not enough just to
miss you. i have to learn
how to walk again; how to
live without meat and
kissing, how to sleep
shaped like a balled up
fist. it is not enough
just to miss you. i have
to adopt twins in
Africa, name them Lost
and Weird, forget to
feed them. i have to
go to every pet store
in America and rescue
all the seahorses. i have
to tattoo D A R K B I R D
inside my lip and stand
in children's playgrounds
like a broken arm, creaking. it
is not enough just to miss
you. it has to hurt. i
have to write poems
that last forever, interpret
dreams about buildings
burning down, flies who
leave their partners fo
gestalt I hope this is more than inebriated romance.

I watch you in the diner.

I'm always watching, through mirrors, through doorways, seeing you and seeing me and knowing we're reflections of the same hypocrisy; I'm outside the television, this tellingvision, I'm disconnected, broken, the nerve between me and the rest of existence is strained and I see beyond your charades.  I'm on the outside of the window, our interactions are equivocal, ambiguous, filtered and muted.  My reality is a drunk prism, and your reality is an insane labyrinth of pattern, schedule, and bullshit.

The coffee at dinner makes remnants of the vodka at breakfast taste l
a window opena window open
to breathe in love
the cricket's serenade

Miyamoto Musashi's Poetrywe reconstruct the man
from shards of paper and pottery
(a shrike in ink
a small wooden bodhisattva
a practical treatise on swordplay)

he said his only teacher was Nature
which is a fine thing to say
when you're good at everything

they say he slew Ganryū
with a length of oar
he'd whittled on impulse into a sword

so much for the soul of the samurai:
not metal, flashing and hard
priceless and irreplaceable

only a discarded wooden spar
emerging from refuse
to refuse returning

and perhaps his poems were the same
nourished by earth and water
whispering an answer to wind
burbling off towards the long sea

and this is how hi
The Chemicals Between Us
Colin had received the letter two weeks after his eighteenth birthday. "Congratulations!" it began. "You are pre-approved for a Breeding Marriage License! Enclosed is form MGA-1304, application for suggested partners. Please complete this form and return it to the Ministry for Genetic Affairs to request your list of genetically compatible partners." He folded the letter back into its envelope and drew out the application. After scanning across it briefly, he set it on the table and opened the next item, another piece of college junk mail.

It sat in a filing cabinet until a biting February day three years later. As he was walking home from a
Pain PAIN

Hangs from your pelvis
like an incomplete, conjoined sibling
with no mind of its own
but enough of yours to make you fear it.

Comes when you are sleeping
to perch on your face and dip its beak
redly into your dreams.
Shucks its claws

on the upholstery of your flesh.
Is a fog-eyed poet, reading aloud to you
endless reams of his own passionate,
excruciating verse.

Squats in the waste it has made of you,
a basilisk-child
you dare not look in the eye.
Remembers the body when it moved

with the ease of light across a lake’s delicate skin.
Watches your babies grow
skins so thick they can’t feel you.
Is
Daily LifeI put on my pants, just like everybody else.
Rock BottomDear Lord,

Nevermind.
pathos as a punchlineand then, mid-rinse, it hit me.

there's something a touch more troubling
about quiet desperation
showing its face during the
familiar & commonplace.

weeping in the shower; fully lathered,
ears ringing.

red-eyed in the mirror;
shaving cream scattered,
small cut crowning
a procession of teeth.

crying at breakfast;
full stack of pancakes
cooling on the table.

miserable at brunch;
spinach quiche crumbles
collecting on the chin.

it's a fully realized sadness
fit to laugh at, on the screen.
it's a swallowing despair
to bear in skin.
How to Write Villanelles           Villanelles can be frightening; they look simple but are actually quite difficult. However, when mastered, it becomes “technically easy” according to Conrad Geller.  Just like riding a bike, right?  The name Villanelle is derived from the Italian villa, or country house, which is where aristocrats went to “refresh” themselves.  Strangely enough, the form is originally French and only appeared in the English language in the lat 1800s (19th century).  Out of the 19 lines in a Villanelle, only two rhymes are used. &#
disposable assetsI've been writing poems
none of which are about you
(except for this one)
RaskolOur son and his wife sleep in separate rooms. They are painted the same colour and bear identical scars but are separated by a hall so long that by the time I walk from one end to the other, I am too tired to compare and know what is different.

That is the convenience of an oversized house, I think, that we did not have in our small one-room apartment—they never have to see each other’s faces. You remember the nights when we were given no choice but to lie next to each other, against the hard corner, when we were seething in each other’s anger. How wonderful it might have been to stare at a blank wall, letting the heat of our
Tommy 1337Dahl, your death was a tragedy,
But I'm almost glad you didn't see
The rising of the new way to
Make your kids' minds melt into goo.
I talk, of course, lest we forget
Of the abhorrent INTERNET.
None of us could contain our joy
When this delightful little toy
Made little Tommy shut his trap
(Much quicker than a lunchtime nap)
And seemed, at first, to educate
Rather than brain-assimilate.
But years rolled on and our new friend
Became the source of ghastly trends
And Tommy, now at age thirteen,
Became rather absurdly keen
On women – half cat, with huge breasts,
And arguments on which was best:
The Potter books or sparkly
Katuatagoing out with her
was like World War One, except
it was over by Christmas
Browse More Like This
more ▶

More from `darkcrescendo

Shades of Sleep
Another blue ceiling, shadow-choked and unfamiliar,
stares back in sympathy - withered paint crackling
with unshed dust and old-man's tales of long ago,
a silent confidante with blown-bulb twilit wisdom -
It's comfort as cold as this half-empty bed.

Cataleptic - a midnight-waker with four hours lost
and the ceiling is shadow-smothered, blue gone grey
like old-man's ashes spread out over this dark grave
of a room - dust unto dust in the throat, and coughing
with all the enthusiasm of russian roulette.

Pull the trigger on the TV remote to no effect -
3am and the damn thing's still dead, the traitor
with screen black like a post-midn
Battlefeared
The warlords rage, with death their language,
battle-breaking young mens' marrow -
and corpse-ranks swell to widowed anguish.

In lovers' fields once greenly passaged,
where the youthful dreamed of hope -
the warlords rage, with death their language.

Their thoughts are steelclad, grimly savage,
rhythmic with their tireless blows,
as corpse-ranks swell to widowed anguish.

In following their brutal adage -
'fight or die' blood-etched in stone,
the warlords rage, with death their language.

Ablaze, their fires rave and ravage,
scorching land and searing bone,
as corpse-ranks swell to widowed anguish.

The death-knell dirge is sung wi
Sword Boy and Magic Wench VI
These are the adventures of Sword Boy and Magic Wench - accounts of epic deeds and their daily life confronting danger in the mythical lands of Generic Fantasy World!

Join them now a couple of days after they have left the 'Dark Forest of Trees'!
It is a shame really -I liked the forest. It had ambience, lots of ambience.

MW "So why are we doing this again?"

SB "Quests are the bread and butter of the adventuring hero. As the great Laut Fuhl said: 'Quests are verily unto the bread and butter of the adventuring Hero'. So, as you can see, questing is something we should do by default."

MW "Okay. Even if, for a second, we assume that that is
The Death March.
Maestro Death bows, plays the Danse Macabre,
flays the strings and grins at rigor mortis
screeching through the ravaged senses.

Violin violence bites and rages,
claws the ears and rends with primal discord,
shredding through the shattered corpus.

Reaper's bow screams the day to silence,
stills the breath and kills the dying echo.
Flying souls' ovations greet the end.
The Day's Noose
Read blood swells, in fear-wrought fonts
page-bound by ink; wells up in thoughts
caught in small words and minds for war
all fought in scripts of 'done before'.

Red blood wells, and fear-sought peace
is drenched in oil; swells up like gas
in days-old dead and brand new cars
both fuelled by 'black gold' greed.

It's all old news, in brand new print
and bound with lies; sold back 'at cost'
for the read, and the dead, and the red text -
all that makes that first cup of 'wake up' so good.

Featured in Groups:

:icondd-catalogue: #DD-Catalogue
The Home of Daily Deviations

Details

November 29, 2008
274 bytes
Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 163
Favourites: 200 [who?]


Views: 5,136 (1 today)
Downloads: 19 (0 today)
[x]
Mature Content Filter is On
(Contains: ideologically sensitive material)

A warming limerick

:icondarkcrescendo:

There once was a man from Romania
who indulged in discreet pyromania.
He said as he died
"It was too cold inside,
so I thought I would heat the roomania"
:icondarkcrescendo:
Sometimes we get too caught up in our worries about life, letting the big things drag us down, and some people even end up taking their lives. Morbid stuff, wot?

Well quit the grey-faced wobblies, and jolly well keep that upper lip stiff!

Not every death or suicide is a basis for moping and melancholy! No! Sometimes, it is entirely accidental, and consequently humorous.

So, in the veins of Lear and Nash, I say unto you, good gentlemen and women both, Tally ho!

Benedictions!

( N.B: I get paid by the comma, so you will forgive the over abundance, I am certain.)
Add a Comment:
 
Preview   Add Comment

Daily Deviation

Given 2008-12-07
A warming limerick by `darkcrescendo This made me laugh, and there's nothing like a good limerick for a Sunday morning. Enjoy! ( Featured by !lovetodeviate )
love 1 1 joy 2 2 wow 0 0 mad 0 0 sad 0 0 fear 1 1 neutral 0 0
:iconssx12345:
~SSX12345 May 10, 2012  Hobbyist Digital Artist
How did you do the limeruck catogory, I cannot find it in catogories and I have a limerick to submit.
Reply
:iconabcat:
`AbCat Aug 1, 2009   Writer
There was a oung man from Rondonia,
Who lost his new set of euphonia,
He looked in his car
His house and a bar,
But it was in a small tank of ammonia.
Reply
:iconranger696:
~Ranger696 Feb 14, 2009
is that it???? what why? more i say M! O! R! E!
Reply
:iconpopsicleparticles:
~PopsicleParticles Dec 10, 2008
completely undeserved and inspiring. my quest for a DD begins anew!
Reply
:iconrinotonashi:
Mood: Fear ~RinOtonashi Dec 8, 2008
reminds me of the limerick,

"there was once an old man from peru,
who dreamed he was kissing his shoe,
he woke in the night,
with a terrible fright,
to find that his dream was, in fact, true!"


or something >__>
Reply
:iconunderground-rogue:
~Underground-Rogue Dec 8, 2008  Student Writer
*cracks up* Oh, the wit.
I use more commas than I get paid for :(
Great piece, great comment behind it, highly deserving of a DD. Good on you ^^
Reply
:iconxvania:
~Xvania Dec 8, 2008  Student
Exactly what I needed today, a good ol' laugh :]
Reply
:iconselfish-eden:
~Selfish-Eden Dec 7, 2008
:rofl: :clap: I love it!
Reply
:icondarkcrescendo:
`darkcrescendo Dec 8, 2008
Splendid, old boy! Jolly good show!

Benedictions!
Reply
:iconxburiedinblackx:
~XburiedinblackX Dec 7, 2008
That... has got to be the best limerick I have ever read. "Roomania" is going to have me chuckling all evening, heheh...

And congratulations on the DD, as well! :nod:
Reply
Add a Comment:
 
Preview   Add Comment
©2013 deviantART. All rights reserved
About Us | Contact Us | Developers | Careers | Site Tour | Help & FAQ Advertise | Premium Membership Etiquette | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Copyright Policy