The poem was born from the question, "How do I make a poem about a train interesting?" Answer: "Make it literary, and make it allegory." #poetry

The train in question is the transcontinental "Olympian Hiawatha", run by the Milwaukee Road between Chicago and Pacific Washington State from 1947-1961.

"Consider", my longest poem, an homage to Allen Ginsberg's "Howl". Published in Creation Magazine, Summer 2024 issue. Too long for alt text, but can be read in full here: www.poetry.com/poem/254353/...
#poetry #poem #poetrysky #poetrycommunity

Coachella is trying to wipe all of the footage of The Strokes protest set so I’m gonna post it here. The last images on the screen made me cry.

“What are we left with at the end? / A murdered dictionary and field”

— Omar Sakr

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This poem appeared in The Nightmare Sequence by Omar Sakr, published by Nightboat Books, 2025. Shared here with deep gratitude.

Once again thinking about Omar Sakr's Bluey in the Genocide.

All art is political. You cannot pretend it's not because it makes it easier for you to digest. To pretend. Someone's political view is in everything you see in one shape or another. It's unavoidable.

Inertia I fall for you in ways not explained by Newton’s apple I fall out of my senses eventually falling out of love descending from your orbit until the gravitational force decreases inevitably returning to the hard earth bruised but not abashed

Here's my offering for this week's #poemsabout on
#gravity. Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk / @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the prompt! Looking forward to reading everyone elses!

#poems #poetry #poetrycommunity

“I know I’m American because when I walk into a room something dies.”

#SundaySentence from “Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying” by Noor Hindi (@noorhindi.bsky.social)

Via Read a Little Poem on Facebook. @readalittlepoem.bsky.social

#SmallPoemSunday
#Poetry #NationalPoetryMonth #poem

a concert backdrop that says over 30 universities destroyed in iran against black and white picture of rubble

backdrop that says last standing university in gaza against a black and white image of al-israa university

giant three screen stage backdrop showing footage of the bombing of a university in gaza

The Strokes played Coachella against a backdrop listing all the world leaders that had been assassinated by the CIA, a count of the number of universities bombed in Iran, and footage of the bombing of the last university in Gaza

Hats off to The Strokes at Coachella last night

Cruel War (Original Single Version) YouTube video by Peter, Paul & Mary - Topic

"The Cruel War (Is Raging)", traditional folksong (attrib. to Civil War era), arranged and performed by Peter, Paul, and Mary, 1962 #music #tunes #folkmusic #traditionalmusic
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwKS...

I've joined poetry.com and hellopoetry.com!

My accounts can be found here: www.poetry.com/user/459354/...

And here: hellopoetry.com/@nomdelamer

#poetry #poetrysky #poetrycommmunity

Trying to network with no contacts and build a profile on a site that doesn't give a rat's shit about you is like living that Sylvia Plath quote: "What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age." #poetry

Bsky says I have 40 followers, but I counted the ones it shows me and only 28 are listed. What's up with that?

Haiku by my father:

orange carp
lost in the reflection
red maple leaves

- George Klacsanzky

#haiku #poetry #poem

Issue Fourteen — Baffling Magazine

Excited to share a short story of mine called Monologue is in the most recent issue of Baffling Magazine: www.bafflingmag.com/issue-fourte...

It's in very good company, as the other stories in the issue are magnificent. Give the whole thing a read! www.bafflingmag.com/issue-fourteen

morning dew
a single tear
on the pumpkin's cheek

#Haiku #poetry #poetrysky #writesky #micropoetry #nature #dew #pumpkins

Bleecker Street YouTube video by Simon & Garfunkel - Topic

"I saw a shadow touch a shadow's hand"
Simon & Garfunkel - Bleecker Street
Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964)
#music #tunes #folkmusic #60smusic
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcXo...

Untitled My lover asks me: "What is the difference between me and the sky?" The difference, my love, Is that when you laugh, I forget about the sky.

Untitled Like a fish, Quick and cowardly in love, You killed a thousand women inside me And became the queen.

Titled "Two" That March morning when you came walking toward me Like a beautiful poem The sun and the spring came with you. On my desk the papers Turned green In front of me a cup of coffee Became empty before I drank it When you appeared The running horses In the painting on my wall Left me To run to you.

Titled "Seven" I taught the children of the world To spell your name, And their lips changed into cherry trees. I asked the wind To comb the tresses of your coal black hair But it refused, Saying time was short, And your hair was long.

Poems by Nizar Qabbani (aka Nizar Kabbani), translated by Bassam K. Frangieh and Clementina R. Brown, in the book "Arabian Love Poems"
#poetry #poetrysky #favoritepoems #Arabicpoetry #Arabic

Title: Love Poem from a Cup of Coffee to the Spoon that Stirs It —after Nizar Qabbani Each morning you stir in my liquid embrace, each evening you caress me with your potent curve. Daily you kiss me like ice kissing flame, your tuliped face repaying bitterness with milk and sugar. Be like a cunning and cowardly fish and dive into me! Inscribe on me your love like runes writ on water. Would I were tree-bark or bone of a tortoise, so I could preserve the birth of your language! Like the silver of a Holy kingdom’s coffers you gleam, like the holy wisdoms of its mystics, catching the light of the sun in your face, your laughing lip holding that gleam as your own. Show me the seasons, all one thousand and one of them, become my mirror and teach me a world I don’t recognize. You are my tutor, my judge and my jurors, guiding me by the law of a beautiful new land. For you I am fragrant, like an orchard of orange-trees, for you I am nectar in the cup of your desire. My mouth rings like a bell as you scrape my walls. Your mouth presses to my mouth the trill of your song. How dear you are, O lover of mine! Like ancient magic, You scatter your sugar over my every blossoming. You are a mystic reading futures in stars, in grains of white sand. Your eyes prophesy doom by sweetest dilution.

A very old poem I've rewritten and rewritten for almost three years, inspired by the Arabic love poetry of Nizar Qabbani. Too niche to get published, so I'm posting it here. Full poem in alt text. #poetry #poetrysky #poetrycommunity #writing

Article posted on Twitter: "Gaza families try to save their children from suicide". Zionists spewing hate in replies are promoted, while replies from pro-Palestine accounts are hidden as "probable spam". Despicable. #Gaza #Palestine #Israel

Original article: www.newarab.com/news/gaza-fa...

Poem officially untitled [Goodbye Poem No. 3] —after Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” I never wanted to fall in love with you, no, I knew the trouble too well of falling in with someone young as you, girl; oh, what tales I could tell. I, a patent no one, an alley-cat, thin and clipped-eared, and chasing rats. But you came and lifted me up from all that. Don't look back, it's alright. And I didn't ask for you to light my way, girl, with your wandering star. I just wanted to travel ‘long beside you, without knowing how far. Once there was darkness, then came light: dripping pearls, you burnished my night; You were the most beautiful waste of my time. Now don't look back, it's alright. I'm sorry that I couldn't be your partner for more'n a year and a day. And I'm sorry that I couldn't be your mentor; didn't want to anyway. All of your questions went over my head; I just wanted to sit with you, and break bread. But that didn't fit with the film in your head. Now don't look back, it's alright. Maybe I'm the villain of the story, though you treated me a saint. Many o' my poems pro'ly were too gory; I, a one-time lonely haint. But I can't say that I'd go back again and cleave my heart a second time, if I could hide all the thorns with a rhyme. So don't look back, it's alright. [End poem] *Lines by Bob Dylan used, in altered form: --You just kinda wasted my precious time --But don't think twice, it's all right

Wrote this poem a week ago in honor of a long-term friendship that ended last month. Copied the rhythm + melody of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice" but only used two of his lines, wrote the rest myself. I know no one will publish it so I'll post it here. Poem's text in alt text. #poetry #poetrysky

Getting a lot of rejections that say "We're grateful to have read your work but we won't be publishing any of it" lately :/
#poetry

Should I post the elegy I wrote for Renée Good here on SocMed? I don't know any magazines that would publish it quickly, before it becomes irrelevant. #poetry #poetrysky

I was impressed with the quirky originality of this short story: "Clearance Aisle" by Nicholas Grider #writing #writingsky

dishsoap-quarterly.com/2-24-26

"Guys are ride or die for the categorical imperative. Guys wanna know whether this goes with this and this goes with that. What works. And..."

Days of Heaven YouTube video by YouTube Movies

Days of Heaven (full movie), dir. Terrence Malick, 1978.
Gorgeous and lyrical, a visual poem, this is one of the great films of the 20th century. Currently free to watch on YouTube. #cinematography #cinema #films #movies #DaysofHeaven #TerrenceMalick
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVbF...

"Anne Sexton in Harlem" by Alec Matthew Tonight I thought of you, Anne. A friend collected the debris of her life and strung them into bracelets. I entered the urban carnival at 125th and Lenox, Saw the shoe-shined Witnesses, the lunatic, the men in their exposure, the Saturday Shoppers in their muffs- For two weeks I have mended and given her alms,Tidied her messes, reconstructed a life, slept in the bed she made, as though I myself was not an unvetted talent for disaster, erratically medicated, harried, pulled at like a coat- I too have felt the wind shriek at Lenox, Erica, Where the subway placards hold like palisades against the downdraft And the boulevard bleeds wide. I have wanted to shout myself through the streets as you did, Telling you I would turn to everyone and no one at all when I declared it time- Tonight the snow slurries in Harlem. I think of the mind wherein I have lived like a rat for 400 days recycling thought loops, and then of the one you leapt through- Visitation has ended. aborted in that gesture, I leave here a tourist.

I loved this poem featured in The Blood Pudding: "Anne Sexton in Harlem" by Alec Matthew #poetry #poetrysky #favoritepoems
thebloodpudding.com/poetry/anne-...

Poem 'Epitaph on a tyrant' by WH Auden

W H Auden (1939) responding to the rise of fascism

The final couplet is brutal and brilliant

The juxtaposition of laughing & crying, his tears are not empathy but triggers of violence

Not naming the tyrants make this feel less like history, more like prophecy

#poetry
#poemoftheday
#AntiFascist

"Un ojo dejé en Los Lagos" de Violeta Parra Un ojo dejé en Los Lagos por un descuido casual, el otro quedó en Parral en un boliche de tragos; recuerdo que mucho estrago de niña vio el alma mía, miserias y alevosías anudan mis pensamientos, entre las aguas y el viento me pierdo en la lejanía. Mi brazo derecho en Buin quedó, señores oyentes, el otro por San vicente quedó, no sé con qué fin; mi pecho en Caracautín lo veo en un jardincillo, mis manos en Maitencillo saludan en Pelequén, mi falda en Perquilauquén recoge unos pececillos. Se m'enredó en San Rosendo un pie al cruzar una esquina, el otro en la Quiriquina se me hunde mares adentro, mi corazón descontento latió con pena en Temuco, y me ha llorado en Calbuco, de frío por una escarcha, voy y enderezo mi marcha a la cuesta 'e Chacabuco. Mis nervios dejo en Granero, la sangr' en San Sebastián, y en la cuidad de Chillán la calma me bajó a cero, mi riñonada en Cabrero destruye una caminata, y en una calle de Itata se me rompió el estrumento, y endilgo pa' Nacimiento una mañana de plata. Desembarcando en Riñihue se vio la Violeta Parra, sin cuerdas en la guitarra, sin hojas en el colihue; una bandá' de chirigües le vino a dar un concierto; con su hermanito Roberto y Cochepe forman un trío que cant' a l'orilla 'el río y en el vaivén de los puertos.

"Un ojo dejé en Los Lagos" by Violeta Parra (translation by Sean Eaton) I left an eye in Los Lagos through a casual oversight, the other was dropped in Parral in a den of drink; I remember all the wreckage my soul witnessed as a child, miseries and treacheries knot themselves through my thoughts, between the waters and the wind I lose myself in the distance. My right arm fell behind in Buin dear gentlemen listening, the other in San Vicente was slipped, I don’t know to what end; my chest, in Caracautín where I see it in a small garden, my two hands in Maitencillo are saluting in Pelequén, my skirt in Perquilauquén is catching schools of small fish. One foot got tangled in San Rosendo while crossing a street corner, the other in Quiriquina is sinking into the ocean, my heart, so discontented, beats with sorrow in Temuco, it has cried for me in Calbuco, from the cold of a frost, I go and straighten my march to the slope of Chacabuco. I leave my nerves in Granero, my blood in San Sebastián, and in the city of Chillán my calm dropped to zero, my kidney in Cabrero destroys a promenade, and on a street in Itata my instrument broke on me, I set off to Nacimiento one silvery morning. Disembarking in Riñihue Violeta Parra was seen, without strings on her guitar, without leaves on her bamboo; a band of chirigüe birds came to offer her a concert; with her little brother Roberto and Cochepe they form a trio that sings on the river’s shore to the come-and-go of the ports.

"Un ojo dejé en Los Lagos" by Chilean poet and songwriter Violeta Parra. English translation by me. #poetry #music #1970s #Chile #Chileanpoetry #folkmusic #VioletaParra

El Exiliado del Sur YouTube video by Patricio Manns - Topic

Latin-American folk music is one of my great joys.
El Exiliado del Sur (The Exile from the South) - words by Violeta Parra, music by Patricio Manns (lyrics in comments) #music #tunes #Chile #1970s #folkmusic #Latinmusic #worldmusic

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV0q...