Wrap your skeleton around me
Weld your bones to mine
I need more than regular involvement
I need you to perform a miracle on me
Somehow still the horror inside
Please help me
I don’t want to die screaming
I don’t know if you can do it
Hold me in a violent grip
Outsmart me
I need something
A vacancy is growing inside me that I can’t control
Fuck it
Don’t even try
I’ll just abuse you
It’s all I know
I’m just afraid that I’ll hurt you
More than I already have

I Know You

I know you
you were too short
you had bad skin
you couldn’t talk to them very well
words didn’t seem to work
they lied when they came out of your mouth
you tried so hard to understand them
you wanted to be part of what was happening
you saw them having fun
and it seemed like such a mystery
almost magic
made you think that there was something wrong with you
you’d look in the mirror trying to find it
you thought that you were ugly
and that everyone was looking at you
so you learned to be invisible
to look down
to avoid conversation
the hours
days
weekends
ah the weekend nights, alone
where were you
in the basement?
in the attic?
in your room?
working some job?
just to have something to do
just to have a place to put yourself
just to have a way to get away from them
a chance to get away from the ones that made you feel so strange and ill-at-ease inside yourself
did you ever get invited to one of their parties
you sat and wondered if you would go or not
for hours you imagined the scenarios that might transpire
they would laugh at you
if you would know what to do
if you would have the right things on
if they would notice that you came from a different planet
did you get all brave in your thoughts
like you were going to be able to go in there and deal with it
and have a great time
did you think that you might be “the life of the party”
that all these people were gonna talk to you
and you would find out that you were wrong
that you had a lot of friends
and you weren’t so strange after all?
did you end up going
did they mess with you
did they single you out
did you find out that you were invited
because they thought you were so weird
yeah, I think I know you
you spent a lot of time full of hate
a hate that was pure as sunshine
a hate that saw for miles
a hate that kept you up at night
a hate that filled your every waking moment
a hate that carried you for a long time
yes I think I know you
you couldn’t figure out what they saw and the way they lived
home was not home
your room was home
a corner was home
the place they weren’t- that was home
I know you
you’re sensitive
and you hide it, because you fear getting stepped on one more time
it seems that when you show a part of yourself that is the least bit vulnerable
someone takes advantage of you
one of them steps on you
they mistake kindness for weakness
but you know the difference
you’ve been the brunt of their weakness for years
and strength is something you know a bit about
because you had to be strong to keep yourself alive
you know yourself very well now
and you don’t trust people
you know them too well
you try to find that “special person”
someone you can be with
someone you can touch
someone you can talk to
someone you won’t feel so strange around
and you found that they don’t really exist
you feel closer to people on movie screens
yeah, I think I know you
you spend a lot of time daydreaming
and people have made comment to that effect
telling you that you’re “self-involved” and “self-centered”
but they don’t know, do they
about the long nightshifts alone
about the years of keeping yourself company
all the nights you wrapped your arms around yourself
so you could imagine someone holding you
the hours of indecision
self-doubt
the intense depression
the blinding hate
the rage that made you stagger
the devastation of rejection
well
maybe they do know
but if they do
they sure do a good job of hiding it
it astounds you how they can be so smooth
how they seem to pass through life as if life itself was some divine gift
and it infuriates you to watch yourself with your apparent skill,
and finding every way possible to screw it up
for you, life is a long trip
terrifying and wonderful
birds sing to you at night
the rain and the sun
the changing seasons
are true friends
solitude is a hard won ally
faithful and patient
yeah, I think I know you

How To Speak Poetry

Take the word butterfly. To use this word it is not necessary to make the voice weigh less than an ounce or equip it with small dusty wings. It is not necessary to invent a sunny day or a field of daffodils. It is not necessary to be in love, or to be in love with butterflies. The word butterfly is not a real butterfly. There is the word and there is the butterfly. If you confuse these two items people have the right to laugh at you. Do not make so much of the word. Are you trying to suggest that you love butterflies more perfectly than anyone else, or really understand their nature? The word butterfly is merely data. It is not an opportunity for you to hover, soar, befriend flowers, symbolize beauty and frailty, or in any way impersonate a butterfly. Do not act out words. Never act out words. Never try to leave the floor when you talk about flying. Never close your eyes and jerk your head to one side when you talk about death. Do not fix your burning eyes on me when you speak about love. If you want to impress me when you speak about love put your hand in your pocket or under your dress and play with yourself. If ambition and the hunger for applause have driven you to speak about love you should learn how to do it without disgracing yourself or the material.

What is the expression which the age demands? The age demands no expression whatever. We have seen photographs of bereaved Asian mothers. We are not interested in the agony of your fumbled organs. There is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horror of this time. Do not even try. You will only hold yourself up to the scorn of those who have felt things deeply. We have seen newsreels of humans in the extremities of pain and dislocation. Everyone knows you are eating well and are even being paid to stand up there. You are playing to people who have experienced a catastrophe. This should make you very quiet.

Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Everyone knows you are in pain. You cannot tell the audience everything you know about love in every line of love you speak. Step aside and they will know what you know because you know it already. You have nothing to teach them. You are not more beautiful than they are. You are not wiser. Do not shout at them. Do not force a dry entry. That is bad sex. If you show the lines of your genitals, then deliver what you promise. And remember that people do not really want an acrobat in bed. What is our need? To be close to the natural man, to be close to the natural woman. Do not pretend that you are a beloved singer with a vast loyal audience which has followed the ups and downs of your life to this very moment. The bombs, flame-throwers, and all the shit habe destroyed more than just the trees and villages. They have also destroyed the stage. Did you think that your profession would escape the general destruction? There is no more stage. There are no more footlights. You are among the people. Then be modest. Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Be by yourself. Be in your own room. Do not put yourself on.
This is an interior landscape. It is inside. It is private. Respect the privacy of the material. These pieces were written in silence. The courage of the play is to speak them. The discipline of the play is not to violate them. Let the audience feel your love of privacy even though there is no privacy. Be good whores. The poem is not a slogan. It cannot advertise you. It cannot promote your reputation for sensitivity. You are not a stud. You are not a killer lady. All this junk about the gangsters of love. You are students of discipline. Do not act out the words. The words die when you act them out, they wither, and we are left with nothing but your ambition.
Speak the words with the exact precision with which you would check out a laundry list. Do not become emotional about the lace blouse. Do not get a hard-on when you say panties. Do not get all shivery just because of the towel. The sheets should not provoke a dreamy expression about the eyes. There is no need to weep into the handkerchief. The socks are not there to remind you of strange and distant voyages. It is just your laundry. It is just your clothes. Don’t peep through them. Just wear them.

The poem is nothing but information. It is the Consitution of the inner country. If you declaim it and blow it up with noble intentions then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. You are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest kind of appeal to a kind of emotional patriotism. Think of the words as science, not as art. They are a report. You are speaking before a meeting of the Explorers’ Club of the National Geographic Society. These people know all the risks of mountain climbing. They honour you by taking this for granted. If you rub their faces in it that is an insult to their hospitality. Tell them about the height of the mountain, the equipment you used, be specific about the surfaces and the time it took to scale it. Do not work the audience for gasps ans sighs. If you are worthy of gasps and sighs it will not be from your appreciation of the event but from theirs. It will be in the statistics and not the trembling of the voice or the cutting of the air with your hands. It will be in the data and the quiet organization of your presence.

Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you’re tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty.

<3

Leonard Cohen is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. His work often deals with the exploration of religion, isolation, sexuality and complex interpersonal relationships. Cohen’s writing process, he told an interviewer in 1998, is “like a bear stumbling into a beehive or a honey cache: I’m stumbling right into it and getting stuck, and it’s delicious and it’s horrible and I’m in it and it’s not very graceful and it’s very awkward and it’s very painful and yet there’s something inevitable about it.”

http://www.leonardcohen.com/

The Invitation
By: Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

A leading voice on the spoken-word scene, Saul Williams began astonishing open mic audiences with his impassioned tongue-twisting verse in the mid-1990s and eventually became a grand slam champion at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. In 1996, he led the four-person New York team to the finals of the National Poetry Slam competition, a fierce battle of verse that was chronicled in the documentary film Slamnation. Two years later, in a role that featured many of his own compositions, Williams played an imprisoned street poet in the award-winning film, Slam, for which Esquire magazine deemed him a “dreadlocked dervish of words.”

- “I’m definitely a hip-hop head by nature. I’m there in the mix, so I’m turned on by the same things, nod my head to the same things. Even if I’m writing a piece of prose, there is still an intrinsic rhythm that I’m looking for, even without rhyme, even without beats, even without music and microphones.”))

Yes, this is a special day. The perfect day to creep into a closet and speak bluntly to a dead relative or friend. Or, even, as our native friends say, ‘Today is a good day to die.’ But don’t take that wrongly! Cough up those pills! Remove that razor from your wrist! Don’t jump!! Please, Mr. Brown, come back into the window. You must understand that when our indigenous friends said these words, they meant that everything was in order, that God’s presence was felt, that today they could rest in peace. But mark my words: THERE ARE THOSE WHO DO NOT LIKE REST NOR PEACE.THEY MAKE WAR WITH THE UNDENIABLE AND DENY THE INEVITABLE.
THIS IS NOT THEIR DAY, NOR YEAR, NOR CENTURY. WOE TO THEM! (A brief aside: Maya is Sanskrit for illusion) [Oh my, I'm beginning to sound like the fine print on a Dr. Bronner's soap container.]

TODAY is the day that the fine print becomes legible and we delete everything but the words written in red. God has perfected his moonwalk and is having a high pitched showdown with the King of Pop right now!

Hip-Hop is actually good again!!!!!……

Sike. But TODAY that song is being written that in nine months will grace our ear drums with the vibration of the ever present. A song that will not have to grow on us but one that will have grown in us. Yes, TODAY is that day.

Swallow your gum, children!! Yes,, bite your toenails! Pet your friends pets admit it, Pugs are cute! Men, paint your toenails!Ladies, blow at least four kisses today!
Thank me later.

Yes, it’s a beautiful day, TODAY. Not only that, TODAY is BEAUTY’s birthday and it’s having a big party on the elevator, in the subway, at the office, at school, on the sidewalk, in the bedroom, downtown. Oh my God, is that Puffy chatting it up with Ram Das?! Oh my God, isn’t that my cleaning lady playing dominoes with Deepak?
Michael Moore and Warren G have matching medallions! Kate Hudson has cornrows! Knox Robinson has a glass naval ring! And aren’t those the Def Poets?! My God, everyone’s here! Nike sweat shops are closing early today. The tap water has ecstasy in it. Please stop my parents from kissing.

Yes, TODAY is that day. Be brave and live it. See it through. Burn the flag of your fears. Disregard your pride for one minute and ask him out. The Hindu girl tells her family she wants a love marriage. The rapper comes out of the closet. The husband writes his wife a love note. She blushes when he calls her,”friend”. All the great love stories have come to life. TODAY is that day.

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery,” he said, then whispered lovingly into his wife’s ear, “I like it how you do that right thurr!”

Calling all superstitious!!!
Read this with your left eye, TODAY only listen with your right ear, type with your palms, forward this email to God, or else!

“i speak without reservation from what i know and who i am. i do so with the understanding that all people should have the right to offer their voice to the chorus whether the result is harmony or dissonance, the worldsong is a colorless dirge without the differences that distinguish us, and it is that difference which should be celebrated not condemned. should any part of my music offend you, please do not close your ears to it. just take what you can use and go on.”

this poem is about 9/11:

Self Evident

yes,
us people are just poems
we’re 90% metaphor
with a leanness of meaning
approaching hyper-distillation
and once upon a time
we were moonshine
rushing down the throat of a giraffe
yes, rushing down the long hallway
despite what the p.a. announcement says
yes, rushing down the long stairs
with the whiskey of eternity
fermented and distilled
to eighteen minutes
burning down our throats
down the hall
down the stairs
in a building so tall
that it will always be there
yes, it’s part of a pair
there on the bow of Noah’s ark
the most prestigious couple
just kickin back parked
against a perfectly blue sky
on a morning beatific
in its Indian summer breeze
on the day that America
fell to its knees
after strutting around for a century
without saying thank you
or please

and the shock was subsonic
and the smoke was deafening
between the setup and the punch line
cuz we were all on time for work that day
we all boarded that plane for it to fly
and then while the fires were raging
we all climbed up on the windowsill
and then we all held hands
and jumped into the sky

and every borough looked up when it heard the first blast
and then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed
and the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar
looked more like war than anything I’ve seen so far
so far
so far
so fierce and ingenious
a poetic specter so far gone
that every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling
over ‘oh my god’ and ‘this is unbelievable’ and on and on
and I’ll tell you what, while we’re at it
you can keep the pentagon
keep the propaganda
keep each and every TV
that’s been trying to convince me
to participate
in some prep school punk’s plan to perpetuate retribution
perpetuate retribution
even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution
is still hanging in the air
and there’s ash on our shoes
and there’s ash in our hair
and there’s a fine silt on every mantle
from hell’s kitchen to Brooklyn
and the streets are full of stories
sudden twists and near misses
and soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters
with tales of narrowly averted disasters
and the whiskey is flowin
like never before
as all over the country
folks just shake their heads
and pour

so here’s a toast to all the folks who live in Palestine
Afghanistan
Iraq

El Salvador

here’s a toast to the folks living on the pine ridge reservation
under the stone cold gaze of mt. Rushmore

here’s a toast to all those nurses and doctors
who daily provide women with a choice
who stand down a threat the size of Oklahoma City
just to listen to a young woman’s voice

here’s a toast to all the folks on death row right now
awaiting the executioner’s guillotine
who are shackled there with dread and can only escape into their heads
to find peace in the form of a dream

cuz take away our playstations
and we are a third world nation
under the thumb of some blue blood royal son
who stole the oval office and that phony election
I mean
it don’t take a weatherman
to look around and see the weather
Jeb said he’d deliver Florida, folks
and boy did he ever

and we hold these truths to be self evident:
#1 George W. Bush is not president
#2 America is not a true democracy
#3 the media is not fooling me
cuz I am a poem heeding hyper-distillation
I’ve got no room for a lie so verbose
I’m looking out over my whole human family
and I’m raising my glass in a toast

here’s to our last drink of fossil fuels
let us vow to get off of this sauce
shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
and find that train ticket we lost
cuz once upon a time the line followed the river
and peeked into all the backyards
and the laundry was waving
the graffiti was teasing us
from brick walls and bridges
we were rolling over ridges
through valleys
under stars
I dream of touring like Duke Ellington
in my own railroad car
I dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
in a grand station aglow with grace
and then standing out on the platform
and feeling the air on my face

give back the night its distant whistle
give the darkness back its soul
give the big oil companies the finger finally
and relearn how to rock-n-roll
yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there
so it’s time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets
and clear the air
get our government to pull its big dick out of the sand
of someone else’s desert
put it back in its pants
and quit the hypocritical chants of
freedom forever

cuz when one lone phone rang
in two thousand and one
at ten after nine
on nine one one
which is the number we all called
when that lone phone rang right off the wall
right off our desk and down the long hall
down the long stairs
in a building so tall
that the whole world turned
just to watch it fall

and while we’re at it
remember the first time around?
the bomb?
the Ryder truck?
the parking garage?
the princess that didn’t even feel the pea?
remember joking around in our apartment on avenue D?

can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design
following a fantastical reversal of the New York skyline?!

it was a joke, of course
it was a joke
at the time
and that was just a few years ago
so let the record show
that the FBI was all over that case
that the plot was obvious and in everybody’s face
and scoping that scene
religiously
the CIA
or is it KGB?
committing countless crimes against humanity
with this kind of eventuality
as its excuse
for abuse after expensive abuse
and it didn’t have a clue
look, another window to see through
way up here
on the 104th floor
look
another key
another door
10% literal
90% metaphor
3000 some poems disguised as people
on an almost too perfect day
must be more than poems
in some asshole’s passion play
so now it’s your job
and it’s my job
to make it that way
to make sure they didn’t die in vain
sshhhhhh….
baby listen
hear the train?

Bright Eyes is singer-songwriter Conor Oberst and his revolving-door cast of collaborators, which has included longtime friends from the independent Saddle Creek Records collective as well as luminaries such as Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch. Oberst gained fame in the late Nineties as one of an ongoing string of artists proclaimed the “next Dylan” — a list of ragged-voiced singers and wordy songwriters that has also included Bruce Springsteen and Beck. What set Oberst apart from the others was his youth; he was just 15 when he began recording as Bright Eyes.
He is currently performing as Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band (last i heard!)

At The Bottom of Everything

So there was this woman and
she was, uh, on an airplane and
she’s flying to meet her fiancé
sailing high above the–the largest ocean
on planet earth and she was seated
next to this man who, you know
she had tried to start conversations
an really–really the only thing
she heard him say was to order his bloody mary
and she’s sitting there and she’s reading
this really arduous magazine article about a
third world country that she couldn’t
even pronounce the–the name of and
she’s feeling very bored and very despondent
and–and then, uh, suddenly there’s this huge mechanical failure and one of the–the engines gave out
and they started just falling -an- thirty thousand feet
and the pilot’s on the microphone and he’s saying,
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Oh My God, I’m Sorry”
and apologizing and she looks at the man and she–and she says,
“Where are we going?” and he looks at her and he says,
“We’re going to a party, it–it’s a birthday party.
It’s your birthday party, happy birthday darling.
We love you very, very, very, very, very, very, very much.”
And then, uh, he starts humming this little tune and–and, uh, it kind of goes like this, it’s kinda:

One, Two, One, Two, Three, Four
We must talk in every telephone, get eaten off the web
We must rip out all the epilogues from the books we have read
And to the face of every criminal strapped firmly to a chair
We must stare, we must stare, we must stare.

We must take all of the medicines too expensive now to sell
Set fire to the preacher who is promising us hell
And in the ear of every anarchist that sleeps but doesn’t dream
We must sing, we must sing, we must sing.

And it’ll go like this, alright
While my mother waters plants my father loads his gun.
He says, “Death will give us back to God,
just like the setting sun
is returned to the lonesome ocean.”

And then they splashed into the deep blue sea.
(Oh,)It was a wonderful splash.

We must blend into the choir, sing as static with the whole,
We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul,
And to this endless race for property and privilege to be won
We must run, we must run, we must run.

We must hang up in the belfry where the bats in moonlight laugh
We must stare into a crystal ball and only see the past
And (in)to the caverns of tomorrow with just our flashlights and our love
We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge.

And then we’ll get down there,
way down to the very bottom of everything
and then we’ll see it, oh we’ll see it, we’ll see it, we’ll see it.

Oh my morning’s coming back
The whole world’s waking up
Oh the city bus is swimming past.
I’m happy just because
I found out I am really no one.

I’m sorry we couldnt have breakfast before I left
I hope that the meeting went well
I miss your smile and I miss your company
I’m thinking of you on the train and I’m thinking about you when I’m busy
I like you so much
I like the jumpers you wear
I like your teeth
And I like it when you cut your hair
I like getting drunk on Rose
Dark chocolate, roast dinners
Number one would be indulgence
Sending postcards, drawing pictures
Always remembering
Falling over, banging heads
Holes in both our tights
Bruises, both late
I forget but you always remember
Perfume fresh
Wooden floorboards
Wardrobes, charity shops and tube stops
Sisters, fights, tears and thoughts about the future
But lets stick to the present
Like sellotape wrapped up so tight
I love thinking about you
I’ve never laughed so hard
Felt so good, like a child
As free as a bird, a naked one
Spray me with the hose when it’s too hot in the summer
Sweaty, clammy hands
Holding hands
So much crap in my bag
Too many things but we love keeping things
Letters, pictures, ripped out from magazines
Photos, memories, broken bits of jewelry
I’m convinced that one day I will make this into something cool
Makeup, dress-up
Tear and run down my face
Over my body, through my veins
Make my hair stand on ends
Give me goosebumps, confidence
A secret, I feel safe and warm and I dont want to leave because
I’m back to when I was seven years old
Covered in glitter and smooth lines
Scratch, jump, run, fall and we’re back up
Bread, I love eating bread
I love when you draw something and it’s not dead
It moves off the page and round people’s minds
You make other people laugh
But everything you do could make me cry
I want to feel, be, live, breathe, touch, see, fall, eat
Make glue, rip do, I want to be with you
I havent time for anybody else
I dont wanna be with them
I wanna move to our house in a field
Just tell me when and I’ll be there
I’d drop everything for you
You are my best friend
I dont even have a boyfriend
My mind is occupied
My buzz is rocket high
Above the moon and back again
Who I love is you
You are the most unpretentious
The most fun, most exciting
I want to spend most of my time with you
Because you are the most worthwhile
You are the most cute, clever, and stupid
Hungry, energetic, passionate, scared, interesting
Like a film, made up person
I want to drink cream, eat chocolate
Get that nice suprise when the butter is un-salted
Eat salt out of the packet
Scream till I am blue in the face
Meet French people, go to the pictures
Show you my cobbled streets
Meet everybody that you could ever meet
Just so that they know that you are my best friend
And that you belong to me
Yeah, I know you think she’s cute and funny
But er, actually she is not an I, she is a we
A united nation of absoloute nonescence
A community, neighbourhood watch
Firestation, theme park, space, time and energy
Talent, beauty, my best friend
They dont love you like I love you
The End.

So maybe this poem isn’t the most grammar magnificent, it may not have moved buildings and broke down walls. but it reminds me of my sister. because she’s my best friend. and i just wanted to share. to remind everyone, that poetry has many forms (:

The poem i’m going to show you is called “Happy”… if you aren’t a fan of “foul language” i would suggest skipping this one. but i think the majority of us can connect with what she is talking about