>decide to reinstall Reddit and check out the poetry sub
>it's all free verse moronation with no rhythm or meter and it's about virtue signalling topics
let's have a poetry general. post your own or your favorites.
>decide to reinstall Reddit and check out the poetry sub
Gimme gimme chicken tendies,
Be they crispy or from Wendys.
Spend my hard-earned good-boy points,
on Kid's Meal ball pit burger joints.
Mummy lifts me to the car,
To find me tendies near and far.
Enjoy my tasty tendie treats,
in comfy big boy booster seats.
McDonald's, Hardee's, Popeye's, Cane's,
But of my tendies none remains.
She tries to make me take a nappy,
But sleeping doesn't make me happy.
Tendies are the only food,
That puts me in the napping mood.
I'll scream and shout and make a fuss,
I'll scratch, I'll bite, I'll even cuss!
Tendies are my heart's desire,
Fueled by raging, hungry fire.
Mummy sobs and wails and cries,
But tears aren't tendies, nugs or fries.
My good-boy points were fairly earned,
To buy the tendies that I've yearned.
But there's no tendies on my plate!
Did mummy think that I'd just ate?
"TENDIES TENDIES GET THEM NOW,
YOU FAT, UNGRATEFUL, SLUGGISH SOW!"
I screech while hurling into her eyes,
My foul, bowel-dwelling diaper surprise.
For she who is pooped on is she who remembers:
Never forget my chicken tenders!
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
VERY masonic. But I GUESS mother-son ffycking.. thats ok in a way? Its bizarre, I don't like it, and I would rather be a christian. Buut fricking your mom is just fricking. Dont frick her, but definitely definitely definitely dont copulate with her.
So it is a good poem, for fricking freakazoids
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
BYEDWARD LEAR
I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"
II
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-Tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
III
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
?si=bmpGsP_LuM62-Jd0
On the Creation of Black folk
by H. P. Lovecraft
When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove's fair image Man was shap'd at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next design'd;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to man,
Th'Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Fill'd it with vice, and call'd the thing a Black person!!
I
The boom sounded, trembled the solemn bush,
And every butterfly flew off in the rush,
Fifty times five and two diademed flickers.
II
Wings they're beating them, they're beating their wings
Across empurpled fields a-flower, an arch rising from a crown.
Forted smoke in shape, like a spoke of a wheel on axis turning.
III
Expired, they're gone, they're faded and gone, they're off in yesterday's excellence,
A phantom pair; flared apart just touching wing-tip to wing-tip with his brothers all in elements
Of dark fires or silvered salt-waters casting spindrift on the rocks 'til they expires.
OH my GOD, the consonantal, consonantal wind.
Stages by Hermann Hesse
As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.
Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.
The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.
If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slave of permanence.
Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.
Wie jede Blüte welkt und jede Jugend
Dem Alter weicht, blüht jede Lebensstufe,
Blüht jede Weisheit auch und jede Tugend
Zu ihrer Zeit und darf nicht ewig dauern.
Es muß das Herz bei jedem Lebensrufe
Bereit zum Abschied sein und Neubeginne,
Um sich in Tapferkeit und ohne Trauern
In andre, neue Bindungen zu geben.
Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne,
Der uns beschützt und der uns hilft, zu leben.
Wir sollen heiter Raum um Raum durchschreiten,
An keinem wie an einer Heimat hängen,
Der Welgeist will nicht fesseln uns und engen,
Er will uns Stuf’ um Stufe heben, weiten.
Kaum sind wir heimisch einem Lebenskreise
Und traulich eingewohnt, so droht Erschlaffen,
Nur wer bereit zu Aufbruch ist und Reise,
Mag lähmender Gewöhnung sich entraffen.
Es wird vielleicht auch noch die Todesstunde
Uns neuen Räumen jung entgegen senden,
Des Lebens Ruf an uns wird niemals enden…
Wohlan denn, Herz, nimm Abschied und gesunde!
>btfos
>btfod
>it's all free verse moronation with no rhythm or meter
I like composing dumb iambic pentameter couplets, but doing so today is closer to donning a tunic and attending a ren-fair reenactment than to writing real poetry. Poetry's changed, and it has to. All real art has to deal with the culture around it - it can't isolate itself or rely on old solutions to old problems. Don't ask me the philosophical reasons why, but when I look at any good art, from whenever, it always possesses that openness to spirit of history, and to what's newest and weirdest in the world as it is.
Here's (roughly) the above point rewritten in poem form:
In Dryden's day, when London's busy docks
Were brightened by the Tropicks' gleaming stocks,
And carried on the salty wind came blasts
Of cannons Dutch, and sound of cracking masts,
When wolves and witchy Minions of the Night
Were Fables not, but valid cause for fright,
Then could a man, alone, with toiling hands,
From Ink and Paper craft enchanted lands,
And out the common word-haul of his kin
Pluck Wonders fresh, as Spiders seem to spin
From sacs of basest ooze a rare delight:
These webs of words condensed a Nation's might.
But now the tropick plunder's ceased to swell
And Science hoary Warlocks can dispel;
Though Dryden treads the Asphodel perhaps,
He sings no living lays - he hears no living claps.
What time is ours? What name is it assigned?
In heavy tomes of learned men I find
No trace, no sign, no guide, no precedent.
Return, I cry! - But Time will not relent.
How could this vast and glassy wilderness
Into a poem's strictures be compressed?
I pity deep the modern poet's lot:
One called to speak, who language has forgot.
Those poets striving on, I hail most high,
But leave them to their anxious task, while I
Betake myself indoors on withered legs,
And sit and sip these last iambic dregs,
And thus this thirst of mine I'll try to quench
(Forgive this vintage Liquor's musty stench),
To soothe with antique drops my modern aches
Before - too soon! - the metre breaks
Poetry must have meter and rigor to have effect and affect on language to be linguistic artifact lasting the ages beyond tickled anus today
Nothing lasts beyond its age if it doesn't respond to the uniqueness of its age, and part of the uniqueness of our age is the decrepitude of metred verse. If it has an effect, it can only be a corny one.
Also, extremely discourteous of you not to respond in kind in the form of 32 lines of iambic pentameter.
yet a haiku feels timeless
It's both peculiar and humorous that you in your very poem about why meter is no longer appropriate for the modern age seem to prove exactly why meter still works in the modern age. Your poetry is rather lacking in density and isn't particularly sonically multifaceted (though one admits a predilection to ornament that might not be everyone's preference), but they're fine rhyming couplets nonetheless and perfectly intelligible to anyone possessing a halfway decent education.
Why the pessimism? I'd love to chat more on the topic.
I agree with the person you're responding to, this particular style of poetry is simply not in style any more. That is not to say that it is not good, or that there won't be a revival in the future, but it is definitely not in line with current trends. Trends do matter if you're creating something for public consumption, in the same way it mattered when the writing according to one metrical style or the other depended on what was popular.
The first poster said it best:
>I like composing dumb iambic pentameter couplets, but doing so today is closer to donning a tunic and attending a ren-fair reenactment than to writing real poetry. Poetry's changed, and it has to. All real art has to deal with the culture around it - it can't isolate itself or rely on old solutions to old problems.
There are too many cultural/modern connotations of "lame ye olde poetry" for even a good piece of work to not come off as pastiche. For the same reason (to my knowledge) we don't have modern fugues or impressionist paintings of any real critical or cultural consequence. Most of us don't like it, but it is what it is.
If you want to be sold, then yes, by all means make something entertaining and simple. If you want to make something that will most deeply resonate with the highest largest number of people across multiple ages (or at least until the language dies out or so radically changes it transforms into something else), then you need form; you need meter; you need Craft and you need Art.
It's just not optional; I don't know what to tell you. No, you don't have to make allusions to Greek legend. No, you don't have to use "thy" or "thine" or "hither" or "thither". You can use plain modern diction if you like, or can even swear if you like. But the basics of linear meter and stanzaic form have been unchanged since Middle English and will continue to be unchanged until English ceases to be English.
Look at Hamilton, for example:
I’m in the cabinet. I am complicit in
Watching him grabbin’ at power and kiss it
If Washington isn’t gon’ listen
To disciplined dissidents, this is the difference:
This kid is out!
Fifteen dactyls followed by two iambs. Not a beat out of place. Falling rhythm to parallel bemoaning and b***hing, rising rhythm to parallel action and conviction.
And this was wildly, universally popular.
hark! hark! hear the plaintive shouts
of wither'd roses by the wayside
what had you so besotted
was merely an allotted
turn in the annals of time
yet still I shill for metres and trill
for rhymes and limericks and stride
onto the shoulders of men large as boulders
to shout down my forlorn reprise
Pretty nice anon. Such a shame this style is no longer in vogue.
>install
>Reddit
????
You're out of touch.
Hall and Oates?
I too had this revelation recently.
That people continue to use such a site without switching to the old layout is beyond me.
I installed the app on my phone. my PC is for work and writing.
We had a really good run for a while where people would make these threads with a consistent OP image and some otherwise measure of continuity. Not quite a general, but close. I guess it's a consequence of some natural cycle in IQfy's userbase where we don't produce enough poetry to maintain a dedicated thread all the time, but there are instead odd upswells that gather their own momentum and see OC poetry threads going to bump limit in unbroken chains of weeks or months.
And sometimes, like now, the generation rate is low and institutional memory has not yet reasserted itself so there are sporadic threads like this one where OP is b***hing about reddit for some reason.
I write poetry only as a small hobby so I don't have a lot of new stuff to share often. I'm also trying to submit some stuff for contests in these next couple months and maybe even start a substack, since one anon here posted his and got me thinking about it.
I'll post a few favorites from the greats I have saved.
Based metaphysical enjoyer
>>it's all free verse moronation with no rhythm or meter and it's about virtue signalling topics
I don't browse r*ddit, can you give me some examples? I need some good cringe.
That's because it's by people who don't actually know anything about poetry.
Little girls make me happy
Little girls make me sad
Little girls are everywhere
How can good things be so bad?
Dream Land by Edgar Allan Poe
DAMN this thread is dead. Absolute corpse.
Here's a prompt-
Write a piece concerning a familiar scene. If you rhyme, you must only use slant rhymes.
op is jackass trad gay who thinks poetry must have meter and rhyme, whole thread started with a shit post
Not OP, but I think it's better with meter and rhyme
I said rhythm you moron, not rhyme. I personally don't think rhyme is necessary in English poetry. that being said, if you're going to write in free verse, your poem needs to have good composition and rhythm when someone is reciting it aloud or reading it in their head. most people who write free verse just vomit words onto a page with no regard to how it sounds when you read it.
>it's all free verse moronation with no rhythm or meter and it's about virtue signalling topics
The postmodern neomarxists won
She's Dying
tales of empire long forgotten, though rife,
are left as unturned stones
above the downtrodden life
inside your home.
She's dying.
The future won't expand anymore
but it's contractions make us poor.
She aged.
She once felt the contractions and rested for
a fortnight then only left when she felt right,
now she'll push for two hours and be pushed into the night
What's a good structure to start writing poetry?
Quatrains, at least for me. Very natural.
What do you mean by structure?
If you mean structure as in metre and rhyme, there's nothing like a classic iambic pentameter couplets. Check out Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock for a great example, or my extremely underrated contribution here
.
If you just mean a creative restraint, you could try writing an ode to something you're into - a season, an object, a mood - and copy the arc-like structure Keats uses his odes: (1) initial moment of fascination and encounter, (2) ascending with this object into the heights of poetic fancy, (3) coming backing down to your own limited existence, on a note of wistful reflection.
For what it's worth, I did really enjoy your contribution. Had me copying and pasting into google to see if it was an original piece or not because I liked some of the lines that much.
Particularly the 5th and 6th stanza is very nice. How do you practice this kind of poetry writing? I find it difficult to find rhymes, and especially keep the theme I'm trying to express, without sounding cheesy or hackish. Is it just a matter of reading enough poetry and writing enough duds to kinda piece it together through feel?
>And Francois said to Francette; Angel of tongues, language of angels. Have sex with me and not your dad; lest I will surely die."
Good poem. Its yours. Use it for an assignment.
Something tapped me on the shoulder
Something whispered, "Come with me,
"Leave the world of men behind you,
"Come where care may never find you
"Come and follow, let me bind you
"Where, in that dark, silent sea,
"Tempest of the world ne'er rages;
"There to dream away the ages,
"Heedless of Time's turning pages,
"Only, come with me."
"Who are you?" I asked the phantom,
"I am rest from Hate and Pride.
"I am friend to king and beggar,
"I am Alpha and Omega,
"I was councilor to Hagar
"But men call me suicide."
I was weary of tide breasting,
Weary of the world's behesting,
And I lusted for the resting
As a lover for his bride.
And my soul tugged at its moorings
And it whispered, "Set me free.
"I am weary of this battle,
"Of this world of human cattle,
"All this dreary noise and prattle.
"This you owe to me."
Long I sat and long I pondered,
On the life that I had squandered,
O'er the paths that I had wandered
Never free.
In the shadow panorama
Passed life's struggles and its fray.
And my soul tugged with new vigor,
Huger grew the phantom's figure,
As I slowly tugged the trigger,
Saw the world fade swift away.
Through the fogs old Time came striding,
Radiant clouds were 'bout me riding,
As my soul went gliding, gliding,
From the shadow into day.
- Robert E. Howard
>"Come and follow, let me bind you"
change to "Bind you, follow, come behind you,"
"Deedle deedle deedle dee, drinking in the evening tea"
"Daughter touch me so much more. I will die before the door."
Daddy, daddy don't you die, crouching in my ivy's eye"
and then its just a poem about having sex with your daughter. you can have it. turn it in for an assignment
ABCCBDDB is a very interesting rhyme scheme. I like it.
I thought this was a thread for postong OC poetry, but seeing how it's not the case, let me post my personal favorite (though not really obscure)
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
How do I learn meter? It's so hard for me to grasp.
tambor? like i dunno. meter is like everything all at once. get that right and youll get meter right. Its like, how do you send out hair, to detect the right meter. so far we have come up with copulation. find the right woman? she'll help you help help you find the right meter? find the right female aspect of your poem, but find the right male aspect too. good luck
Anyone who wants to discuss poetry, meter, and form can join us on this discord server:
https://discord.gg/uvzPYYYdG3
There's essentially no place anywhere on the internet where people who still read and write formal poetry congregate and we'd like to change that.
The toils of silent verse, a solemn rite,
That shun the curse of congregation’s blight,
Labor slow, still — and cloister Art in night.
For th’Heart burns brightest ‘midst the dark and damp,
That hymns should shame the lark, as daylight doth a lamp.
Yet Man, in faith, was not for silence made;
The verse God saith must on Man’s tongue be laid,
And beauty’s gain ‘gainst human pain be weighed.
Thus see a hand, in vain carnality,
Reach out, in search of silent, shared humanity.
Man you could have at least attempted to make that server less fricking gay
I just can't get into the Inferno, it leans too much on references.
My favorite is when they
write a couple
of sentences and merely hit the spacebar a few
times, believing that makes it
poetry.
They show no concern to
actually following any discernible rhythm, you'd
think the breaks would
at the very
least
follow the natural rhythm of the
speaker but they don't even do that
much, even stanza breaks are
nonsensical.
My favorite is when they write
a couple
of sentences and merely hit
the spacebar a few times
Believing
that makes it
poetry.
They show no concern.
I love
enjambment
En-
Jamb-
Ment
ENJAMBMENT!
>your favorites
I always come back to Robert W. Service's "Carry On". It's simple, it's repetitive. But it's also universal, and that's why it's so powerful.
It's easy to fight when everything's right,
And you're mad with the thrill and the glory;
It's easy to cheer when victory's near,
And wallow in fields that are gory.
It's a different song when everything's wrong,
When you're feeling infernally mortal;
When it's ten against one, and hope there is none,
Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:
Carry on! Carry on!
There isn't much punch in your blow.
You're glaring and staring and hitting out blind;
You're muddy and bloody, but never you mind.
Carry on! Carry on!
You haven't the ghost of a show.
It's looking like death, but while you've a breath,
Carry on, my son! Carry on!
And so in the strife of the battle of life
It's easy to fight when you're winning;
It's easy to slave, and starve and be brave,
When the dawn of success is beginning.
But the man who can meet despair and defeat
With a cheer, there's the man of God's choosing;
The man who can fight to Heaven's own height
Is the man who can fight when he's losing.
Carry on! Carry on!
Things never were looming so black.
But show that you haven't a cowardly streak,
And though you're unlucky you never are weak.
Carry on! Carry on!
Brace up for another attack.
It's looking like hell, but -- you never can tell:
Carry on, old man! Carry on!
There are some who drift out in the deserts of doubt,
And some who in brutishness wallow;
There are others, I know, who in piety go
Because of a Heaven to follow.
But to labour with zest, and to give of your best,
For the sweetness and joy of the giving;
To help folks along with a hand and a song;
Why, there's the real sunshine of living.
Carry on! Carry on!
Fight the good fight and true;
Believe in your mission, greet life with a cheer;
There's big work to do, and that's why you are here.
Carry on! Carry on!
Let the world be the better for you;
And at last when you die, let this be your cry:
Carry on, my soul! Carry on!
This reminds me of another positive war poem that I'm forgetting the name of at the moment. I like it.
Why write this, when the book of Job did it like a zillion years ago a zillion times better?? I dont understand it! I don't understand. I DON't understand.
Like im trying to make it right, like the FIRST line, which is a dooozy, and I just keep hearing
"There was a man, in the land of Uz; whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil."
THAT's a first stanza.
Beady eyes, ANGLO lies
Muffled Aryan women's cries
Aryan children, big and small
Bomber Harris kills them all
Left, right, right, left
ANGLO sows the seeds of death
Not a stone is left to stand
When ANGLO flies across the land
After starting World War One
The ANGLO's work was still not done
So joining with the Pole and israelite
He made a new one: World War Two
To sate his thirst for Aryan blood
That he wanted, that he got
Now Dresden is devoid of cheer
Hans have fear, the ANGLO is here
Beady eyes, anglo lies,
muffled in their women's cries.
from there I would go to 'not a stone is left to stand," which is fine and very masonic you free mason you, and then the rest sucks and i would go "the anglos's face sweeps 'cross the land."
you're writing this from the perspective of a mason, who does NOT see (does not see-nazi; lol) man, as a fallen Angel 'anglo, ang-lo, aim-low' but as the rising ape.
But I will warn you, its confusing muddled and stupid, like free masonry. because, like, i dont really see the low angel. I just see Tubal-Caïn. Its a poem about Caïn, Lamech, and Tubal-Caïn, to me. So IM not tricked by it. Its not scary, and Im not scared of it, and like, you should be scared of Tubal-Caïn.
Partly I was tricked into this
I had my life but wanted his
But every day I thank the Lord
That I didn't fall for discord
The devil played a trick on me:
He tricked the one, the two and three.
Through the apple of my eye, you'll see;
The Lord hath played a trick on thee.
Narrow sentence, say the light.
Say the higher.. higher.. nigh on hie';
higher glyph, nun the cliff. Herioglyph,
Higher there: higher n'er, higher hair; helped up stairs.
Turnip sky: Below a trench of pepper
Pips and beryl grass. A looney counting
Coins of Lord Bizarre—who died tomorrow—
Moron? Not an odding chap but founting;
Up and down the flation goes in Tunic
Town where money’s worth a bag of colour.
Ada-doo ada-dee ada-die:
“Lord Bizarre the Fool has lost the Royal Eye,”
Think the looney lot of Voodoo zealots—
Free the castle walls from bedlam, Sonny!
Down and down the blade goes in Tunic
Town where money’s worth a bag of colour.
Martyr? Timmy Squail of Lockadale:
Pistol wienered the looney locked the Bizarre
Lord in sight. He shot and shot and shot and
Shot and shot and shot, reload, and shot the
Marti Lord a hundred times in Tunic
Town where money’s worth a bag of colour.
Honestly, and I must say honestly,
For rarely do I speak with honesty,
I do believe in a resolute way
That I merely exist from day to day
And that if I ever were to fall dead
Be it cancer, stroke or wound to the head
And if neither Heaven nor Hell exist
I honestly doubt that I shall be missed;
For I have squandered and wasted and lied
At each and every turn that if I died
Today the coffin would be empty
For Lukas died years ago, and I am empty.
Knot the care, Men. See enmity,
Three and two and one will be.
The tree does see the end of thee.
(put my shit in ChatGPT see what says. [bet you it says its good].)
Oh shit, its a rock
With a stove on the top
In a cavern, by a lake
Where the river comes to take
There's a death witch on the shore
Once a girl, now a prostitute
Neighbours hedge is thick with bristles
What once sang now only whistles
Exist son, sexist son. Jedi son.
is it alright for a poem in english without rhymes? rhythm and meter are obviously essential, but i don't really get the point of rhymes and they just seem pointlessly restrictive to me. also, please give recs on how to write poetry.
I'd say it's absolutely alright. Plenty have done so before and are doing so now (the quality is debatable but that's besides the point). I will say, if you can write with rhythm, the odd couplet that does rhyme helps with musicality I find.
As for how to write? Hard to give any hard line recommendations besides the tried and true read a lot, write a lot. That said, maybe try your hand at traditional forms to help build that sense of rhythm. There's nothing wrong with a bit of restriction on yourself. Might be helpful to try to work in quatrains at least keeps you tidy and helps to not ramble on and on about something. But that depends on what kind of poetry you want to write, read poets that have resonate with you and see what they do. If you don't have any in mind, just try googling for the type of poetry you like and explore from there. Best of luck friend
I want to fool around with every mind
I want to stand still in space and time
I want them all to suffer like I did
I want to love you—I want to kid
I want the sun, I want the moon
I want the whole world in an afternoon
I want to laugh, I want to cry
Most of all, I want to
I really like the first two lines.
The intonation given to "half a league" when said out loud sounds similar to a horse's gait. At least that's how I perceive it. Same with "Charging an army while all the world wondered"
It's truly one of the manliest poems ever written