Thanks so much bro <3

It really makes me happy that this poem made you feel something. I wrote it today in the heat of anxiety, reflecting back on some things.

I'm doing alright, hope you are too

i'm glad you were able to express all that negativity inside in a positive way and get it all out so poetically.

keep sharing whenever you feel like it, we're here to listen

speaking of the legend gil scott heron tho, i was literally just listening to Small Talk at 125th and Lenox earlier this week...so many absolute gems in there my goodness.

imo if bob dylan got a nobel prize for literature (which i do think he deserved), there's no way gil scott heron shouldn't have gotten it as well

Gil may be literally the most underrated artist oat.

Hes not discussed with the likes of Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield but he should be.
Blunt writer, truthful singer and an activist too.

easily. gil is a once-in-a-generation type artist and its a damn shame he doesn't get his due. that man is right up there with the greatest of the great. even people who don't know who he is have and continue to be influenced by everything he did.

with regard to rock and roll, john mayer once said that chuck berry "built the tools that built the house". i feel the same way about gil, especially when it comes to all of hip-hop, rap, R&B, soul, neo-soul, etc. he laid the bedrock for an entire culture.

@emu

@Ronin

@KAYTRANADA
@Zulaw
@gunkmail
@DwindlingSun
@MURKY
@KurcoBane

alright poetry fam, keeping it simple for our first one. this week’s writing prompt is:

Salt

that’s it, just one word. interpret & extrapolate it however you’d like. can’t wait to see what the writers among us come up with

i don’t want to monopolize this process, so how about we take turns giving a new prompt every week? even if you aren’t a writer.

and if you don’t want to, just say the word, that’s chill too

we can go down in the order that you joined the group. @emu are you down to give next week’s prompt? 😄

Deeply apologize for the late response but I wanted say I don’t think I’m ready to come back to this art for just yet I’m going through a extent period of uncertainty rn that’s putting my thoughts in a vague state where expression brings me anxiety and causing conflict my identity in a sense. I think I have a to build I new appreciation for just art in general where I’m able to navigate with a healthy mindset if that makes sense

Great White Hope

Corners out, knuckles touching
Gloves up, punch me blue & bloody
Shell me, slug me, make me ugly
Smelling salt that numb and fuzzy

Take it, eye it, give you nothing
I can time it; this ain't running,
getting by, or getting lucky
I'm just plucky

Started out being about timing a counter, smuggled in a forced cocaine abuse metaphor befitting the unearned confidence

goat behavior

you don't need to limit your prompt to just a word or even text at all. could be literally anything...a sentence, phrase, song, image, video, etc.

knock yourself out

no apologies necessary my friend, you take care of yourself first and foremost! i'll leave your name in the OP but i won't tag you in the future until you're ready 👍

don't feel like you have any obligation, we're all just here for the fun & love of it

feel free to stick around and enjoy the other poems and discussion if you like. and if you ever need to talk about anything at all my DMs are always open

this is dope man! it's got such a nice rhythm to it, especially that first stanza. these lines sound like bars in a fire verse

Shell me, slug me, make me ugly
Smelling salt that numb and fuzzy

and i really like the flip from the boxing to the cocaine metaphor. comparing the confidence high to the cocaine high...they are both surprisingly interchangeable if sufficiently potent. that's a really cool connection you made.

i actually didn't get the 2nd stanza first but then i read your explanation below and it all just clicked lol

The D*** that Doth it did

I'm currently writing it and I think it might even perpetuate throughout the kingdoms. The bards will play it every day

share it itt when you finish cause if it slap hard enough, i'd happily join the bards in shilling it to the masses

It was a random thought
That became an act
One that i regret
Forever
It was there
Being what it was meant to be
Harming nobody
And what i did next
Is worthy of death
I let the salt rain
And its form
What it was born to be
Melted away
Like it never was anything
And it was by my hands
I turned something
Into nothing
Im sorry
It shouldve been me

• @KAYTRANADA

@PilotJones

man i truly love how emotive and emotional your writing is. read through again and again like 4-5 times in silence.

i kinda want to ask you what your thoughts behind this poem's creation are, but i also sort of don't

there is so much magic here that I don't want to break the spell even by mistake

i'm still working on my piece, but in the mean time I came across this really beautiful poem that's relevant to the prompt

Salt by Eugenio Montale

it's a gorgeous, moving message of hope for the human race in the face of an inevitably bleak & ugly future.

We don't know if tomorrow has green pastures
in mind for us to lie down in beside
the ever-youthful patter of fresh water
or if it means to plant us in some arid
outback ugly valley of the shadow
where dayspring's lost for good, interred beneath
a lifetime of mistakes. We'll maybe wake up
in foreign cities where the sun's a ghost,
a figment of itself and angular
starched consonants braid the tongue at its root
so all sense of who we are is lost to words,
and nothing that we know can be unravelled.
Even then, some vestige of the sea,
its plosive tide, its fretwork crests will surge
inside our syllables, bronze like the chant of bees.
However far we've stumbled from the source
a trace of the sea's voice will lodge in us
as the sunlight somehow still abides in
faded tufts that cling to bricks and kerbstones
on half-cleared slums or bomb-sites left unbuilt.
Then out of nowhere after years of silence
the words we used, our unobstructed accents,
will well up from the dark of childhood,
and once more on our lips we'll taste Greek salt.

poets.org/poem/salt-0

I'm a bad writer,although I wanted to share this poem that Mustafa The Poet posted on his story.

Home Is So Sad by Phillip Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

Still, today,
I can feel the salt
on your skin.
The waves have long since
replaced the sand
on which we walked,
yet I can still feel
the salt on your skin

Unfinished, a quick two minute thing. Feel like it needs something more.

that's really beautiful. i've moved around a lot in my life and every time i did, i began to feel emotions for the roof over my head that protected me. at the end, it always felt a bit more sentient that just bricks and mortar. like saying goodbye to an old friend.

thanks for sharing that. i know you said you don't write well, but please continue sharing whatever you'd like. welcome to the club

honestly, its perfect as is

you captured this one single moment in time that held a thousand emotions. its so brief, but makes me think about everything that could have lead up to that moment.

keep sharing whenever you feel like it, I'd love to hear more!

a line of salt
sitting quietly in-front of a door
that hasn't been opened for years
are ghosts still even in there?

the initial intention was for the prompt to serve as inspiration for an original piece, but honestly, just do you

write something original or share something that already exists, even if its not actually a poem and just an image you feel is "poetic". and obviously even while we're doing the prompt, anything else is also welcome even if it has nothing to do with said prompt.

i don't ever want to restrict anyone itt from sharing what they feel like. whatever the medium or source, i'm more than down for that

i just googled after reading your piece, because I had no idea about the significance of a line of salt in front of a door was. didn't know about its association with warding off evil spirits, etc.

i love how it took you just 4 lines to evoke such a specific spatial feeling while simultaneously making it feel lost in time.

thanks for sharing and welcome to the club