Welcome to the official thread for creative contribution. In this thread, you may post any form of creative achievement; be it poetry, illustrations, articles or any other suitable media, as long as you have created it yourself.

You may also use this thread for discussion and analysis of any content that a user has posted here, and collaborative attempts are especially welcome. Remember, this is someone's work, so be polite and considerate!

To start things off, I'll post a poem I wrote recently. I'm not very satisfied with it, but it should still be interesting to see how members perceive it.

Hera

Mistress of a thousand faces;
A haze of perfume hangs
Heavy round your neck - tincture of some plant that existed only to die.

Your shoulders bear the ostentatious weight of vermine pelts
Your eyes rimmed with kohl,
Forever imperturbable, forever vacant.

This carefully constructed image
Bedevils all who fall to it.
What are you?
Mannequin, Dummy?
Your very mannerisms, your movements, every futile idiosyncrasy
All contrived, all damned.

Where in this ethereal portrait lies empathy?
It seems compassion is not necessary for the modern woman.
Vestiges of human feeling regarded as knick-knacks, gee-gaws, novelties,
Or at worst, as pure decadence.

That face, so carefully pampered, the lips pure workmanship,
Nature is not considered, not wanted, and discarded like last year's trends.
Beauty is not the object, nor admiration.
Complete subjugation is the one aim - swiftly fulfilled.

Ah, you whore of centuries,
You throw yourself at me
Whisper in my ear: "I love you"
But, this crass gesture falls with everything you touch
Contrived, corrupted, callous.

I see through you.
Past the carefully maintained illusion of humanity,
Your saccharine, imploring pleas fall upon deaf ears
You defy sensuality, you know nothing of touch.

Mistress of delusion, puppeteer, idol.
Your glitter is naught to me.
I void my rheum upon you.

Like LM and CazyAce have said before me, this gets my creative juices going!
So I decided to make my First Lego Vignette:

Mirror.




Sorry for the really bad quality, my dads camera sucks >_<

Takata, that is pretty awesome, I really like it! Way to go man.

And, wow, Maverick, that is really good. The poem started off with a gripping intro ad really had my attention the whole way through.

I loved how you described the "perfume"... but I think my favorite part is:

"That face, so carefully pampered, the lips pure workmanship,/
Nature is not considered, not wanted, and discarded like last year's trends."

What a line!

You know, your poem reminds me of the lyrics to one of my favorite songs called Edie (Ciao Baby) by the Cult. You should give it a listen, you can probably find it on youtube - I bet you'd like it.

----------------------------------------------------

Here's a song I wrote. I think it reads like a poem, and I'd put the music up, but I can't write music. I just have the music part all up in my head for now. The rhythm might seem quite irregular in parts, but many words are meant to be stretched over several notes, which evens things out.

Once I knew a little boy,
More innocent than I am now.
What would I tell him,
Could I tell him,
I don’t know and I couldn’t say
What made him the me today?
If only one thing I could say,
I would say to seize the day.
Yet would he listen,
Not yet knowing,
All the things that brought me here,
All the pain and all the cheer?

My loves have all been black and white,
Flashing in and out of sight.
Showing me pain,
Making my heart strain,
As it beats against the tide of fate,
Bashing on an iron gate.
Nothing turns the flow of what is meant to be,
Nothing alters currents in this endless sea!
No emotion,
And no action,
Nothing can change what has been made,
Happiness just seems to flash, then fade.
Death has shown me a little pain,
Once and twice and thrice again.
Always present,
Always cutting,
No simple fading or just forgetting,
Always aware and just reminding;
The worst of what life can seem to be,
Stronger than the roots of any tree,
Reaching deeper,
Than any else can,
Hurting as a broken heart,
Hurts that never had a start.

Yet I still remain here thinking,
Still breathing, living, staring unblinking.
What more can life hold,
That I don’t know?
I fear I’ve not yet seen the worst,
I fear this pain a minor curse,
I tremble for what is yet to come,
More pain I must resolve alone!

But still I know I have grown stronger…
I am the rock within the river.
The water is pushing,
But I stand strong,
All the pain this life can give,
All the strain my broken heart can sieve,
I shall always stand up once again,
I know I will never once give in,
To the sorrow,
Or the darkness,
I will forge ahead my path,
I will stand on fate and laugh,
I won’t give up or just stay down,
I will win and wear my crown,
Up into the sky I’ll soar,
I will win and become more!

All that which life can give to me,
I will take and give back later gladly.
I will make my
Own happiness
I will find my way through this
Endless alternating pain and bliss,
I shall rise above the sea,
With my love on bended knee.
I shall rise above this sea,
In true happiness and glory.

Haha, that's a great sketch there Takata! Very tongue in cheek.

Thanks for the compliment, CrazyAce. The eternal struggle of the poet is to attempt to reflect some facet of reality by using language alone, and only the greatest writers ever manage to properly convey some sense of their emotion directly to the reader - language is truly insufficient to ever give an absolute sense.

I can see where you're coming from with that song; lyrically speaking, they have a similar sense of deep-rooted hurt covered by illusion. I'm not too keen on the whole 80's rock revivialist scene, but I still appreciate the emotion that so clearly runs through the song. At least it's not absolutely generic and soul-less, unlike much of the music produced today.

Good work with your song! Obviously, these things never quite make sense without the music, but the style really reflects the subject matter, i.e. In the first stanza the simple rhyming pattern perfectly matches the naivete and innocence of the young boy.

The message of resolution against pain and so on is, of course, as pertinent as ever. Kudos for managing to incorporate rhyme extensively without ruining the feel of the piece (the reason why I tend to stay away from constant rhyming in my poetry).

Exactly. I enjoy the sound of rhyme, but if you go out of your way it can shred the meaning to bits, and it might not necessarily be the best thing to use anyway.

Rhyming for the sake of rhyming never works...I wrote a fairly decent free verse poem for my uni course because I wasn't constrained to certain structures, but when it came to writing a sonnet which has several limitations and rules regarding metre, rhyming and structure....I was a bit stuck at first. (=

*is reluctant to share* but I enjoyed reading the stuff that's been posted here so far. Lots of creativity. =)

Nice thread idea Mavveh.

Wow. I couldn't write a poem that would be worth crap. The kinds of poems I write have no meaning whatsoever. They're just randomized words put together to form some kind of image. Not one that speaks to you, just an image. Poetry just isn't my thing. Btw, nice work you guys.

Yeah, as I've mentioned before, I'm a real anarchist when it comes to artistic expression. Whatever layout suits the way you choose to express yourself; go for that one, rather than sacrificing art to fit into a pre-defined system. Of course, some poets work best within confines (Shakespeare being one very relevant example).

Share soon, otherwise I'll get Ram to do inappropriate things to you repeatedly ()!

Well, it's not for everyone. Although, combine a few of those images together, blend it up a bit to make it more cohesive and... voila, instant poetry!

That is poetry.

What would I define poetry as? I would say a collection of words that do more than convey their literal meaning. So, if your collection of words inspires an image, that's still poetry, and good poetry at that!

Also, don't be afraid or shy to share! This is the no judgment zone as far as I'm concerned.