Happy Atheist Poetry Jam

[Will]

Intro to the thread - this is a place to put down all of your poetry, be it atheistic or not. It's about venting or sharing.

The Atheist in Church (Reasonable Hypocrisy)

What do you find
brings to mind
sheep being led by a shepherd?
The herd tended by leadership
unimaginable power in the staff
that leads on behalf
of the greater good or the "other half".

Elaborately, I call myself out
All of the questions which cause me doubt.

Pain, fighting, pain, knowledge.

So why do I, the lone rabbit,
amongst the sheep's herd inhabit?
How could the free join the herd
and listen to "in the beginning was the Word"?
The lesson of free Will, sitting in the abbot.

For only a rabbit amongst sheep can truly appreciate
how the members of the herd continue to negate
the "god given" freedom they're taught to hate.
Don't question, don't question. Follow, follow.

Now the rabbit continues on, understanding
that the last thing he wants is a branding
"Property of the church". My ass.

I am responsible for me; granting self-amnesty, honestly, subjectively, and knowingly; growing from knowing the lesson learned, not shamed.

And today was a helpful reminder.

[LARA]

Oh you just didn't.   I like yours, rabbit, right off the top of your head I presume.  I can't be that good, I have to pull something out I wrote a long time ago.   It rhymes.  I'm  old school.  Here goes...

In solemn circles flowers grow
protected by brambles and roses thorned
wild from neglect yet beautified
hidden from hate and shallow scorn

In solemn circles streams do flow
running past hate and shallow scorn
running through brambles  & circled flowers
from pure heart & mind waters born

In solemn circles the wind does blow
blows away hate & a lover's scorn
ripples the stream & ripples the flowers
yet leaves them standing whole, untorn

In solemn circles the fire does glow
hidden by brambles & roses thorned
ready to burn all who tread
with no head to what the brambles warn

In solemn circles the earth I sow
with seeds of brambles, with tears I mourn
I build the walls, I build the fires
and mend my hands by brambles torn

1999  l.m.

I was a lot crazier then....

[Will]

Awesome rhymes! Dope, even. Yours has good structure, it's very calming.

[jrosebud]

You guys are awesome.     Thanks for sharing!

[susangail]

This is great. The poems you guys have posted are so beautiful and fluid. Mine are more depressing and some are obviously rants, but here you go:

*Little Glass Box

little glass box
my comforting cage
soundless and earsplitting
can't move
can't breathe
long to scream
long to bleed
long to break out
afraid to be free
afraid to leave the familiarity
afraid of what's next
my constricting prison
little glass box

*Baby Leech

Dry, empty,
Like a broken canteen.
Just a small crack,
But it is enough.

Drip, drop, drip, drop
Slowly and surely
Leaking the life
Until nothing is left

Like a baby leech
Slower, but true
Sucking away
Never stopping

‘til the deed is done.


*Playpen

Stuck in a playpen,
Like a child.
Which was fine,
When I was a child.
But I am not a child.

I never objected,
to the strict boundaries, I mean.
It seemed only natural,
to think and do as I was told.
But now it seems rather strange.

I'm too old for the playpen,
I realize that now.
Though kept in it,
I still am.
But I'm breaking out.

My body is free,
to run as it pleases.
My mind,
to think how it will.
But how they think of me?

I am an outcast now,
though I always have been.
I know myself now,
Far more than ever before.
But oh how they will think of me.


*Understanding the Thoughts of a Brick Wall

I’m tired of trying to understand.
Understand the thoughts of a brick wall.
An immovable brick wall.

Tired of saying what he wants to hear.
Stifling what needs to be said.
Holding my tongue.
Staying in the cage.
Acting to please.
Never good enough.
Always something wrong.

Take what I say as what I don’t say.
What is he thinking?
How does he get fire from rainbows?

I’m never good enough.
I stop trying.
I say what I think;
What needs to be said.
Break out forever,
And never look back.

I’m done trying to understand.
Understand the thoughts of a brick wall.
An immovable brick wall.

The first two aren't about my feelings of the church so much, though they may sound that way (though a life-sucking baby leech and a constricting glass box are pretty accurate, it wasn't in my mind when I wrote them). But interpret them how you will, I'm just the writer.

Sorry for the long post, but thanks for reading.

[myleviathan]

***A face is just a frame***

My heart feels black and full
Like an eclipsed moon
Curled through the smoke and staring so long
I think that tears fall and then they die
People live and then they cry
But I long to feel with my hands out
And my eyes shut
All by myself you came
Wading through the gathering shade to find my frame
Hung it on the wall and called a friend
A face is just a frame we're looking through
Looking to you and you
With my hands out
I can feel behind my eyes
A tinge that withers all my limbs
And burns my heart away
But then you came and
Washed my feet with your tears
My knees are weak and my hands are out
And we're sinking through the sands
Enveloped in the deep without any need
To breathe the breath you freed

[joeactor]

nice... so many varied talents here...

I'm more of a beat poet - here's my top-of-head one for today:


Is
Is Not
Questions Need Answers
Does The Question Exist?
Eternity Is Calling
And I Have No Phone

-- JoeActor

[joeactor]

wow... you're either all speechless... or I just killed a poetry thread.
(is that like killing a mime?)

JoeActor

[LARA]

No, joeactor, not speechless, inspired!

I am here in this box
you can't see it
my face is white
I smell like
cheese
I show you with my hands
I am clever, no?
Strangle me with my striped pants
just fucking kill me now.


           

[joeactor]

No, joeactor, not speechless, inspired!

I am here in this box
you can't see it
my face is white
I smell like
cheese
I show you with my hands
I am clever, no?
Strangle me with my striped pants
just fucking kill me now.

           

Now THAT's Poetry!  Love it!
JoeActor

[myleviathan]

***Embers Above***

We are embers burning high
High into the night-time purple sky
We're wrapped around by tendrils of flame
I'm calling your name
Through the crystalline vapor above
I can feel your glowing warmth
When you look at me with your eyes
They melt the frosted cataracts
That blinded me before
I can see the dancing shadows
Of the treetops below
Bending and turning and jumping up
And the flickering orange glow Of the fire
Where we were launched above

[Kylyssa]

I don't know which poem to put here so I'll link to where you can find a few dozen of my poems.

Kylyssa Shay on Associated Content

Many of my darker poems aren't posted anywhere.  I'm getting up the chutzpah top post some of my poems about atheism. The trauma associated with that subject matter is still too deep sometimes and I fear won't get the same gentle and thoughtful responses my poetry about molestation and rape do.

[ONZero]

Two haikus for the jam....

Saints, they never smile,
Thinking they are made by a
Sour, old, jealous God.

and...

Highway signs sunlight
Green plants and caterpillars
Deaf, dumb, blind compost.

Happy to be aboard,
ONZero

[Kylyssa]

Phoenix of the Glacier

Glacier dropped,
a terminal moraine
begins where cold ended
where vast crests of ice
came to die
and dropped their stony load,
now covered with soil
a rocky cairn for times long gone.
A battered farmhouse sits on the hill
paint peels and broken windows gape.
Its decomposing carcass
where my childhood came to die.
A skeleton stripped of meaning,
a splintering wooden fossil
buried by time so shallow yet so viscous
it is now innocent in its post-senescence.

I am not.

I am a dirty phoenix,
the frost of the glaciers reborn.
The iceberg's gravel armors me
as tender skin could not
proof against the feverish, sweaty hands
of a ghost whose corpse has yet to die,
proof against his stifling weight
atop my childish form
which is nothing
compared to lying beneath ice
that endured for fifty thousand years or more.
If I could live a thousand lifetimes
perhaps the ice I have become might melt,
leaving only the strength of stones.

[Asmodean]

This poem is one of my most recent ones. It is about me and the Moon  

All alone

All alone I was born one day
All alone I wander the Earth
All alone I forsake my faith
All alone I await my rebirth

All alone - here, today
All alone I will someday die
All alone I will find my way
To the land where the angels cry