Week 446 (February 5-February 11) Poems Topic: Native Tongue

[C.P., Windrunner]

You have until the 11th of February to post a poem and from the 12th to around the 18th of February, we’ll vote for which one we thought was best!

Please post directly into the topic and not a link. Please don’t use a poem previously used in this group. Only one submission per person is allowed.

Your poem can be of any length!

This week’s topic is: Native Tongue

The rules are pretty loose. You could write a poem about anything that has to do with the subject/photo but it must relate to the topic somehow.

Most of all have fun!

[Edward]

Title : Elective Foreign Language
Poet : Edward Davies

If you can learn a language
Other than your native tongue
Then I’m more than a bit impressed
Because I know just one.

I wasn’t really interested
In verbal expertise
I only know the Hindi swears
And failed with Japanese

I’d love to watch a foreign film
And not read the subtitles
But I can’t grasp vernaculars
Not even juts the vitals

I didn’t study German, learned
Some French when I was young
I didn’t read Spanish at all
No, just my native tongue.

[Garrison]

POET: Garrison Kelly
TITLE: Undertaker
GENRE: Traditional Poetry
RATING: G



Necromancy is my native tongue
For those whose songs remain unsung
For those buried beneath the ground
For those haunted by traumatic sounds
Every corpse has its own little story
Every death has its own hidden glory
Some died fighting for what they believe
Or took to the grave their ability to deceive
Some died never having lived at all
No surprise that one day they’d fall
Detachment is my only suit of armor
Against crying for those I must honor
Just another body to grow the grass
Just another ghost waiting to pass
To the next world if there ever was one
Covered in roses or saluted with guns
An undertaker’s job is never really over
An undertaker’s fear is silent and covert
Rest in peace is what we learn to say
Go through the motions for another day
This is life imitating the finest art
This is a life being torn clean apart
Just as dead as the bodies I bury
Just as heavy as the burden I carry
Maybe it’s time for a brand new career
There’s nothing left for me to do here
Follow my dreams into older ages
Write my stories on the dusty pages
How many times will I get this chance
Before I give into the devil’s dance?

[Fidel]

"Native Tongue"

My native tongue
That's a language
I don't know today
Some say
I should go back home
But I don't know the way
Strangers say
I should ask my people
But I don't know their names
I only know
the name they were given
when they came
The name that's a derivative
of pain
It's a name that I'll never
speak again
I wish I could
Speak to them
We're from different lands and other
Sometimes I wonder
Would we even understand each other?
From shore to shore
There's so much to explore
As I try to understand
Who I am and more

by Fidel M. Love

[M]

Portrait of a Seamstress

The French that was her native tongue
was old, like weathered cypress shakes,
the murky depths of oxbow lakes,
the grays of Spanish moss that hung

from oaks, a harpist’s modal chords.
A passion sometimes lit her gaze,
as though of hogsheads hauled on drays,
a cavalry’s bright clang of swords.

By candlelight, she still reread
his letters. A restraint, a grace
made beautiful her haunting face,
her aging hands, her way with thread.