I occasionally attempt to distill meaningful thoughts into short poems. I also will collect poems from others that I find significant here as well.
My Poems
The Man, by Jasper Burns
I wrote this poem on a whim after finding the Walter Lippmann quote “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.” I thought it was such a beautiful sentiment that it needed to be reworded and decorated more fully. You can see the echo of this line in the second to last verse, and…
Renegade Quatrains
by Jasper Burns
Screaming, shrieking, people speaking:
That man must now resign!
Jail him, flail him. All, assail him.
No man ought speak his mind.
Walk straight, talk straight, kneel and prostrate,
The truth has been selected.
Obey, abide, and hide your pride,
Dissent will be rejected.
Thought and reason are surely treason,
When instead we have consensus.
The crowd’s decided, you’re misguided.
Disagreement is pretentious.
Scholars say the issue’s solved.
That settles the debate.
How dare you dream that dissidence
Would carry any weight.
Other Favorite Poems
the boys i mean are not refined, by e.e. cummings
I first heard this poem on The Portal with Eric Weinstein, where his son shared this poem as being a paradigm shifter for him on the topic of poetry. I agreed. Especially the finally stanza. It’s crude and animalistic. The best word I can use to describe it is raw.
Casabianca
I’m not sure where I first saw this poem; it just resurfaced as I was digging through the files of my computer. I remembered it on sight for how powerfully I was originally struck by the power, dignity, and integrity of the little boy. The boy, Giocante, was charged to stand a post by his…
A Little Timmy Coronavirus Poem, by Sam Garland
Sam Garland, also known on Reddit as /u/poem_for_your_sprog, is a hilarious internet poet. While the entire world is cooped up inside for the coronavirus pandemic, this made me laugh. As it was an internet comment, it is actually untitled. Garland has a published collection of poems here, and a compendium of reddit poetry stored here.
jasperburns.org 