Best Clipboard Poems
"Where does it hurt?"
She asks, clipboard like a shield,
pen cocked like a firing pin.
"Here," I say,
pointing to the silence just beneath my ribcage.
Not the lungs. Not the liver.
The place where sorrow goes to calcify.
They send me down long corridors,
all white noise and flickering fluorescents—
like memory on a bad day.
I wear a gown that opens in the back,
like every conversation I regret.
Inside the machine,
I lie still as a kept secret.
The MRI growls like an old god,
searching my insides
for evidence of war crimes.
I think about the shrapnel—
not metal, but moments.
The look she gave me
the night everything broke,
like she was already ghosting
through the wreckage of my voice.
I tell the technician:
It’s there. I can feel it.
Each breath razors against it.
But the scan is clean.
No foreign objects. No narrative.
They call it “psychosomatic”
like it’s a compliment,
like my body is staging a play
my mind refuses to direct.
Back in the doctor's office,
she says, "There's nothing inside you."
And I laugh—sharp and wrong.
Isn't that what pain is?
The something that feels like everything
and shows up as nothing?
I ask if she can x-ray a metaphor.
She doesn’t smile.
Just types and nods and offers
a pamphlet on stress management
as if I haven't already built
cathedrals from my coping mechanisms.
I leave with no diagnosis—
just a quiet war still raging
beneath my skin.
A soldier in peacetime,
saluting ghosts
that never made it
into the file.
Categories:
clipboard, sad,
Form:
Free verse
The shop floor view of the newly promoted
Oh to be the factory foreman and to wear a posh white coat
Just the thought of all that power brings a lump right to your throat
No more dirty hands or hob nail boots or boiler suits for you
No more rushing through your break time just relax and drink your brew
Carrying your briefcase, there’s no need for you to hide it
We all know that like your head there’s not a lot inside it
With your clipboard and your pencil you can wander round the site
Whilst assuming great authority you put us workers right
You believe we are in awe of you and hold you in esteem
If that is what you really think your living in a dream
We have seen all your back stabbing and we don’t know how you sleep
Everybody knows you as a sycophantic creep
We heard you telling everyone in the works canteen
That you now had access to the managers latrine
It’s true that for promotion you were first past the post
Yet the workers here all see you as a bigger pratt than most
We have read all your new rules and how we face the sack
We are all in the union and we’ll be fighting back
Don’t go thinking as a foreman that your future is secured
Your about to be upended by a young smart-arsed shop steward
Categories:
clipboard, on work and working
Form:
MY SOMEDAY PC
Someday when I’ll lose all my fading imagination
I’ll ask my PC to bring from the clipboard a poem for me.
It’ll inscribe a sonnet on the splendor of the rising sun
in programmed words formatting dreams I failed to see.
Someday when I’ll miss the melody of my mute music
I’ll ask my PC to play from its music store a sonata for me.
It’ll select and play Mozart’s ninth symphony, a classic,
my heart will pulsate in the tracked tune of rhapsody.
Someday when I’ll feel desolate and forsaken
I’ll ask my PC to project on monitor a lively friend.
It’ll display an animated smiling face I’ve long forgotten,
the hyperlink to the photo archive it’ll instantly send.
Someday when I’ll be depressed and a loner
I’ll ask my PC to open the inspiring page of history.
It’ll decode the encrypted tale of life from an uploaded folder
to set me on a browsing journey of self-inventory.
Someday when all colors will disappear from my palette
I’ll ask my PC to show me a picture of sunset hued sky.
It’ll retrieve a Monet from the database searching the internet,
I’ll copy and paste on the blank canvas where my mind will lie.
Someday when it’ll be time to close window on the world to exit
I’ll ask my PC to delete my story it had saved in the binary code,
because I’ll never want to virtually exist bound by strings of digit
in the electronic memory that nobody would ever download.
October 3, 2018
Categories:
clipboard, analogy, computer, life,
Form:
Rhyme
October,
Time when jellyfish
Wash ashore
Cover beaches in
Rotted goo.
Count the numbers
In blue ballpoint
Mark the map
in red.
Right, left
Booted squelch
Sand and guts
Dropped the clipboard.
Running ink,
Sticky slime
Wunderbar wrapper
Clings to the page.
Telephone the department
Need another day
To get the numbers
Info lost in kidney juice.
“Got to do it now”
Before gulls,
Tide comes in, already
harmonica squawks echo.
Categories:
clipboard, animals, funny, nature, on
Form:
Free verse
I sit in an open room
watching young girls come in and out
the clipboard in my lap
she calls my name and i stand
with slightly pudgy belly
scared
knowing there's a life already within
she know's i'm scared, but leads me to the hallway bathroom
handing me a cup for my sample
so i do what i am told
waiting in the exam room
i am shaking when she reads the pregnancy test
two single lines form
i am pregnant
i cry for a minute
out of shame
maybe relief,
because now i know i'm not alone
then i look at her puzzled
I have no family, no relatives
i've moved away so many times
running from my past
she hugs me, tells me everything will be fine
I smile and believe her
cause i have no one else to trust
eight months later she is by my side at the hospital
she smiles and says "everything will be fine"
I cry because i know someone out there cares!
*There is always someone out there that will help a teen in need.
Women's center's are only a phone call away.
mom, i'm pregnant contest
karen croft
Categories:
clipboard, caregivingme, cry, me,
Form:
Free verse
Excuse, may I perhaps suggest that you adjust your settings
Access my local area network by rebooting your memory
Restore it to our history, the mail, the messages we shared
The cache of stored work temporarily filed away remotely
Technically challenged by the format you display
Data of no gateways or connections in sync
Prompts the recalibration of my control panel
To search and review my settings reboot or even restore
Closing all windows and formatting firewalls
erasing the data, the history and their locations
troubleshooting the back pages encrypted
with messages no longer managed or stored
This media of you remains pasted on a clipboard
Components that await configuration and review
Left to their own devices by default in my domain
Downloaded, bookmarked in favourite library files
I delete all prompts and search settings and all tools
Inheriting only drivers generic and with false attributes
I apply these settings, I delete the data sources
Denying permission to any external links of you.
Categories:
clipboard, imagery, metaphor, relationship,
Form:
Light Verse
I remember yesterday,
You became human through breakfast and poem
As if desired to be a transfused memory
Next to where I discarded you,
Unnoticed, a incomplete short story,
Some lack of narrative.
I remember the nurse,
White coat without credentials,
Red hair shampooed in stale cigarette smoke,
Clutching the clipboard of your entire heritage,
Found deliverance in the small print,
Words specify to remove any victims.
She commented on your mother’s eyes,
Eyes that stole comfort from the terrible silence
Locked away in a basement basinet.
I remember you, delicate
Wrapped in fluid before violence
Wrenched through the vacuum
Without the assistance to life
That removes mother from mouth,
A force to bring color to limbs.
You ceased before your name
No vigil or mourning hymn,
A eulogy that never existed until today.
Outside of the womb,
You borrow your brother’s smile
So big it forces eyes closed,
A sister’s laugh promenades
Echoes through empty rooms
Your mother’s steady red pen
signs your goodbye.
I remember today,
You pour from ink across
Thought to paper in some act of cul-de-sac penance
Frozen in my body as fear pours
Concrete through bone marrow cinder blocks,
I remember that today I left you at my Father’s feet,
Away from white gowned cannibals
Who feast on the science of little ones.
Categories:
clipboard, introspection
Form:
Free verse
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” NIV.
Two Great Commandments
We must praise God with our total being;
With newfound faith in Him are believing;
Yourself forget;
In neighbors let;
Help those in need who will be grieving.
Jim Horn
St. James Episcopal Church
Shallotte, NC
lord 127 End Rhymes
One-syllable rhymes
board
bored
chord
cord
cored
cured
fiord
fjord
floored
ford
gored
gourd
gourde
hoard
hord
horde
lord
moored
oared
pored
poured
roared
scored
shored
snored
soared
stored
sword
toured
ward
warred
whored
Two-syllable rhymes
abhorred
aboard
accord
adored
afford
award
backboard
baseboard
billboard
blackboard
breadboard
broadsword
buckboard
cardboard
chalkboard
chessboard
chipboard
clipboard
concord
contoured
corkboard
dashboard
deplored
discord
duckboard
explored
floorboard
footboard
freeboard
hardboard
headboard
highboard
ignored
implored
inboard
keyboard
landlord
lapboard
moldboard
outboard
outscored
pasteboard
pegboard
prescored
rancored
record
restored
reward
scoreboard
seaboard
shipboard
sideboard
signboard
skateboard
slumlord
soundboard
springboard
surfboard
switchboard
tagboard
toward
uncured
wallboard
warlord
washboard
whipcord
Three-syllable rhymes
aboveboard
centerboard
checkerboard
clavichord
coinsured
fiberboard
fingerboard
harpsichord
mortarboard
notochord
overboard
overlord
paperboard
pinafored
plasterboard
pompadoured
prerecord
reassured
shuffleboard
smorgasbord
stevedored
underscored
unexplored
unrestored
untoward
weatherboard
Categories:
clipboard, allegory, analogy, religious,
Form:
Limerick
1975
we sat silently on the porch
I was outta breath from running
children ran in those days
some of us would wait on the porch for the sky to stop
I was wearing a light blue jacket
you were on my arm
we watched the sun calculate its position
and the sound of the pretzel man returning
watching you on my arm watching me
alone
digging up the bones of birds I buried last week
carrying my clipboard
sketches
of the newly planted trees
who's leaves were stars
I had markers, pens, pencils and chalk
all the time
I was so thin then
when the days of our lives would drag on
and the gravity of summers would destroy time passing
Categories:
clipboard, childhood
Form:
Free verse
Let not your heart be troubled by the recruiter's garrulous spiel!
After all, he's paid to embellish army life to offer you a fabulous deal!
When he called you 'private' you assumed there'd be privacy in store.
Never mind that you must share the latrine with fifty guys or more!
Make it a policy to eat all the curious grub the cooks slop on your tray!
Compliment the mess sarge - it might defer you from KP for another day!
Tell your sarge his wife is lovely - though she's as homely as Hooligan's goat!
He is certain to acclaim your acumen and a three-day pass he's apt to float!
Always appear busy - walk around with a clipboard in hand wearing a frown.
The captain might promote you to PFC on the spot so don't you let him down.
If a grumpy sergeant should deign to ask what you're doing, you could retort,
"Sarge, the colonel told me to inventory flypaper use on post and submit a report!"
Never volunteer for anything, though it may be an offer you shouldn't refuse!
Arrange things neatly in your footlocker for display and always shine your shoes!
Sergeants like things regular and complete, so don't give them any sass.
Officers' mega-egos are crushed if you don't salute, so always salute the brass!
Scrub the floor, shave your mug and be ready for Saturday morning inspection.
Best you pass the captain's scrutiny else he won't shower you with affection!
Keep your hair cut, a crease in your pants and you'll get along without a glitch.
They might even see fit to promote you to general on your very first hitch!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Categories:
clipboard, funny,
Form:
Rhyme
Young Raymond worked the bakery
was up 'bout ten to three.
Just eighteen, still in high school he
had dreams of flying free.
He worked as hard as most grown men
then walked to school and slept.
Took all his wages home to Mom
who thanked him as she wept.
His forte's were science and math
in those he could engage.
Yet beneath all his knowledge was
a silent, anxious rage.
He dreamed, "I'll be an astronaut,"
but worked the fierce hot stoves.
"Impossible to soar," he'd think
while baking bread in loaves.
Young Raymond lost his childhood by
the time he reached sixteen.
Quiet brilliant in mathematics he
soon knew bread as his dean.
Scattered among the loaves of bread,
the flour, water, yeast,
he lost that precious dream-hope and
became an aged beast.
One fine May day in Physics class
with windows opened wide,
most students lolling at their desk,
our Raymond jumped and died.
His skull was broken on the sidewalk
entrance to our school.
Striding across the room's wood floor
he dove into a pool
of warm spring air as he took flight
toward impending death.
We gasped and ran toward the bay
while holding back our breath.
Some of us thought he'd stand upright
until we saw the blood.
Our teacher pressed the intercom
he'd shuddered at the thud.
Somewhere inside that bright young mind
with dreams of soaring high,
the walls of Raymond's world caved in
and left him asking why?
Not old enough to be a man
yet lost to days of youth,
his brilliant mind found no escape
he couldn't cipher truth.
Epilogue
While deputies worked at the scene
we all departed school.
With camera, tape, and clipboard they
applied fact-finding tools.
Yet none could reason why he jumped
and in May chose to die.
His teacher and the Sheriff would
return to find out why.
A physics book lay on his desk
a paper on the leaves.
Mathematically he'd worked it out,
two grown men were bereaved.
He knew the precise distance from
the window to the walk.
His pen the feet per second for
his keen mind to meet shock.
He'd chosen one three story flight
over stacks and rowd of bread,
abandoning the ovens that
had given him deep dread.
I think of him on fine May days
rich with ambrosial air.
I hope that Raymond soars the skies
and sees his world as fair.
Losing Raymond
Categories:
clipboard, absence, life, sorrow,
Form:
Verse
How To Look Busy at Work
By Elton Camp
When quitting time is still an hour away
If you don’t want to work any more that day
There’s a neat little trick I learned long ago
That lets you goof off but nobody will know
Just walk around, occasionally stop and stand
Be certain you have a clipboard in your hand
Then rove your eyes through the office all around
Stop to write while you shake your head & frown
Nobody will question an activity that’s so grim
Out of fear that you may be writing about them
What you’re doing, even your super won’t ask
He suspects his boss is gonna take him to task
Remember occasionally to put a new page on top
Attempts to look over your shoulder that’ll stop
They all suspect that, for the CEO, you’re a rat
So are afraid to make you mad because of that
When a colleague isn’t called in, that’s a relief
And that you were working increases his belief
Each will think that you did an excellent job
As you didn’t report him, but some other slob
Categories:
clipboard, funny,
Form:
Rhyme
Who's Got Time for Politics?
I had the kids in tow,
as I was walking out the store.
A nice lady with a clipboard
enquired who I was voting for.
"I'd like to help you out," I said,
"but I've got a lot to do.
Y'see these two are late for school
'cause we just got jabs for 'flu."
"I have three jobs
and it's testing my endurance.
Sixty hours on the best of weeks
and I still don't get insurance."
"I can't put my kids in day-care
'cause I can't spare a dime.
I barely make slave wages;
of course, no overtime."
"And if I quit one job
I can't get unemployment.
I'm lucky that my partner
is on a third deployment."
"I spend my spare time on the phone
trying to get prescriptions,
that won't require another mortgage.
It's giving me conniptions!"
I'd packed my groceries in the hatch,
and strapped the kids in tight.
"You're very nice, and you've a job,
and I hope you do it right."
"Sorry I couldn't be more help,
but they're all crooks and lunatics!
With all this stuff that's going on,
who's got time for politics!"
- Grim
Categories:
clipboard, political,
Form:
Rhyme
Drapes are closed but the sun gets through
Summer morning, birds a-tweeting
Sweat on sheets, personal dew
Two more snoozes then up for meeting
A chunk of mahogany
Surrounded by suits
Well-shaved chins
Playing silk flutes
Golden cuff links
Slide over shine
Reaching for Perriere:
Businessman's wine
The big-haired girl
With tight lips and skirt
With clipboard and pen
In a roomful of men
She manages managers
Directs the directors
Away from the P's and Q's they might blurt
When minutes are taken
They while away hours
In a concrete maze
With the rented flowers
The plastic shag carpet
The paper thin walls
The wood-textured desk
Holding five clacking balls
The photo of daughter
The drawing by son
The lunch packed by wife:
Ham and cheese in a bun
Like a silent fire drill
At four-thirty flat
The lifts are sardined
With impersonal chat
All hoping to beat
The motorized fleet-
The Mercedes armada
That trawls down their street
Curtains open, sun goes down
A day in credit, a night in debt
A silent pillow away from town
Night light off, alarm clock set
Categories:
clipboard, corruption, men, power,
Form:
Ballad
Post me on your clipboard,
So that I may never leave your sight.
I needed you yesterday,
I need you tonight....
Here I go baby, two doors down my street. Come bring me your hope. Come bring me your silence. Come bring me your flowers, so that I may nourish them with my water. May the water quench your thirst, on this long burning day, for the sun has unraveled, tore my secrets apart life a shredding disease and all I can say... I'm sorry.
Grapes planted on a vine, peonies in my garden, I long for you to bring back my insanity...
Please bring it towards my home.... I'm living in fear you may decide to leave. And oh, my baby, please stay with me.
-because you are worth the wait...
All the tormented guilt I've provided to all who know me well, has been hell for them and I can't stop seeing you the way I do. So you, my love, take me to your eternity, only you can tell, if I'm worth the struggle.
-because you are worth the wait....
I'll wait for you on the moon, and look at Venus through your eyes, you'd be my constellation,
For no sky is too high. And I'll bring you sweet sorrow, because that's all I can share. But I will do my honest best to bring you back to my soul so that we can finally be whole...
-because you are worth the wait....
Categories:
clipboard, absence, angst, care, heartbreak,
Form:
Free verse