Best Sketchbook Poems
Little Coffee House
It’s the coffee counter line-up
A conveyor belt of people
Ready for their little treat
A little piece of comfort
From their favorite beanery
I strum as I watch them
My guitar like an old friend
They should say hello to -
But they never do
Little Coffee House
My band’s playing for you
But what do you do
You just want want want your cups
Your little coffee mugs
So move up to the front
Funky-spiked hair dude
Jokes with the worker
He leans on the counter
(I think that he likes her)
But people are waiting
And he’s hesitating
So all the shoe tappers
Start to harass him -
Hurry up and pick one fast
Little Coffee House
We’re playing for you
But what do you do
You just need need need your cups
Your little coffee mugs
And that little coffee buzz
I look around the room
There’s a girl in a red shirt
Looking out of the window
She sips on a latte -
I think she’s an artist
She lays out her sketchbook
But she doesn’t start to draw
She turns to face the wall –
What are we doing wrong?
We don’t have to be inspiration
But how ‘bout entertainment?
Are we a distraction?
I can’t help but asking
Are we an invasion
Of the air?
Little Coffee House
We’re playing for you
But what do you do
You just sip sip sip your cups
Your little coffee mugs
Not listening to us
There’s a man on a laptop
There’s a girl reading Sherlock
There’s a guy on a cell phone
A boy eating Jell-O
I want them to look up
If they’d look up they’d see us
Are we so bad we should shut up?
Because I feel like we just suck -
I feel like we’re not even here
We’re jamming
To inattentive ears
Oh Little Coffee House
I feel I’m at a loss
We’re playing here for you
But what do you do
Your busy coffee mouths
Keep sippin’ till it’s out
If only you’d listen
You’d hear what you’re missin’
We’re not
Just another gig
Someday, we’ll make it BIG
Sip sip sippin’ cups
Those little coffee mugs
Sip ‘em till they’re out
Little Coffee House
Categories:
sketchbook, confusion, girl, people, places,
Form:
Lyric
She screams me awake; no rest tonight.
I arise, rub my bleary eyes
Grabbing pencil and sketchbook,
She pours onto the page
And I am amazed
That is so cool
Wish I could
Have done
That.
Categories:
sketchbook, appreciation, how i feel,
Form:
Nonet
Rolling into bed-n-blankets;
I turn to ensure that my pen, journal
and sketchbook are beside my bed.
My dream-companions need me,
as much as I need them.
they need my imagination and its wanderings,
to spill upon their pages,
like water droplets, cascading into a wandering river.
At some point, I will awake
and pour my dreams
onto the white abyss;
my pen will sing and sketch universes
from the dreamtime realms;
My soul will bubble with elation.
Such treasures, perused time and again;
Will birth myriads of heart-songs.
Categories:
sketchbook, dream, imagination, introspection, poems,
Form:
Free verse
Alltsaigh - The Scotch Highlands
I made a pact with you near water's edge:
Before the campers came,
I would remove The drawings on the hostel's kitchen walls
In which you are a few sad and patient tires
Half in some blued-out lake with dragon face,
So patently fading to public white.
You said you would never come back up
To startle us again or find disgrace…
So you said going black under blue;
I knew you would be back.
Sailing these spindrift waters
Diving the bone-deep depths and taunting us
Across the waves with your rippling spines,
And flair for bumbling melodrama.
Therefore, I have kept my watch
And evenings, a blue sword in darkness,
I look downward and slip off into the night
--Published Sketchbook
Categories:
sketchbook, analogy, betrayal, water,
Form:
Free verse
Cats are containers of
colorful personality.
A blue cat sits alone
looking at the floor before him.
His mind blank as,
a new sketchbook;
waiting for the artist within to,
paint him into a clown.
Red cats rage against life’s storms
and invaders in their yard.
Birds, squirrels and mice fear
the wrath of a red cat;
sharp teeth and claws are swift when,
propelled by a red paw.
Yellow cats have a tendency
to leave surprise gastric gifts
on your carpet, as much as possible;
always apologizing with their pale,
jaundiced eyes.
The green cat personality is rare.
You’ll find them holding it all in
until they get to that litter box.
Green behavior warrants a private box,
along with a nice treat.
Green cats, can’t stand a stench
and will scratch litter for hours
to slay a screaming smell.
The purple cats
see every opportunity for affection
and milk it.
Love emanates from their bones
and cuddling is what they do best.
When purple cats offer a hug,
you cannot resist.
Beware the polka-dotted cat!
A love bite will quickly become
piercing claws;
shredding an arm in seconds.
Pink cats are Coveted cats.
Children love pink cats
and carry them everywhere.
Their serene and constant purring
sings you to sleep, ever so gently.
A pink cats love is never-ending.
The rainbow personality,
is the comedian of all cats.
Light to dark and red to yellow;
the court jester of the species.
these side-splitting, laugh factories,
will never allow you to be bored.
Keep a camera handy;
rainbow cats are usually,
fabulous video celebrities
Categories:
sketchbook, animal, cat, metaphor, pets,
Form:
Light Verse
I can hear the water,
a giggle almost,
in the small cold spring
by which I sat
that foggy morning,
sketchbook, pen, and watercolors in hand.
A weed with a single white flower
grew from the innards
of a half submerged,
humus-bound log
alive with neon-green moss.
A brilliant web
spun by a tiny jewel-orange spider
laced the flower to the log.
I dipped my brush in the spring water,
washed it around in the appropriate colors,
painted the scene as best I could,
never coming close to capturing
the brilliance of flower, moss and spider.
Only approximations of nature are possible.
Categories:
sketchbook, nature, spring, flower, flower,
Form:
Free verse
hollow sounds of bamboo. . .a blue heron
Sketchbook Journal
Categories:
sketchbook, beauty, blessing, sound,
Form:
Monoku
waka,tanka,yugen
elegant poem-songs to pen
haiga,wenren,haiku
multi-talents to read or view
renga,haikai,haibun
light or long,poetry-prose can be fun
senryu,kigo kireji
the cutting word..is the key
Categories:
sketchbook, on writing and words
Form:
Couplet
Be ye as wise as serpents' (Matthew 10: 16)
you live long enough
everything runs together
like water and sand
the circle where the serpent
coiled at the edge of the sea
seems less than
stepping on moonlight
and holding a child
you live long enough
everyone stirs inside,
your father,
long dead
remembers your face,
Your first love breathes softly
beside you in the dark
you live long enough
you'll know you loved
even when you thought
you were making love,
eyes open and unmoved
staring one way or everywhere
but mostly sandward
you live long enough
you'll remember to breathe
and wonder if you'll live forever
a grasping, almost lovely,
small-hearted thing
you live long enough
you'll slip into brightness
you'llknow of incandescence
and the long memory of the sky
(Published Sketchbook, Sept/Oct 2010)
Categories:
sketchbook, age, appreciation, beauty,
Form:
Free verse
Just thirteen and already hiding,
capped off like an old oil well,
ears clamped shut
with a musical flair of pink in a bush
of unkempt hair.
Thirteen and all balled up
like a tribble in a Star-Trek bin
rounded shoulders, head down tucked
nope, not, never
getting into her skin.
Already hiding behind the glass
of frames too big for her head,
legs crossed, sketchbook open
drawing the visions inside her instead.
Capped teeth with braces
if she only knew
[though she seemed to guess, I’m sure]
lots of strut was needed, swagger, panache
all of which
she abhorred.
Off she’s gone behind lashes of woe
brought on by who knows what, or who?
Like an old oil well, she sits and waits
that is unless she blows?
Ears clamped shut blaring bloody what,
who knew?
Not pretty in pink, not petite, or polite
do you know her I do.
Categories:
sketchbook, angst, childhood,
Form:
Verse
east wind
each petal
just enough
Published Kukai thread--Sketchbook
Categories:
sketchbook, spring, wind,
Form:
Haiku
a
poem
of
light
hallowed
heightens
the
morning
sun
making
love's delight
a bumblebee
in purple
clover
a
cloud drift
of spring geese
or long
notes
of marsh
wrens
(Published Sketchbook - July/August 2011)
Categories:
sketchbook, appreciation, beauty, earth, poetry,
Form:
Shape
Talk about your nuclear weapons.
My brain feels like it’s about to explode.
Last summer I started sketching
with a group called Sketchbook Skool.
I drew and colored and Zentangled and arted
every day for months and months.
I felt so alive
and so energized
and really, really exhiliarated.
Then winter came and I got tired.
And put away all my pencils
let my watercolor tubes and trays
dry up and blow away.
All my sketchbooks are still there
mocking me from a jumbled drawer.
Now it’s summer again and I
feel poetry springing from my brain
my eager, excited, easily stimulated
brain.
So now what?
Am I doomed to the same tired pattern
of summertime creativity
followed by wintertime gloom?
If I didn’t already know it was an acronym
I’d say,
“That’s just S.A.D.”
Categories:
sketchbook, art, creation, depression, humor,
Form:
The steam slowly raises from inside my mug, wrapping itself around my pencil, eventually
evaporating into the musty atmosphere.
As I open my sketchbook I imagine all the possibilities of a world inside my head, but today
I’ll stick to what I do best.
I place pencil to paper and within seconds her eyes blaze like wildfire, a look of pure
mystery and a feeling of seductiveness.
Her nose is sly and round with a slight creek to the left in a cute and attractive way, I pick up
my cup and take a sip before moving on.
I sketch a swiftness of lines as a base to what will later become a sea of hair, my hand slides
down to her neck, she is beautiful.
I rub my eyes, it’s late now and my candle is starting to burn out, her shoulders are broad,
not to wide but slightly long.
I run the tip of my lead around her soft breast, they sag slightly at the bottom but I don’t
care, as I draw in her hips.
You could place your hands on hips like this and hold them for a lifetime, I move my pencil
up to her waist, I prefer the fuller figure.
I realise my tea has turned stone cold as I take her soft hand into mine, we dance around
the page between the flowers and tree’s.
I look into her eye’s of blazing fire and draw in the final outline of her hair, I think it would
look good light blue with green streaks.
I draw in her thighs as my pencil runs down her long smooth legs…. No, I take my eraser
and rub out her legs as I change my mind.
Instead I think I’ll have her legs disappear into a mist, her dress of gold and black sparkling
in the cold midnight air.
I draw in the tears as she cry’s, for no more life has she ever known, we walk through night,
as I hold her hand she rests her head upon my shoulder.
We take a seat on a newly sketched bench next to a fountain over flowing with water of the
darkest blue, and she sighs.
I get from out of my chair and fill the kettle, as the water boils I contemplate her fate, I pour
my drink and sit down at my desk, I get to work.
Her arms out spread and a smile on her newly formed gentle lips, I draw a sparkle into her
tears, then as I place the finishing touches I rip out the page.
The frame is cheap but not tacky, I placed her on the wall above my desk,
Where next to a crystal fountain of water blue and dark,
She can dance forever.
Categories:
sketchbook, peacedance, water, blue, dance,
Form:
Romanticism
Morning glories light the morning
Hummingbirds bloom in every blossom’s breath
Flickering of gold dust shook from tiny heads;
Fairy magicians
Glistening the morning light,
A sleight of hazy wings,
A sudden quickening of the heart's delight.
That summer so much too beautiful to bear;
Flying, dancing, humming, being,
Quickening in the cathedral light;
And soaring on some liquor divine,
Divinely mad!
A fool with wings!
The anointed messenger of the gods of play;
For now is the time
Stopped and still in the golden air
I see myself shining everywhere.
Published--Sketchbook - 2010
Categories:
sketchbook, appreciation, bird, feelings, imagery,
Form:
Free verse