Best Typewriters Poems
In a store that sells antiques,
The past is much alive,
Including parts that we’d prefer
Did somehow not survive.
Some creepy dolls and ugly clothes
And jewelry I’d not wear
Forlornly grace the shelves without
Their one-time savoir faire.
But other items bring a smile
Or memory to bear –
A Popeye pin, some Beatles cards
And much Fiestaware.
Three typewriters with all their keys
Sit Royally encased
And lots of kitchen tools I wish
I never had replaced.
I troll the aisles quite aimlessly
For if you want the truth,
The only things I hope to find
Are traces of my youth.
Categories:
typewriters, nostalgia,
Form:
Rhyme
My wife may go, but I must stay
My unused ticket in my hand
Her flight is finally underway
The Nazis held my full dossier
The word had come from high command
My wife may go, but I must stay
Our cigarettes within the tray
With lipstick stains upon her brand
Her flight is finally underway
My passport stamped with letter "J"
A clerk is typing - I am banned
My wife may go, but I must stay
One golden earring gone today
The other one tight in my hand
Her flight is finally underway
I lied: "It's just a short delay."
Perhaps one day she'll understand
My wife may go, but I must stay
Her flight is finally underway
November 29, 2014
Notes:
1936 - Jews no longer allowed electrical/optical equipment, bicycles, typewriters or records
1938 - Jews' passports stamped with a red letter 'J'. May not be used to re-enter Germany.
Some have passports removed to prevent them leaving the country.
For complete list see http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/voices/info/decrees/decrees.html
Categories:
typewriters, sad,
Form:
Villanelle
There is an antique writing desk
in my little study
handed-me-down
from generations of would-be
writers in my family
And there are ancient creatures
from days gone by
living in this old desk still
evil, larcenous little creatures
envious of literary skill
This explains much
Lately, I have caught them unawares
aghast, thought I imagined them
but they are really there
surly, sinister, repugnant creatures
in my writing desk
There's a putrid little jerk,
called Pernishicus who lurks
behind the piles on my desk
glorying in the mess
a malevolent, grimy-mauve gremlin
Who preys on newly created works
stealthily spraying them
with foul feculence
as soon as I commence
my writing-
...Sometimes missing slightly
and tagging my hand
making it hard to stand
myself (much less my writing)
for days on end
Then there's a creepy
mesmerizing fiend
they call Spelbadger
a translucent thing, quite obscene
who shifts in the shadows and purrs
With dark eyes deep- constantly changing
like stones from mood-rings
set in his skull
he psychically bullies,
intimidates and muddles
until my poor brain
is worn and dull
And perhaps worst of all
is that one, Grumblesleaze
with pale, glowering eyes diseased
a gray-green, mangy looking thing
whose famous quirk
is that he has the gall
to grouse about my work...
As he viciously shreds it
then glunshing and munching
greedily devours it all
leaving no note
or trace of remembrance
of my past brilliance
behind
Oh, out of spite
he might leave a few
of my ill-penned
unfortunate lines
I planned to cut anyway
or pull my worst attempts
from the waste-can
and lay them out
to remind me of my failures
Yes, this explains much
For there was only one before
our one lone ancestor
who was able to write
at this desk prolifically
tapping out volumes rather heroically
'Though tiresome and tedious
dry history and drivel
which, no doubt, shrank and shriveled
and lulled these creatures off
to sleep for years
Until we woke them up
broke their hibernation
with more interesting stories
and imagination, colorfully crafted
ingenious, piece after piece
Clicking and clacking away
on typewriters, keyboards
generation after generation
of irritatingly gifted writers
disturbing their peace
it had to cease...
Categories:
typewriters, anxiety, feelings, humor, humorous,
Form:
Free verse
What Rusts In The Rain
(For The Memory Of William S. Burroughs
& Typewriters)
It is Lawrence, Kansas and the sky opens
up as if a doppelganger of all mothers and
wombs
Leaving out rain as milk from its breasts
onto
all things fertile
Rangas of storm
A writer adores their typewriter.
They name it and ache in its lack of health
and death.
Brother, the decades faded and the Beats
and the Hippies
their dawns edges burning off in the
sunlight of time
took flight on dusky dirges and are gone.
Generations come and go and that none
of us can turn in protest against, too busy
in our living and then our leaving.
Opiate, apt fruition.
There is no lover like a typewriter.
Stroke its keys.
Know its response.
Kansas, Dorothy's head all turned around
and paisley.
You died and they left your typewriter in
the backyard
of your last home, grass growing up into
its spine.
No more pawning for what the soul was
too terrified to
go without.
Maybe it is better here.
Waiting for the return of some living, freed
dignity.
An ability to grow creative legs, talk again.
The scent of English Ovals on its skin
Categories:
typewriters, absence
Form:
Free verse
" Tortured metaphors
spilling from tequila lips,
t i p t o e on my pulse ~
breaking in an arced smile
of the featherless eclipse,
where I waltz as a secluded steel-shine,
sobered s o f t l y
by the taste of satanic stars..."
I'm the loss of a leaf
from gold-dew aspens,
rippling upon
turquoise typewriters,
where drunk fingertips dance.
Turning to ashes,
my heart m e l t s
as a metallic grenade,
and no philosopher's stone
ever reverberating
in its silver-winged silence.
Seeking shelter from smoldering seas,
I curl up in the womb of a guardian willow ~
she's a weeping angel of n e v e r l a n d,
with an ornamented garland
of guns and roses,
enveloping me in the corpse of sunset.
Plunging from diamond cobwebs
into isles of champagne,
like a dynamite dove bloodthirsty for sun,
I l u r k along reefs
studded with rhinestones, unfurling –
lotus manuscripts
as poetic pearls s l i p and t w i r l,
snorkeling in an obsidian oasis.
I miss being
a purple-whisper prophecy,
threaded in fractured letters,
for now, my ink b l e e d s
in the marrow of moon,
where an alchemy is lost and found...
In the chronicles of carnelian clemency
and supernova sorcery,
I've seen arctic assonances
hibernating
in the throats of those,
holding lethal jewels
as a nightingale's neon noose.
So, if my soul is an opal widow
of your thistle-light affection,
a verse romanticised
will be my crystal coffin,
and in the caricatures
of kohl and karma,
our silent soliloquy
shall delicately be shifted.
Surfing in the splitting s i n s
of a salty saviour,
this whiskey damsel
shall evermore remain
a scentless phrase,
scrapped by pencilled brush-strokes,
i n v i s i b l e
in our paper-cut destiny...
Categories:
typewriters, dark, deep, emotions, gothic,
Form:
Free verse
Fish are named
Lazarus and Carl Jung
they swim in the library, art studio,
that spare room
where I write, paint.
Their eyes are the size
of their stomachs.
They mouth dreams
in silence behind glass.
I stare back, envious
of graceful slow motion angel gills
immersed in a tank of tears
gathered from heaven,
capped by corporations,
lugged home from the Dollar Store
to keep the tank full….
On the other side
a breeze streams
over book shelves,
antique typewriters, canvas and paint.
Lazarus and Carl watch me
write, brush colors
and nap...
turn, twist, snore, dream,
dream more….
surreal, real,
really you? here in the deep?
Oh lovely waves of sleep. So many fish in this sea, oh, oh, yes, yes,
you, you, you …with me.
You, evaporate.
Eyes open empty and starved.
Lips spit at the sunrise
as it blinds, blocks out
infinite oceans of you.
Categories:
typewriters, boy, day, fish, romantic,
Form:
Free verse
Oh, latest iPad, may I hang thee,
From the nearest garden tree!
A Grinch, thou art and nothing more.
Causing me, endless problems galore!
As always, Safari is to blame?
Almost a tune, that puts me to shame.
Why is it I , who is always at fault?
I dream of joyful days of saddleshoes
and malts.
Of humanity speaking, face to face.
And of being social, was of no disgrace!
Typewriters and mail, oh how I love!
This electronic age, hardly hand in my glove.
I miss the aroma of fresh, pencil shavings.
Thus goes, my off the wall nightly ravings.
People no longer look at the beauty of one
another.
Pasty- faced countenances adoring their beloved,
electronic other !
A ghost faced, global society?
Which dreams a worthless vaccine
can save humanity?
I despise propopganda with my entire being.
And on our devices, is all right we are seeeing.
9/30/2021
Categories:
typewriters, how i feel,
Form:
Rhyme
My old scribe said sit and I will tell you a story, a story from long ago. When being a scribe was hard and changing, we carved words onto rocks. We wanted to tell what we knew, just for you to remember always. Times changed and we still wrote, papyrus scrolls become our newest choice. Pen with ink and paper we did love, it makes it easier for us to write our stories. Then came typewriters, oh my what an invention for all of us. The scribes thought we had it made with the typewriters, then came the computer. The computer has truly set me free, free to be the writer that is inside of me.
Date Written: 6/20/2020
Categories:
typewriters, computer, poetry, spoken word,
Form:
Free verse
i wish i may i wish i might
kiss upon a star tonight
meet a girl who does it right
feel super with no kryptonite
healthy like a vegemite
she gets me hi i hit the heights
no violations to my rights
flying like a stringless kite
return because shes outta sight
rerun for that nick at night
cut the chase we laugh and bite
i catch her when i hit the lights
spin her like a metaknight
dreamland so we better fight
making truth my appetite
sting lingers from my latest flight
empty opposite of tight
like swallowed sticks of dynomite
ride or die that is my type
no going back once started like
the silly way typewriters write
hearts and minds will reunite
my heart once made of hematite
stays broken like some urbanite
wonder if i heard her right
hard to hear well worded lies
when no nerve and nervous might
postpone the light for certain sides
service sized assurance glides
soft to land no meteorites
loving till the end despite
leaving me dry with wounded pride
Categories:
typewriters, dream, emotions, heartbroken, how
Form:
Rhyme
“Flipping the Bluebirds”
There’s no point playing
Norwegian Wood
when your keyboard’s
like a gun calling
murdering
all your darlings
for other meaningful
glories
lavender doesn’t sit well
when violet’s riddled story
winds up the beat
dodging silver bullets
like sunshine dancing
across the governance board
and the soft-shoe watch
showered with confetti
koans like playing knuckles
for marbled sleuths,
and keystone cops
correct and in their
proper place
kicking back
Love, flips bluebirds easily
like sunshine dancing
all Bonnie and Clyde
across the blackbird’s wing
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
“Feel It Still”/ Pomplamoose
https://youtu.be/L39swdLBxvw
"Extreme Ways"/Pomplamoose
https://youtu.be/Nn6n1rLpvgo
Remington
https://www.wideners.com/blog/the-guns-of-bonnie-and-clyde/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Remington_and_Sons
Remington guns, Remington typewriters
Kill your darlings
“Kill your darlings” is a common piece of advice given by experienced writers. You kill your darlings when you decide to get rid of an unnecessary storyline, character, or sentences in a piece of creative writing—elements you may have worked hard to create but that must be removed for the sake of your overall story."
Categories:
typewriters, muse, mystery, riddle,
Form:
Free verse
Oh how well I do remember
Dear Miss McConnell’s typing class.
Fumbling fingers seeking home keys,
And so afraid I wouldn’t pass.
The quick brown fox jumps over the…..
I was assigned that exercise.
No lettering on the keypads,
My fingers had no help from eyes.
Dropping out was not an option,
In Miss McConnell’s typing class,
For she tolerated failure
About as well as she did sass.
So with real determination,
I had achieved to some degree
Enough success for Miss McConnell
To give a passing grade to me.
These were manual typewriters
A secretary’s tool for years.
There was no way to fix our errors
Than with whiteout and messy smears.
My expertise on the typewriter,
Won me a job and first pay check.
I was so happy Miss McConnell
Had saved me from the hunt and peck.
I was wary of electrics.
I didn’t like them very much.
They would stammer and keep typing
When they felt my heavy touch.
But of course one can't stop progress,
And my manual was replaced.
But not until today's great wonders
Could errors simply be erased.
Written April 16, 2013 for contest "The Typewriter"
Categories:
typewriters, education, graduation, jobs, me,
Form:
Quatrain
"THE BUTTERFLY CATCHER."
Chicano face.
California.
closer to death.
he just pulled up to a house where the car he's about to tow sits.
he tows a lot of cars,
talks to people every day.
he's loaded his truck.
"goodbye,"
he says to the member.
a woman on the grass with her daughter.
"see you again soon."
he walks to his truck and is stopped by the woman's 5 year old daughter.
she's wearing a pink summer outfit, barefoot and her hair is flying in the wind.
she smiles.
she shows him her butterfly catcher and says,
"I catch a lot of butterflies with my net."
he asks her to catch him one and he'll be back to get it.
the little girl smiles.
she blows a kiss three times and the mother laughs.
she skips back to the grass.
before he could enter his truck she yells for him.
"hey !"
he turns and walks toward her.
she's holding the tiniest flower he's ever seen.
just picked,
she's given it to him.
his Chicano face smiles,
his heart of stone softens and he says,
"I love it. thank you."
he stood towering over her at six-four but she walked away taller.
her mother laughs again and says to the little girl,
"you're so funny."
after today,
he'll go home in his thirteen year old car with expired tags,
to his apartment house where the shades are drawn and the only light that hits,
touches his typewriters.
he'll light his cigarette,
pour his drink and sit with the flower courtesy of the little girl and her heart full of love.
in a world where innocence dies and the thumbtack faces prevail,
the butterfly catcher gives her love.
this is a love with no wounds to a man living with many.
as Bach plays in the background,
he sits and smiles.
earlier he had his symphony and her name was Emma.
by: Chicano Eddie
Categories:
typewriters, beautiful,
Form:
Free verse
Taking a course of being a secretary
Typewriter on the table is ready
My hands are aching to hit the letters
Speed depends on the movements of my fingers
A basic instrument of communication
You have to familiarize with the hands-on
Busy hands needs to type as many words
It’s like having a competition with swords
Manual way of making documents for you and for me
You have to be sure to type the words and letters correctly
Bond papers, liquid erasers, and a heavy type writer
The complete set to accomplish the mission as typist
Typewriters will be remembered as the years go by
Modern computers will not beat its quality even if I buy
April 25, 2013
For Craig's Contest "The Typewriter"
Note:
I worked as a secretary in an insurance company before and I used typewriter for making documents, letters, etc. and missed using it for a long time... (^_^)
Categories:
typewriters, fun, work,
Form:
Rhyme
#62
bright hovering birds
sip from honeysuckle cups -
a tea monger's cart
#63
bees gather pollen
their legs and wings a blur -
golden alchemy
#64
frost punks spring's success
winter knife's the heart of fall -
summer love can't last
#65
man cuts word in half
and smiles - haiku 'less is more'
puzzle this 'sippi'
#66
pictures overwhelm -
give others a blank page
they will vote for you
#67
fishing bob jiggles
hook plumbing the depths with bait -
look! spring's in her step
Brian Johnston
March 8,2017
Poet's Notes:
Question: Does 'golden alchemy' bring a picture to your mind? OK, I'll admit
that you might have to think a little! : -) How is that picture different from
'a tea monger's cart? ' Is it even possible for one image to be more real than
another? Isn't everything (you think you see) just a 'model of reality'
constructed by your brain from sensory input? Let's raise our glass to 'models!
' Some of them are so sexy and cute even! Ha! ?
Concrete images (that are never concrete) can be so boring and are rarely
more than a spark, mostly monkeys with typewriters or emperor's "new
clothes!" Words may seem beautiful to you, but if they do not come from the
author's original intention to communicate a specific idea or feeling, they are
garbage I think, just monkeys typing and "Fake News!"
Categories:
typewriters, beauty, fun, life, truth,
Form:
Haiku
paper typewriters books and dictionaries
pens pencils desk
coffee cups
come on down
we're the coolest sale in town
we've got books
and nooks
pick out a pen
spend less then ten
i'm having a party
so don't be tarty
i've got type writers
and a desk to make things tightier
so come and spend
it's less i have to lend!
Categories:
typewriters, funny,
Form:
Couplet