I went out for a walk along the beach
Didn't know that I was exposing my cheeks
Bikini bot dropped off
When I had a few coughs
Couldn't feel a thing, but I heard the loud shrieks.
Winter Ailments
January diseases make their customary rounds,
Coughs, sneezes and sniffles all going around;
Cold and flu bugs ride the indoor air currents,
waiting to become the next unwelcome occupant
of unwary human lungs and ripe nasal passages –
unwashed hands or exposed faces encourage attacks.
Sometimes occurrences creep up all of a sudden,
medical ailments dismissed now seize your attention.
What was overlooked will no longer be ignored,
need a professional's help to get your health restored.
Fears can be dispelled and facts verified,
Real problem addressed, antibiotics prescribed.
Difficulties are handled, dosages absorbed
knowing improvement is coming is adored.
Sometimes the most effective step here
is to get some help to see your way clear.
Better health is just a few more steps ahead,
Determined fortitude will put you in good stead.
I am a working class
woman
"with a heart of gold
in a complicated time"
It happened when
I fell in love
with Jimmy Barnes
and his extraordinary lyrics
that remind me
what it feels like to be alive.
I am not celebrating
the midwestern sky.
Mine is the southeastern sky.
I try to find
the sunset
on my better nights.
I am still
"mad at Uncle Sam"
I continue dancing
to a dusty song
that should be reconsidered
and listened to on repeat.
I won't fall into the habit
of consistency.
I will live on the edge
and feel the coughs
of broken rhythm
and relish in life.
Dinner is leftover
spaghetti.
A single, white thunderhead
tainted slightly, with the pink-shine
of a late sun coughs
lazily in the vast grayness
of an elegant sea,
somewhere—
a sea still asleep.
Greedy cries of gulls
fill the saltiness of the heavy air
and through the early mist
people of the day appear
in straw hats and red and green covers.
The night-crowded streets,
baked and earthy,
move on among carts
and fresh purple blossoms
and over-ripe fruit from the sea,
to and endless sand-scape.
Staggered and restless,
the ocean-lights appear,
and a warning from the sky
floods and nourishes
the clay walls of an empty palace.
Do you exist just to survive
or would you like to make decisions
to help your body thrive
Five years of endurance from the age of ten
nightly menu of mashed potato, cold roast meat
no greens no fruit,nothing else, if you didn't like the food it was hunger
There was not another thing to eat
Daily morning breakfast, nutritionally no better
a bowl of corn flakes and a cup of tea
Consumed in a household of two smokers
good health could never hope to be
Many coughs, colds, tired
and aching in the ears
Life a daily challenge
full of many fears
Boils upon the legs the head
often near the nose
Fatigue, fall asleep in class
a life of daily woes
Adversity has a purpose
it makes us stronger or we fall
Decisions to be made
when our backs are to the wall
And the decision that was made fifty years ago
turned his life around
Modified his eating patterns
the old days had now run aground
In his house there are no smokers
a large variety of orqanic greens, nuts and fruits
His exceptional state of well being reflects
the selection of his culinary pursuits
Three girls who drank from grey troughs
cried hard and rasped with loud coughs.
Cold cops raced to swoop
The girls took a poop
On top of their heads with scoffs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The crows lift like burnt paper prayers.
the last sun licks a gutted Chevy~
its chrome ribs still singing.
Somewhere in the background,
a radio coughs static hymns
into the gathering dark.
poem written in fond remembrance of Allison Jones, family friend and junkyard owner, fondly nicknamed Junk Yard Dog.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A penny face-up in the gutter—
Abraham’s copper gaze half-lidded with rain.
I pocket him like a secret,
like the first digit in an equation
no one taught me to how to solve.
The laundromat coughs up dimes~
silver cataracts rolled under dryers,
buried beneath lint and lost socks.
I tally them in my palm,
each one a tiny moon
pulled from the tide of neglect.
My grandmother saved buttons in a jar,
swore they were pirate treasure.
I collect coins instead~
nickels in parking lots,
quarters wedged between bus seats,
their edges bitten with teeth marks.
When the year ends,
I spill them all onto the kitchen table~
a metal harvest, a jingling autopsy.
Enough for a coffee,
a lottery ticket,
or the weight of knowing
that fortune isn’t a mountain
but the slow accumulation
of what everyone else
steps over.
car coughs as it starts
sending exhaust into air
mixing with snowflakes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the third shelf down,
where dust performs its quiet ballet,
a shoebox coughs up Polaroids
of someone else’s honeymoon.
The wallpaper remembers~
peels itself back slowly,
revealing the yellowed teeth
of old pencil marks:
Jesse + Sam, 1992,
now just graffiti for termites.
A single glove, left-handed,
curls into a fist around nothing.
The clock, stopped at 3:17,
swallows its own ticking.
Even the ghosts here
are forgetting why they linger.
But sometimes,
when the wind shoulders through
a cracked window,
the whole place exhales~
and for a breath,
every lost thing
remembers its name.
Jack Frost coughs he feels ill
And kinda off more than a chill
Jack Daniel’s introduced
No longer has the flu
Head spins sloppy drunk with thrill
Like Jiri Mt., battered by the typhoon, its back worn and scarred,
Raising its body that once sprawled, gathering its breath,
An old building gropes through the darkening clouds.
Catching the pebbles hurled by the ashen sky,
Like a frail lion, losing its firmly clutched prey,
It fights its breath against the sharp wind, then coughs it out.
Perhaps it waits for the rain, steeped in longing.
The morning looks much like the evening
And the evening comes at four
It’ s the season of believing
Winter coughs outside the door
It lays down the white carpet
Covering the frosted land
Though it hasn’t even started
I believe in winter’s end
When the singing birds appear
Tweeting messages from you
I assume the spring is near
One more year is scrolled through.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The clock coughs twice—a phlegmy tick~
We wrench its hands with clumsy might.
An hour tumbles, lost from sight.
Like dentures down the kitchen sink.
*“Daylight saving time (DST) is the practice of setting clocks forward by one hour in the spring to extend evening daylight during the warmer months, and then setting them back by one hour in the autumn….In the United States, DST begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November…The concept was first suggested by Benjamin Franklin in 1784.,The first widespread implementation occurred during World War I to conserve fuel.” (Source: Wikipedia.com)
yellow leaves hang like old flyers
for bands that broke up decades ago
orange veins split
along the cold ground’s scars,
last color before the gray takes hold
a cool breeze
threads the season’s last breath
through busted porch screens
now the country coughs again
through exhaust and empty cabinets,
through plastic flags
flapping over pawnshops
still—those yellow leaves,
they don’t quit easy
~Brent R. Grimes
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.