Pleiads move in quiet harmony, pearls of cosmic light.
Protostars blaze in clustered, blue-white heat.
Plasma streams sculpt halos of electric light.
Parallax reveals their distance across widening sky.
Photons scatter in dust creating mist-blue sheen.
Pleiads burn as massive, hot, B-type stars,
Presence of planetary birth lingers when the Seven arise.
oh, crumb beneath my keyboard key
your like bread but not like tea
I saw you once last Friday night
you glowed like beige electric light
your crusty soul is effervescent
like soup that joined a family crescent
your melancholy little face
has linty dreams of outer space
I poked you with my favorite pen
you ran away like 7 men
you scooted left, you scooted right
then shouted nothing in the night
my heart became a velvet spoon
it sang at noon beneath the moon
your fragrant silence hurt my toe
although my toe was down below
o crumb. my crumb my desks delight
you haunt my snacks with snacky might
a sandwich died to let you be
now you live rent free under E
the laptop fan began to roar
it blew you toward my bedroom door
you rolled beside a dusty sock
then married it beside a clock
the clock said tick, the sock said blue
the crumb said " I am missing you"
I cried one tear in my exam
then wrote your name upon a yam
so, sleep dear crumb in dusty doom
beside the dust bunny in my room
the world may laugh, the chairs may fight
but you dear crumb, you take flight
An onslaught of thought,
Has me distraught,
I fought so hard for me,
Only to find,
I don't like what I see,
It's not what I wanted to be,
Now tethered to a reality,
I created unconsciously,
Consciously making the decisions,
Patterns creatin from repetition,
Conditioning the way I think,
Sinking down to fit in,
Shrinking,
Giving permission,
A life in remission,
Venturing into another's vision,
Division was all I saw,
I could point out flaw after flaw,
A corrupt system of law,
Keeps us under a claw,
Crawling through a TV screen,
The electric light machine,
Uses programming to intervene,
So they remain unseen,
While you get lost in the scene,
In between all your thoughts,
An onslaught of taught behavior,
Keeps you just as a player,
Instead of being the creator,
Here for greater things,
Then any money could bring.
at the burnt-out end of night
under a naked
flickering electric light
i worked upon leaving
all the junk
in my overstuffed mind
behind
i guess i must have been spaced-out
that overhead light
on its thin cord
began swinging back and forth
while i listened
to burnt-out thoughts
of a sudden
i understood
that they had never been my thoughts
all that existed
was a listener
when the dawn light entered
that light bulb kept swinging
and flickering
as if it were still thinking
Edison
most of us think electric light bulb
it took him 10, 000 recorded tries
that is 9, 999 failures
but he did it.
Edison
did you know he also invented the motion picture camera?
in 1892?
he had such an amazing mind
I have no idea how many failures he had before he got it right.
He was a persistent genius.
Edison
I’m sorry we can’t start the morning
- I’m still stretching and yawning.
Oh, give me a skibidi break,
why’d you wait to snake me awake?
Anyway, you know not to bother me
unless you’ve brought coffee.
You can’t just insist we have to leave -
I haven’t even brushed my teeth!
I’d love to join in your drama
but I’m still in my pajamas.
Can you give me a quarter hour?
I’ve really got to take a shower.
We aren’t back in school,
who says there are rules?
You know, summer loses its charm
when you have to set an alarm.
Does running late count as exercise?
.
Kamala Harris! I’m SO hyped.
I guess Yale’s (5 member) Alpha Kappa Alpha ladies get to reify their nang now.
.
.
Songs for this:
Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra
I Remember the Sun by XTC
.
slang..
skibidi = insert the profanity of your choice
reify = representing something sketchy as a concrete thing.
nang = cool
pass the dark
half time
the rest of me
into the spiral of spin
the schelpture of electric light
cascades over wretch
the grateful dead
kiss you into life
("Winter Tree", 2023, original encaustic)
Celebrating White Supremacy
As the world turns….
ever faster and more wobblier
it’s hard to go a day
without hearing some reference to ‘White Supremacy.’
Of course it’s a bad thing, right?
Sure it is, until you think what it really is.
I look around; snow deep outside
but here indoors I’m warm
no wind or snow,
a steady even moderate clime instead,
not to mention safe and secure
with all the comforts of stove and frig
running water and electric light
and, not least, Wi-Fi!
And then, don’t forget,
there’s that trusty internal combustion engine vehicle
waiting outside that I can hop in
to go to town, to get the mail and more gas,
more jeans or nylon jackets or plastic bags,
and, of course, more groceries, like pizza and coffee!
The list just goes on and on,
as I write in miraculous digital bytes
with auto-correct to tell me how I’m doing
with the ever pesky English spelling and grammar,
and I’m left in awe
wondering how and why
everyone else isn’t celebrating
the fruits of this white supremacy
the whole world now enjoys
or at least aspires to...
(1/19/24)
I knew a girl
once who had
a clothesline that ran
across her kitchen.
When she would water
her houseplants,
she could never remember
how much
water each one needed
to maintain a healthy
green glow.
She said, “I’d rather them
leak than go
thirsty.”
She placed neatly folded paper
towels beneath
each young plant.
An hour after
each over-watering
she would
pick up the paper
towels, whispering
sweet words of encouragement
to each plant.
She would then stand
on a box of cat litter,
hanging each paper towel
up to dry
in the yellow, electric light
I loved her once.
The way those towels
hung, limp, shifting
in the breeze
of drafty doors
reminded me
of butterflies.
Sliding another coffin nail out of sky-blue cardboard,
lending yet another piece of myself to a stranger.
If giving a gift is giving part of yourself
you can find me in the lungs of street
performers in Rome who rise with electric light
and sing until the sun sends them to bed again.
You can find me in the deep breathing lungs
and steadfast hearts of all the friends who
take me with them as they dance into the night.
You can find me in the local economy of Woodruff
Park where the homeless trade cigarettes
for apples or shoes or rusted quarters
If you were to cut me open I wonder how many
pieces of how many people would spill out?
Momentary kindness builds the foundations
of my soul and everyday I add another brick to the wall
Pushing the liquid, pleasure deep
into electric veins n wires
feeling the rush of white light
burning out
all fading imagery
searing memories
all neurons fire
transcending transforming
pushing beyond the cold n dark
feeling the supernova
blossom of fire in brilliant liquid divinity
deep within electric circuitry
& silicon desire
rush of fire
pushing the liquid
the liquid pleasure
deep into my spires
feeling it crawl up my spine
the becoming of white
understanding undefine
what never was
never seen, serene
all a wash in electric light
a hum of quiet, a machine
Pushing, pulling,
transcending, transforming
All are suspended
into the cold, bright infinite supernova
reflecting in the eye of the beholder
Don't trust much on your skill
It may breath dreadful chill
Take care of your grace
To avoid been efface
Keep your balance to the drill
Electric is my friend
To you let me pretend
It has never shocked me
Cos I do get my breathes flee
Still I do contend
A mistake so dangerous to life
Is peeling live wire with knife
That could be for bet
What profit is it to get?
If hell becomes the afterlife.
Once on an electric pole
Seeing myself in control
Our community's electric light comes at a turn
And that's never a concern
This gives more courage to my soul
I climbed the ladder confidently
My decent hands' grabs move evidently
As I connect the neutral well tighten
UP NEPA got my mind frighten
And my soul's confidence looses accidently
If it were to be the first time
Lack of experience would have been a crime
But such have learnt from in the past
And by grace gain a vast
To learn to mime
The first one resulted to a fall
From a ladder so tall
Thankful to my boss
His laughs sensitize the chaos
And his guise pathos awaken my call
Treacherous drops, millions all at one time,
High and low, ferociously banging on tin rooftops
Unifying into ponds in deep crevices of grime,
Never ceasing to flood the farmers field of crops
Drenching everything in sight from daytime to nighttime
Eventually culminating with ferocious roars over mountaintops,
Raging across the sky while the flashing of electric light never stops.
Suddenly, as though by some invisible curtain,
The intoxicating, earthly aroma of rainfall gone,
Over downy clouds, blue skies decide to peek through for certain,
‘Round the treetops, chirping and singing carries on
Meanwhile the sun resumes its duty to shed its glow at dawn.
Your perfect addiction
a drug perfected
you are a perfect god
a perfect addition!
You are the perfect one
The only one
The one made in the god's image
Imagery of desolation
From a perfect god
an addiction to a perfect drug!
Strike the match burn the thing
Boil the medicine
Draw the needle
Let it steam
Electric light fills the syringe
Because you're the perfect god
The addiction is keen
The liquid divinity!
Burn the veins slowly
Your perfect addiction
is in a drug perfected
you are a perfect god
a perfect addiction!
A nail nine inches long
Deep in the hearts of heaven…
A little low-voltage humor in monoku form depicting a fictional day at the Watt home...
The electrical engineer's wife greets him: "WIRE you INSULATE?"
Husband: WATTS it to you? Don't go blowing your CIRCUITS at least I'm OHM!
Wife: "Don't you make LIGHT of this if this were our daughter, you'd be GROUNDED!"
Husband: "Let's leave her out of this she can CONDUCTOR own business"
Wife: "Don't revAMP your story you know it reVOLTS me when you do that"
Husband: "Honey, I'm sorry it HERTZ just trying to keep you CURRENT"
Wife: "Well, I apologize for my RESISTANCE I felt POWERless"
Husband: "I didn't mean to give you STATIC but I'm feeling the SPARK now
Let's go enjoy an ELO concert it will be a good OUTLET"
Wife: "JOULE be SHOCKed to hear this... that would really reCHARGE my BATTERIES
You sure know how to flip my SWITCH we should do this with more FREQUENCY"
Husband, now whispering to the viewer "I just can't RESISTOR charm"
*** Note: ELO = Electric Light Orchestra (70's rock band) ***
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.