Long Colloquial Poems

About Bill Posters and Bill Greenwell

Words not to use in poems

In 1993, I (Bill Greenwell) went on a three-day workshop with the poet Peter Sansom, who co-edits The North, and runs the Smith/Doorstop imprint. He’s...

Read More

Trifolium pollinated courtesy bombus

Before landscapers mow swaths
across undulating waves of clover
(the father/daughter team
usually cut grass every Tuesday)
bumblebees alight from one to another flower.

Meanwhile, I lie splayed
mid morning June 28th, 2022
with stomach upon natural carpeting
quietly basking...

Read More

I’m standing in the common room, turning in circles. I’ve so many things to do, all at once, I can’t figure out which way to jump. A time management problem, I suppose, maybe I should...

Read More

Old Jambu tree
Still bearing fruits;
Generous delights

~~~~~~~~~


NDP crowd
Massive tapestry;
Community celebration

~~~~~~~~~


Each passing year
Affirms our country;
Diversity in oneness

~~~~~~~~~


We celebrate
Our little red dot;
Gratitude remembers

~~~~~~~~~


So much to see
So little time;
Familiar complaint

~~~~~~~~~


Fireworks display
After The Pledge;
Poignant philosophy

~~~~~~~~~


Politics means action
Mere words concede;
Happy results...

Read More

Born into the family of seven
Handed over the last born baton
By the other descendants of the 
Pa Noah  “Mekolani Olajide’s” fame.
Her sojourn in life starts from 
The far down “Sora”,
Sora to “Odo Alafia” 
“Odo...

Read More

Water rains the philosophies of mums each morning plying jeer can with tough 
faces because the taps have been experiencing months of loneliness in it 
gush. 

The waking of sleepless mums gluing their hope to...

Read More

To define is to articulate what lies within
a concept,
a population,
a word,
a paradigm.

To delineate is to articulate what lies beyond
boundaries of a concept,
a population,
a word,
a gestalt.

To extend learning,
and loving,
is to stretch this evolving articulation of boundaries
between...

Read More

Pain as a Hobby Parts I-IX
Written by Tavarus M. Moreland
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved

Sorry Yulli, it was little unfair to suggest the title
You’re only 23 but I promise to leave room
Heck by that time, I...

Read More

My poor vocabulary babies 
are gon missing
Tell me kind sir, have you seen them?

Us etymological mothers to
lingual children of lost former meaning,
we are milk carton crying

Many hotline tips 
that the academia search party
have been receiving,
unfortunately,...

Read More

Standing in the wings, on the periphery

of her cultivated world, inhibited only by

station and space, my head slowly spins

into her orbit, my eye lids twitter nervously,

my titillated ears vibrate, my hands tremble,

inner being disassembles, kneeling...

Read More

Alphabets Voyage 

Just last week the alphabets walked off into the sky
Taking Saudi Arabia and China’s colloquial scripts along 
With pages, other fibrous substances in disguise, into the ages
Hiding white as ghosts on vast tracts...

Read More

Was it his head tilt that stumped me—
Was it his keen variations of hilarity,
Was it his words—wild, strange, free,
Like a bird straight out of captivity? 

He had a frisky, playful tongue
That sounded like a friend
With...

Read More

“In the Box” is a police
colloquial phrase indicating
the interrogation room



As soon as I walk through the front door,
you start grilling me
Giving me a burn notice ... 
the third degree
Those handcuff marks are from you 
squeezing...

Read More

Old Jane Gallagher, 
she was fine, 
in that sun shining on an every-day-girl sort of way.
Giggling 
as her checkers clacked and she stacked up her kings, 
funny 
how young women enter men’s senses and take...

Read More

out cold: a black colloquial expression
               indicating outrageous and/or
            ...

Read More

    Striking beach sculpted by Nature 
    with massive drifting trees in cluster 
    that turned white bone-like gesture
    being continuous washed by...

Read More

Mummy Sade as one of the covenant child
Of  Abraham , and indeed the child of  Pa Noah
Whatever she lays her hand upon
Becomes instantaneously  prosperous
Similola as the connotes, resting continually
In, beside ,out and...

Read More

From the village to my villa under the sharp axes to tax collector to colloquial meme to artificial
 Fake cat to collaborator in my skin to skinny jeans the breasts pointed like the pyramid of...

Read More

The working navvy did dig deep 
He followed Brindly’s new laid plan
A transport system to complete
A salvation for the labouring man 

As the furrow cut with sweat and maul
With breaking backs and torn sinew
Each man...

Read More

Six blue jays converge at the birch
To sing their anomalous colloquial song,
They fashion a serene scene as they perch;
My mind so inclined to blindly sing along.

As I ponder their ways, in my midmorning daze;
I recall...

Read More

Two Poems



Avariciously she wanted to be a poetess

Cryptic colloquial eloquent words possessed

Often elusive eschewed from the theme

Limericks and rhymes avoiding etymology means

She an emissary of exonerated poetry banned

Refused extrication to facilitate an easy read

Hoped the...

Read More

Blowball and cankerwort,
words born from a common tongue.
English is most practical
when it is rustic and colloquial.
Lions tooth, priests crown,
moles salad and pee-a-bed.

‘Swine snout’ snorts loud upon the page.
The yarrow-yellow flowers last for hours
then overnight turn...

Read More

The Sardauna, the prince
 Champion of the masses
 The leader of the North
 The defender of the realm
 Princely yet accessible

 The Prince Royal
 The north your realm
 Though tribe and tongues duffer
 You still...

Read More

To the North, South, East, and West...

Geniuses are lost in the jaunty jewels of rakish cads,

The hazard morsel palaver allot odium on idioms...

Rankle virulent mishmash wheeze addle chagrin jives,

Loosing a volley of expletives ordure waft...

Read More

This just in, we are long drawn out drab sentences of our breath,
trying to base a topic off epiphany's languid scry, waiting on osmosis to spark a nerve.

Crinkled pages, termites gnawing on pencils, saw dust.
Failed...

Read More