Lowercase Poems | Examples

After a Writing Workshop About the Body

This is not my body.
Not the one that used to tell everything
to anyone—
I mean everything,
like I thought it might get me somewhere
closer to known.

I sat in a circle today,
some kind of writing thing—
you know the type.
Lots of deep breathing
and soft lighting.
Someone cried reading what they wrote
in the first eight minutes
and I—
well, I flinched.
Not because it wasn’t honest,
but because it was.

Too honest, maybe.
Or just familiar.

I used to be like that—
all exposure and no shape.
Just bleeding out
in lowercase.

And I caught myself thinking,
don’t do it—
as if I could save her
from what happens
when the adrenaline wears off
and all you’re left with
is the echo of your revelation.

But maybe she won’t feel that.
Maybe she’ll never know
what I mean.
And maybe I’m not better now—
just quieter.

Anyway.
This is not my body.
Not anymore.
But I still feel it sometimes,
rattling the old pipes.

No

maybe if
the spoon
agreed to wear Tuesday
we could reinvent the parachute
in lowercase.

Loud quiet

I am wildly conscious of the fact
I don’t know how to speak up anymore.
I feel like I’m yelling and no one can
Hear me
I was told to shut up, then told to
Speak up
I enunciate so much, maybe it’ll be enough.

I’ll repeat myself like I can’t hear the voices of those
Who convinced me
I was always going to be too much.

I can hear every sentence at once
I can see them behind you
I can feel every breath, a condensation down my throat
A condemnation of a pond and I am the boat.
I promise I’m trying, opening my mouth
There’s air coming out, but I can’t hear anything
Over the people fighting over the volume of my voice
Strike a cord with my cords,
I didn’t think they needed tuning.

I’ll repeat myself like I can’t hear their voices 
and if I speak in lowercase, maybe they’ll think
I’m less than too much.

PERSPECTIVE

mesmerising
   bleakness
angst
in
muted
   unease
an empty
   nothingness
a
glimpse
into
  the void
a
  dread
   from within
this
  sombre
    sense
of
  disenchantment


OPEN FORM in lowercase without grammatical symbols ,uses spaces&breaks relying upon 'the one breath limitation' & as a  'happening' requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input &respond in a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood & thus is inherently variable.

The Shape of Absence

And I remember the rain before it ever started—
the smell of asphalt humming like old vinyl static under my ribs.
You were talking about birds, maybe,
or death, or the last time your mother called, and
I wasn’t listening,
because I was thinking about a dream
where the walls kept pulsing like lungs
and my teeth floated away on tiny rafts
made of gum wrappers and apologies.

And I thought:
How did we get so tired
without ever running?

There’s a window I keep forgetting to close,
and a silence shaped exactly like your absence
folded into the corners of this room,
like the way a spider folds its legs in when it dies—
which is not a metaphor,
but maybe it is.

Everything becomes a metaphor eventually:
grief,
joy,
you.

And I keep writing you in lowercase,
because capitals feel too loud for something
I only whisper in the dark—
something like: stay,
something like: I was never good at doors,
or goodbyes,
or staying still long enough to hear the echo.

The clock has no hands tonight,
and time tastes like metal in my mouth.
The moon keeps peeking like a guilty lover,
and I say: I know.
And I say: It’s okay.
But I don’t know.
And it’s not.

KINETICISM

phenomena
  light
    vibrant
frozen 
      frills
of
layered
    energy

exhilerating
   diintegrating
dramas
     pervasive
          impulsive
spheres
scrawled
    quasars
conscious
         wellsprings
of
evolved
   entanglements


OPEN FORM in lowercase without grammatical symbols ,uses spaces&breaks relying upon 'the one breath limitation' & as a  'happening' requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input &respond in a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood & thus is inherently variable.

OPEN A

gestures
so
   delicate
a
  paradox
meticulous
   spectral
       tactile

an intimate
  transience
of
  ambiguity

a sequence
        segmented
in anonymous
         apertures
to
  a 
  transparent
            'morrow

OPEN FORM in lowercase without grammatical symbols ,uses spaces&breaks relying upon 'the one breath limitation' & as a  'happening' requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input &respond in a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood & thus is inherently variable.

UKIYO-E SCENES

a source
of
  inspiration
the
    visible
artistic
        voice

natural 
       sensitivities
of
    familiar
        landscapes

representations
     evoking
the
ambiguous
in
elegant
           imagery

with
   dramatic
       visions
enhanced
   in realism

serene
          &
            constrained


OPEN FORM in lowercase without grammatical symbols ,uses spaces&breaks relying upon 'the one breath limitation' & as a  'happening' requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input &respond in a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood & thus is inherently variable.

NARRATIVE

an 
   avant-garde
experience

intermittently
     evident
this
   momentary
            muse
in
the milieu

a
 short
    tryst
of
wild abandon
with
an innate
vivid
   sense
of
timeless
vignettess


OPEN FORM in lowercase without grammatical symbols ,uses spaces&breaks relying upon 'the one breath limitation' & as a  'happening' requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input &respond in a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood & thus is inherently variable.

MY FORMS 3 of 5 OPEN 2012

OPEN my recited writing

 OPEN FORM in lowercase without grammatical symbols ,uses spaces&breaks relying upon 'the one breath limitation' & as a  'happening' requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input &respond in a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood & thus is inherently variable.


A BRIAN STRAND FORM 3x5 (2012)

look at my tittles daddy

.

                                     james
                                        jr.




*tittle; The dot above the lowercase 
           letters "i" and "j" is called a  
           "tittle" or superscript dot.
            yesss, you're pronouncing 
            it correctly ')

Myrtle the Fruit Picking Vegetation and Fruit Eating Ballerina Dancing Sea Serpent-

Sea serpent at the castle drinking margaritas
 and I'm eating four leaf clover resting by the
 spirit of rock and amethyst lyrics other vegetation
 And fruits amongst themselves grapes being stumped 
between the toes Footloose as the green flash of the Sun
 the last balloon shows it's Iris
gathering up polished stones 
placing them in the fire spitting 
out the nectar of the lowercase gods
Yet instilled in dancing in ruby slippers 
Such a ballerina vegetation eater vegetarian fruit picking sea serpent?


1/29/22
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2022

Why

why do i see you when i close my eyes? 
why do i see you when i sleep?
why do i dream of you?
why do i think of you when im tired?
and bored?
and lonely?
and when i'm happy?
and when i wake up?
and when i fall asleep?
why do i always think about you?
you were never mine to think about
yet
i cant stop 



lowercase intended

It's All In the Timing

quatrain

Clearly put - the star was up to no good.
Musicians have an innate sense of time. 
The guests, notwithstanding, all understood
their host - a conductor well-past his prime.

Novice performers, the host chose just three
for the opening event of the night.
His niece, as it happened, was one invitee;
he could still orchestrate who’s in the limelight.

While each one of the fledgling young trio
aced their solo in the gateway prelude,
the simply grand - violin virtuoso
excelled in his mellifluous etude.

Not wanting to move on his host and niece,
the star asked for an encore from her flute.
Would she segue into his final piece?
(in the vernacular of music’s astute).

The auspiciousness of the occasion
would exalt any young lady to conceit.
With tempo way fast for the transition;
it was clear she had been swept off her feet.


Artist: Lowercase Noises - Title: The Things Your Eyes Have Seen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnU0aOA788U&list=RDGnU0aOA788U
written 5 Feb. 2016.

In a Former Place and Time

in a former place and time
i may have known you
but now you blow yourself away
you have become a lowercase 'l' so unrecognizable
i almost cry when you become incomprehensible and hallucinatory 
watching you now is like watching a repeat of some old television shows' later episodes
you have become stale and dated and have forgotten what defined you as authentic and beautiful
when it gets to the point where nobody knows what to do with you,
when it gets to the point when nobody wants you anywhere near,
when it gets to the point when things have to be hidden and locked away,
do you think, perhaps, that it is an obvious indication of an invitation to take an honest, unedited inventory of yourself

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