Malfunctioning Poems | Examples

A Story You'll Surely Adore

      ~ A Story You'll Surely Adore ~ 
              ('Suicide's a Pain')

     As I was about to enter the store
       I was smacked by a malfunctioning door
     Without so much as the slightest warning 
       or a perfunctory good morning 
     
     Astonished more than stunned
        I took off at a brisk run
     to inform the manager-on-duty
        of the door that had greeted me so rudely… 

     When I’d finished my story, to my utter surprise
        the manager muttered: “Lies, lies, nothing but lies”
      My jaw dropped and I exclaimed, “Why? Why? Why?”
        the manager replied, “We’ve an epidemic of spies”

     “Spies from our competitors,” he continued
         “that’s why we smacked you upside your head”
       In disbelief and rage, I said, “Well, I never” –
         pivoted right back into that door ~
                                      and keeled over dead

Apathy

I wrap my fingers around the pen
which has lain dormant collecting dust
for months on end feeling as if
I'm lifting a fifty pound weight
straining not just my joints
but my brain, its neurons refusing
to fire like the broken burner of a
gas stove with a malfunctioning igniter
fouling the air with noxious fumes
as it fails to burst into blue flame
a single spark threatening an explosion
that will decimate everything I hold dear
My lone gift life bestowed upon me
I once naively believed would
change everything has altered 
exactly nothing as my words are
like whispers in a windstorm
to the world, to you
whose image I was deluded 
enough to imagine there might 
be a chance would match reality
that someone, that you
could actually care

Paris, Seven Months From Now

then you rushed into the leafy courtyard late
like you’d just been thrown in by some hand
but we hadn’t actually arranged it yet 
I knew immediately the timeline was 
malfunctioning, still, I went with it anyway
for old time sake and the yesterdays to come

Thoughts Of Boy Jackson

THOUGHTS OF BOY JACKSON
 
'They say "All work without play makes Jack a dull boy."
Then, all play without work should make him a smart boy!'
Right? That's definitely not viewed from good positioning.
Doubtlessly, Jackson's thoughts seem to be malfunctioning.

Life will play with your emotions like it's just a toy.
All play without work only makes Jack a playboy.
The fun of today is only tomorrow's failure decoy.
"All work without play makes Jack a dull boy."

But all play without work will also make him poor.
And reality will come at you like fantastic four.
"All work without play makes Jack a dull boy."
Work & play in order to attain unsumountable joy.


VICK MANUEL POETRY {VMP}
FORM: Rhymes 
Copyright ©?December 2023.

Fall

Sudden slump of that which was erect 
Which by standing up tries to correct - 
Continually, we meet a fall,
As athletes compete; during football,
Nearly always suspending a game,
Referees whistle protecting its name.
Time for awarding a team free kick:
One way of letting a squad wounds luck…

In a clinic a malfunctioning heart:
Cause for the medics to around dart
By the fainting who had not eaten,
For nothing he had left in kitchen;
This type of fall the solvable
By fronting one with consumable…

Not the from-Grace-to Grass of Greats 
The painful crash of once heavy weights:
Their well-fought fame burning to cinders
But tomorrow’s rise not this hinders…

Melancholia

Mournful melancholy makes her miserable, 
Murky moods move her to morosity, 
She's miffed and morbid, her mind is mourning, 
Moping about in mellow melancholia, 
Marred in misery, misty-eyed, she's mortified, 
Melting in maddening malaise of malcontentment, 
Malfunctioning malignancy has made her mean, 
Melodramatic memories magnify her misfortune, 
This monotonous, mundane, mirthless morning, 
She's a mangled mess of merciless moaning, 
A mere mortal mutilated by melancholic musings. 



9th May 2023


Contest: Anatomy of Melancholy
Sponsor: Craig Cornish

Resurrection Shifted To Monitor

I died on surgeons table
Before surgeons knife sliced my chest 
Before anesthesia put me to rest 
I died in imagination as hopes die in fable 

Vivid thoughts ran amok
Which new abode I will go, if I die 
What new way I will live, if I survive 
Mind clueless, thoughts at dead end fork

Malfunctioning Valve plucked out
New Heart Valve transplanted 
Ribs cut, Heart put on ventilator 
Surgery over, operation table light put out 
With dangling drips, in ICU, I was shifted
Resurrection hopes shifted to ticks of monitor

Tech Talk

I dig a spur of the moment
into the feral flanks of a rocking horse.
I belong to the stars
and the wide-open anywhere.
My heart belongs to Molly Maguire 
a colleen from the low bog country.

No wait, this is a dream sequence
brewed to overflow at 3 in the morning.
The beery light is turning sour
as I check my watch for tics.

My problem is to many cookies
not the edible kind
the kind that clog up a computer
or a brain (same thing really).

When I struggle out of this muddled bed
I am going to get myself a deep scan,
clean up some dirty memories
so that I can plug into a sharper faster reality.

Might even rewrite this poem
into a clearer form of gibberish,
but will probably be too busy today
downloading a spinal cord
into my aching
and malfunctioning mainframe.

Reliability Is Hard To Come By

Reliability is hard to come by, I hear a sigh
Product insurance is offered when you buy
Manufacturers do build obsolescence in
Sellers know you’ll be coming back again.

Product insurance is offered when you buy
The appliance is not meant to last forever,
Sellers know you’ll be coming back again
A dependency dealers are reluctant to sever.

The appliance is not meant to last forever
Malfunctioning when you need it most,
A dependency dealers are reluctant to sever
Their product is the very best, they boast.

Malfunctioning when you need it most
You are forced to buy a replacement,
Their product is the very best, they boast,
But, now it’s in a box in your basement!

You are forced to buy a replacement
With the same promises and guarantees
But, now it’s in a box in your basement,
Life is a vicious cycle of these certainties.

With the same promises and guarantees
Product insurance is offered when you buy,
Life is a vicious cycle of these certainties,
Reliability is hard to come by, I hear a sigh. 

Written December 11, 2022
[Pantoum form, adapted]

Ship of State

The ship of state lumbers along the horizon
Like a gigantic seagoing vessel, she struggles
To stay afloat in turbulent waters she lies in,
A pilot must keep her afloat during troubles.

Like a gigantic seagoing vessel, she struggles
With a recalcitrant, unwieldy operational crew,
A pilot must keep her afloat during troubles
Knowing how and when precisely what to do.

With a recalcitrant, unwieldy operational crew
Unwilling to cooperate on the better course
Knowing how and when precisely what to do
The pilot must the proper decorum enforce.

Unwilling to cooperate on the better course
A malfunctioning crew can cause it to capsize
The pilot must the proper decorum enforce,
Through a long dark night, approaching sunrise.

A malfunctioning crew can cause it to capsize
Leaving disaster in its wake, loss immeasurable
Through a long dark night, approaching sunrise,
A pilot makes decisions to many unfathomable.

Leaving disaster in its wake, loss immeasurable
To stay afloat in turbulent waters she lies in,
A pilot makes decisions to many unfathomable,
The ship of state lumbers along the horizon. 

Written November 19, 2022

Havana Syndrome

is a mass hysteria
induced by the sound 
of Indies short-tailed crickets mating, 
not, as conspiracy would have it,
the result of a sonic weapon,
a microwave attack,
or malfunctioning eavesdropping equipment.

Likewise, the Sausalito Hum 
was not a snooping Russian sub,
or newly laid electric cable.
No, blame the love sick plainfin midshipman,
a simple toadfish sounding off like a foghorn.

Pay no attention to the banshee cry of the lynx,
or to the brush-tail possum sounding off like machinery grinding,
not to puffins like chainsaws,
not to cheetahs chirping,
not to koalas bellowing,
not to ptarmigans chatting like cartoon characters.

Stories of spying and international espionage might be exciting,
but Mother Nature is much more surprising! 

Inspired by "Animals Keep Creating Mysteries by Sounding Weird", Ed Yong, The Atlantic, January 8, 2019.

A Cauliflower Farmer

He still stands
in the back row
with the traditional misery.

His plants 
always get his carbon dioxide.
But his hope
trapped in the collapsed price
suffocates.

Farm Aid Package orbits 
over his life 
like a malfunctioning satellite.
His debt thrives
among the dream debris. 

The farmers’ dry voice flames
in the street.
He too
throws his produce.
His cauliflowers scatter
on the road
like the baton-charged protest.

Creative Writing Ink Competition (Ireland) winning poem.
First published in The Literary Hatchet (Pear Tree Press, US).

Absence of Self-Definition

There is something in me.... me...not me... and the presence of both... the lack of both and many other variants, the undefined state of unallocated consciousness ...The poor structure of low integrated personalities.... like a warrior trying to break thousands of mirrors to defeat his nemesis and he broke indefinite number of them, still not able to find the one who has done it to him...forceful embodiment, no one gave them the consent to squeeze the vibrating energy of life into this malfunctioning, self populating bio robot...now we are in our personal prison cell driven by hormones and false priorities...crawling from day to day...the time is only the attempt of measuring the impermanence...the core of existence beyond the time still out of our reach...

Dear President Weah

Dear President Weah,

It is difficult to paint a 
picture 
But let me paint a picture 
of a girl,
A girl whose heart is loosely 
clustered

Darkness is her cousin
A cousin who comes devouring 
her beautiful skin
A girl whose tears could probably
make an ocean 

She wears a broken smile
A smile that kisses her goodbye
And her legs are witnesses of 
pains

Her body is an unsafe home
Every time she looks at herself
The only trademark she sees 
is "Rape" 

Her body is a precious bank
But the bank is being looted
by armed rapists
Yet the government sleeps on
the case

Her mind is a total crash
Crashing from constant 
flashbacks
Isn't rape a crime? 

Let's face reality,
Is "Rape" a new religion
Or a beauty queen whose appearance
is embraced by unwanted
souls?

Should we say "Liberia" or "Liberape?"
Cause this girl resides at the 
graveyard,
And many are yet to join the league 

She is a prisoner
A prisoner in her own skin
Her cerebrum, cerebellum and 
medulla are malfunctioning

Dear President Weah,
Leave the dark alone
And make love with the light

What People Want

In my life, none of the people stands on their words
Who's the one, always stand by us without expecting
Even last day-night my father had failed too
I must be a coward for not realizing those fake words

Older people dominate over the younger ones
Who's the one always stand by us without expecting
Even I trick my brother some time
The poor boy always get cheated

People act as they don't want anything from us
Who's the one always stand by us without expecting
They consider as if they wished to ourself to be happy
In my little experience, they are experts in malfunctioning

In this world, some people stand on their words
Who's the one always stand by us without expecting
One of them is our mother; she does everything for us
What she wants is our happiness, Trust your mother.

• Short Malfunctioning Poems
• Famous Malfunctioning Poems
• Best Malfunctioning Poems
• Read Malfunctioning Poems
• Long Malfunctioning Poems
• Malfunctioning Quotes