A class on Zoom, as you’d assume,
Attracts its share of crazies,
But in your room, no need to fume;
Just rearrange your daisies
Or fill a grid your camera hid,
Completing Sunday’s puzzle,
If the teacher did not place a lid
On some who need a muzzle.
With mic sound shut, if every nut
Must jabber with a story,
You tune out, but, your tsk and tut
Won’t dampen someone’s glory.
The time will pass and soon your class
Will come to its conclusion
And then, en masse, you leave; the brass
Believing the illusion.
The saintly row the black swan in tow, meretriciously inclined against saint's row, where dreams are dashed against a black mirror abashed, like a troglodyte who shouldn't en-masse, so whimsy see this here instead of your black mirror, eyes lent to skeletons in the closet of fears.
Ever have a song
Stuck in your head,
Saying you have thirst
For sound koolaid?
Koolaid, you know,
The stuff that controls
The body metronome,
Whether moving the mind
Faster…or stopping it altogether.
Fans become cultists.
Do you have Bad Blood?
Are you Never Gonna
Not Dance Again?
Do you imagine tacos,
Magical tacos, falling out of the sky?
At concerts, do brain waves
Become one wave,
While the masses belt it out,
Swaying lighters to and fro,
Predicting the beat,
Or repeat
What words have caught hold
Over you
And taken the moths,
Flying out of leather folded homes en masse,
Flapping wing beat to song.
A plague is afoot and hive brain has won.
Is that dope, or dopamine,
Helping me work, work out, love life, escape life,
Or take in a better or more macabre scene.
The Earth Awoke in White — Winter
Kevin Davis 2024
One day my air began to change—
A chill swept through my fields and range.
My creatures stirred, their work begun,
To face the cold that would soon come.
Crystals formed on tree and grass,
Along the roads they gathered en masse.
The snow—a wonder, white and cold,
Soft to the touch, a sight to behold.
Some creatures slept through winter’s call—
Bears and bats in slumber’s thrall.
Others stayed with food in store,
Warm and safe behind their door.
But children stepped from cozy dens,
In coats and gloves with booted friends.
They built snow people, carved with glee,
Snow angels bright with purity.
They built snow forts, their laughter rang,
While frozen winds around them sang.
And when the cold bit through their skin,
They hurried home to warmth within.
Winter brought school days, holidays bright,
Decorations gleamed through frosted night.
Yet quietly I waited for winter to thaw,
For new life stirring beneath my law.
The deep fault of the human race
is that there are no individuals any more.
~ Søren Kierkegaard
Pixels in the machine it seems
Articulating world schemes, twirled
Reality for those addicted to a screen,
Too timid into be seen in between ~
Inventions of mad men with intentions of perverting
Common sense, it’s so passé
Loving everything but Roget’s suggestions~
Even poems must have an ending!
Menageries of words saying nothing, galleries of pixel
Animations replacing animates en masse
Nothing leftover for the poor,
who don’t exist except
in old picture books.
OLD MAN FOX
Old man FOX in his La-Z-Boy chair
feeding his fuse all day.
Conditioned by hatred and fear,
rotting his brain away.
A hate harvested fear mongered,
MAGA cult minion,
used, abused, and bamboozled,
and spoon fed his opinion.
He's hillbilly born, shamed and scorned,
a social ne'er-do-well.
A narcissistic cover charge
to a special place in hell.
He never learned the social graces.
Left to fend for himself.
He fought to rise, and tried to hide
his background on a shelf.
The more he tries the less he'll change,
irrelevant of class.
Packaged and polished bigotry
Twas taught to him en masse.
His southern charm, meant to disarm,
obsequious and fake.
A since of freedom as pale as his skin
bought by a man on the take.
Mr Benjamin Khazi from Libya
who went by 'Ben' we are taught
when wanting to loosen his load
if ever he were caught short
designed a camping commode
as a potentially preferable portable place
to park his portly posterior
then had them manufactured en masse
with a motive quite ulterior
for he turned his thought into gold
altho' on a whim yet going out on a limb
more than several such stools were sold
which aptly were named 'Khazi' after him
AURA OF REVERENCE
particular
interpretatIons
encompass
moods
en masse
flourish
concentrated
glories
with
enlightened
entrenched
prosaic
reality
From fading greens of summer, I did pass
to seek my Autumn season's entryway
and honor life's maturity, en masse-
with brilliant ceremony and display.
A glorious salute to my last stage-
a party planned with colorful attire
to complement my patterns and engage
fine passersby and artists to admire.
My trees will dress in orange, red, or gold,
and they must pick the one that suits them best
to glow and rustle on dark limbs as bold
farewells to close this phase of life, expressed.
My last hurrah- bright shawls to warm the ground.
As bright leaves fall and soon blend with the snow
before white winter's blanket wraps around-
must say goodbye to Autumn there below.
(“The Mothership”, 2024, photo collage of original encaustics)
From the beginning of time bands and tribes
Have simply named themselves “The People”
Obviously to make a distinction
Between themselves and other animals,
Plants and rocks, spirits
And the other humans over there.
And from the beginning of time
They have probably used the excuse
“They’re not really people”
When getting into conflict with those others
And deciding they need to be controlled
Enslaved or eliminated.
We’ve seen it happen repeatedly to black Africans
To ethnic minorities wherever they are resistant to change
To the Jews en masse in Europe last century
And today with helpless fetuses the world over.
It is after all the best way to rationalize
Murdering those we don’t want
Or can’t control any other way.
It is after all important
To be able to sleep at night.
I’m sure there are alien motherships
Orbiting our planet right now
Watching as we struggle
To mature into celestial beings,
And I’m sure they’re saying the same,
“They’re not really people”
But with greater wisdom and compassion
Are also saying,
“Not yet.”
(10/12/25)
There was an old man who marched in Dublin,
danced to malachite past, wore shammocks lean.
Guinness stout in clinking glass
he drank whole night en masse.
Through the day he dreamed Celtic dreams umpteen.
My Garden Colonised
In spring, I worked so very hard
To make a garden of my yard
I planted seedlings, but alas
A hoard of pests arrived en masse
From all the pests a plant can host
I really hate the greenfly most
I wash him off with soapy suds
And still the blighter chews my buds
Then there’s our friend, the sneaky snail
Who leaves behind a silver trail
To show the world where he has been
But leaves no seedling to be seen
Then yesterday as I peruse
Behind the dust bin, out of use,
a nest of ants had made their home
And how those fellows love to roam
While leaning on my spade I thought
How all my work had come to nought
Should I just slab the whole damn thing
But then….
I’d miss the dawn of spring.
A raindrop falls whence came --back to the sea,
Another, it so haps, on lotus leaf
To shine forth under sun for a while brief,
Yet, every drop gets seldom so lucky
As to get silk beds-- blades of olive grass,
Becoming an early dawn’s pearly dew
To capture unfolding time’s crimson hue.
On dust some get buried in graves en masse,
Some get a cherished trophy if modest--
A scaly trunk aloof that opts to stand
In a barren desert's dry scorching land,
Some fall in rain forest with scores of rest.
All this makes me to muse on destiny:
Is it a chance random that opts to be?
For sure, it is Nature’s celestial dance
That unfolds at random as choice-less chance.
_______________________ __
Sonnet |01.03.07, revised Dec 2024| fate/destiny, time, space
Poet’s note: The sonnet-ending couplet does not end the sonnet, but poses a question and goes on to answer, and in the process stretches the sonnet to sixteen lines.
All these politicians seem to agree
The immigrants are responsible
For the poor economy
They've come here taking jobs
No employment for our own
They're being housed in luxury
Multi generational homes
They're coming in on boats
Theyre coming in en masse
We're gonna be consumed
By the stalwart impasse
This story is a myth
But one the masses share
The fat cats feed the media
To distance from the stare
They want the lower classes
Who seek to know the cause
Of their continued poverty
While the rich show no remorse
These immigrants are human
They're fleeing for their lives
They're seeking help and shelter
From those in the archives
They want to live a normal life
One free from war and fear
A compliment should be bestowed
That they see that place as here
Each time Trump says the country’s a wreck,
they go out to the roads to inspect.
If Woody Woodpecker
had had a fact checker,
they’d be feeling his feathers to check.
On The View though, they all get a pass
when Whoopi cushions spew forth their gas.
Trump will jail your miscarriage,
end interracial marriage,
and lock up his opponents en masse.
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.