Dozens of hands have lifted me
the registrar who pressed too hard,
the counsel rifling always for the paragraph that might save someone.
But I remember one above all others.
Not the presiding officer's
that hand held me the way a man holds what he has already decided.
I mean the petitioner's hands.
Dry from travel.
A callus on the right thumb from work I have no name for.
She held me at the corner, not the spine
as if she knew she was not entitled to my centre.
When she set me down before the bench,
I felt the precise weight of her hope: not large, not small
the weight of one who no longer expects rescue
but asks only that the world note what happened, and when.
I am not judging.
I am the file.
I remember everything the verdict did not.
e……..em……..emu……emulate……emulation
building words is quite the celebration
constructing sentences is a kick too
conjunctions acting as the well-toned glue
prepositions running up and down
paragraph sneering with a clown’s young frown
my muse tears down rules and jumps over walls
ideas are pinging in my head now like ping pong balls
I say a word, you speak a sentence
between us we write a paragraph,
many pages of life have done distance,
bookmarked by cheques with my autograph.
I take you when where you want to go,
work my way around your many deeds,
my wish in life you never shall know,
for I fill my life with all your needs.
am pleased to see the smile on your face,
sparkling white between two bright red lips,
my life is shaped by your daily grace,
are you the one that launched thousand ships?
friends think am under my woman’s thumb,
weak fellow who has no voice to raise,
I say to them you are all so dumb,
for peace and joy I have my own ways!
A poetic quiche needs lots of verbs, nouns, adverbs, adjectives and words
A large bowl is needed to add all the ingredients, spices and keywords
Stir together with some peppered punctuation to perfect your dish
Add a spritz of thyme to give you time to season your poem as you wish
Syllables help flow and mold your dough, so it doesn’t flake like fish
Roll your dough out to fit your word pie poem to make your words delish
Add a bunch of periods, metaphors, rhyming words and funny nouns too
Chop and mix until all the letters and jargon stick together like glue
Add another word dough on the top with some tasty picture bits
Brush the top with some shredded fresh monoku lined spritz
Pour your poetry mixture into your word plate with a title splash
Bake in your poetry oven until done, season with quote, just a dash
When done, let your word quiche cool for some stanza's to taste
Cut into eight paragraph servings so that nothing is left to waste
Hopefully your metaphors and pictures are not too weird or strange
And you can enjoy your rhyming quiche without needing a word change
To the social media managers, admins and for those of you who post,
Writers, editors, chaplains, parents and educators from coast to coast.
Our freedoms aren't granted by just one faith's might,
But by those who serve and have served for every American’s right.
They fought for the right to vote for the candidate of our choice,
For every American’s right, to have a voice.
No matter the color of their skin, their age or sexual preferences,
Atop each Vets headstone you’ll discover a variety of religious references.
From every religion, every spiritual path,
Defenders of the Constitution, every paragraph.
Not just the Christian, the Hindu, the Jew,
The Muslim, the Buddhist, to name but a few.
Oaths not sworn to a crown but to the parchment of liberty's vow,
And the military code of justice, our protectors yesterday and now.
Please remember this truth as you post from afar,
Our unity's strength makes us who we are.
It’s RACE that disconnected us, RELIGION that separated us,
Our WEALTH has set us apart and POLITICS divided us’
So just what should the color of FREEDOM be?
For true patriots it’s the first word of our Constitution, “We…”
Life's a paragraph.
Love comes in parentheses.
Death ends. Period !
Don't be cool
Hate aloof
Cliche Spending is slow reading headlines
Lettings, yourself conceited
I wouldn't encourage feelings if me
Just raising the literacy rates
With Irish American letters is all time
But, I'm somewhere at
Unstable and content
Introverting caution
Lived from wars before my own ink
Extroversion is an extra paragraph
Treasury department extortion
On copy desk before rents talked about
In the newspaper
You exist
As an exit
Misnomers a banking poetry song
Calculates make wedding vows
Acquire before you lives and skip
Thousand Oaks California is based
On thoughts of being poor
Building affordable welfare support
Pet Shop Boys
Watching model prisoner chicks
Who become victims of war ignorance
Unable to
Veranda Bombs
Read as Heading per Naval incident
"Now This!"
"Now This!"
As paragraph goes out of style
"Sue Anne the stars won't gather."
Veranda pan up too you
"Waking to a World in Peril?"
"Hopefully big things to come in our report"
Tell 'em what? Country
Special effects guys live on the trolley.
Tatas? Tatas.News?Tons.Coffee? Sugar? Happening!
Kendall as Kevin
In a West End Town Expose
My heart lies drowned in its own pool of blood—
Let your love secure me from life’s flood.
Let it come to my rescue from tonight;
From my life, sweetness has just taken flight.
My flower vase has long remained unfilled;
All my heart’s desires stay unfulfilled.
Let not your soothing care depart my life—
Please save my soul—say yes, become my wife.
Listen as my heart makes this plea for love,
And place my longing all other loves above.
Shut silent the mouths of each of my foes—
I need your presence to strike them a blow.
Please ensure that your soul hears as I plead,
Share it with others as your heart may lead—
That it’s in there that true love ever dwells;
Backwards or forwards, your love sweetly spells.
Note: Words written with bold letters are a pair of anagrams in each paragraph.
Big leap from pencil
Exclamation marks
Scribbles and whorls
Paragraph writing
Not erasable
A cartoonist
Writer of prose
Middle school
Soiled fingers
Permanent
Poetry
Penmanship
Bluish
Tattoo
Ink
Dissociated
Looking around
Can’t connect the dots to who or what I was before
My feet have been stained by a hundred strains of grass
Seen and known outside the reach of this valley
Years of travel has worn my soles
Worn my soul
Chipped away the pictures I painted of the world I wanted
A cold world with a bitter tongue
The broken helping the broken because the fixers have all gone home
Your story is but a paragraph in a book of shattered hearts
A novel of shattered dreams
Scattered on the streets in puddles of liquid screams
Lines of hungry bellies waiting to make it another day
I wish we could feed on our fear
Then we would all eat like kings
Our souls are etched on the walls of the buildings in which we dwell
A reminder to those that follow
Pain was nurtured here
placid palatial paragraph
penned by polly poet
perfect personification
prose and poetry prettiness
proving preconceived perfection
Sartre was precise in his definition of hell
Excluded from humanity for just a case of birth
I’m punished for the others and why they’ll never tell
I’m living through insanity of those who rule the earth
Don’t count on the nation thing, this is exaggeration
Don’t intergrate me with the subject that I’m not
No Charlie Hebdo cover depicts this situation
There’s no excuse for me, despite there are a lot
No law of social death exists, yet it is used in practice
No paragraph declares about my human rights
Cursed for the land I’m in, I cannot live like this
Yet I keep carry on, though for the rest I died
The stupid role of victim prepared for me to play
I diss in full assurance that it was planned by those
Who didn’t care about the sense I’ve found today
Excluded from humanity, I stop to smell the rose.
I know you won’t live forever, but if there’s one thing I can guarantee, you're going to live forever in me,
if my days come to an end, and it’s the last thing I do, I promise to spend the rest of my days loving you, from morning to night, I’ll show you a love considered right, a love that shines through the dark, the brightest light you’ve ever seen, every time I tell you I love you, this paragraph is what I mean,
I love you, doesn’t describe how I feel about you, I love you are words to little for you, I would keep you in my heart, the place only I know, the place where my love will continue to grow, there’s millions of words in the dictionary, yet none of them can describe what you mean to me,
every moment we spend together, it’s something bittersweet and memorable, but if I had to describe you in one word, I think I’d say inevitable,
Dorothy was a major character
throughout this refreshing novel.
The next in the series sees
Dorothy as a chapter.
Is Dorothy there within
the succeeding book? Yes, there she is.
She’s a chapter’s section, and often called Dot.
So beautiful is Dorothy, so delightful is Dot.
Where is Dot? Ah, there in the next.
A teensy-weensy presence:
a paragraph - but she is there.
Dot is definitely there.
In the next book
Dorothy has been dropped:
Not even a Dot.
Dorothy is now a full stop.
(09 Nov 2024)
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.