Pin Down Poems | Examples

Drunk Dry

Fog unravels its gray threads to smother the sky
and numb the mind,
words slip away to find other mouths
to fall from.

Wallowing in a low funk,
enveloped by a dull dislike
of these sprawling hours,
and this gun-metal sky
shuffling along
as a ghost in carpet slippers.

Into a deep glass of wine
shrinking spirits sink,
listless lips sip mechanically.

Words wriggle away as if escaping a fire.
Idiom and phrase morph into clichés.
Too few words arrive
to pin down or hammer onto a page.

The wine has no taste
it was poured too early, drank too late.

A mist lingers in that headspace
where creativity slumbers listlessly.
Daylight grows old, the mist turns red
it's not the sunset painting these thoughts -
it's a sullen anger.

That anger began to grow around 3pm
with the realization that I really have been
unplugged from myself,
and that today no eyes will see
those lost or found words which appear
when I allow a white electronic page
to turn me on
and not off.

Walking a City

Walking a city that isn’t your own,
While part of a group or a couple, alone,
You notice the buildings, the shops and cafes,
All prepped and inviting to welcome your gaze.

Of course, more than harbor or castle or steeple,
When strolling along, you take note of the people
And try to pin down, from their looks and their styles
How their difference from you stems from more than just miles.

Though the natives see “tourist” as you walk the streets
And indulge in the sights and the views and the eats,
Most accept your existence with little regard,
As you soak it all up in their very backyard.

Sold

Sold

To be sold by the people
Who were supposed to love you
To be sold at 
Just 9 years old
For alcohol and laughs 
To be sold 
Day after day
Why fight?
To be sold by people
Who were supposed to love you
To be sold at 
Just 10 years old
Fear filled eyes 
Scared of the dark
But can’t handle what’s in the light 
Night after night
To be sold by people
Who were supposed to protect you
To be sold at 
Just 11 years old
Losing any hope of being rescued 
They are to smart and strong
Know what to say and how to act
Facts aren’t facts
No evidence of abuse or neglect 
To be sold by someone who
Was supposed to protect you
the worlds keeps turning
But your world is dying
The will to live is faint
Alone inside 
Crying to be feee
But no one will listen
Or choose to s e
To be sold by someone who
Was supposed to protect you
To be sold at
Just 12 years old
Held down and forced to fight
300 lbs of weight
Breathing begins to shake
Arms pin down as they watch
Laughing and partaking
In the water torture 
All for what
To be sold

On Myrtle Beach Pier

I remember the high arc of your line
casting into horse-maned waves,
strong hands as yet untroubled 
by trembling, easily reeling smaller fish
to throw back in, again and again, a circle
of give and take, and how after searching
salt-surf, the jolt of fierce life banging 
the rod down almost to breaking cut
a smile across your face, the frenzy
to impose death on the unwilling fish,
the satisfaction of almost losing shining
in your eyes like light reflects off scales.

I remember this, an emotional fish
wriggling in my mind’s hands as I search
my own churning waters, before it slips
my grasp, too slick to pin down:
red snapper-joy of fireworks, cherry soda;
hagfish-hate spewing slime of racist jokes.
I tried to deny them, bury them all at sea, 
but your barbs are hooked too deep in me.
The grief, the love, the anger, the relief
all cling to me like barnacles
no lime can ever remove.

August Macke Paintings

the blank face
           of loneliness
 catches the mood
&speaks aloud 

  a unique moment
       in time 
captured in paint
     so difficult
     to pin down
  those ethreal
 butterfly moments 
we all experience

the human condition 
       on young frozen faces
mirrored
 in images 
posed pictures 
asking &
   left for imagination 
to fill in
  & join up 
        the dots
a
tear
& a sigh
of what might have been
the
so sad
memories
of a lady
     in green

His
young life
a forfeit-
&
singleness her
cross

Conundrum

Enciphered heart, yet unread –
Hope, a promise yet unsaid –
Us, a race that’s yet to run –
Her, a puzzle yet undone –

She’s a thought I can’t pin down,
Not adjective, verb or noun.
Her enigma vexes me –
No solution can I see.

She’s a riddle yet to solve
Round whom all my thoughts revolve.
I decode her text?  Not yet.
I’ve still not that challenge met.

I unlock her secrets will,
Though their key eludes me still.
Open she’ll her heart to me…
Just give me eternity.

Written on May 14, 2023 for the “Write A Jueju-Qijue Poetry Contest” sponsored by Emile Pinet

One Word

A single word
That's all..
Questions arise
For meaning of
That one word..
All other words
Could be used in
Painful searching
To pin down the
Meaning of that
Single word..
Fruitlessly
Apparently..to
Locate nothing...

Exsanguinating Leeches

Exsanguinating leeches
Rich cream on ripened peaches,
Or Riviera beaches,
tickling the ears it reaches

Exsanguination is to bleed
A practice we no longer need
Now, Coumadin can quickly speed 
The death of rats, poison indeed!

Like Sisyphus, his rocky hill
Now Eliquis, without the thrill
For those with fibrillations still
‘Tis clots, not rocks, the bitter pill

So now I think to bleed a leech
Might be a task just out of reach
I do implore, I do beseech
Pin down his arms, grab hold of each!

—————

h/t to Howard Osborne’s INFRA DIG

It Was a Dream

Be not proud of history 
Let say more of nothing related to it
If we are to make ground beyond mere story
And avoid the challenge of beautiful game that turned  

The start was crazy to hold unto
As fear grips hearts of loyal fans 
Struggling to equalize the early goal 
Let not talk of the two years ban 

We were not in form like the blue
Hosting happiness dwelling in guise 
European qualification for few 
Is not justifiable to the fans' eyes 

It then turns a surprise 
To play with all strength 
Thank God luck is with Chelsea's whys
That pin down fans' treat in length 

And now, all blue fans could say is 
"We let go of Arsenal to favor her featuring in Europe matches 
Come next season to ease 
The possible pressure on Arteta's patches 

Up Up Chelsea fans that stayed to the end
To watch the last minute 
Who still wave to us as a friend 
Or turned out to alternate 

The pleasure we have for the game 
Is the best beyond the shame

Nuts In 2021 and 22

It’s hard pin down when precisely
the world went insane.
It all began with a manufactured virus,
that obvious fact was hotly denied by many,
however the unscrupulous
quickly used the viral outbreak
to tyrannize the people.

Fear was used to control and force compliance,
this led to a wide-spread paranoia,
sadly many folks died, but something else went wrong,
the survivors caught a critical condition,
many succumbed to an insanity,
even the politicians and the medical 'experts'
went mad.
There was a lurch into a mass psychosis.

Those that tried to reason with the crazy ones
were attacked, banned, cancelled, or shouted down.
Nothing made sense anymore,
and now as a new year arrives
we are all a little shaky, a little unglued,
but we follow the rules
hoping the planet
will recover in some cosmic asylum
one day.

Time and Love

it 
slips 
out of 
our tight grasp
and flees; a sprinter 
much too fast to catch and pin down;
always running, an impatient speed demon called TIME.
LOVE, on the other hand, chooses to wait. And unlike time, it's never an enemy!



Date written: 04/27/2021

Prose Poem Moment

I recall the first time I saw Macke’s ‘Lady Green Jacket’ the blank face of loneliness.It caught my mood.It spoke aloud to me,this unique moment in time captured in paint.Verse and art try desparate to pin down such butterfly moments we all experience.The human condition on young frozen faces of sepia images posed pictures asking ‘I am here staring into this camera lens,where are you?Scenes left for imagination to fill in,mirror and join up the dots.

No Tree Street Names

He built motels
across America
loving the land so much
he could sleep anywhere
on her
in her
cheaply,
predictably.

Anywhere was home to him.
Home was not special
but same.
Same bars of soap,
same color wrappers.
Same towels.
Same smells almost.
Same views.

Home across
the human spirit
of imaginary states.

Just outside streets
with tree names.

And out of this
I arrived
from love created for each single
completed
square space
spilling forward,
motel to motel,
born by American Motel Woman,
timeless builder,
faceless
with no Kodachrome
to pin down my origin
or capture his passion.

Pick-up truck front seat cradles,
beer for sedative,
K-Mart toys,
all-night pharmacies.

His gift-
           I belong anywhere
nowhere,
owe nothing,
know anyone
no one,
am rooted in spackle
drywall
and cheap two-by-fours
and need only decide
which illusions
to put up
and which to take down.

Beyond Reproach

She senses a strange feeling in her heart,
less than full-blown, and yet more than a thought.
It's not quite love, but it could be its start:
it's hard to pin down, for it shifts a lot.

Fantasies that make her giggle inside
get stored in her vault of secret wishes.
There, sensual feelings get amplified,
like mud between your toes, when it squishes.

She gradually lights up with a smile,
fantasizing about her first lover.
And leaving reality for a while:
she seeks feelings she's yet to discover.

And she searches for any telltale signs:
that hope may be signaling love's approach.
And yet, she'll not step across moral lines:
her reputation is beyond reproach.

The Promise

Sometimes love
is not my first impulse,
guts and bandages
a lethal cocktail
for the heart;
when good-times
have lost
much their appeal,
one never seems 
too old
for heartbreak--

A great deal of my life
spent in hospitals
and transit vehicles,
counseling the poor
and possessed;

I think, for me
a hillside
as did Frances,
were those friends
not so difficult to pin down 
most everything now-days 
subjugated by lawyers—or a lounge chair
at the foot of an old fig tree
in my yard (we have
a shady bet between us
about longevity) 
my personal preference
to warning bells
and the hiss of fake air,
while his aversion
to ants vs firewood--

we have
a promise.

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