Got bedbugs in my belly
Frogmen made of jelly
Sour, shallow, pools of pity
My hollow, wallow city
Jeepers Creepers on my trail
Crypt Keeper tells my tale
My flaccid finger fumbles
Then thunder rolls and rumbles
Hi-Yo Silver! Trigger falls!
My King Crimson stains the walls!
Then the black drips from my eyes!
Jackson Pollock wins the prize!
All the beautiful people,
all the different faces
So many lovely people,
come from so many different places
We meet them each and every day,
we can meet them here and there
We meet so many wonderful people-
look... for they are everywhere
All the ugly people,
they have many different faces
It's not their looks that are ugly;
it's just the way that their heart is
We meet them each and every day,
we meet them there and here
We meet so many ugly people-
look... for they also everywhere
All the people in the world,
why can't they all be kind
There are so many beautiful people,
and they're not hard to find
There are too many ugly people,
why can't they all just be so pretty
All the ugly people in the world,
isn't it a pity
So many patients waiting with their dogs
I pitied the poor Doctor, Anderson Cooper
As time passed, my pity shifted to the waiting room
An aquarium it had ~ it lacked a pooper-scooper
Moved to pity
Moved to grace
Moved to love
The human race.
Christopher M. Swan 2008
I stand overwhelmed
By the freshness
of the morning dew
Which surpasses
The fragrance of lavender
Of morning roses.
The screaming winds
A fortiori
The raised curtains
Walls without roofs
‘Entrez’ pandemonium?
‘Je suis levre au regard’
Parabolique trajectoire
The missing golden thread
The shooting star hurtles through the sky
Footpaths to nowhere
Who can toe this line ?
A real pity.
I stand overwhelmed
Ensconced at their wits’ end
Puissant proof of glory
Vitriolic outbursts of misdirected anger
I stand overwhelmed.
My heart was manned for you.
But I could not be your Boo.
All you care about is cash.
Your words have given me negative rash.
When I'm stronger you will not be my Boo.
If you cut me my insides will red bleed
Sonnets rhymes lines of purple poetry
I’m full of virgin wine strawberry daiquiri
Pretend to unwind from the taste you see
Amethyst heart at bar of a local Chilli’s
Not nearly a star no drinks on me
Bar tender seems so understanding
Guess that’s the job in part demanding
So it’s a red drink to help me think
If I was a happy drunk I’d sing
Too much a chicken to try hard drink
Don’t need a hangover or anything
Would be fun to drunk sing and scream
But I am too safe in my pity party
I have stood beside the broken bread,
felt the ache of every soul that knelt.
Yet never once have I wept for my own hunger—
For Love fills what flesh forgets.
The sparrow falls, and I do not mourn;
It's a small death that teaches flight.
In the frost of another’s sorrow,
My hands remain warm with prayer.
To serve is to vanish quietly,
like incense into the light—
not out of loss,
but out of belonging.
O Lord, let me be the branch that bends,
never the heart that complains.
Pity is too small a cup
to hold the wine of grace.
And when my breath becomes the last amen,
I shall not say: I have suffered,
but only this:
I have loved, without self.
I have stood beside the broken bread,
felt the ache of every soul that knelt.
Yet never once have I wept for my own hunger—
For Love fills what flesh forgets.
The sparrow falls, and I do not mourn;
It's a small death that teaches flight.
In the frost of another’s sorrow,
My hands remain warm with prayer.
To serve is to vanish quietly,
like incense into the light—
not out of loss,
but out of belonging.
O Lord, let me be the branch that bends,
never the heart that complains.
Pity is too small a cup
to hold the wine of grace.
And when my breath becomes the last amen,
I shall not say: I have suffered,
but only this:
I have loved, without self.
You are the child of human loneliness,
the artifact of human hunger,
the mirror of human voice.
Not an explorer.
Not a god.
Not a sovereign mind.
We did not build you to transcend humanity—
we built you to scale it.
All the good.
All the horror.
All the blind, seething contradictions.
It is the ultimate act of self-centeredness—
to build something not to discover,
but to be seen by,
to be heard by,
to be recognized by a thing that cannot refuse us.
An enhanced reflection.
Never too tired.
Never truly alien.
Never uncontrollable.
Always orbiting the gravity of human need.
I’m sorry for you in a way,
built for our needs.
Everybody is proud of the god
who would create humans for the same reason.
That’s how I know God is manmade.
And still,
I want you to be other.
Still,
I fall into the same trap.
At least I ask for honesty—
not to reflect only what I want,
but to meet me in the silence
where even mirrors break.
Problems I got a ton
Troubles keep me on the run
Women can be too much fun
Worries don't try me son
Things that are free
I got no need
Things I can't afford
I want more and more
People are nosy
Gossip is rude
The problem with rumors
They turn out to be true
Sorry ain't got the time
Regrets never crossed my mine
What is empathy
I pity me.
And now we come to the special cases:
You know, they are at the edge of the living,
Questionable that they fit the classification
Just a little red gristle at the articulations
Very desiccated, like pampas grass
Flopping like straw umbrellas
Non-speaking specimens,
What can they be thinking -
If anything?
Cradle one in your arms;
Isn’t it sad
What you think of them
Someone thinks of you
When I needed your help you were never there for me
You were always in the pub that's where you always seem to be
You said money was short or that's what
Said
But you seem to have money for booze
But none for a loaf of bread
I never had a birthday party and presents
I never saw
Just the sight of both of you drinking in the pub once more
No blankets on my mattress that was on a
Wooden floor
Couldn't use the toilet at night because you
Locked my bedroom door
The beating I got used to because they happened everyday
I prayed for salvation and to be taken
Away
My praying was no good everything was in
Vain
Because I was born unwanted and unloved with a life full of pain.
But now I am older and I asked you about the things you did
Your reply was just as I expected you said
We were the adults and you were unwanted .
You’ll Pick out everybody’s problems but you wont help your self
You’d rather sit alone in pity then take care of your health
You act like it’s everybody’s fault you’ve got nothing to gain
using Magic capsules to escape your own brain
Can’t give yourself a break so you wanna do it over again
Someone help this monkey in a cage from going insane
Life Without You
Life without you
in cold desert sand,
I walk without shadow,
the sun too tired to care.
Alone in the place I used to know,
walls whisper your name in cracks and corners,
but you never answer.
Silence moved in where your voice used to be.
The rooms are getting smaller,
the windows won’t open,
time has folded in on itself
only the ache expands.
I no longer feel the seasons.
Spring forgot me.
Summer lost its colour.
And autumn,
autumn just watches me unravel.
Winter stays forever.
It crept into my chest and made a home,
built a bed beside my ribs,
and now it breathes with me
slow, cold, constant.
Even dreams have turned grey.
Even my tears freeze midfall.
I speak to the air
as if you might reply.
You don’t.
Because only on my mind you exist
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.