Leaving dusty footprints on Texan soil,
a drifting unemployed taxi driver.
Stumbling through nights of doubt,
towards seedy lighthouses that shone brightest.
He scratched her name on napkins, in margins,
on the fogged glass of Greyhounds—
rehearsing a love that would never be more
than a monologue for his mirrors.
Believing the act would be a sentence,
six shots, one ricocheted love letter,
so that on his arrival,
history might remember him
as something other than a ghost.
—On the Sight That Waited for You—
Did I love then? My sight had learn’d to lie,
and clothed each apparition in borrowed light;
I kiss’d the dawn and watch’d the western sky,
and deem’d the numinous in mortal sight.
I call’d the rain’s pale argent fall divine,
made vanishing a sacrament of flame;
and made each fugitive splendour a shrine,
and gave the passing world an endless name.
Till thou didst enter—and the very air
seem’d suddenly vacat’d of what it feign’d;
the rain still silver’d every waiting stair,
yet through each interstice the dark remain’d.
I kiss’d thy hand—and all my heavens knew
their light had only been rehearsing you.
You can't read a mind, but you can read a face
Just watch over time to see emotions that race
Expressions revealing rejection or jeers.
Enough to chill anyone, confirm paranoid fears.
There's the expression "We will crush you"
And "You just don't get it, but we hate you."
A face that can't hide a nasty plan
What can I do? I'm just one man.
There's the face that says I'm a cloying fool
Then there's tones I never heard in school
There's the tone of dripping contempt
How do I deflect that, even make an attempt?
There's the face rehearsing how he'll beat me to a pulp
I look at it and let out a nervous gulp.
Skeptics say I expect to see, then I fill in
But if half is true, my future is grim.
The are the words too, that sometimes come along
But the interesting aspect is the rest of the song
Maybe it's the brain controlling muscles, controlling eyes
That makes the inner feeling break through the disguise.
This preceded talking, in our evolutionary past
Another way of knowing, that some dismiss too fast.
You can know much about a man, just by the way he laughs
Know with who to hunt the wildebeest, with who to forge your path.
the tortoise taught us
how to peel and prepare potatoes
as the llama was alarmed
singing la la songs with her ma
the horse became hoarse
rehearsing his shouting at the hearse
as the hyena had a hernia
hiding heinously in the honey jar
We live amongst ourselves in recognition
memorialized for our distinct deeds rendered
It is here that we witness ourselves flourish
as our aged reflections are kept pristine
Rehearsing our roles to absolute perfection
awaiting for this progressive saga to be told
As we are the revered immortals here...
never to be forgiven
Thank you for protection,
As I make the corrections,
The direction I'm taking,
Is making me doubt the day,
I'm way out in left field,
Wielding my shield of truth,
My youth stolen by a lie,
I try to find a way home,
Roaming mostly alone,
Comforted by the unknown,
I've grown weary of outcomes,
Then out comes some tears,
Coming from all the fears,
Standing tall I'm still here,
I can't hear very clear,
A constant ringing in my ear,
I'm steering into a blind turn,
Yearning to see a sign,
Learning to be Divine,
Burning away the past of mine,
The design is always aligned,
Combined with the Source,
My course preselected,
A force divinely directed,
Protected by a universe,
Rehearsing an important role,
My Soul knows how this goes,
Protecting me from my foes,
I chose to shine bright,
Right through my dark night.
A sight for sore Eyes,
Surprising myself as I rise.
I have counted mornings
not by calendars
but by the stiffness in my hands
and the patience of the kettle.
Once, I believed
life was a ledger of later—
save the laughter,
postpone the journeys,
wait for a day
that wore perfection like a crown.
But time, that quiet thief,
taught me arithmetic of another kind:
subtract hesitation,
divide sorrow by kindness,
multiply wonder wherever it hides.
Now I rise
not to chase youth
but to greet the fragile, golden present—
this breath,
this light leaning through the curtain,
this sparrow rehearsing joy on the sill.
Seize the day, you say?
Ah, do more than seize—
taste it.
Let it stain your fingers with meaning.
Call the friend,
Forgive the wound,
Walk where the sky is wider than your worry.
Love without the timid grammar of “someday.”
For I have learned,
as twilight gathers softly at my door,
that a well-lived moment
outshines a thousand careful plans.
And if tomorrow comes,
welcome it.
But today—
today is the miracle.
I will tell the truth:
love is not always kind,
and it is rarely fair.
It does not arrive on cue
with music swelling behind it.
Sometimes it comes limping,
late, unsure, smelling faintly of regret.
Love does not fix you.
It finds you mid-sentence,
mid-failure,
mid-life—
and listens anyway.
I tell the truth:
love is not the absence of loneliness.
It is loneliness
sitting beside another loneliness,
agreeing not to leave first.
Love forgets anniversaries
and remembers the sound of your cough
at three in the morning.
It argues about nothing
and forgives something enormous
without ever naming it.
Here is the hardest truth:
love does not promise forever.
It promises now—
this cup of tea going cold,
this hand still reaching
even when it knows how easily
hands let go.
And yet—
I swear this too:
when love is real,
it teaches the heart
how to stand in the witness box
and still say,
without rehearsing,
“Yes.
I was afraid.
Yes.
I stayed.”
POTD 02/10/2026
upon waking
no upon the waking
this waking neither first nor last
cold floor
a warm bulb shivers
the alley cat
still feral
counting its own lives
already half made of sound
arriving before it arrives
casts what your february
in its orange persistence
cast before
the hour of the lamp
is standing without you
one thought
and the thought that will not come
something there
has sunk its canines into
the syllables
your syllables
syllabub curdled
frothing
the syllabus
your mother birthed you with
wet and new
red-ink margins
not rehearsing them
no never rehearsing
conducting them slowly
as an orchestra pit must
when all the musicians have gone home
dry and gone
and no one answers the downbeat
and no one
and no one
two three four
the downbeat has no one left to strike
you lift your hand
the cat walks out of the sound it made
already elsewhere
leaving where it will return
leaving before it has left
In the beginning, we played musical parts
singing the script with free-spirited hearts
Adlibbing lines without rehearsing a word.
As absurd as it sounds, quite profound
that our threads were a woven tapestry
without eyes meeting and voices never heard.
We danced, swaying like palms in the wind
Our dance steps were always in sync.
We were Fred and Ginger,
turquoise and silver... p b and j
until the day the music stopped...
In the realm where light and dark merge,
that shadowed place where docile dreams
and hellacious nightmares converge,
we found ourselves worlds apart.
Our Utopian haven had been storm tossed
and left us swirling on a dystopian plain,
a deserted land where painful silence rules
for those who played the game of fools.
For days I've been hearing piano notes
that seem to float from memory's core.
A chance encounter, a phone call,
familiar lyrics to a musical score...
a romance rekindled?
His music once filled my head,
but I don't dance to his songs anymore.
There's never a happy ending
when nothing is left to be said.
There's no point lingering in thoughts
over a broken heart when it's mending.
They did not crown themselves.
They designed the crown.
They do not rule by force—
they rule by necessity.
New presidents.
Same masters.
Different speeches.
Same contracts.
They manufacture enemies
so the people forget
who owns them.
They sell fear.
They trade chaos.
They launder guilt
through patriotism.
War is not a failure.
It is a business model.
If blood does not profit the citizen,
ask who owns the profit.
Power does not shout.
It whispers.
It does not announce itself.
It embeds itself.
Religion becomes a shield.
Law becomes a blade.
Morality becomes decoration.
Leaders are not elected.
They are approved.
Every mouth speaks freedom.
Every hand signs obedience.
But illusion decays.
Slowly.
Then suddenly.
Even myths expire.
Even giants bleed.
They can erase faces—
not memory.
History is not merciful.
It is accurate.
A criminal can rename itself.
But never cleanse itself.
If America is the mask—
who is rehearsing behind it?
Between yes and no, the world holds its breath.
Light forgets it is light; shadow stops rehearsing fear.
North loosens its grip on certainty, south unlearns surrender.
In this pause, opposites don’t fight—they listen.
Truth steps out of argument and sits in silence.
Energy stops changing sides and remembers its source.
The clock hesitates, unsure whom time should favor.
Power dissolves, not lost—just neutralized.
Here, meaning is born before labels arrive.
The pause is not weakness; it is alignment before rebirth.
The man in the elevator
is the reticent straggler
forced to collapse his personal space bubble
to avoid the stairs and cop the stares
of strangers beyond their circle of care
holding their breath
avoiding eye-to-eye contact/
A nod, a wink, is all they get
on this stage where the actors all face out
rehearsing as the lift doors open and close on each floor,
hoping the prompter has forgotten their lines.
Only you can make me smile Cheek to Cheek.
CQ CQ Hello Dolly are you receiving me?
Now I have been rehearsing thoughts of Georgia my love.
I got Georgia on my Mind and A Kiss to Build a Dream on
What a Wonderful World would look like 10 year from now?
Louis Armstrong will you be my best man?
I butter the toast as if it were a pardon,
its crust breaking under my knife
like a sealed envelope.
The coffee is bitter ink,
a confession cooling in its cup.
I swallow it fast,
as if speed could trick the executioner.
When I buy myself flowers
I imagine them lining a witness box:
petals trembling,
each one swearing I once existed.
I take long baths,
the water climbing like hours,
the body softening, rehearsing its exit.
Every errand feels ceremonial:
the grocer weighing apples,
the cashier stamping receipts—
as if recording my presence
before the page turns blank.
I buy the trinket, the sugared cake,
because why shouldn’t the condemned
glitter a little,
lick the spoon clean?
The hours leer,
their faces blindfolded.
Any minute the rope could tighten—
a phone could ring with pardon.
So I go on feeding myself,
scraping honey from the jar,
gilding my throat
for the last song or the first acquittal,
as though I might vanish mid-bite,
or else be called back,
my name suddenly rinsed clean
from the record.
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.