Did they say it round the tree?
Was it the initial-peek-a-boo?
Was it said with diamond-degree
or with rhinovirus achoo?
Was this thing called love catching?
His youthful looks and ruthless-hanky
and her wavy brunette sway fetching
before love sickness got too -panky.
A linen cloth could have harbored
the germs from which no antitoxin.
She’s amused by whistling on starboard
and forthright first-sight-neurotoxin.
Later, they stare into empty space.
She used her ring for scribbling.
Gin was her tonic, a cold head case.
His knuckles, not her ears, nibbling.
An unlikely spark brought them back.
They wrapped arms around the oak.
Surprised by touching fingertips, smack
of lips that mollified disparaging gin-soak.
His debonair looks and ruthless-hanky.
Her wavy snow-white sway, fetching.
Battling love sickness with its -panky
Forever-after-lips relentlessly catching.
I was diagnosed with double-pneumonia on the 15th and classes started on the 17th. I’m already getting nagmail about assignments, yea! I’ll be behind and virtual for a while. It started as a rhinovirus, honestly, I don’t even remember being around a rhinoceros, but he trampled me good. (Hmm, song title there?)
I’m feeling better today, I can read without the room spinning - heck, I even managed to write this, but a new, implacable nemesis - low-energy - is here, like Lebron James, to check me when I attempt something over ambitious, like picking up my chemistry book. At least I got to stay in my room.
My roommate Sunny’s so angry with a certain girl that she even thinks it’s hilarious. Her creative, revenge beast has been awakened and her feelings are practically colors in the air. It’s entertaining. I think if she saw her now - well, let's say Sunny takes boxing in the gym every morning. “I’m over her already,” Sunny announces, stomping around her room, trashing all reminders on contact.
Be careful out there, people - if love doesn’t get you the rhino might.
.
.
nagmail - mail about late assignments, class papers due, surveys
My mind was ensnared by dizzying chains.
Vicious viruses not only heat veins,
they also threaten precious sanity.
My skull was filled with some sort of foggy
chill that imprisoned my thoughts from the page
and kept stimulus from my fleshy cage.
I could not sleep to dream, nor dream to write,
nor read poems or stories in my sight.
All my senses were consumed by nothing.
No reason for my reason remaining.
black snakeroot, yew, cocklebur, poison (ivy, oak, parsnip, sumac, ryegrass, hemlock), blister bushes, daffodil, mayapple, lilium, jerusalem cherry, indian licorice, deadly nightshade, christmas rose, bleeding heart, asparagus berries, wolfsbane, tomato leaves, doll’s eyes, the suicide tree, young larkspur, blue-green algae, stinkweed, dumbcane, european spindle, blind-your-eye mangrove, manchineel, laburnum, mother of millions, elderberry root, bacterial pathogens, exotoxins, mycotoxins, grayanotoxins, rhinovirus, chicken pox, sleeping sickness, cholera, yellow fever, typhoid, rotavirus, river blindness, measles, japanese encephalitis, hepatitis (a,b & c), cryptosporidiosis, shigella infection, pneumonia, meningitis, tuberculosis, schistosomiasis, malaria, influenza, herpes (1 & 2), crab louse, scabies, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, chancroid, trichomoniasis, hpv, hiv/aids, ebola virus, marburg virus, mad cow disease, mudslides, avalanches, blizzards, storms, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, fires, supervolcanic eruptions: evidence of absence.
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.