Slapdash Poems | Examples

Paint Job

when it comes to renovating
I'm definitely slapdash
in fact it would be fair to say
that I can be rather rash

sanding bores me senseless
and it's a job I try to shirk
because I lack the patience
for the preparation work

I’ve slapped the paint on badly
it’s dripping down the door
oozing over skirting boards
to decorate the floor

spots are on the window
and spilled upon on the stair
unfortunately I've got most of it
stuck on my face and hair

they say patience is a virtue
a saying I should not ignore 
because now that it’s all finished.....
I wish I'd sanded more

Fantastic Words

A closer look at a fantastic word
And no, I’m not talking in bafflegab
To not repeat this speak is just absurd

To absquatulate like a fracas herd
Throw a foofaraw over a little jab
A closer look at a fantastic word

A uni-brow is a glabella furred
And whirligigs hung too slapdash to grab
To not repeat this speak is just absurd

Scuttlebutt schlepped to sassafras by bird
Skedaddle from a skirmish of stone crab
A closer look at a fantastic word

A quibble over razzmatazz occurred
Doohickey from a lummox, easy nab
To not repeat this speak is just absurd

So scrumdiddlyumptious I may have slurred
Like tintinnabulation, it’s not drab
A closer look at a fantastic word
To not repeat this speak is just absurd

Shambling On

I wish I had the fortitude & Will
to dress in a clean shirt, tie,
neatly pressed slacks and suitable jacket
like an English gentleman, but….

one day 
I appear in a supermarket
in sweatpants and T.
Stained nocturnal, I drive to a fast-food restaurant
then sleep in that T, eat breakfast in that T,
wear that T all day,
then slapdash my way into the night.

I have entered the rumpled shambling center
of that patched-up heart of aging,
where night hangs on the backs of chairs,
and rumpled mornings enter the evening
ever unwilling 
to change.

Shambling On

One day I appear in the supermarket
in sweatpants and T.

Stained nocturnal, I drive to a fast-food restaurant
then sleep in that T, eat breakfast in that T,
wear that T all day,
then slapdash my way into the night.

I have entered the shambling center
that is the patched-up heart of aging,
where night hangs on the backs of chairs,

and rumpled mornings enter the evening
ever willing to un-change.

Life Eternal

All heaven struggled, good and evil clash;
Lucifer's crowd was cast to earth in shame.
Babel's plot to reach heaven, mere slapdash;
God upset language; words became a game.

In His hometown, Jesus bound His powers;
miracles in Nazareth were blocked out.
Were their skeptics so different from ours?
God clouds the ears of those who dare to doubt.

Sovereign insight is way beyond man's light.
Facing death on a cross, no small bother;
repentance from sin brings life eternal.

Christ's vision requires infinite foresight -
mankind united with God, the Father.
Existence sans God is life infernal.

July 10, 2022

My theme: a quatorzain about life,
I used Rhyme Zone (abab, cdcd, etc, etc) and How Many Syllables (8 per line) to check
Sponsor	Constance La France
Contest Name	It's All About Three Q's

Broken Objects

Sunny and her love-object have broken up.

It was a selfie-inflicted wound - a slapdash pic taken,
that like a puzzle, revealed more than intended.

We try and be thoughtful and considerate but
we’ve only recently escaped from captivity.

Perfectly nice people are capable of unfaithful deeds. 
Isn’t that what so much of great literature is about?

Our lives are written in disappearing ink,
and it’s not as if all kisses are meaningful.

We stretch for happiness or for fleeting pleasure
- we’re not married and only vaguely committed.

What would tempt you - what could you actually resist at 18? 
Or now - but maybe you’re a saint.

Baby New Year

A baby appeared on New Year’s Eve
No parents or clothes, if you believe
	A top hat and sash
	rather bold slapdash
resolute in year's goals to achieve

Slapdash Fellows At the Shamble Saloon

in the city of York, an English town
odd old buildings of russet brown
surround damp streets of cobblestone
pathways finding the party zone

jesters strike around half past noon
slapdash fellas crash the shambles saloon
with a splish splash, they dab a bath 
the last stop on their dead-beat path

zag scalawags like to rally
at a mish-mash mosh pit sally
peaking the patter of jibber-jabber
through chit-chat and blasé blabber

the tip-top flip-flop clip clap crowd
are to the man vocally self-endowed
their tight tongues tied in a tangle
wag with rhythmic jingle jangle 

hip hop beats on the radio
shadow rhythms entwine in stereo
with tic toc crisscross tapping toes 
lift a cadence from depths below

when two pass noon at the shambles saloon
the characters mirror a black cartoon
days pass and quietly echo
dark portraits show tin art deco

Delicate Dimensions

The Shepherd asked the poetess-
Who are you?
Twinkling her eyes, the poetess
said-who am I.

Am I a breath or a death;
breeze or a storm;
am I soothed or havocked?
I am blazed and ashed.

Am I a flower or a crackling leaf;
sand or a sea;
rock or a snow?
I am a droplet and a wavelet.

Am I a mystic sky or a fog;
cloud or a smoke;
hazed or dazed?
I am a dew and blue.

Am I a moon or its shadow;
real or a fake;
peace or a mayhem?
I am resting and running.

Am I desired or  scraped;
slapdash or deliberate;
gem or a junk?
I am nerdish and doltish.

O! dear shepherd
who cares and
wonders who am I?

I am a treasure of pleasure,
I am a glow and a blow,
I am tender and blender,
I am your treasured flow.

**************

Sewing Love

How to
Capture
Between pages
Or pixels
Or caught between
Stitches 
Do memories catch
Between the threads?
Does love
Linger in the ink?
One can pray
In the silence
Where laughter once rang
Find the steady beat
Of a sewing machine
Where your heart used to beat
Trying to sew
Myself back together
If I just keep
Sewing
From the heart
I can bind
My heart up
Fit pieces together
Here is where it tore
When Elisif’s laugh was lost
Here when Phil’s light went out
And here, this big one
When my grandfather died
These old stitches are fraying
Starting to come undone
Here the slapdash job
From when Jackie put a gun to her head
Here from Steve being ripped away
So suddenly
This bit holds up well
For an eight year old’s
Handiwork
And here a spot needs darning
My heart is worn 
It needs
Many a repair
But I have little time
For the careful stitching
Of so many holes
Yet they wont 
Close
On their own
So I keep busy
With fabric patches

The Gravity of Gravity

Gravity keeps our feet on the ground,
Stops us from slapdash flying around.
This force of attraction ‘fictitious’ gives weight
And makes all fall down at equivalent rate.

(Albeit in flights of fancy it seems
That gravity follows the laws of dreams.)

Relativity caused Newton’s view to shatter,
In positing spacetime to be curved by matter.
So objects will take a particular path
That must correspond with Einsteinian math.

(The upshot is bodies have odysseys
Appropriate to their geodesies.)

Gravitons, a gravitational source
Of controversy, are seen as a horse
Of a quite different color altogether.
But then scientists aren’t birds of a feather.

(Some sit upon their a priori-based fences
And come up with theories defying the senses.)

Weak or strong, short or long, what is this thing
Called gravity?  Wide hypotheses swing.
There are those who suppose that it’s this, others that.
Maybe someday, they all just might have it down pat.

(Meanwhile gravity, though we resize and shape it,
Will still have its own way— for who can escape it?)


– Harley White

Old Planet Earth

OLD PLANET EARTH

our globe balances precariously on its fragile
axis
a space spinoff awaiting weights inevitable
demise
hanging on an abused thread from this universal
life
consuming all resources daily from the inside 
out
reflecting slapdash mindless human nature
traits

accountability entrusted from creations
launch
heeding oceans bounty--salient bird-filled
sky
land creatures vast uniqueness in custody
ours
God spoke plainly: prosper, produce, care and take
charge
I made you in My image, protect My planet with
pride

Instead…
we try to outshine the moon
as shooting stars fall in gloom
with tears and blood
with fires and flood
with ignorance and gluttony we turn the last page


© Kim van Breda—May 2014

A Vindictive Mind

A MIND SEEKING REVENGE
IS LIKE A PRISONER WITH NO JUSTICE
IT WON’T TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR  ITS ACTIONS
FOR IT WILL  PLOT AN ILLEGAL PLAN OF  DESTRUCTIVE EVIL

IT WILL FORSAKE AND TERRORIZE ANY SIGHN OF A CONSCIENCE
IT WILL FORBID ANY FORCE OF INSANITY
AND WILL BARRICADE ITS TEARS
ITS DARKNESS IS INEVITABLE

IT WIL BECOME ABORTIVE
IT WILL FLAUNT ITS FALSE EMOTIONS
BUT IT WILL EXTIRPATE ITS PLAN
AND IT WOULD LEAD TO A GRIDLOCK

THE MIND WOULD THEN HAVE HYPOCHONDRIA
IT CHOSE ITS KISMET
BUT IT STILL HAS A PLAN TO LYNCH SOMEONE
BUT IT WILL THEN MARTYR

THE MIND SEEKING REVENGE IS NOW NOXIOUS
AND OVERPOWERING
IT’S SLAPDASH
BUT A TYRO IN ITS NEXT SCHEME

IT WILL JAB THROUGH ITS CARELESS THOUGHTS
BUT IN THE END IT WILL HAVE A FEELING,
A FEELING OF PIQUE
AND IT WILL RUMINATE OF ITS DEEDS

Seeing To the Door

This bliss rover I.
Lazed fresh muddy-smoke,
In hot-rate envy.
A digital glow moans,
2 am, lighting my skin.

She easily, nameless,
Just left.
My mass sweat,
On my cotton-mix.
She a slapdash, I letting.

Hour previous, world dyed in smut.
Three ago she open, breathing.
I flush, on decernables,
Day ago, I was settling,
On her far possibilities.

Shame thinking 
Justice grasping.
"All in all" apes right.
Upright, stone carving.
Tailoring white pillows,
With black market Viagra.

Her last words.
"Your precious"
Cleverly my eyes
Nuzzel wood floors.
Then sleep, a push to morning.
I did see her to the door.

School

Assembly. 
  Disassembly. 
    Reassembly.

When the bell tolls 
  it tolls for me. 
Alone I walk in crowded 
  concrete corridors; 
    feet, doom-laden, 
      slapping thermoplastic 
floors.

Years we will do this. 
  Years we will be taught. 
    Years we all will walk in 
concrete corridors.

Walking unto the light, 
  freedom's light; 
    walking unto the world of 
women and men. 
Armed with bestowed knowledge 
  that two and two makes four, 
    the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1066, 
      energy can neither be created nor destroyed... 
wandering lonely as clouds... 

Freedom fighters, 
  guerrilla's armed with this 
    potency 
and so much more.

The echo of the concrete, 
  of slapdash feet on thermoplastic, 
    may well reverberate, 
      reaffirming their message of 
doom.
Yet that is further away than 
  the eye can see. 
Now is sweet honeydew Summer, 
  the best years of a life 
    yet to come.

Assembly. 
  Disassembly. 
    Reassembly.

Man, 
are we up the 
Swanee. 
And though we know it 
  now is not 
    the time 
      to 
care...

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