My grandma hid her feelings
So by looking at her face,
You couldn’t pinpoint anger
Or if something was off-base.
If she were hurt or worried
Or perturbed, you couldn’t tell,
For her emotions she kept
Tucked inside so very well.
Though I am quite the opposite,
Since all I feel’s unfurled
And plastered on my face
So anybody in the world
Could take one look and wonder
Why I’m ticked off as can be.
I wish my grandma’s genes
Had gotten passed along to me.
Success can been measured, that is true.
I treasure our nation. Let's say adieu
to the drift of a crude body politic
rudely ticked off at the loss of their "pick".
So obvious, fervor's flame is being fanned.
I welcome government business at hand -
how to run a country and make it grand.
...illegal immigration has been banned
...alien criminals arrested and canned
...manufacture returned to our land
...waste and abuse reduced by demand
...leader and cabinet taking command
...economic recovery carefully planned
...international reconciliation we understand
The pow-wow at the U.N. has
Affected many roads,
With inconvenienced travel
By both car and other modes.
I tried to take the ferry down
To meet some friends for lunch.
A police boat in the river, though,
Confirmed my ticked-off hunch –
My ferry route suspended,
But no answer to how long.
Security is vital, though
To me it just felt wrong.
I hoofed it to the subway
Where I waited for a train,
Which was crowded and unpleasant
And deserving of disdain.
Yet I got where I was going
And when I was headed back,
The suspension had been lifted,
With the ferry back on track.
Take a journey with me
hear the beat of poetry as we stroll,
read my words and listen to my heavy steps.
Inside each poet a clock has ticked off a thousand miles !
Verses fall like flower petals raining down,
each day a new poem pours from poet's hearts and souls.
Now, I have been following a new poet . . .
inside her soul dwells the true beating drum of poetry!
Carpe diem, verse, rhyme, etheree, lanterne forms she conquers.
Many of us also struggle to learn these forms but we persist,
you, me, and threvini share the words in our heart.
Silence rages in this chaotic world but we have poetry !
Open your eyes and see this new poet and embrace her,
realize the gift we have been given to write for peace, bliss and faith,
each poet new or old is special !
Josh once had a small tick on his rear
And yelled at it to get out of here
So the pesky runt
Crawled around front
And took a long walk on a short pier
Smoke in the morning
Chilly anticipating
Brace to speak out there
Cats are meowing
Think felines are a burden
Ticked off still feed them
Endure the sunrise
Negotiating doomsday
Fumes call me dreadful
No love stains these walls
Thoughts resist less their purpose
Dust off my ashes
Stop all this chatter
What is the matter today?
Kindness is small talk
Disown soothing speak
Dialectics why so down?
Mocking defeats nouns
Discard peace with butts
Accept noon as it will be?
Smoke talk brings no joy
Fear
From out of the dark daddy was there,
with a blotchy red face and messy bed hair.
Checking me out, my fingers my toes,
from the bottom of my feet to my ears and my nose.
In a new nappy, I looked up at his face,
with big shaky hands, he held me in place.
A silent tiptoe, in every night,
to check on my breathing, to check I’m alright.
The pick of his dreams, before I was here,
a dream now replaced by irrational fear.
Some people he knows ridicule and they laugh,
but I know why my grapes are in half.
One tug or two on my seatbelts a rule,
but 17 makes him look like a fool.
So come on daddy, please stop your cry’s,
I am ok, look at me, in my eyes.
Don’t spend your life thinking “it’s bad” and “what if”,
it’s just a cold daddy, a little cough and a sniff.
Hurt from a boy, being unfaithful and unkind,
is already a thought floating around in your mind.
One day when you’re gone, you’ll be free from a scare,
because i learnt from you daddy, to be safe and take care.
I’ll die an old lady, tucked up in my bed,
With my life’s dreams, ticked off in my head.
For a ticked off woman, she’s refreshingly brief;
a quick, punctuated rage is her leitmotif.
Sometimes Earth's peace dreams
feel unreachable,
ever,
for anyone,
Including our unhealthy enemies
and aggressive aliens
and militarized terrorists
and anxious sociopaths
and despairing criminals
and miscellaneous Others
LeftBrain wounded
patriarchal-capitalist nervous
monoculturing heartless minds
of unwoke monotheistic unconsciousness,
like my own
Mundanely unaware
of how ticked off we are
about giving up
on our unreachable panentheistic
nature-spirited dream
Reclaiming EarthTribe's indigenous
pantheistic empowered
enlightening calm
inviting EarthTribal
non-anthro-exceptional
universal polycultural
communal
nutritional
healthy wealth of kindness.
I’m going for an angiogram
With slanted rhymes I state my plan
In verse and meter try to cram
My words with all that old flim-flam
Since Days when I lay in my pram
This ticker’s beat to master plan
Ticked off more than expected span
Now due rewind for tick tock scan
My next door neighbours: Stan and Pam
Eat only vegetarian
They chew, with cake holes full of yam
Eschewing lamb and ram and spam
But me, I’ll go for an Angio ‘cram’
That feeds my heart with special jam
Revealing truth on x-ray scan
To Doc Achan - cos he’s da man
So let’s hear it for the Angiogram
It tells what’s what in there, no sham
Like portrait by an old Dutch man
Displayed in Delft or Amsterdam
Then if for me it goes to plan
With prayer and blessed by God and man
And cardiology grand slam
My heart still pumping boom bang-a-bam
She had many sad stories,
they were filed away, labeled,
color coded;
tales presented as apocryphal bibles.
He would listen as she pulled them out
of her droning breast,
intoned then as if reciting
poetry to an acolyte sponge.
Her stories festered the air
with pitiful sorrows,
scratched yet more stigmata
upon hide-bound woes.
White paper moths would fly up to his eyes
as if to illustrate her narratives;
tissue thin, he would see within them
the many skeletons of her living ghosts,
bones free now of all minerality,
fish-wet and wriggling
in the gel of a long preserved plasma.
He often closed his ears
to make his lips numb. The nasal gnarl
of her broken voice
coated his tongue with sticky commiserations,
a jejune sympathy
that had the texture of mildewed goatskin.
Her words mechanically ticked off
every injustice and persecution
ever heaped upon a martyred mind.
Eventually though, her deep well of mopes
dried to a blubber of sighs.
Then all those emaciated moths
would flutter around her
anointing her echoing skull
with a seeping urine-like substance
she called love.
I took a mummy to school today
She promised to keep her mouth shut, okay?
Cussed like a sailor
Ticked off Miss Caylor
Now I hate this mummy in every way!
We flew past the dawn, defeated the sunset, enhanced the moon, ate the pie, sipped malt scotch, got inked and became sick in the head.
It was a bad rush in Russia where we met the queen of Spain and bought an old car, named Vex.
All for what? It was the last year of our lives and we wanted to live just a little. Did we do only ok?
I know you lie to our mother and smile for father. Me, I'm the opposite. I toast them bloodily and slowly on the stove.
I remember the past and live for now. My clock counts down. I'm on the way to China. Don't need my meds. Not with the clock ticking. Hurry, meet me in Chengdu.
Have Been Trigger Happy
Has been know to have a horse named Trigger;
Actually is happy because his horse is bigger;
A blatant lie,
Will pass by;
Was ticked off after being bitten by a chigger.
Jim Horn
Leaver it up to chiggers and tics.
Man made stars fill the sky
Explosions fill your ears and mind
Promises made for new life styles
And heartfelt wishes to all mankind
Another year can be ticked off
Life’s clock just never stops
No time to think of life’s regrets
Or people you may have upset
Time to concentrate upon yourself
Your future life a better self
Challenges your yet to meet
And new friends you’ll make
cast a shadow oh so slim
meet life’s challenges with a grin
there’s not a target that cannot be hit
be a star not a satellite in space.
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.