the years of clutter sum total
feel much like a noose around my neck
the memories both good and bad
exhausting in their tonnage
trinkets on shelves
reminders in drawers
paramount to the anchor
out to hold me back
the sea beckons all around me
but i’m fettered in a stalemate
hovering when i should be sailing
how i envy the minimalist
who has mastered the art
of letting go ~
AP: 1st place 2025, 2nd place 2025
The world doesn’t tend to give you what you want
Give me a locked box, the indescribable taunt
What if she was feeling generous?
In a moment of empathy, some severance
My fingers delve deep and rummage
I’d pay your entry fee, some sort of tonnage
Reaching past the gold, the silver
Some objects the victims to pilfer
I can feel it beating at the bottom, submerged by guilt
Picking up the shattered pieces, always knew you needed rebuilt
I'll spend all night putting you back together
Please let me talk to you, I can feel our tether
Your heart was broken in the bottom of my box
Why you left it with me is a total flummox
I chose to return your heart back to you, as you repaired mine
Maybe this time my act of kindness will cause us to intertwine
The world doesn’t tend to give you what you want
But if you give me a chance, maybe I can
LONELY AS A CLOUD IN APRIL
I knew Great Aunt Lucy’s April outing to celebrate
My failed exams would be a series of disasters,
A slow motion flying April-fool joke, with my problems as ballast.
We went to her favorite restaurant :
The waiter offered me an education of pastries,
While glowing over Wordworth’s golden host,
Followed by the predictable surprise of her favorite theatre.
We sat through a prison sentence of opera music;
Then a driver-tour of the city’s scant attractions
Was tonnage of boredom reduced in a finger-snap
By his changed tone - about his childhood home ground.
My life-sentence was commuted -
In a blink I saw everything differently.
I felt an orgy of interest in my head
In the way a reflection in a puddle can appear
In an instant to be a piece of sky-jigsaw
Which has fallen to the ground. After that
You can never again see it in the usual way.
I gazed and gazed but little thought, so I fell asleep.
11 April 2021
(Note…with apologies to better poets like W Wordsworth and D Thomas)
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Entered in the April Poetry Contest (2021) of Regina McIntosh
Indigenous feel of peaceful love Interferencing touch of skin
There has been no where better I have been
So empowered , clean , free
Often like Im at ease , drinking a tea ,
With stream ,
Although a dream It may seem
Weightlessly I can consumate
a lot more tonnage
At lifes pondurousness ,
Positive evoke , Energy we soak ,
Life comes on a stroke , but we stroke ...
So much left to unlock .
Potential in the abnormality , we catch stars with dignity ,
As one comes as one goes
Fly Away.. the crows
Come over , our doves
Closer together , the line draws
the hole hollows
Heart follows
Sweet marshmellows
and melons
We're here in the comfort
in the fort of love
Rozalia P. XS
Numbers make the world,
no smiles or batted eyes here
numbers make the world,
no sticky-sweet fingers or waving palms
numbers rule without qualms
Gross domestic products and
tonnage of staples on actuarial tables
PSI and APY ratioed percentages
leveraged capitals
daily numbers of sales calls -
numbers are to do 'n' all
Numbers make the world,
no full moon in lapis sky
no fresh-picked basil on peckish plate
no dreaming lovers to salivate
only numbers of bushels per acre
no smokey-sweet of roasted ears
It's numbers that count
no blessings of sermon on the mount
for the numbers shall inherit
by long or short division,
able to sway, today's decision
about what's important, what life is for
it's all about a number, nothing more,
so don't worry 'bout what's next in store
'cause you can't count on it anymore
- it's days are numbered
like counting sheep, now close your
eyes, 'n' get some REM sleep
dreaming now of days, away ago,
when it wasn't so -
that numbers made the world
© Goode Guy 2013-04-01
Down on Englands southern coast, i have a friend (you know)
he's living his life with wedded wife, as the tonnage comes & goes
He has a Dad as people do.. who lives not far away
and when i eat a banana, i recall a thing he'll say
Not that my nose (or anyones) is larger than his own!
its just a line of kid (thats all,) from a kid at heart, who's fully grown..
I hold them both in great regard, these friends of many years
(i know i've laughed with both of them) till my eyes were filled by tears"
And times as i'll think on Maurice and his Dad, wherever i happen to be..)
i know that they'll smile when they speak my name, at Sholing by the Sea.
Suicide is always an option.
You're depressed, they tell me.
Be patient. You'll feel better tomorrow.
For more than thirty years I've been waiting,
And tomorrow never comes. Every morning it's today.
Sometimes I know I should have called a halt,
With a noose or pill or razor; perhaps a bullet-
An infinite choice of methods, leading to..
The never yet exercised final option.
So each dawn I add the weight of another day,
To the tonnage I already carry.
Sometimes I think, Perhaps a shrink?
But no, insanity is only a state of mind,
And suicide is always an option.
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.