Top Of The Bill Poems | Examples


List of Member Poems

It's the Hope that Kills You




Boundary rope trope it's the hope that kills

Fatality of the banality of all Bazball’s frills

Hilarity of baggie greens nationwide thrills

Beer swills spills hosts dreams full to the gills

Totality of the brutality still gives me the chills 


Stokes not chipper has to swallow a bitter pill

Can't fallow our ripper skipper’s skill & iron will

Our leader will wallow in the shrill media mill

His men shi*ter…hollow can't follow Ben's drill


Callow not brill..of shallow Bazball had our fill

Hallow the Wizards of Oz are still top of the bill

The country alive cheering let's go in for the kill

Begin fearing the din of sneering & jeering 5 nil

Extras

Only when my costume’s
Been hissed at with steel
Do my garments ripple in small, stormless waves.

Only when my mask
Has been greased in pale mud
Do my blemishes blend with the sea of my face.

Only when my hair’s
Met a shower of glue
Does it cow to the waves that my fingers might make.

Only when my prop
Has been sharpened in stone
Does it shimmer like sun-shatter left in a wake.

Why preparation
To such a degree
When an extra’s the part you’re most likely to play?

True, when you’re starring,
I’m off to the side,
Doing my best to stay out of your way.

But I have a stage,
As do you, in the mind,
Somewhere my name’s at the top of the bill.

There, I’m flood-soaked
And pregnant with lines
And you’re in the dark standing perfectly still.

Oh, noble strangers,
Who pass through my life,
Storied and nameless, busy and kind.

There in the passing,
Your extra I’ll be,
And in my performance, maybe you can be mine.

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.

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