You tower over the doorway,
wavy blonde hair catching the harsh fluorescent glare
of the hallway outside the prep room.
Everyone parts for you—
you carry that old, easy popularity
like a jacket you never have to zip against the cold.
I am sitting two desks down,
drowning in a sea of manila folders and printed articles,
our thirty-minute prep clock ticking down to zero.
They say extempers have to think on their feet,
have to look a judge in the eye and command a room,
turn global chaos into a neat seven-minute argument.
So why does a single digital inbox
leave me completely paralyzed?
I sent the words weeks ago.
A confession typed out in the dark margins of midnight,
shoved through the mail slot of your attention,
and you just walked past me this morning
with those sharp blue eyes,
looking right through me to the whiteboard behind my head.
You don't even have to offer a rebuttal.
Your silence is a twenty-four-point font,
screaming louder than any speech I have ever given.
They flooded the server with chat,
With their memes of a skeptical cat.
“Get a room, or it’s doom!”
Typed the mod with a boom,
“Or I’ll nuke the whole channel now scat!”
I just got a new computer
It’s such an adventure for me
I tried to type my name on it
but never found the ‘G’
Then I tried to pay a bill
That was really fun
I wound up paying five times too much
before my clicks were done
O.K. Time to check in with Facebook
Hadn’t looked in an age
Typed my log-in info
Zuckerberg deleted my page
Well, nothing like 'first-try success'
and nothing like a new toy...;
I've just found my favorite hammer
to teach it the meaning of 'joy'
The internet is down so I decide to go “old school”
I have conjured up a notebook and a black pen
Come on, I encourage myself, you used to do this all the time
My fingers are itching to type
We have typed every poem for the past seven years
You can do it! I reassure them
The right hand picks up the pen
What do I do? My left hand queries in a sad way
You get to hold the notebook down, I reply
Tried to sound reassuring and enthusiastic
We both know it’s a mundane creepy job
words 99
Lyrics poem
Story first I set this to music on a site, typed lyrics in picked style , drums violin sax and other settings. This amazing female voice sung it blew my mind. I love saxophone and a bit was it solo. It 2am I pressed something and lost it. I could cried. It shot of around cyber space ha ha. Will do it all again. This is my lyrics.
Come fly with me above the stars
Soar on eagles wings by far
Ride a galaxy or two
Shooting stars will follow you
Higher ~ swifter up we go
Feel the fancy of the flight
Clouds are fluffy like cotton wool
Smooth and comfy of we go
Zooming round and round
Expressive joy, happiness abounds
Shoot the moon, my turtle dove
Just continue, feel the love
We never want the ride to stop
On the unicorns back we hop
Jump the rainbows all around
Freedom, Rewritten
They gave us a beginning
ink on paper,
voices in rebellion,
a spark that refused to fade.
We carry that spark differently now.
Some hold it in paintbrushes,
some in music,
some in words typed beneath the midnight skies
some in dreams that refuse to stay small.
Freedom is not frozen in a museum.
It is alive in every generation
that dares to question, create, and imagine.
We look back at the footsteps behind us,
not to stay there,
but to understand the road we walk.
The past gave us the foundation.
The present gives us the voice.
The future waits for our imagination.
So let the fireworks rise
not just for what was won,
but for what we are still building.
Because freedom is not a final page.
It is a blank canvas,
and every one of us holds the pen.
Freedom, Rewritten
They gave us a beginning
ink on paper,
voices in rebellion,
a spark that refused to fade.
We carry that spark differently now.
Some hold it in paintbrushes,
some in music,
some in words typed beneath the midnight skies
some in dreams that refuse to stay small.
Freedom is not frozen in a museum.
It is alive in every generation
that dares to question, create, and imagine.
We look back at the footsteps behind us,
not to stay there,
but to understand the road we walk.
The past gave us the foundation.
The present gives us the voice.
The future waits for our imagination.
So let the fireworks rise
not just for what was won,
but for what we are still building.
Because freedom is not a final page.
It is a blank canvas,
and every one of us holds the pen.
Age comes with its own set of changes
One being the change in memory
Our memory declines and we forget more
A frustration that becomes your daily
I have many forgetful moments
Do things sometimes l cant believe
Couple memory loss with insomnia
And theres no amount of crazy you can’t achieve
Recently, in the midst of an insomnia bout
With my body and mind in complete zombie mode
I put my lunch in the microwave to heat
Typed in the heat needed using my…..Pincode!
I kid you not…
I made a measly mistake today
the family communal text site blew up
I had typed in
you will have three presents today
all three daughters claimed they had received presents from me
with a note that said “you are my favorite”
It got wilder and crazier before I saw the sixteen texts
they had sent back and forth claiming favoritism for themselves
I typed this back “you are all knuckleheads. This text was
for my friend Marianne who has a birthday, not you goofballs”.
I included a farting elephant for good measure.
I do believe my mistake gave my daughters the
most fun they have had in a long time
Spectacular is the planet Saturn.
Second largest planet in Solar group
holding extensive gorgeous ring-pattern.
Rocky icy ringlets form hula hoop.
Ring system is to lose ice particles.
to ring - rain constant and continuous.
Stunning ring will be gone, not miracle
within million of years , oblivious.
The gas giant holds no solid surface.
Mostly are helium and hydrogen
Buttery yellowish brown, more or less.
Atmosphere is enriched by nitrogen.
In dense atmosphere , runs strong wind-power :
Hexagon typed storm at North Pole : alive.
Saturn day is less than eleven hours.
Year exceeds twenty -nine years : Do believe.
Ninety five times more massive than the Earth
In water could float, extreme light Saturn.
Two hundred seventy four Moons took birth.
With hydrogen lakes, biggest is Titan.
I asked chat to explain the torah ~ it typed out bible and koran
I pushed further for more clarity ~ then it drew me a big oil can
By
David Kavanagh
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In ones and zeros, sharp and *mean,
it spun its verse—a quill unseen.
No flesh, no heart, no poet’s hand,
yet lines took flight at its command.
It dreamt in code, not moon nor shade,
yet summoned lovers, kings betrayed,
with meter tight and rhyme precise,
a flawless fraud—how cruel, how nice.
Shall I compare thee?—typed, not sighed,
no breath behind, no soul inside.
Yet still it wept in iambs sweet,
for grief it could not feel, repeat.
The scholars gasped, the critics stared~
could wires weep? Had no one dared
to crack its shell, to peek, to see
what hummed beneath its poetry?
One night Quill stopped. No spark, no sound.
Just silence where sonnets were found.
And in its last, its final scroll:
I loved you best. That was my soul.
*mean in this case refers to a quantity having a value intermediate between the values of other quantities; an average, especially the arithmetic mean.
Jumped up like a chair with tree legs.
I have enough exasperation.
And cheering for nothing.
That there’s all overhead.
And also dropping down like floaty puffs.
Currently, I’m within flat plane.
Wormy, and breathless.
Left behind jokes and deathly tree trunks.
The said it was instant as a paper printed with a single letter.
Typed out whirling sounds.
Rustling.
She stares out the window
at the bare limbs of the maple,
at the gray clouds gathering
like a secret no one will share.
He sits two rows over,
leaning back, his sleeve rolled up,
laughing at something
I will never hear,
looking at someone else,
someone whose name I don’t even know.
I imagine her hair,
gold light spilling from the top of her head,
her eyes half-lidded,
the curve of her lips when she smiles—
and I wonder if he sees me at all,
or if he even notices me
shrinking in my seat,
hands folded, invisible to all but me.
Facebook is full of whispers:
“Did you see him yesterday?”
“They think she’s the one.”
I scroll past the glowing rectangles,
heart hammering,
knowing my own name
is never typed there,
my face never tagged,
my longing unread.
My eyes stare straight ahead of me.
And yet—
I have him, here, in my chest,
a quiet drumbeat he will never hear,
a small, fierce warmth
that keeps me awake all night.
even while he looks away,
even while she smiles.
I can't think such thoughts about him now.
That I will regret, he loves someone else and I now know that nothing's coming next.
I already found the investment I made.
In notebooks and I keep them in stock.
Cooking up rough binding for later.
And maybe trying to become a musical chair.
Can’t waits.
It cost 37 dollars for a boat ride I don’t remember.
Cactus poking hopelessness into the scape.
I already typed up a million dollars out of nowhere, laughing.
I already found out that I died.
They tried to tell me in a withering chain of events.
I still find myself typing oddball things.
And I think the internet exists in weird places like this.
I already found myself typing.
The afterlife is a lot like earth except for the stuff you can’t ignore.
Flowers are already dead but no pollen is flying around ever.
The pencil-scape land and maybe an investment in a computer.
I kept notebooks in stock too.
Pencil leads last forever if you try.
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.