Unoriginal Poems | Examples

Never Met

You could say we never met
But I let you into my world
Muse come down from on high
In person personified,
Forever intertwined 

Moving in different directions
Still you will remain
A part of my poem
Gentle and kind,
Forever intertwined

You were good to me
Always so sweet
I was horrible
We didn't meet
I think you're dear,
Forever intertwined 

I give you my word
Unoriginal and old
A word I know I've broken
A promise I still intend,
Forever intertwined 

I can see your glow
Walking out to me
Cutting through the haze
I cannot break my gaze,
Forever intertwined 

Am I delusional?
I know that I am
But it's impossible to say goodbye
I'll carry you around with me
I don't even have to try,
Forever intertwined

I thought I'd killed this part of me

Fight the algorithms

Fight the algorithms
that tell us what to do,
to make us predictable,
unoriginal and bankable.

Have you witnessed how
increasingly bland and homogenous
our lives are becoming?

Choose freedom
avoid the diaries of commerce
that riff on the ubiquity of apps

resist the reductive tropes
of our published and circulated,
perspective customer identities.

Fight the algorithms
with their embedded back-lot
familiarity, built around class
and consumerism.

Try to understand the
vague, inscrutable and
purposefully circuitous.

Or stop overthinking
and embrace liberating surrender.
That’s the path I’ve chosen.
.
.
The Gates by Da Vinci's Notebook
Talk Down Dijon

run to fun

My daddy—he once told me
don’t ever play with nuns
they’ll hit you with their rulers
it won’t be any fun

I snuck out of that prison
and now I’m on the run

Once freed from that schoolhouse
I sunbathed in the sun
I stayed out late, I went on dates
looking out for number-one

When I think of what I went through
of all the tired repressive lies
I keep running wise, in slick disguise
my purpose is renewed

Don’t ever let ‘em tell you
you can’t have any fun
If they preach that hackneyed drivel
grab some things and run
.
.
Songs for this:
Cold Heart (PNAU Remix) by Elton John & Dua Lipa
I'm Still Standing by Elton John

Webster: hackneyed = uninteresting, unfun, dull and unoriginal.

*stolen almost directly, in spirit anyway, from that freewheeling rebel, Johnny Cash

**My first 8 years of school were parochial

Per Paparazzi

Watching & waiting while in hiding
and faking
Views for the taking but unaware
what is waiting
Freezing & shaking but is it fear or
its weather?
Snapshots for the taking posing for 
them cuz it's clever

Good best & better to shy away
from the faking
Shade is made by the sun but it's
above what it's making
Shaking what has been rooted
leaving behind hollow winds
Seeds will grow from your efforts
toward the sky lose or win

Unoriginal in sin as we have seen
this before
Jumping the broom of timelines
looking for knobs on the door
Turning in bed with a snore as if
you've slept through the test
Sleepy & lost in a dream snoozing
on good better best

Picture a snap at its best frozen
in moments of time
Painting a picture in jest with a
stoic face like a mime
Mimicking raps like a mime with
painted face like a canvas
The dry humor so wet that only
fish understand it

Above thee underhanded so keep
the slightest of hand
Close to the vest like a secret 
ducking birds on their Stan
Peacock with a colorful stance
with truth outshining the lies
Your essence shines like the sun
& this is what is despised

Another Poem

Another poem
About being alone. 

Unoriginal,
Repetitive,
Old. 

A poem scattered 
Within many more. 
Yet the poem is still alone. 

A sheet of music
Flying in the wind. 

A cliché,
A stereotypical opening
To yet another sad movie.

They are all done,
We are all alone,
Crowded together. 

If only I could tap you on the shoulder,
Ask your name,
Get to know what you like.
Maybe then we’d both be less alone. 

But I will never do that. 

A person
Laying on the beach. 

A one sided beauty,
An unknown story,
Unchanged,
Yet evolving. 

The climax to a story,
That nobody will see.

A Middling Nowhere

Where are the magpies?
Where the ruined cathedrals
where are the birds
that once made their homes
in the hollow heads of saints?

Here all dwell in the new or the old
the days between are bulldozed,
the waste rubble resold.

Crowds seek out boarded-up exits
other crowds construct entrances
for new homes
that when assembled resemble all other's.

I need a hill to howl upon.
The land is flat, even the water is flat.
Mountains are small or not at all.

Yet there are midnight Magpies,
there are crows cawing in woodland churches.

Mythical back-eyed catbirds roam
from home to home. Many places are
not condemned to the newfangled
and yet still unoriginal.

Some magpie nests and appear almost near,
just under the eaves of a middling nowhere.

The Iron Man

I have a scramble on this individual.
He made a dress out of unoriginal.
His capacity to fly was conceived.
It is labeled as the sky has heaved.

In his glove, he hid a weapon.
Rockets raining down from his beckon. 
We passed by as the aircraft flew by.
That was beyond his power to say. 

Could swim the entire way to the bottom.
Might actually make a trip to far off scrotum
I would be there in no time flat with him.
My superhero is Iron Man, something I whim.

Written: September 18, 2022

Superhero or Supervillain Poetry Contest
 Sponsored by: Robert James Liguori

Stand Back Out and Up

Empty bottles scattered across the linoleum floor
Just like the futile coke bags floating in your toilet bowl
Both still congested with the lost memories that occurred last night
Blacking out under the twilight
Stars crashing down on the rooftop 
Where elitists stare unoriginal 
Doesn’t bother me much
I’ll try and find their stash and share it with worthy list souls 
Sh*tty party on repeat
Cliques tapping their feet simultaneously 
Soaking in the sulfuric summer heat
Drinking and grinding your teeth
I wouldn’t trade any of these moments 
Trying to remember what shoes I wore
What f*cking hat she had on
I want bottles and bags within my reach at all times
The best lines written went up my nose 
Carved in my initials
Choking down piss warm beer with the knot in the back of your throat
Pour a shot
Make a toast
To your fruitful dissociation 
And, ghost everyone 
Recover your faculties in social isolation

Trolls

Reactions trolls give never give me negative
more the opposite, a great positive
seeking to collapse my spirit until forgotten
attracting spirit of "thank God I'm not them"

If the song to you sombre
and you protest in comment
making unhappiness last longer
cause negativity more constant

when I'm displeased I will move on
search a pleasing as is my need
I don't comment like a moron
wait for miserable replies to read

psychology sits sorrily 
as you cliche unoriginal
septic personalities
to me only pitiful

you distribute your negative,
in life this what you do,
a gift of positive,
pleased I'm not you

Unoriginal Sin

Did you flavor it with Hemingway,
or season it with Thoreau

Did you structure it like Eliot,
or was Melville more your go

The rocks you choose to stand upon,
supports to look beyond

As you add your face onto the mountain,
new words inscribed in song

Past voices serve to push you,
to that place you’ve never been

Where your breath may cleanse forever,
the stain
—of unoriginal sin

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Rose In the Garden

I am far from enamoured by the Rose.
The colour most gifted is often red.
Unoriginal it is mostly chose.
Men lay soft petals upon lover’s bed.

Do women not imagine so much more?
Other flowers that will not prick their skin!
Instead perhaps bright Sunflowers adore.
Neglecting other blossoms is a sin.

Select a yearning yellow daffodil,
or single splendid Poets Narcissus.
With these a glass vase I would rather fill.
Could they not garner a passionate kiss?


I’m enamoured by her in every way,
as I watch sweet Rose in the garden play.


“Not Just any old Rose contest”
Sponsored by Mark Massey.
Written: July, 26th 2018

Rice Bowl Retribution

Rice is necessary for eating Chinese food, at least in America
So, if you have intention of stealing my rice when I am getting seconds
face my rice bowl retribution

You use so much make-up I cant tell the difference between you and fried rice
You are so entitled that you think Mexican rice should just cross our border
You have caused so many problems for me that I had to eat Indian technical rice
You are so cheap that I can buy two microwaveable rice packets for less
You are more corrupt than squid ink rice in my stomach
You are more unoriginal than Chinese rice
You think you are the best, you are like rice in North Korea
But news to you, you are less than the rice in my stomach
This is my rice bowl retribution
ALSO, WHO EATS RICE WITH SALMON SLICES

Unoriginal Sin

Did you flavor it with Hemingway,
  or season it with Thoreau

Did you structure it like Eliot,
  or was Melville more your go

The rocks you choose to stand upon,
 —just supports to look beyond

As you add your face onto the mountain,
  new words inscribed in song

Past voices serve to push you,
  to that place you’ve never been

Where your breath may cleanse forever
  the stain,
  —of unoriginal sin

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2017)

Hallucinatory Prayers

Fallen upon knees in ashes of pipe dreamer’s infatuation 
chimera's collective stardust reigning through macrocosms,
world spins counterclockwise unrealistically bound hiatus
stained glass mirrors fracture in rhetorical opposition,
earthly beings condensed to mere commonplace residue
threadbare allegiances written on worn out constitutions,
idly spinning cogwheels from premier breath to closer exhale
angels hark intensely attempting to assuage inevitability
whilst calm winds yield to maelstroms' imitative gesticulations
forfeitures of human activity sacrificed in sins' germinal vices
banal platitudes reinforcing an elusively unoriginal existence,
dancing 'round the fire tween inquisitions' reluctant commendations
preparedness on conventional suspension of ill-advised reiterations, 
awaiting surrender 'neath an incoherent vigil's unorthodox rite of 
incarnate passages' disconnected resolve mid consequential rationale

 thereupon...

timelessness is but a variable symbol
    factored in mankind's hallucinatory prayers

Problems

Problems
          

So many problems came  to me
Like a sea of unbound mystery 
Bushwa of unoriginal thoughts 
Flooded   my own soul with 
trivial sights
I ve seen the minds speak all 
the void
The void has lost it's way for 
words
Problems become the night and 
day
When I was young my life was 
fair
But now I am grown, went 
through the pain
My heart is heavy, no delight
This panic, fear, pain, and dark
Have wrapped their hands 
around my heart
The voiceless voice of many 
counts
Tells me,"  hang on"My dear 
friend
We shall breath fire to the day 
These problems that flooded 
me
In them I saw my destiny

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