Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Reece 4d
The sun was always brighter,
The sky, an endless tapestry,
The world’s hidden beauties,
Amplified in her dreams.

The crunch of fall under her feet,
As she jumped into a pile of leaves.
In a moment, the world was covered in snow, and she,
Smiled blissfully.
Springtime flowers bloomed,
The world covered in hues,
She saw good ol’ Mother Goose,
From the nursery rhymes she recalled when she was two.
She felt free,
In her dreams.

Adventure called from all around,
Knight’s boots clanking on the ground,
An ever-changing battleground,
Filled with overwhelming sounds.
Sometimes, the duels were in space,
Others, it was just a simple race.
Occasionally, she’d lose just for fun.
What does it hurt to mix it up?
After all, she was the god of her own world,
In her dreams.

The worlds she created,
Almost seemed real.
But dreams, consistently,
Have the same fictitious security,
That can distinguish whether it's fake.
She remembered when she was younger,
And she longed for endless dreams.
She wanted them to cross over,
An ambitious endeavor,
Now she longed to see the real sun.

In her dreams,
She’d wake up.
No more sleeping blissfully,
She needed to see the world again.
Look her mom in the eye,
And apologize for the accident.
If she were still alive,
She’d pray she hadn’t perished yet.

Her mother dreamed,
That her daughter awoke.
So, she drove to the hospital,
And watched as her heart broke.
She remained,
Comatose,
Her brain unstable,
And her heart rate growing low.
All because of teenage love,
Kissing blissfully and driving drunk,
Leading, inevitably to pain and suffering,
To all parties.
The man she was with,
Was already dead,
She’d be lucky,
If she lived.
She feared,
About all she’d miss.

How she found herself longing for the mundane,
If it meant she would receive one more day.
She’d never touch a bottle again,
And she’d leave her toxic friends.
How she wanted to brush her teeth,
The simple notion inviting reprieve.
Her mother’s pancakes were divine,
She wanted to devour them one last time.
She couldn’t believe she’d been so foolish,
To throw it all away.
She’d make sure to be more careful,
Till her final days.

Life seemed to be a blissful reality,
One that she’d trade anything to see,
All of its intricacies,
She wished she could take back everything,
In her dreams.
A darker poem, but one I've written for a competition. Tell me what you think!
P.S. Thanks for the support as of late! :)
Zywa Sep 23
The air is jingling

in three voices up there, and --


new worlds open up.
Paintings "La voix des airs" ("The voice of the air" / "The Voice of Space", 1928 and 1931 versions, René Magritte) - giant jingle bells

Collection "Untwisted"
CantSeeMe Sep 21
"scene 30 000, take 1"
"AND ACTION"

I imagined us dancing in the Park
right near
while I was looking outside the window
we called each other "dear"
I spun you around
your hand in mine
it was everything but fine
it was magic
not tragic
it was wonderful
not dreadful

your dress healed wounds
as it was spinning around
your eyes shone with youth
so happy I found

save
space

the moon passing by
the stars in the sky

we danced and danced
continuing on

"CUT"

"scene 30 001, take 1"
"AND ACTION"

passing the crosswalk
all in the dark

a car came

I screamed out your name

blood floods
a puddle of shame

death
I checked your breath

we didn't hear the car...

...but I did
silently
watching

eyes looking down
my brain with regret
for all what I said

"CUT CUT CUT"
"TRY TO LET THEM FEEEEEL THE PAIN"
"scene 30 001, take 2"

"ACTION"

little me stares at me
...she knows I'm spying
out of my window
here
her eyes are sad
she was everything she ever had
the body in her hands
a puddle of blood
saying I'm "no good"

my imagination is cruel
I say
it's warning me from hell
but my brain does not know
I want everything I tell

my brain continues on
"let's move on!"
"you don't even like dancing"
"stop crying
before it's called dying"

"CUT"
*sigh
I was in fact looking out my window.
I imagined us dancing, not a fantasy, but a real moment that never happened.

I was waiting for a car to pass. Just standing there.
And in that stillness, I saw it all: the closeness, the crossing, the crash.
It didn’t happen… but in a way, it did.

why I wanted a car pass? idk I guess my brain says I always need to be alone, even if I know that won't help...

I would dance with you, because all the things I don't like seem stupid now, it's all holding me back, maybe it's like Charlie Mackesy says "that's the wild, don't fear it", but I'm not ready Charlie... maybe I'll never be... we'll see...

I think I like the idea, but how more I read it how stupid the poem is, to me it was a whole scene playing in my head, I don't know how to put everything in words...
Faith Cubitt Sep 18
I know my memories not the greatest, but I would have sworn you made me a promise....
it was in the beginning of August
you told me you loved me, you'd never forsake me
the vows made in the moonlight, now they break me
don't you remember?
weren't you there too?
maybe it's my imagination thinking you had loved me
but you hands were all over me
the passenger seat?
the Sunday's?
your parent's back yard?
all of our secrets thrown around
didn't you mean it?
or maybe I dreamed it....
I'll never forget it....
RT Naintial Sep 12
Everyday i fall anew into your arms
and trace lining of your clothing.
It is white some days and none at all in nights.
Yet i trace, i trace, i trace it all over just like i paint you when i'm in need. Need.
The need of you is extreme.
Over nights i brawl in bed,
shrinking myself with the need of existence from you.
My tears weep across the floor and the water drips elegantly.
I await on your arrival.
the arrival of you in my arms sweats my windows.
I tend to draw hearts on it but you engulf me in your affection which paints vivid colours in my eyes.
I gasp for air- only to meet your lips. Our meet greets were just about one thing and it was enough for me.
Over time your touch became soft and slow.
So, so, so, soft and slow i forget that you're a fragment of my imagination. Someone on train who i thought would console me and my lonely thoughts.
Someone so magnificent i daydreamed an entire life of affection. I could write poems, sonnets, novels yet it would still not be enough to catch the spell i'm under in for someone who made me feel.
Just feel.
Feel all the hidden.
I was in one of the feels which randomly strikes and wrote it about it but these type of poems are my favourite as they come naturally to me.
Zywa Sep 6
I'm floating on mists,

without legs: the Witch Mountain --


early at daybreak.
Novella "The daylight gate" (2012, Jeanette Winterson), chapter "The daylight gate" (ground fog)

Collection "Silent walk"
Shane Aug 18
A painter paints a canvas full of pictures;
A picture paints a moment trapped in time.
A poet writes a poem to be pictured;
A poem paints a picture in the mind.
Mark Toney Aug 18
“For once in my life, I want to be a poem” — Anne Winter

If I were a poem
Could my poem be a poet?
If such could be done
Who besides me would know it?

If my poem—as a poet—wrote something new
Could I as a poem be the other poem too?
Or would I simply exist on a document list
Along with other poems that coexist?

(As a poem I would be …)

Living on the edge of poetry forms’ parameters
Running ever changing rapids of trochees and iambs
Line dancing varied rhythms of iambic pentameters
da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM ad infinitum

Dancing two-step footles with the poem of my dreams
Braving slalom ski runs of Klein’s Vase Verse
Climbing lofty peaks of Heroic Crown of Crowns
Then doing it all over again in reverse

(I do have a poetic license you know …)

I think of such thoughts from time to time
When my muse is confused and obtuse
Especially when finding it hard to rhyme
My head flooded with thoughts most abstruse

What would it take for me to be a poem
Vice versa my poem to be poet?
The very next time my muse starts to roam
I’ll try to find out—don’t you know it!



© 2025 Mark Toney
Light verse. © 2025 Mark Toney. Inspiration for this flight of fancy was “Poems and Poets” by poet Anne Winter. A Footle is a two-line, two-syllable trochaic monometer poem with an integral title suitable for light, witty, pertinent, topical verse. Klein’s Vase Verse is a copyrighted poetry form created by Suzette Richards. (2025) An Heroic Crown of Crowns is a collection of fourteen heroic crowns (of sonnets) linked together with the final, or fifteenth, being comprised of the last sonnet of each of the fourteen to become a heroic crown of master sonnets.” (Mind Blown!?!)  Remember, too much iambic pentameter can bring on the medical examiner!
Mark Toney Aug 17
You may consider it extremely odd
I’m so easily influenced by a cephalopod
Eight arms, three hearts, blue blood, nine brains
All unique, yet something else remains
The most important fact on which to think?
Cephalopods, like poets, possess special ink


Oh Octopi

Oh Octopi up in the sky
I wonder why you are so high
Don’t mean to pry but please reply
I have to try to reason why
Why are you shy? Why can you fly?
Please tell me why and do not lie

     We're Octopi. On us you spy?
      Imply we're shy? Imply we lie?
       Don't wonder why we’re in the sky
        Do not defy and do not pry
         Do not decry — That’s our reply
           Quickly comply! We do not lie

Oh my, oh my, I'll never pry
I'll not decry nor you defy
I will comply, on me rely
Oh, Octopi up in the sky
You do not lie! So high you fly!
To you I bid adieu — Bye-bye!



© 2024 Mark Toney
Rhyme and Monorhyme. © 2024 Mark Toney. Rhyme (first stanza) — Eight arms, three hearts, blue blood, nine brains, and special ink. If that doesn’t describe a poet I don’t know what does! ;-)
Monorhyme  (Oh Octopi) — Octopuses have eight limbs, of which six are used as “arms,” so I’ve written the Oh Octopi portion with six-line stanzas of eight-syllable lines. Method to my madness? You betcha!
Notes: Originally published 10/24/2024 on PoetrySoup. Linguistically speaking, I acknowledge that the preferred plural of octopus when speaking and writing in English is octopuses. I chose to use octopi since it works better with my monorhyme. Octopi ocassionally appears in published works, but it's seldom used. Mirriam-Webster says, "The -i ending comes from the belief that words of Latin origin should have Latin endings in English (while octopus may ultimately come from Greek it had a stay in New Latin before arriving here) ..."
Thomas W Case Aug 17
As a child, the backyard was
my sanctuary and my
playground.
I climbed the soft
pine tree and crawled to
the top of the garage.
I stood and gazed at all the
houses and streets.
I felt rich.

My mom had a brown
jewelry box shaped like
a treasure chest.
It reminded me of
pirates and adventure.
I filled it with
football cards
gum
candy bars
family pictures, and a few
coins.

I found a small shovel
and buried it in the
backyard close to the
pine tree.
I pretended to forget
where it was.
A week or so later, I
suggested to my best friend,
Wally, that we should
search my yard for buried treasure.

Of course, we found it.
I acted surprised.
We celebrated.
All these years later,
I realize that my treasure,
then and now, is imagination.
I'm a wealthy man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Noa4ztEUFDA
Here is a link to my you tube channel where I do poetry readings from my latest books, Seedy Town Blues, It's Just a Hop, Skip, and a Jump to the Madhouse, and Sleep Always Calls.  They are available on Amazon.
Next page