"acrostics" poems
I am not a poet
Because I don't have the
Vast vocabulary of most
And I can't tell you the
Difference
Between haikus and acrostics
And I don't know
How many stanzas make up
A "good write"
I am not a poet
Because I'm a psychopath
And I sip my coffee
From the wrong side of the mug
And I open my banana
Upside-down
And I tangle my heart
Into knots on purpose
Despite it's resilience
I am not a poet
No, I'd like to think
That I'm the poem
But I'm not that either
I'm more of a chaperon
For life's chaos
I watch over the panic attacks
And I coddle the over doses
No, no,
I am not a poet
How can I be?
When I've been tipping
And tapping
My shoes in the hall
Just waiting for doomsday
I've just been hoping
Praying
For this to be simple
For the sky to come crashing down
Because then I can say
That the bills
The rent
The schooling
The mainstream ********
Was all meaningless
I am not a poet
Because I can't make a good
Rhyme
And I'm not as clever
As I used to be
I am not a poet
Because I often succumb to the
********** of others' words
Because I know that
They said it better
Than I ever could
And I am not a poet
Because I'd rather quote
Those before me
Than find strength in my own
Broken syllables
I am not a poet
But I am the raw
And deep
Bleeding sore on the side
Of your mouth
That you can't help but chew at
That you could never possibly
Ignore
I'm not a poet
Because these words
Really belong
To the wind
And my pulse rests
In the Earth's crust
And my emotions
Connect in the sky
And my fingertips
Are made from stardust
No,
I am not a poet
*Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.
—Lawrence M. Krauss*
Oct 24, 2010
Oct 24, 2010 at 7:28 PM UTC
Life lessons - left unlearned
Our compulsion to stare at the sun - leaves eyes burned
Victory through union and acceptance - easily gained.
Escaping loneliness and its crimson stain
( entered in soulpoetrysite.com Acrostic competition---Jan 2010 WINNER)
**
Loneliness-
Overcome
Vapidity-
Escaped.
( entered in soulpoetrysite.com Acrostic competition--)
**
Lessons learned,
Our unblind hearts reveal our most
Valued visions are
Everywhere
**
Life Lessons learned,
Our unchained hearts reveal
Victorious vision
Escaping
**
Leaving
Out
Vaccuous
Emotion
Jul 18, 2010
Jul 18, 2010 at 2:45 AM UTC
Eleven to you
Star-crust in de stijl courts
Silhouettes and shadows
Speed boats race around the lake
On and on and on and on and
Guilty pleasures and guilty moldy blues
Sandwiches on the weekends
Pasta and pesto or gnocchi every other day too
Common mysteries follow the bayou
Heavy heads laden in niello swamps
Does acrostics in the daytime
Pleasures herself with crosswords on her days off
Sacks of coffee, potatoes and ivory- beer at 5am
Three fingers lay across the stitch
This needlepoint is something good
No one died but someone could
Heavy on the hops, melancholy Wednesday's
Miracles in wrestling Russian masters
Thwarting automobiles without their governors
Faster and faster they go
Growing faster and faster they show
Aug 30, 2016
Aug 30, 2016 at 8:46 AM UTC
Your name,
When aligned vertically,
Are formed into separate letters;
Letters turned into acrostics
You,
Just like your name,
Are an acrostic;
So many meanings
So many words
So significant
So indescribable
So you
You
Just you
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 10:04 AM UTC
Words wandered to express your charm
Poem could not portray your smile
Sonnet sauntered resetting the rhyme to your tune
Acrostics acquired feelings to fill out your name.
Free verse flied away fluttering it's words
Knowing it's about you. About you.
Ineffable beautiful soul.
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 4:26 AM UTC
.
Leap of faith
Object of affection
Vision of beauty
Eclipse of the heart
Lilly
Orchid
Violet
Edibble arrangement
Lusciously
Overflowing
Voluptuous
Enchantress
Lascivious
Osculatious
Virginous
Epicure
Lustful
********
Veracious
Eruption
Lady Love
Obscene Love
Velvet Love
****** Love
loving lovers loved lovingly lovable lovely love
Mar 15, 2014
Mar 15, 2014 at 7:29 PM UTC
We've shared secrets no one else would ever want to know,
but now your brothel hair has become a nest for dead birds.
Where once you were a wet marsh,
perfumed in tangy musk,
you have now become a dry
steppe covered in rotting fish.
I'm writing acrostics of your name,
remembering you like discarded tire husks
on Arizona's August freeways.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 7:43 AM UTC
A Friend?
Just A Friend?
But... but... there are so many that I all care so dearly about... -sigh- fine, I'll do it for someone that I care about and always write about anyways... :P Plus, I don't think he can ever get enough poetry written about him. ^^ yay for acrostics!
Kind-hearted to the core.
Independent.
Young, yet so wise in mind...
Underestimated.
Kawaii!
Irrisistable.
Intimidating when he wants to be.
Strong.
Helpful to everyone.
Incredibly caring.
Dangerous bad boy only when it's just.
******* I think not. More like Angel.
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
That five-seven-five is a scam,
Just nature plus seasonal spam.
A frog in a bog—
Wow! A leaf! And some fog!
It’s a tweet with a syllable jam.
Now limericks think they’re so sly,
With their jigs and their wink of the eye.
But their punchlines grow stale,
Like a bar yuck from Yale—
It’s the dad joke of poetry. Why?
Oh Shakespeare, forgive what’s been done—
Fourteen lines on a love that won’t run.
With their iambic moans,
And romanticized groans—
They're just Tinder swipes dressed as the sun.
Repetition’s the name of its game,
But by stanza three, it’s all shame.
You repeat and repeat,
Till your brain hits delete—
Was it clever, or just all the same?
Acrostics spell TRY HARD down the side,
A format no critic can abide.
Each line bends and breaks,
Just for symmetry’s sake—
And the message gets lost in the ride.
Free verse gets a pass, but just barely—
Too often it screams “Look, I’m arty!”
With no rhythm or aim,
Just vibes and a name—
Like a drunk giving TED Talks at parties.
---
There once was a muse unconfined,
Who laughed at each rule tightly lined.
When pure thought took flight,
It outshone every rite—
For raw truth outclasses form every time.
Mar 27, 2025
Mar 27, 2025 at 5:07 AM UTC
The words just come to me flying high
And lay on this page by,
This red ink of my favorite weapon
It is my most prize possession.
I mostly write in acrostics,
About most, are poems of what makes me ticked.
But from time to time you can hear me rhyme,
It just won't be all the tyme.
So hear me out, listen clearly now for time has come,
The days have grown shorter and it seems like everyone has a gun.
But I'll stay here with my most lethal weapon,
No, I won't do you any harm, just get your hands off my favorite possession.
Jan 22, 2011
Jan 22, 2011 at 5:50 PM UTC
We are possibility.
Nothing undone:
the red key swung,
the pins aligned.
Spite and Malice -
you won in Burque;
in Buffalo, in April,
I'll be writing in coffee shops.
Cage made fake acrostics
and clamoured more than us.
He watered himself in blenders
tacked his piano like stigmata.
But really, he just put the right letter
on the correct line (if he
ever wrote a line),
but our house was a mess
of books and skulls
and everywhere you looked
too perfect a nest,
so we tore ourselves apart.
Why don't we stop?
Someone will spend graduate school
anthologizing our correspondence,
analyzing the details we missed,
et al., hic et nunc.
The girls dancing in Budapest
and the guys making passes at you in the snow
reduce us to baser instincts
by counting how we
could, might, tentatively
hurt again
on our second-class driver's test.
Fortunately, I am with you
when you look at computer screens
and you're with me at the bar
when television commercials
show off their bras and the beer hits
harder than libretto
and snus drips down the candle wax
making arcs like the Scott Monument.
The imperfection is bliss,
the knots loosen and move
up our spines. We'll soak
the tub and swell
our glands with menthe
and tumble
further down the mud,
until we either love or ****
what makes us whole.
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 8:35 AM UTC
Beneath the barricades of lotus fronds
and flowers, lurks beauty, brains
all watching the goddess of shadows
seeking respite from the burning sun
and banter of imagery that clings
delicately to the fabric of questions
seeking anonymity.
Once in a while the curtains draw
and a face appears. smiling, seeking
showing a glimpse of magical moments
tempting, teasing, wonderful
carved in a flash of inner beauty
that straddles the page
and withdraws back into the
folds of wonder.
" I bet the suspense is killing you!"
Who am I?" She said sweetly.
I searched through all the pages of poetry
and people columns, ears to the ground
surging through swords and diamantes,
villanelles and wonders
swords and acrostics, aquatics
and wooded forests near tempered lakes
picnics and parks
and I watched the sunset settle
in a twilight sky of burgundy
and roses. All.
I did not find you heart beating
against my chest
or my words echoing its hypnotic
trance against your ears!
Anonymous it will be.
Feb 22, 2014
Feb 22, 2014 at 5:19 PM UTC
Silly me for thinking
I could be part of you.
Losing people is
Like being sane and
Yes I do mean "normal."
Maybe if I was "normal" then
Even I could be loved.
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 12:09 AM UTC
Hey! Can you hear me from the hell my love,
I and God want your shiny soul as breakfast,
Needing it when the countries start to settle,
To create a paradise that contains humans.
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 9:53 PM UTC
we call them
glory days
scraped elbows and
too much energy
we were waiting for
someone to crack
the can open and
release us.
drank too much
pop, jumped in
too many muddy
puddles and got
our clothes too *****
to look like anything
but carefree and
happy. we call them
glory days, rope
swings and crushes
that last four days
until we see someone
new who traded us
a pokemon card and
we played back-to-base
and that was our
first experience of
chasing something we
feel we can’t have.
we call them glory
days, as we scribble
hearts on our school
books and make
acrostics out of our
names and imagine
what their surname will
sound like and that
first peck makes you
feel like you’re growing
up but you welcome it
until it happens
but then i met you
and you became my
glory day and suddenly
i was 8 again, seeing
how high i can go
on the swing and
leaning back to let
the wind turn my
stomach
upside
down
you are my glory
day; all the sweetness
of summer; all the
energy i release in
the form of love only
happened because you
cracked me open and
planted flowers within
all my dark spots, all
the hollow crevices,
all the monsters within
me afraid of the light
you shone a torch at
and i have never felt
brighter. you are my
glory day and i
am doodling love hearts
on all my body parts
in all my notebooks
because you are the
freest i have ever felt.
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 5:48 PM UTC
When I shake my head I can hear it swish and I know I let some out but there is still more
My hands are not yet cramping, are not yet begging to be rested
I must keep on going until I shake my head and it makes no sound.
Some say that every minute is too much
Some say everyday is too much
But I say it's not enough
it's better to have too much then not having any at all
So I keep on writing whatever comes to mind
I keep penning love poems
I keep typing acrostics
You can never have too much
Apr 27, 2013
Apr 27, 2013 at 3:50 PM UTC
_I am the Empire in the last of its decline,
That sees the tall, fair-haired Barbarians pass,--the while
Composing indolent acrostics, in a style
Of gold, with languid sunshine dancing in each line._ -Paul Verlaine, "Melancholy"
I am the Empire, in decline.
The elm tree is yellowing;
the rain-arm is broadcasting
from the cloud station.
I am the once-loved voice,
now a tired smear of memory;
the ghost of a market thrill,
a bed of smoke, a red register.
I am the Barbarian, grown fat
after the stuttering blonde pyres
are stilled: finger-flickers of ash.
I am the white noise nocturne
after the rerun is over.
I am the cathode ray,
the scent in the glass.
I am the Empire, in decline.
Sep 30, 2022
Sep 30, 2022 at 1:53 PM UTC
An Exercise in Alliterative Acrostics.
Ernie, ebulliently enthused,
But battered and bruised,
Understandably uneasy and upset.
Leaves lustful Larry, a ***** lad,
Lasciviously longing to live
Innocuously. Ivan, integratesvolves integrating
Every expeditious and essential
Needed necessities, necessary to negate
Terrible teasing Thomas, to terminate
All appropriate and aggravating
Noisy Norman notes! No negotiations can negate
Diabolical devilish deeds. Determination dictates
Exuding excessive energy, exterminates and excoriates
Nasty native nonentities. No naive niceties
Tackle tricky testy tasks, for tender tendencies,
Having hyperbole hopes, are hypothetically helpless
Unless usurpers unveil unsung university union
Sympathisers, seeking salvation, as sympathising.
Evangelists, exemplary and enthusiastic experts
Doctors, and dentists doggedly determine details definitely decide,
Ebullience and Enthusiasm exist!
Rhymer. March 10th, 2018.
Mar 10, 2018
Mar 10, 2018 at 7:29 PM UTC
A little bit of shameless rhyme
Could be a way to bide my time
Rendition of the muse's muse
Of which I am inclined to choose
Simple words from simple thoughts
Timeless classics I have not
Inside my my mind wherein I try
Carefully, to learn to fly
Serenely through a paper sky
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 4:14 PM UTC
Never a better day shall there be!
My book has been published.... finally!
By Choice Publishing just so you know,
It's called "Out of My Head" by...Damo.
A "Somewhat Haphazard Collection
of Original Rhyming Verse".... on
Life, Motivation, Relationships,
Mental Health, Mindfulness and friendships.
There are Rhyming Verses, sonnets too,
Limericks, Acrostics, Senryu, Haiku....
My thoughts, ideas and reflections
For each readers consideration.
I'm so happy my book is out there,
Hopefully you can find it somewhere
And should you choose my book to buy
I sincerely hope that you enjoy!
My thanks to all at Hello Poetry
For all the support you have given me.
It is very much appreciated....
Y'all helped to create "Out of My Head"
Apr 17, 2025
Apr 17, 2025 at 9:43 AM UTC
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate,
I've information rhythmical, poetical and lexical,
I know the poets of our land and quote their plays historical,
From Macbeth to Much Ado, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with rhythm hendecasyllable,
I understand assonance and refrain octosyllable,
About pentameter theory I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the style of poet Edward Hughes.
I'm very good at couplets and at blank verse very fabulous;
I know the seventy-one plays ascribed to Aeschylus:
In short, in matters rhymical, poetical, and lexical,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.
I know our poem-history, Caedmon's Hymn to Chaucer's works;
I can cite bards' acrostics with volatility in my vocal box,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In dialect ionic I can cite Semonides of Amorgos;
I can tell undoubted Aratus from Aristeus and Sophocles,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
Then I can write a decasyllable as a dactyl or tetrameter,
And tell you ev'ry detail of soliloquies in Shakespeare:
In short, in matters rhythmical, poetical, to elloquate,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.
In fact, when I know what is meant by a "septet" and a "sestet",
When I can tell at sight a literary from a prose effect,
When such affairs as odic and idyllic I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely 'to be or not to be' by Dane "Hamlet".
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern rhymery,
When I know more iambic than a novice in a nunnery
In short, when I'm audacious, vexatious and dilatory
You'll say a poet laureate has ne'er been so conciliatory.
For my alliteration knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters rhythmical, poetical and etiquette,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.
May 3, 2021
May 3, 2021 at 11:44 AM UTC
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate,
I've information rhythmical, poetical and lexical,
I know the poets of our land and quote their plays historical,
From Macbeth to Much Ado, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with rhythm hendecasyllable,
I understand assonance and refrain octosyllable,
About pentameter theory I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the style of poet Edward Hughes.
I'm very good at couplets and at blank verse very fabulous;
I know the seventy-one plays ascribed to Aeschylus:
In short, in matters rhymical, poetical, and lexical,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.
I know our poem-history, Caedmon's Hymn to Chaucer's works;
I can cite bards' acrostics with volatility in my vocal box,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In dialect ionic I can cite Semonides of Amorgos;
I can tell undoubted Aratus from Aristeus and Sophocles,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
Then I can write a decasyllable as a dactyl or tetrameter,
And tell you ev'ry detail of soliloquies in Shakespeare:
In short, in matters rhythmical, poetical, to elloquate,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.
In fact, when I know what is meant by a "septet" and a "sestet",
When I can tell at sight a literary from a prose effect,
When such affairs as odic and idyllic I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely 'to be or not to be' by Danish "Hamlet".
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern rhymery,
When I know more iambic than a novice in a nunnery
In short, when I'm audacious, vexatious and dilatory
You'll say a poet laureate has ne'er been so conciliatory.
For my alliteration knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters rhythmical, poetical and etiquette,
I am the very model of a modern poet laureate.
Jul 26, 2021
Jul 26, 2021 at 8:15 AM UTC
All
Characters
Represented
Orderly
So
That
It
Creates
Sense.
Nov 4, 2021
Nov 4, 2021 at 6:36 PM UTC