"cleverer" poems
There was once a child
born beneath the sign
of unburial.
She carried too much—
not in arms
but in tethered memory.
Things with no names,
only weights.
A cracked watch
that ticked in reverse.
A button from a coat
that no one had worn
in three generations.
A feather
from a bird
dreamt once
by her grandmother,
never seen again.
She believed—
as those marked by absence do—
that keeping meant remembering,
and remembering meant
nothing would vanish.
Others crossed her path,
offered to help unfasten the straps.
She refused.
They did not know
which talismans bled
and which only looked like wounds.
So she walked.
Through salt seasons,
through bone-rattling frost,
through forests with no floor
and skies that never asked her name.
The bag grew heavier.
She grew cleverer.
Silent.
And then—
on a day that wasn’t special,
under a sun that wasn’t kind—
she set it down.
Not as surrender.
As an experiment.
The earth did not crack.
The ghosts did not scatter.
Her shadow did not abandon her.
She sifted the contents.
Some were dust.
Some were still singing.
Some curled away like dried petals
and begged to be left behind.
She took a key.
She took the bell.
She left the rest
for the moss.
She walked on.
Not lighter, exactly—
but less governed
by the shape
of her grief.
Jun 18, 2025
Jun 18, 2025 at 10:23 PM UTC
Black widow, waiting for a strike,
Crouching small, behind your mike.
You love to see contestants cringing,
This is a quiz; it’s not a lynching.
Face ******* up behind her glasses.
I’ve seen better bums on lasses.
Centre spot on stage she poses,
A jagged thorn on jet-black roses.
She’d like us to believe, I think.
She’d never be the weakest link.
Superior look upon her face,
Shame about the old boat race.
What’s this I see? You have a degree?
Still, you’ll never be as good as me.
Who chose that dress? Don’t like the shirt!
She loves to dig and throw the dirt.
Oh! And you belong to Mensa.
I’ve never met anyone who’s denser.
This is a quiz, I hope you know?
You’re the weakest link; you’ll have to go.
She earns more money than the Queen.
She’ll never be an old has been.
Was she born or just invented?
Let’s hope the moulds been lost or dented.
Where do you come from? No don’t know it.
Still you’re common and you show it.
I’m from Liverpool; I’m a Scouse,
You ought to see my big fine house.
It’s easy when you have the answers; see!
Too believe you are much cleverer than we.
But you’re not that clever, Ann we think.
Oh and one more thing, I Hate That Wink!
Dec 29, 2009
Dec 29, 2009 at 11:52 PM UTC
**~~~~~Spoilers Ahead~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**
Didn’t know SH was so amazing,
A second degree mind palace,
He was keeping.
What we watched in an hour,
And were perplexed by, for days,
Had taken place in his mind,
In mere 300 seconds!
Baffled with the news of return of Moriarty,
He decides to solve a similar case,
That had occurred 120 years ago.
He recreates his whole life,
Complete,
With Irene’s photograph,
In his pocket watch.
Fits all the pieces in 1895,
All,
Including John’s witty wife,
Then enters the ‘cleverer one’,
And fatter this time,
Having already made a theory,
He asks Sherlock to do the leg-work,
Because Mycroft himself is busy,
Trying to beat his little brother.
The game is afoot again,
All in Sherlock’s complex brain,
He exposes the truth,
Of Mrs. Ricoletti’s death,
Just as he was about to know about Moriarty’s,
He’s is woken by his friend.
But he goes back again,
To complete the story.
To solve the mystery,
He goes to the Falls,
To again finish the problem,
The final problem.
But this time John interrupts,
In 1895,
And kicks Moriarty off the cliff,
To let Mr. Holmes happily, alone,
Complete the fall.
Now he returns to the present,
With a smile conveying I-know-it-all,
And he does know all about the villain,
His death, his plans,
And the rest.
Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 3:19 AM UTC
Zoe was a clever girl, and I wasn't surprised when she wanted to try a haiku-style piece, but it was even cleverer than I had expected, with a correct syllable count and a delightful punch-line.
**Slow-worm in the grass
looks at me with beady eyes
and puts its tongue out.**
(Note: the slow-worm is a legless lizard that looks like a small snake, locally quite common in England.)
I love the suggestion that the creature is being cheeky by putting its tongue out, while we all know - don't we? - that lizards do this to smell the air around them.
Aug 19, 2017
Aug 19, 2017 at 12:14 PM UTC
We play with the past,
us gawkers
laugh out louders
and marry the fun. Or
purchase t-shirts to remember
The Thinker plopped upon a porcelain throne
Rodin in the bowl
a powerful internal struggle
philosophy flushed for comedic blue cleanser
carved beautifully
The Vitruvian Man in full windmill
Townshend style
over strings in sextuplicate with limbs to match.
Perfection at eight heads high and
these amps go to eleven
The Persistence of Memory in any variation
so long as we don't have to consult our own dreams
Or Dali's
We shake the dust from our
feet and smile, forgetting things like The Thinker
was originally named The Poet
because that's not funny
and we're cleverer (more clever?) cleverer than that
Feb 6, 2013
Feb 6, 2013 at 11:17 AM UTC
Qualified Abstinence
I’ve decided - though not wholly -
As of morning’s bath - to put on hold
The daily custom, habit’s viewing -
NCIS, Dr Phil - suspecting as I do
That they are doing me some harm
Engaging, charming
as they are.
Mind as thought and mind as stomach,
Turn to worry, churn with fear
As states of things in world and home,
Play out the clearer,
Signs maturing in their chaos,
Ever growing, ever baiting;
Making brilliant, analytical dear Phil
Ever more mouth-watering.
Well-loved NCIS plays its part,
Portraying nations torn apart
With ever cleverer technologies
And cleverer–type baddies
Getting ‘theirs’ from even smarter good guys.
If then, strong enough to not back off,
The morning TV staying off,
Then maybe, only maybe
This old belly
Can restore its tranquil peristalsis,
Family squabbles turning babble to a kiss.
Phil, dear Phil, continue to be wise and kind!
NCIS’ cast: brave, cuddly and seasoned -
Flag unfurled, continue to engage yourselves
In world salvation!
Stationing my thoughts in action,
I must leave you both
To carry myself into truth
As cellular Arlene conceives, perceives,
Inherently achieves it.
(If, of course, l don’t fall back into the -
(crude, ill-mannered rude word) shit!
Qualified Abstinence 7.20.2014
Pure Nakedness; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin
arlene corwin poetry.com
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 2:29 PM UTC
The man was truly strange
Hiding cards behind his clever fingers
Cleverer than me.
He winked down my hood
And laughed
Who he was was not important
In the circus tent
Nothing held power like the cards
And he said
'I deal in cream and grey,
Put a cross in my hand and
I am what you say I am.'
And now he has a roguish smile
His feet turned up and
The bell rang
I put down the pencil
And he froze
Never to move again
He dealt in cream and grey
He delved in graphite and imprints
Nobody told him otherwise.
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 10:05 AM UTC
She lay there:
So peaceful and tranquil it seemed
nothing would ever trouble her.
Her parents gazed fondly at their
perfect little girl
As the tears escaped their eyes,
Falling endlessly.
By her fifth birthday,
She had said her first word,
Developed a taste for chocolate,
Seen some of the big, wide world,
And recognised the thrill of laughing
uncontrollably.
At seven,
She made a new friend,
Fell out with another,
Read some new books,
And was always fascinated by her
geography lessons.
When she turned eleven,
She joined a dance class,
Went to France with school,
Baked some cupcakes,
And begged her mum to let her try on her
high heels.
Thirteen years of her life gone,
And she had her first kiss,
Argued with her parents,
Handed in a homework late,
And wished she was prettier, taller, thinner,
cleverer.
She was sixteen
When she had seen too much of the big, wide world,
And knew reality in all its cruel coldness.
She wore lots of makeup
And a fake smile to mask her
feelings.
It worked.
Until
She whispered,
“Take me to Wonderland.”
And shot herself in the head.
She lay there:
So peaceful and tranquil it seemed
nothing would ever trouble her.
Her parents gazed fondly at their
perfect little girl
As the tears escaped their eyes,
Falling endlessly.
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 11:28 AM UTC
The next act, of adrenaline
Supposed forces, to win a kinder stare
Through the looking glass, as if shine
Is a wall to itself, patience and their horses, fare
A race to the more, ever and stone sore?
Of a friends cleverer smile...
Same to how, we found your quarrel
With me, a simpler distance to while...
Mean or main stay...
This moment, made for the devil and the blue sea
Meant, in time with sour notion, pain
Is the only force we see, for a man or woman in love, deem...
A hat of errors, that knew you for a wiser momentum
A whine of distant feelings, that shares the known, to be
A callous share in proof, that has the time to question a room
A singing candle? awake at the touch of a lover, is my kiss anarchy?
Hate a rhyme to begin, with a resolve in the rage of another?
Spite, carnal license, and hopeful sycophants of a rule of thumb
With your name on it, and my cares, the risks of loving a bother
With your needs and vice, as a charity we will know is succinctly won...
Heroines, with a table to eat from, timidly share a savior
Heroin's, with a resolute few, is here to skip the wisdom of done who
Hero's, with a tap to ply and explain, are a safety's warrior
He, with an excused hand has a reason to be, to the patience we do too...
Jan 4, 2023
Jan 4, 2023 at 8:11 PM UTC
Winter Peter noticed him from the stares of the village children. He whittled away as he waited for the stream that never came, and the child stood because old Peter made five nails and five splinters.The child could see no more eyes when he peered across the bench with a pair of boots and holes with so many windows. Darkness, the coffeepot, the stove, and the child asked two large slices of bread my name, and a bowl of coffee drank the hot bench. "Aren't you the eyes?" the floor asked Peter, the boy, the shavings, and the other boy.
"What?"
You eat your third well sorted slice and still I could do with the truth and the boy's eyes. "Yes, he said Thursday shall have a silver trade." But the cold looked at the bed behind the stove ready to cry. Sleep, then the patience, my young princes murmuring in low voices.
"So who is dead?"
"My mother is dead."
"You don't live either, so take three young brothers and..."
"And what?"
"End the family of one young boy on the side of the mountain."
Six on his workshop could be useful, and meanwhile I could give him baskets in the morning. All that day he (from dawn till dusk) sent away baskets of things (every night). Now and then the bears and wolves my sister prays for gave away some advice on the ways of those cleverer than they. Prayers will always be nothing.
Mar 8, 2011
Mar 8, 2011 at 9:21 AM UTC
I was born to superficialities and arrogance
by parents, now divorced
I managed the local Comprehensive down the road
and left with some O'levels in woodwork and home Economics
I grew up watching TV and playing computer games
I like to drink and go out and have spent two weeks in Benidorm
I follow all the street fashion and hang out a lot with my mates
I think what others think and do what others do
So please come and put things in my mind, come sow seeds
Anchor my mind to anything you chose
because you can alter my mind and manipulate my emotions
I don't know who I am, I am available because like you and you
I do not have a mind of my own, I cannot reason and act on my own
all my life I just do what others do or what has been put in my mind
Sensitise me to black, because black has only one reference in my mind
Sensitise me to a love that never was, because I've never loved before
Sensitise me to white because I watch interracial **** you see
Sensitise me to pink, orange and green they only conjure one thing
in my mind
Set up drama and play out scene, it all goes straight to my mind
I am a clockwork orange at your command
Tell me I am lonely and worthless because you know best
Knowledge is power as deciphered by crooks and Extremists
who know we buy into and believe anything they tell us
Make them fat juicy lies and distortion because truths is boring
get us busy with manipulating our minds by telling us we are
manipulating the mind of a clockwork orange
So please fill my mind with ******* sow a thousand seeds
You can manipulate my emotions, you can alter my personalities
I have no self will, I have no self control, I have no discipline
I have no confidence because morons are cleverer than Me
I am just a nobody from the local Comprehensive
I only learn and grow from what you show me, say to me
act in drama in front of me or prompts and triggers dropped.
I am just a clockwork orange, so peel me and squeeze my mind
as you wish
I am just a mindless hooligan wasting my time and efforts in
what the Leaders calls POWER OF THE PEOPLE
They tell me MAJORITY WINS ALL THE TIME, THEY TELL ME
THIS IS POWER!
Feb 28, 2019
Feb 28, 2019 at 10:22 AM UTC
The sun had not even risen when
Delaney opened his eyes,
To colours, bent through a prism, and
Rotating there in the skies.
He thought it might be the Northern Lights
But they’re not seen that far south,
And with them came a crackling sound
To sow the first seeds of doubt.
He rose and walked to the window,
To stand by the sliding door
That led to his private balcony
On the hundred and twentieth floor,
The world below was in darkness and
In shock, he began to shout:
‘Hey Mary, get up and look at this,
The lights of the city are out!’
The lights of the city were out, all right,
There wasn’t a glimmer of light,
In all the teeming metropolis
Not even a car’s headlight.
Mary sleepily rose from bed
And joined him there by the door,
‘It isn’t the dark that does my head,
What’s that on the balcony floor?’
And there in the shade of the balcony
Was standing a monstrous beast,
Its talons several inches long,
Its beak was a foot, at least,
It suddenly opened enormous wings
Then steadily folded them back,
With eyes that promised a thousand things
And one, the threat of attack.
It saw them there through the plated glass
And rushed across for its prey,
Hit the glass and it looked surprised
The two were backing away.
‘Call the firemen, call the police,
That thing will need to be shot.’
‘The signal seems to have gone astray,
And the cell phone’s all we’ve got!’
The sun came up through the morning mist
And it lit the city square,
Delaney got his binoculars,
Nothing was moving there.
The power was out, so there was no doubt
They were locked in their flat, for sure,
The door to the stairwell wouldn’t budge
On the hundred and twentieth floor.
No light, no heat, and down in the street
No cars that streamed that day,
It was just as if electricity
Had suddenly gone away.
Their door had a pin, and powered lock
As did every door below,
A hundred and twenty floors locked in
With nowhere they could go.
The day wore on in the morning sun
And the birds had multiplied,
Looking like pterodactyls they
Swooped over the countryside,
And five came down on the balcony
Of Delaney and Mary’s flat,
The food in the fridge was spoiling as
The ice dripped out on the mat.
They couldn’t cook, they couldn’t eat,
They couldn’t open a can,
The electric opener wouldn’t work
Nor the cleverer works of man,
And the pterodactyls sat in a row
Out on the balcony floor,
With eyes of hate they would sit and wait
Til someone slid open the door!
David Lewis Paget
Jan 7, 2015
Jan 7, 2015 at 5:34 PM UTC
Pull "The dog says: 'Bark'"
Pull "The cat says: 'Meow'"
Pull "The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says: 'The human says:......
The human says: 'I can understand that.'
Sternly command that.
shear and plow and smelt and can that
I can make a plan
to catch and **** and roast and feast
on that hard quill and bristle beast
And I can stain his image on the living rock
no, not to mock
But to remember what feats we drew
up from ourselves
As the javelins flew
My hands are clever
They chip the stone, and scrape the wood,
and wind the sinew
My tongue is cleverer still
My words are the creeping shadow of my thoughts
And just as a shadow is drawn along behind,
and stretches in the late dying sun
And snaps to attention in the noonday swelter, to heel, obedient
My words precede me, and linger behind, and snap to my side to attack
And defend
And manipulate
For well you know, dear reader
That words move men to move mountains
They can drive him to brave the tusks and teeth
And reward him with praise, as the fire flickers against portraiture
Of a hundred beasts
Deadly, proud, roaring
And in the end, delicious.
How splendid am I
To suss out basic truths
From straight-line scratches
In the dirt
I can learn the rules
of all that ever was
And to learn, is to understand,
is to become unfettered
I can cleave, dissect, ***** inject
And figure it all out
And learn from a loosing bout
Every monster brought low
will be investigated
To see how we can end him easier
Until the last monster
Is man himself
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 9:45 PM UTC
Images and words
Are re-ordered
In ever cleverer circles
In the maelstrom
Of modernity
Distracting the brilliance
Of young minds
I release myself
From the mundanities
Of daily life
And ponder
The questions of a youth
Nations are destined
To rise and fall
Just as the buttocks
Of ardent lovers
Grind against each other
Flesh towards flesh
Advance retreat
In and out of freedom
To annihilate
The painful consciousness
Of our singular existence
I find
The minds of men
Incomprehensible
In the end
There is no destination
No everlasting physical
Only
Spiritual
Birth
Ageing
Sickness
Death
Four
Three
Two
One
NNnnnnnnnnn
Aaaaaahhhhhh
Sssssssssssssss
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 5:47 PM UTC
sitting here once again
numbers running through my brain
thinking
will i fail again
will i be a different person
with a maths degree
no i won,t
i,ll still be me
maybe i,ll be more clever
but will anybody see
that i,m a little bit more cleverer
if i,ve got a maths degree
i guess what i,m saying
is i was happy with before
and if it was,nt for my advisor
i would,nt have walked through your door
its surprising how the dole
can make us do these actions
by telling us if we don,t
they,ll bury us with sanctions
i actually dream at night
quite often you may know
of walking in the dole
and telling her where to go
so let me win the lottery
i,m praying to my preacher
let me win a mill or two
so i can be the teacher
Aug 4, 2016
Aug 4, 2016 at 6:02 AM UTC
Don’t Drop it Don’t!
Melodious music through the window,
Made me to get up to open the door;
Sight at the side – Now music –
Diminishes to me – come in!
Hai! Hai!! Excellent orator,
Well gentle breeze – Mmmm,
From the window – Ssss
I am for that Man!
Sweet talk, dynamic voice,
Majestic move may it twist,
Majority of Human trust,
Will win the game.
Service to nations by United Nation,
Not the only way;
But work for Human World,
Leave out individuality either as Man or Nation.
Vow that each should be,
A candle shine for others
Till last minute – As it
Shoot , name stand in the world.
Flying saucers from pearl planet,
Fulfill their motto,
Time comes the off shoot,
Turn the button of war.
Behold the world of peace!
By great cleverer - pearl
Like world is in the hands,
Of young Don’t drop it Don’t.
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 2:58 PM UTC
If I see a word hysterical should i laugh or pause and think
of historically used meanings?
Should I shy from Jew and say Semite, I exodus from meanings.
time is evident or sedimentary
grandeur, I leave it all to linguists, cleverer than I,
I change daily, accent
acquire meaning etymological like
Knight is a servant?
Lady a kneader, Lord a provider of bread?
And bread, It has new meanings, as does green, several.
Logos, is still what you hear, an example,
to justify, I apologize, for saying?
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 1:40 AM UTC
During dinner talk
I hear her say,
His poems are very clever.
She said it loud, and all could hear;
(she said it out of spite)
And some who heard her say it, thought,
Isn't she so nice.
Clever. Clever. Clever.
Clapped inside my head,
For earlier she reproached me
For not reaching out instead.
I should ladle bowls of soup,
Drive the elderly wherever,
Volunteer to save the planet,
Comfort those in need of such,
Or visit with the sick.
Clever. Cleverer. Cleverest.
So clever when she spoke;
I find it now so obvious,
She'd not read a word I wrote.
Jul 19, 2020
Jul 19, 2020 at 11:38 AM UTC
cleverer they are—
the better understanding. . .
ignorance is missed
Sep 13, 2017
Sep 13, 2017 at 4:43 AM UTC