"colon" poems
Whether a comma, or colon:
Punctuation slows my rolling
I need no period. When I end
no Capitalization when I begin
Rulelessly I flow my art
Not a single!
Exclamation mark
Are you not the one
Who'll know?
Where a question mark
No longer goes
Warp the structure
Bend the lines
Put in repeat
Let emotion unwind
Make yourself
Your poetry's the best
Be your own ruler
Pass your own test
Take your own road
Where ever it leads
Lover or hater
It's all poetry!
Oct 8, 2019
Oct 8, 2019 at 5:19 AM UTC
1. Find a Poet Not a poser, not a "it's just a hobby" poet. Find one who mumbles lines as they scramble for a pen at breakfast; who shakes their head randomly when their thoughts aren't rhyming properly; who has notebooks stashed around the house that you must never touch.
2. Listen Savor the spoken words, for those are harder to express. Keep in mind that they can't be edited and re-written, and be forgiving when a mistake is made.
3. Read The body speaks as loudly as words on a page do. When their eyes are closed or focused on the ceiling and the fingers are tapping out syllables, recognize the unique process. Respect the need for quiet, because if you look closely, you can read the poem on their face before they write it on the page.
4. Write Write your story together. Grab hold of the pen and hang on as you move across the page of life. Sometimes you will dance across, others you will be dragged. You may have to cross out a word, or a line, or a page, but don't give up. Discouragement is a poet's biggest enemy, inarticulateness their biggest fear. So end each day with a semi-colon, because the story will never end the way you think it will, and there must be room for more. There is always room for more, more words, more laughter, more tears, more love,
When you love a poet.
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 7:28 PM UTC
my subject, mrs. ((brown?))
for this speech is
going to be: obesity. ish.
you see I remember
the article you handed out to us,
loos-leafed,
fresh-pressed,
a dry white piece that told,
in simplest terms,
the most inarguable & bland facts
about !healthy eating & !weight loss!
but mrs ((whatever)), I want
to tell n and the entire
******* crisp class,
that obesity is a load
of steaming ****
from someone who’s really fucki
ng sick (you know how much
better it stinks then)
that obesity
was made to be glorified,
I don’t tell you this—
I ****** jiggle it to you,
grab my santa clause puch and
shove it at you--
tick tock
we wait for the clock
to tell us what
s to come,
except it makes us guess
--see this:
a mid-age woman, mother,
fat & previously fat,
goes in for stabbing pain in the chest, or
chronic diarrhea,
seeing stars & no energy left.
((this happens))
the doctor says,
well let’s weigh you n see
if you’ve lost
the weight I told you to lose before
remember Sharol
now Sharol..,,,, sweety…..
you weigh 55.62 lbs over the
state-set “healthy limit”k,
so we’re just gonna give u these
diet pills & I promise they work,.
all nach-yer-awl u see, none of that
waterweight ******** [! excuse my language]
and in about 3 months you’ll lose
half that overweight,
and I promise the starsll go away and you’ll
feel right tip top okay now that’ll be
$60 & come bac k in a month to tell me
how much you’ve lost okay
haha but that’s alrightright?
she was unhealthy
&
doctors make you healthy
only her brain cancer maybe, or like, colon
cancer or literally anything other obesity
kills her in about 3 months
bc the **** doctor would only
pretend that she cared
what
was
wrong with Sharol, sweety…,,,
im sharol and so are you and
so is your uncle & so is
your mother, probably
because most of us are “obese”
& the only cure for obesity
is the cure for the term
“obesity” you see
May 3, 2016
May 3, 2016 at 3:50 PM UTC
They say that smell
Is your strongest sense
When tied to memory.
That just a whiff of a smell
Or even thought of a
Smell can bring you back
To a place and a time that
You had previously
Thought were left behind.
For me the smell of
Bleach is comfort, as my
Nanny used it as a
Standard, household
Cleaner. I love that smell
As well as of my favorite
Dinner, mildew (reminds me of summers spent
At camp, living out of a trunk) and
My favorite flowers
Each of these smells I
Love to revisit time and
Time again. One smell
Though has embedded
Itself in my memory and if
I have my way, I’ll never
Smell it again.
Mom had Colon cancer most
Of my time in
High school.
No clue on the stage
But it was best not
To
Ask
Surgeries, chemo, radiation, the
Whole
Nine
Things seemed to be fine,
Well, even great
Until it took a turn
My mom has never been
Skinny; she is petite, but
Normal
Suddenly she looked like
A holocaust victim
She would get quiet
Draw into herself
For periods of time
Another surgery. Fine
She returned home
And then something crept in
That something was death
And I’ll never know how I knew
You just know.
The smell of something
Dying
Isn’t pleasant
It puts you on edge
And turns your stomach
Mom was confident
That she was getting better
The smell, that can’t
Be described (dying tissue, pain
Suffering) was glaring
To me
I never asked Mom or Dad
If they could smell it
Because the smell of Death
Isn’t a sense that should
Be shared
I would just maintain that
I didn’t think
Something was right
A day or so later
Surgery. Fine. Home.
Smell.
Surgery. Fine. Home.
Smell.
Surgery. Fine. Home.
After that last
Surgery. The smell
Left. But even now
When I think back
To that time
That complicated time of
Soccer games
Chemotherapy
Apply to college
Surgeries
The one thing in the
Foreground
Is
That
Smell
Just a whiff of death
Of human decay
Of dying
Of suffering
And I’ve had my fill
For a lifetime
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 1:58 AM UTC
The darkness upon your face is beautiful
while the world is vast; winding rivers take over the nightfall,
I think about your face during the night,
when the moon and owls sing; while I am the moon
Mountain peaks are covered with snow; the world turns endlessly
yet I am still a Gemini by birth; my thoughts are forever changing,
A semi-colon representing my thought process,
forever endless and a constant stream,
like rivers at the nightfall, of dissimilar mindsets.
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 11:19 AM UTC
You asked me my name in your first remark
We sat on opposite ends of a question mark
You were dashing - made me pause,
me, this independent clause
standing alone,
I made sense on my own
But I answered you anyway.
Ellipses.
Now you are the verb in my heart’s contraction
I am the subject and you are the action
An Interrogative with a Declarative reaction
An Exclamatory and then an Imperative attraction
Ellipses.
Your lips ease
Me, the direct object of your affection,
but never sentenced to an apostrophe’s possession
perhaps more true- a plural “s” suggestion
and the excitement behind an exclamation point’s inflection
The semi-colon understands
We can be on our own, but we want to stand
together
where our letters
aren’t fetters,
but the typesetter’s
better measure
of linguistic pleasure.
We communicate through metaphors and similes
Like the birds and the bees
We speak across homophone lines
to keep a census of our senses at all times
Because words said aloud have allowed
us to find meaning behind the utterance of sound-
mere words and phrases
jumping off of pages
into brain and heart and soul
when the parts become a whole
And with the syntax, punctuation, grammar, and usage
I’m a hopeless semantic always trying to ****** it
Language- yours I understand through the myriad.
Words can’t capture you. Period.
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 10:50 PM UTC
the narrative does not cling to classicalism of stating whether the pronoun usage is either singular or plural or both to allow an armchair of expression; after all... there's enough for us to bypass the classical philosophical debate about subject and object, simply investigating pronoun usage in relation to singularity or pluralism.
there’s a theory where poetry came from,
one read: cleopatra wanted to hear sweet-nothings
calibrating a razor with a viper’s kiss...
another read: she báthory?
she báthory? she the one that turned milk into blood?
she can burn in hell.
i thought we were un-dialectical in the realms of concern?
no... you see... poetry came from punctuated-impressionism...
or a fear of it... punctuation of course, not from the impressionism...
poets fear punctuation...
give them a semi-colon
and
they
treat
it
like a sidelined line of verse.
this is poetry in mathematical equations:
i had a pear(,)
it was a spare(.)
i had a care for traffic(-)
so i missed( )
the expressions and started using an obelisk to quarter up the mammoth
into chop suey...
poets simple say: next line! when prose says next paragraph
and the prized execution of the 100m sprint . . . (.)
that’s universal alpha romeo with alfa bravo charlie delta (echo)...
come on in the u-turn... give us a smile......... :),
poets says... i need breathing space
without sentenced timing of silence, for the toad to feed inspiration
and envy!
no wonder you came with the alpha - zulu
alphabet given that you used ɪɡ and zoʊ...
so tell me... where’s this copernican west upside down
(this heliocentric west with east being the big bang)?!
i'd swear the thing stopped orbiting in circles
and a thing that's on it's thought started to become
orbital... a fashion sense of the 60s 70s 80s 90s repeated -
that's right, the whole thing became heliocentric
and we became narcissists instead of solipsists
in the geocentric system of worked-up plagiarism
with adequate excuses.)
it's here it the poets apprehensive of punctuation symbology
and instead writing "sparingly,"
to write, e.g.:
i
hate
this
love
affair
claimed
to
be
the
world...
i
rather
chisel
chequers
into
geometry
of
x4
90º.
makes sense poets begot fear of
punctuation and not grammar, they
serviced to explore nothing else,
leaving grammar open long enough to *****
mathematics in... remember...
poets are firstly concerned with punctuation...
secondly with grammar...
philosophy for poets is grammar;
**** i'm um um so drunk i'll need to revise.
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 9:27 PM UTC
At my high school reunion
Years from now
In the old gym
They'll ask, whatever happened to us anyway
I won't have an answer for them
It'll be a shoulder shrug
Upward palms
And a colon backslash face
They'll move on to my son
Or work
Or school
Or some distant memory which will undoubtadly begin with, "remember that time"
And most likely end with, "those were the days"
And while they move on with their conversations
I will still have a colon backslash face
And my mind will be in a completely different time machine than the prom queen and the class clown
I will
By the end of it all
Have devoted what I can only imagine to be significantly more time than alotted
Thinking about what did ever happen to us anyway
And when I go home to what I anticipate being a beautiful, intellegent, loving wife, girlfriend, fiancee thing
She will
For a moment
Or possibly two moments
Not measure up to you
And I hope she won't notice my colon backslash face
That she'll end up smiling until she falls asleep
The morning after my high school reunion
I will stand in front of my mirror
And for much longer than two moments
I will not measure up
To the man you could have made me
And I will notice
I will start by ******* in my gut
Running my hands through my hair to try and imagine myself with a different style
I will analyze my wardrobe
And half way through auditing my music collection I will fall to the floor
I will cry
And with you in the forefront of my mind
I will
In true movie scene fashion
Whisper to no one
Whatever happened to us anyway
And worse than not having an answer at the reunion
I won't have an answer for myself
In an empty living room
Because I really don't know whatever happened to us anyway
One day we were
The next day we weren't
It was so adult
I was so civil
Even our break-up will be the best I ever had
The day before my high school reunion
I will cut my hair
Trim my arm pits
And clip my beard
I will iron a suit
Pick a good tie
And I imagine
In front of a mirrror
I will
Be proud of the man I have become
In the years going forward
And leading up to that high school reunion
I will
As a matter of life's course
Have no other occasion
To ask myself
Whatever happened to us anyways
But never the less
One night
Years from now
That question
Will leave me paralyzed
Scared
Heartbroken
Lonely
And even if
I am not alone
My pillow will remember
For one night
Or maybe even two nights
How to smell like you
And my arms
If only for a half a moment
Or possibly one whole moment
Will
With no luck
Reach for you
Mar 15, 2012
Mar 15, 2012 at 6:47 PM UTC
The thing about dancing,
Is that it surely was invented post the 'mighty invention of music'
The might of music was such,
That the then tensile souls couldn't do much
And when some ******* back in the day
Thought he could probably get away
With being cheesy, without getting hit by a rock,
If he put down his words in a tune and wore a dancing frock
Whilst he was going at it on a cheese license, trying to compose a 'song',
This other bloke from down the road wondered where this
'sound' is coming from?
The music got to him, for he was the first to hear it apart from it's maker
He growled and stood up, to put his ale down in a magic shaker
And so he thought his colon would erupt
If he didn’t tap his feet to it with that ale he supped,
Completely unaware of the fact that shaking his head would be
soon to follow,
And so to speak, rest of his body, headed in a direction
that seemed perfectly hollow
And thus he made some gravity defying moves one after the other,
Hitting stacks of bread he just yelled, "Happiness rediscovered"
That piteous drunk soul was unaware that it would go on to
be know as ‘dancing’
If he were smarter or sober, he could have told it to the world himself with pride while prancing
What made him do it? Probably the music, probably he got laid twice the previous night,
Or his ex got divorced, yeah that would really end the fright
So he pounced on some meat and again shook his *****
Like he owed it to the world, like it was his duty
Whatever was the reason, in that magic season
The consequences of it gave us dancing & made mankind elevate
It was henceforth branded as a gesture to celebrate.
So let’s.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 2:14 AM UTC
Some of the first mecha featured in manga
& anime were super robots [スーパーロボット _sūpā robotto_],
ultimate, sometimes transforming into weapons
w/ superpowers. They are often one of a kind
products of an ancient civilization, aliens or
mad genius, are usually piloted by Japanese teenagers
& often powered by mystical or exotic energy sources;
Getter Rays, Photonic Energy, Ide, Spiral Power &c.
Sometimes they are formed from
a combination of a few weaker robots;
their abilities described as "quasi-magical";
w/ Miss America becoming less & less
a beauty pageant, it's only a matter of time
before Medusa inherits the mantle;
the revived gods of the ancient world
crossing the rainbow bridge to do battle w/
high-tech monster robots; AI meaning nothing to a flying fist;
Apotheosis, from Greek ἀποθέωσις from ἀποθεοῦν,
apotheoun "to deify"; in Latin deificatio "make divine";
also called divinization & deification;
is the glorification of a subject to divine level;
The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief in art where it refers to a genre;
Defecation is the final act of digestion,
by which organisms eliminate solid, semisolid,
or liquid waste material from the digestive tract via the ****
Humans expel feces w/ a frequency varying
from a few times daily to a few times weekly;
Waves of muscular contraction known as peristalsis
in the walls of the colon move ***** matter
through the digestive tract towards the ******
Undigested food may also be expelled this way,
in a process called _egestion_
Open defecation, the practice of defecating outside
w/out using a toilet of any kind,
is still widespread in some countries,
for example in India, home of the
heroic deities of Hinduism that evolved
from the Vedic era 2nd millennium BCE
through the medieval era, 1st millennium CE
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 9, 2018 at 10:09 PM UTC
Look up lucid, write it down.
Read a book, then skip town.
Share a smile, sell an frown.
Act a fool, act a clown.
Tell stories, try and match wits.
Complain, complain, give two *****
Catch your tantrums, throw your fits.
One hit wonders are still hits.
Shut the door, dim the lights.
Crash a party, get in fights.
Shorten days, lengthen nights.
There's no wind to fly the kites.
Watch the sky, see a flash.
Watch the road, miss a crash.
Colon followed by backslash.
A vampire weekend beats a monster mash.
But no one cares when you're human.
That's all you'll ever be.
No regrets, only lies to set the liars free.
Jul 20, 2010
Jul 20, 2010 at 9:36 PM UTC
I have a special interest in telling about my colonoscopy.
The doc cheerful, secure in his specialty, colon cancer being
the second leading cause of cancer death after lung tumors.
They can snip the precancerous polyps right out of you during the test.
At first the doc gave me the statistics but having paid 25 bucks for this
interview
I decided to make him explain the science. He was most comfortable
describing the physical architecture of adenomatous v. hyperplastic
polyps
but what about cell structure I said. He was vague about genes and
hormones,
I could have been chatting with an Electrolux salesman.
I wasn’t worried although my *** was burning.
Everybody dies, everybody, even Whitman and Emerson, so I browse
models for dying—
mine are middlebrow, saddlebow—John Wayne in The Shootist, Paul
Newman in Hombre—or hagiography
Plath her head stuck in an oven, Hemingway who ate his shotgun.
Anyway I was upbeat flirting with the nurse, a muse who has seen it all
before,
acting tough, which isn’t actually an act
you do your prep and say your prayers.
I thought I’d be in and out **** as you probably already know
the prep for this procedure is worthy of Gandhi. A day of fasting,
clear fluids only, and constant voiding.
You arrive at the hospital one spiritual chicken.
I reflected it can’t hurt, lose a little weight, remember who you are
without so much **** and flesh between you and the natural world.
Snipping polyps is like taking electrons to a lower quantum energy level,
nearer the nucleus, with fasting and ****** abstinence.
The art of total presence and abstinence, dependence on the Other for
future existence.
May 15, 2024
May 15, 2024 at 7:09 AM UTC
Opening sentence comma
semicolon full stop.
Next few lines lost to editing.
Sentence fragmented dot dot dot
exclamation mark.
Vague obscure reference
to personal experience.
Quotation marks hyphen
colon question mark.
New paragraph.
Assonance with dissident dissonance.
More lines lost.
Closing line
end of poem.
Aug 30, 2010
Aug 30, 2010 at 3:48 AM UTC
I play with these words out of boredom and habit.
There's so many of them! From "Aardvark" to "Zoo".
And then you add in all the odd punctuation
Like semi-and-hyphen; And Oh! Exclamation!
(and poor little Comma: He hops like a rabbit...
He's never quite sure if a Colon would do.)
I play with these words like a cat with a twitching
Small mouse in his grasp all squealing and itching
(the cat... not the mouse... for the mouse is a wreck...
With pussy's teeth grasping the small of its neck.)
The cat is quite happy! It just takes its time...
While Comma allows the Ellipsis the rhyme...
I play with these words and the dots and the dashes;
Parenthesis [brackets] and to/or/from slashes-
With all of the keys 'neath my ten little digits
"Somewhat like the cat with the mouse as he fidgets".
I've learned to write well from my Pa and my Momma:
Yet still I feel bad for that poor little Comma.
Jan 22, 2011
Jan 22, 2011 at 6:13 PM UTC
In a world full of more complex emojis
The simple smiley face stands alone
The one that adorned shirts and other paraphernalia long before the iPhone
It conveys a simple message too
Happiness
Something we all want, and need
But in the digital age, it's hard to tell by this colon and apostrophe
When someone is truly happy
After all
It's not our chosen punctuation that conveys how we feel inside
It's our actions
And you can't understand those through the phone
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 12:58 AM UTC
you were a beautifully constructed sentence
you were complete in thought and made sense
i wanted to be with you
i wanted to be a part of you
i thought i could be a period
and show you you how things end for us
then again, how about a comma
so we could pause and think of what's next
i also thought about being a question mark
so we'd both ask what we do not know
or an exclamation mark
to let your immense feelings show
an apostrophe maybe
to show the world that i belong to you
quotation marks, you see
i would enclose your brightest ideas
what about a colon
so we could begin a list of your dreams
maybe a semi colon
to join our common parts and themes
but i'll choose to be an ellipsis
so only i, can know and hide
some of your words and secrets
Jul 15, 2018
Jul 15, 2018 at 1:18 PM UTC
royals mistake the tears cried over animals, esp. those wild and not petted, as if they were man’s added 1 to a million ‘ stones in minature form of the sandy: see that singleton quotation mark? it’s different pause from comma semi-colon or hyphen, it’s the ironic pause - almost compounding the two words.
i skullhead i,
i the skullhead, i,
no more a body than a maxim,
i the tomb in stone
but in body a bone,
i skullhead i,
i the skullhead,
no more a body than a maxim -
why will not death wilt
before engaging in the lives or mortals?
why will death meddle in mortal amorousness
when it will not meddle in a death of a god?
**** you death!
meddle elsewhere! who are prone
to breathe the same air as you;
interesting lives make less
of a library than libraries readily mothering
the lives hardly lived but nonetheless written...
eager ***** in section 1,
less eager ***** in section 1.5
mature ***** in sectiont 2 of being crazed
by crosswords and those dumb books
written by young men who "diverged from living"
given horse was replaced by motorcycle...
and feet were replaced by horse later replaced by
ferrari... vroom vroom...
and affordable life in london by saudi arabia investments;
let's wave to our mothers...
we'll be the ones on the premier red carpet
for sure...
it doesn't matter... i prefer opera to cinematic raqqa...
and i prefer theatre to conversation.
Dec 3, 2015
Dec 3, 2015 at 9:09 PM UTC
I think we should all semi-colon close brackets or capital D,
we need to make time to just be semi-colon capital P.
Just be happy, maybe even throw in a colon close brackets.
Refrain from creating stress with semi-colon capital S,
on hearing an opposing opinion don't be offended, semi-colon capital O.
Just accept it, let go, there is no need to be so semi-colon forward slash.
Turn that open brackets around, there's no need to frown,
drop that greater-than arrow and take things less seriously.
Seriously there are many things to less-than arrow three in this world,
don't overlook the little things. Appreciate them.
Give them an open brackets capital Y close brackets,
maybe even an asterisk applause asterisk.
Send out the message, keep up that semi-colon capital D.
Aug 8, 2012
Aug 8, 2012 at 4:57 AM UTC
"…ours is not to reason why." that is the only fragment
of the light
brigade?
call the philosopher for a meme:
Ah, we need an axiom,
some hope for humanity,
Christmas isn't working as well as it did,
Chanuka and Kwansa are distant also rans,
Where is hope if the wise have all been infected with…
"The fact that an opinion has been widely
held is no evidence whatsoever that it is not utterly absurd."
that's the meme sir,
but nothing clicked.
Bertrand Russell
wait
Ah, more, eh,
a semi colon not a point of completion.
That's the secret in all symbols to sibyls, my boy,
know what you meant
when you imagined them meaning
anything
"The fact that an opinion has been widely
held is no evidence whatsoever
that it is not utterly absurd
; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals
From <https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/172166-the-fact-that-an-opinion-has-been-widely-held-is>
In the world you shall have tribulation
but be of good cheer,
it makes everything better.
Merry Christmas, may the messages you trust be true.
Dec 4, 2018
Dec 4, 2018 at 8:01 PM UTC
it would appear the semi-colon
has an identity crisis;
it might appear
it can’t decide if it’s a dot
or a comma
and so does an acrobat act;
but really the semi-colon does more than that
for it does
complex listings the comma can’t manage
and can say things quite cleverly, like:
“All things are expensive; life *****
So really this semi-colon
is not a semi - but indeed a full-blown device
Oct 9, 2010
Oct 9, 2010 at 11:33 AM UTC
Sun + Shine
=
Sunshine
The sort of warmth that dapples across bared collarbones and shoulders.
Honey + Comb
=
Honey-comb
The scent of honey itself gently tugs the ribboned memories of summer.
Sweet + Mittens
The sort that are utterly perfect for hiding behind those little winks and sweetness peek-a-booing from that hell of a smile.
=
Smitten
You + I =
?
Could it be love ?
"Now, don't ask that like a question.
Say it like it should end with
a comma (,)
or
a semi-colon (;) at least!
He says carefully and measuredly.
His lips kissed the tip of her nose
like
a
full-stop
(.)
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 7:30 AM UTC
semi-colon;
where a sentence could have ended but did not,
instead adding a rejoinder.
the space between the dot and comma
there hovers the fate of lovers,
the whispers of hope for the hurting,
and the continuance for those
awaiting the now postponed end;
semi-colon;
the tattoo of a writer who has something
left to say, the brand of those
whose adolescent tendencies pull them from delivering
that much needed break, fracture,
ending of the story.
the ghost of where you could,
or perhaps should, have stopped.
Feb 25, 2013
Feb 25, 2013 at 8:30 PM UTC
come on darling take a chance with us
our meat is on the seams of a blue-blooded funeral
a **** body burial, and the volcanoes laugh
the thumbs shake
as the fingers dance
makes the rain pull its roots on
for the showcase the generic plants
will perform a feral routine
every **** a command-stop forwarded
the nucleus inside of a vitrified half-assed colon
and if they shiver they will find their saw
tailored to the head of that aurulent god
a caterpillar reads the braille and follows my wrist
he condescends, and breaks notions causing new alarm
they are all special, green feet and orange sinewy lines
he casts his blame he curses across the myriad storms
gold minarets in the distance
serpents living under man-made rocks
counting down the seconds on armageddon's clock
a lion counts his livestock
he puts his socks on, he wears a headdress
in the shape of a flame
just outside the shadows of an autumn day
Oct 26, 2015
Oct 26, 2015 at 5:07 AM UTC