"impromptu" poems
Last night I
had a dream that
you died.
Everyone we knew
came, said their I’m-so-sorry’s,
and
left, filtering out the front door
slowly
like sand through a sideways sifter,
leaving behind pieces,
words and memories
and casseroles I
could not taste.
And the whole time
everyone was here,
you were here, too.
I could hear
you, smell
you, feel
you.
I could feel you
surrounding me like the ghost of the baby blanket
I once had and could never leave at home.
I loved you here and here you would stay, with me,
and now you would never leave.
I could keep you.
You were bound to me.
But the ties that bind are tight and you did not like me leaving.
You could not go with me and
you
accidentally
and without words
by holding, enveloping,
suffocating
you told me
that you did not want me to ever leave again.
So I stopped.
I stopped leaving.
And the calls stopped, too.
The invites. The lunches. The impromptu trips to town.
All unnecessary noise.
The people left. And then it was just you and me.
Until one day I saw what you had done.
Tripping
I glanced in the mirror and saw.
You had etched yourself into my face.
Dug with your nails
terrifying ravines
escaping the corners
of my eyes. Pulled down
my mouth and every
shallow natural valley turned to
deep empty bowl, hungry and wanting.
My eyes no longer held light.
I saw this, all evidence against you,
and I still loved you.
You had hurt me in ways you never had
while you were here – here – and I knew.
And I still loved you.
Slinking up the stairs
I called you to me. I felt you surround
faster than before and
closer, tighter, colder.
Suffocating, stifling and
so destructive in how you loved me.
Slowly but faster
I grew to know
I would not become you and
you would not become me.
We were stuck on other sides of the mirror.
I was so angry
at what you had allowed me
made me
begged me to become.
Realizing
I gasped and put
hand to heart
it hurt so.
I stood upright
how long have I been bent
took in one long deep breath of stuffy air
how long since I opened the windows
and called you to me
when have I last heard a voice not my own
called you to listen.
I felt the loss of everything else
friends
family
adventure
excitement.
Nothing was left of that here
and I was so angry
and I am so sorry
and I yelled
I screamed
I roared
why are you still here
why are you making me like you
why did you come here and
hold me
and keep me here with you
I am not the one who is dead
and I said
and I regret
and I am so sorry
I can’t have you here
go away
and
leave me alone
and you did.
You left me
all alone.
Why would you leave me?
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 1:06 AM UTC
From the green hill, blows downwards
a wind, gently titillating the languid trees
of this dense forest,the rustling of the leaves create,
an impromptu tune, proving they are taut strings,
yielding willingly to the sensual fingers of the wind.
Super moon,while raising, listens keenly awhile
as if she had never heard one like this before.
The wise silver owl, sitting on the high branch
keeping account of every stroke of night,with an imaginary wand,
as the conductor, catches the emerging mood that seethes
within the million pieces of orchestra that gently merge,
get exhilarated, finds a pause to punctuate it with a timely hoot,
the moment freezes, falls in to the repository of time for keeps.
Jan 3, 2016
Jan 3, 2016 at 12:39 PM UTC
My favorite moments
aren't significant at all.
It's rolling over in the morning
to see you lying there,
trips to the grocery store,
you lying on the floor
with your head in my lap
while we listen to music.
I read my books and you play
video games or surf the Internet
and we don't speak.
It's skateboard dates and
car rides where your hand rests on my leg
just to grab an impromptu snack.
No, my most treasured moments
don't seem like very much,
but they're my most precious
possessions, and I'd give it all up
to keep having these little nothing
moments for the rest of my life.
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 4:37 PM UTC
Extravagantly exorbitant mentality panacea
Pretentious eidetic’s ubiquity mnemonics
Extraversion embezzlement extortion mens rea
Endergonic laconic cacophony phonics
Preterite rendition enclitic equilibrist motion
Mystic symbiosis dharma spiritual sky
Brusque macabre abjections the gist of the potion
Straight up forever ontology on high
Obdurately abstruse vituperatively vociferous
Juxtaposition apparition myriad avarice
Orotund sonorous diction obliquitous
Multifariously versatile nefarious nemesis
Mirador bartizan phantasmagoria aesthetics
Guidon gyration excursion integration
Sorcerous alchemizing interstitial endemics
Chaos charisma objectified tribulation
Conjurous apothegms clitoral apomixis
Exude emote surrogate extrapolation
Astral projection littoral hypotaxis
Kinetic supremacy homogeneity gravitation
Coercible coalescent cohesion dexterities
Adjunct conjunction conjecture acuity
Platonic pragmatic prosaic austerities
Extemporaneous impromptu innuendo fortuity
Propinquity habitation harbinger spectra
Perplexing paradox tenacity rostra
Intensely cogitational abstract mantra
Penumbral exigency , umbrage per contra
Theoretical incursion grandiloquent ne plus ultra
Exogamy of homoplasy sic itur ad astra
Quiescent serendipity surreal anestra
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 6:16 AM UTC
taken for granted are the hearts made of paper and string,
which hang from ceilings and chandeliers for all to see.
You're never going to believe this, but for the last few weeks
all I could think about was the thought of you and me.
Alas, you were thinking of everything but me, and
maybe that's a sign we were never meant to be,
but I'll spare you the 'I love you but you don't love me' speech
and conclude with a 'fuck you very much'
an impromptu thank you for ruining me...
and hanging my heart up for all to see...
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 1:07 PM UTC
Forests of coral adorn the rocky ocean floor,
Sheltered here in this sky-blue lagoon.
See the golden sand, shining through the still waters,
Fringed by plumes of palm.
The warming sun is smiling,
Flanked by fluffy white clouds.
Gulls are calling
Over the whispering sea.
A tropical paradise
Punctuated only
By impromptu showers.
Those colourful corals
Swarmed with teeming fish
Of every hue.
This is the place
To be.
Paul Butters
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 5:49 AM UTC
I'm Bailey.
I sometimes forget to recycle.
I'm from singing camels and trigonometry.
From soap bubbles and yellow scarves, Irish hymns and Zucchini the ferret,
piano keys, bluebonnet seeds, and DO NOT ENTER signs.
From salt.
I'm the color of hosed off sidewalk chalk.
I'm all summer in a day.
I'm a conglomeration of artistic thoughts that make me look more profound than I actually am.
I'm your infinite playlist.
I'm from elephant necklaces and rosemary bushes
from high-heeled taps and Camelot
threadless socks, shopping carts, and impromptu salons.
I'm the fifth ninja turtle.
I live where you laugh so hard you cry.
I'm from carrots and ranch.
I'm a happy cow from California, a fortune cookie with your enchilada, a drill team skirt over marching uniforms.
I'm from unfinished crossword puzzles and forgotten dead languages
from pixie dust and snapcracklepop
from actually-it's-pronounced's, because-i-said-so's, and that's-not-my-name's.
I am Nancy Drew with a Peter Pan complex.
I come from honeysuckle candles and sunroofs of pickup trucks
broken-down fences and peach salsa
the second you step onstage.
I'm from in between.
I'm Bailey.
I don't drive the speed limit.
And I'm from you.
Dec 22, 2009
Dec 22, 2009 at 6:08 PM UTC
Dumaan man ang napahabang panahon,
Lumipas man ang ilang libong taon,
Itago man sa kailaliman ng kahapon,
Uusli at sisibol ang mga tula ngayon.
Ilang beses mo mang pigilan,
Talunin sa iba't-ibang paraan,
Mapa-asaynment o impromptu 'yan,
Nagagawa ang tula ng may kahusayan.
Sinong mag-aakalang ito'y nakatago?
Sinong mag-aakalang ito'y para sayo?
Sinong mag-aakalang ito'y hindi bato?
Sinong mag-aakalang ito'y nasa puso?
Isang libangan kung ito'y tuklasin.
Isang adhikain kung ito'y susulatin.
Isang liwanag kung ito'y susuriin.
At isang kayamanang kailanma'y hindi maangkin.
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 10:46 AM UTC
*The blue song bird
mellifluous singer admired
for her songs that melt
even hearts of rock,
riding the crust
of the adoring wind,
swoop,
down,
down,
down
without a thought
suddenly alights,
heroically tries to sit,
on a high tension power line;
yet another of her
impromptu acts like before,
she labors to convince everyone
in a shrill chirping sound
that dangerously she lives
taking life in her own hands.
East wind, her companion tells
she is mistaken; he tries to push
her away from the lethal wire
on which death awaits with its dark hum
"young and wayward bird
you tell me you learn so quickly
from your mistakes, alright
from now and the moment next
lies an unknown chasm
in a jiffy if you decide to fathom it
no time is left for unlearning what it teaches
and reverse your journey
to the winter land of darkness
from where no migratory bird has ever come back"
The bird so deaf to wind's words,
still hovers above the wire
the wind in warning hums a sad tune aloud.*
Jan 9, 2014
Jan 9, 2014 at 11:18 AM UTC
the gallon of arizona green tea that you only drank a fraction of.
the salt and pepper potato chips you meant to eat, but only did so in the dream i had last night.
the unmade bed that was still unmade when you flew back home, the one i still cannot bring myself to make.
the dyed green hairs i keep finding around the house.
the way you always pronounced 'mosquito' as 'mosk-it-toe' on purpose, and how you pronounced my cat's name 'sullumun' instead of 'solomon' on accident.
the partially closed closet door from the morning i drove you to the airport.
the faint smell of your sweat on my pillow left because of your hyperhidrosis.
the flannel you wore and the longsleeve shirt you doused in your aftershave, that is three sizes too big for me to realistically wear.
the empty taco bell cups in my car from your fourth day here.
the empty shopping bags from our impromptu mall trip.
the polaroids you really wanted to keep, but we couldn't find when you packed.
the pieces of you that you never meant for me to keep that i keep piecing together as though, like an alchemist, i could make you appear again though i cannot, and you are not here, you are gone.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 4:28 PM UTC
When I decided to write my first poem, I thought back to the days,
when we were studying poetry and the teacher would amaze,
she'd make me write down words and things, I'd be chasing praise.
But looking back at my book now, I know what I should do,
and so here follows my glossary of things I'll write for you:
I have - Alliteration, Antagonist, Allegory and Anapest.
Characterisation, Complication, Convention and Connotation.
Elegy, Elision, Epigram and Exposition.
Free verse, Falling action, Falling meter and also Fiction.
Literal language, Imagery, Lyric poem and Irony.
Rising action, Resolution, Rising meter with Recognition.
Acatalectic, Anacreontic, Amphimacer and Amphibrachic.
Cliché, Common Measure, Couplets and Catalectic.
Deconstruction, Dispondee, Dialect Verse with a Dictionary.
Iambic Meter, Incantation, Impromptu with Inspiration.
Laureates and Limericks, Light Verse poems and Linguistics.
Metaphors, Mock-Heroics, Middle English and Movement Poets.
Oh gosh that seems a little worse, than I had it made to be,
I was expecting just to write a poem 'bout my cat and me.
I guess it's harder than it looks so I'll just give up now;
I'll let those big brave poet people, write them all somehow.
Apr 29, 2012
Apr 29, 2012 at 11:55 AM UTC
I followed a boy on his impromptu journey to the forest (or at least what I once thought it was).
he walked with a nonchalant disposition without saying any word. his gestures demonstrated it all.
it’s ludicrous that I reluctantly stepped forward to the vast and dense forest in front of me. I was not scared at all. I discovered amity within the zigzagging branches and peace in this endless labyrinth.
and after a long and intense journey, the dazzling sunlight captures his figure: his tanned skin was wrapped by falling leaves, laying down at the top of the rock (in which I always wonder to see what he’s dreaming).
for once in my life, never have I thought silence could be so much pleasing as that.
Aug 14, 2022
Aug 14, 2022 at 9:19 AM UTC
Distance traveled time spent's dynamic progressiveness, existentially transcendental's clairaudience clairvoyance. Metaphysical mystique’s evolutionally metamorphic futurity's fatidic incarnate. Due yesterday’s retrospectively retroactive. Protractive analyses' dimensional delineations. Enigma entity’s dexterously tactile acuity and coordinated agility on the identity crisis. Cerebral cortex’s ****** matrix to synaptic syntax semantics. Prospectus perplexity surreally sublime. Quagmire quandary’s poshly plush. Who am I to think I can conception of the infinite supply? Even the syntactics of eclectic synectics pale by compare to the atrociously impetuous impudence in pugnaciously audacious. Impromptu innuendo's juncture. Imagination’s immaturities are psychic clarity’s entelechy to evolutional tenants élan vital. Fiduciary principle's financially responsible fiscal policies. Mercenary mendacity's plenary plenipotentiary. Innocuous noumenal verity, mystic symbiotic’s chicanery dynamism fealties. Proximity parameter’s perimeter peripherals, vicinity victuals to vigilante villain, propinquity habitation’s harbingers of harangued. The question remains on the tribal: how can I stand next to the person I’m standing next to if I’m carrying on right through them. It’s the trajectory extant in spatiotemporal's telemetry tactician. Well graspy greedy on the stingy frugal to mingy minion and paw flaw laws claws on it. Get a glove, objectified manifest’s diminutive minutia iota’s of self-inductive interstitial extrapolation. Detinue perfective. Traveling down this obtusely overt contusion in my vehicular contrivance convection convolution. Nimbus nimiety exorcism’s aura roan to rainbow mare. Unicorn railway nails. Swarthy ******** swath swizzles on the sweaty swelter swerve to verve.
May 28, 2019
May 28, 2019 at 12:10 PM UTC
Incessent drumming and the roar of raindrops
Keep me from sleeping past dawn
Welly boots step into the cold, wet day
as the sky weeps for the loss of summer.
The wind takes the wheel,
driving water up trouser legs, into socks, under hats
Blown out beş lira umbrellas discarded on the overpass
A graveyard of useless metal spiders.
Still,
Still it rains
Impromptu lakes form from the spontaneous rivers flowing in every street
Bosphorus babies, cleansing the heart of the city
People look like street cats;
Soaked, preening, cowering under any shelter they can find
And still, Istanbul.
Still she rains.
Oct 29, 2010
Oct 29, 2010 at 1:33 AM UTC
I watch myself
watch myself
watching their dance,
my action is actioned
by panel and plan
Significant thought
to trivial task,
I find myself missing
that which I've hatched
Impromptu I can do,
in scrutinies stare,
replayed ad infinitum
pretend I don't care
When waiting has waited
and I dare to break free,
will the watcher be waiting
or will I be free?
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 7:35 PM UTC
THIS is what love is.
banana bubblegum and magnetic poetry
the crickets on my front porch at three in the morning
making origami cranes out of butcher paper
even when I forget whether it's mountain fold or
valley fold and my crane turns out looking like a
seamonkey in a blender
wildflowers!
striped button-down shirts and plastic dinosaurs
singing Juanes at the top of our lungs
(Gah, you know
I can't speak Spanish.)
laughing at the serious parts in movies
having the patience for when
the words don't come out
and I have to stop
and think
(for a very long time)
and half the time it doesn't make sense anyway.
impromptu dance sessions on the side of the road
doors flung open, radio up
chocolate chip pancakes
out-of-town adventures
mailboxes. LOTS.
balcony raves with lots of glowsticks
and let me borrow that top!
just letting me sleeeeeeep
the smell of new pointe shoes
of New Orleans
of bluebonnets
telling me when I look awful (please)
making me eat things that I don't like
SNUGGLEBUNNY TIME
drive-thru people who hate our guts
That's What She Said's.
praising Buddha naked
dysfunctional kites
paying in change at Chicken Express
late night phone conversations
when I sound drunk
(but I'm not,
I'm tired. I just would rather
talk to you
than sleep.)
silence.
cupcakes, uniform closets
not shaving our legs in the winter
shadow puppets, rap songs,
Slumdog Millionaire
making once-in-a-lifetime faces
looks that speak oceans
pecan pralines and symphony orchestras you'll
never play with again but for that night
you're family
and you'll never forget it.
matches (aren't always for candles)
thousands upon thousands of candids
and the not-so-candids
saving kisses in your pocket for later
Neverland, Disneyland, cats
yellow dresses and stage make-up
watermelon Jolly Ranchers
saying my name like it's wrapped in blankets
and knowing that
even though I don't say it
as much as I should:
I do.
Apr 27, 2010
Apr 27, 2010 at 1:51 PM UTC
So your motorbike gets you from A to B
With no hiccups or fuckups or stops in between,
No ponderous walking just to **** time
Or impromptu chats with a friendly old guy,
An excuse just ramble and gather your thoughts
Explore a some places or visit old haunts
If you find something new in an old part of town,
You find that there's worse things than sometimes breakingdown.
I admit it's frustrating to get to work late,
Or have your dinner plans foiled whilst out on a date.
But When friends say "just get a bike that works'
I reply "one that doesn't sometimes has its perks."
Jan 13, 2019
Jan 13, 2019 at 4:33 AM UTC
Come, come, come
I’m only a young boy
I just came to pluck an azalea
on this fine, lovely day
and you - Oh, you came
shouting at me
and you threatened to call
for the men and the servants
to give me a beating
Come, come, come
I’m only a young boy
I just came to pluck an azalea
and you started beating me
and you struck me on the chest
with your soft left hand
and then you let it slide down
And then you pounded me on my shoulders
with your gentle fists
and then you let them slide down
And now we are in this azalea dance
O this impromptu Dance of Azalea
between you and me
Your hand in mind
You in mock-aggression
and I now in complete realization
O this improvised Dance of the Azalea
just you and me, as we go round
and round
And what the end in your eyes?
I see, I see, I see it in your eyes –
a quiet corner below the rocks
a gentle spot, softened by grass and flowers
Oh you teach me this Dance of Azalea
Come, come, come
I’m only a young boy
I just came to pluck an azalea
and you teach me the art of love
Jul 1, 2012
Jul 1, 2012 at 6:47 AM UTC
Her birthday cards
All lined up on the mantle like
Happy paper people, waiting to give praise.
She placed her flowers just below
On the fireplace bricks like
A bouquet garden,
nurtured for ripe admiring.
It’s an impromptu display, in gentle notions reading:
“I am loved!”
Next to Grandpa’s old chair,
Where part of Grandma’s heart sleeps
At night.
What a beautiful home
She has kept
And keeps.
Memorabilia of a better time
When pride came from the simple things.
With a warm heart and keen eye,
Every adornment
In its proper home placed,
And atop the fireplace mantle
Is where you’ll find
The birthday cards.
May 10, 2015
May 10, 2015 at 11:42 PM UTC
Maieutic dreamer, the ecstatic euphorias of cerebral cortex’s ****** matrix are pandemic. Extravagant exorbitances of flirtatious flamboyance and flippantly flighty flit-ness. But what of stint-ness snities? Excruciating exacerbations of laboriously beleaguering hypercritically meticulous tediums. Synaptic syntax is fervently intense like a feral phrenic frenzied **** Ruminating humanity’s collective consciousness gives me hysterical deliriums. We’re frenetically febrile, atrociously impetuous impudents who don’t know our id conclusion from our impromptu innuendo juncture. And what of the organizational principles of our subconscious continuums? Do we only dream about dexterous articulation? Can we become the agile acuity we envision or do we wallow in the drifty drivel of dour droll’s dreary? What’s to phatic say about futurity fatidic’s forlorn wanton? We need chutzpah, moxie savvy’s panache. Is there no such thing as a universally acceptable ontological deontology? Probity is as obvious as due yesterday, ethology’s entelechy the omnipresent reward. Elan vital is not subjective, it’s objective. Explicating epiphanies of social contiguity’s prospectus so innate as to be irrefragable. Not perhaps the oligarchies of eclectic synectics, but perhaps the pugnacious audacities of emote to exude aimed imbue. Assay relay’s convey, foray delay purveys inveigh. Perhaps if we are all cogently fecund with our vituperatively vociferous the holocaustial cacophony of our obstreperously abstruse will be just what the grotto grouch gumption ordered. Infusing all with the capability of aspiring to higher powers and yet not forgetting the mystery of self and others. I know I know what an ingratiating sycophant on the introjection. Gambits of alluvium aloof impunity when we all know immunity is Epicurean absurdity, but I already covered that on the phrenic aimed holocaustial cacophony. Seriously of we all enunciate so on the diction of mesomerism's to punctual. Why can’t that be the essence of accidence ambience acoustics, the arbitrational attenuation of actuator's aorist. We are not ethereal, we are corporeally preternatural and the sooner we all learn to respect each other to that the sooner we can get down to the sublimely surreal in oneiromancy’s apotropaic panaceas.
May 29, 2019
May 29, 2019 at 11:35 AM UTC
.ha ha! of course they'd be the ones asking for money! what did you expect? payment by peanuts?!
digital beggars...
nice term... nice...
very nice...
digital
beggars...
& ***** donors...
whatever
the **** that means...
replica to a d.n.a.
continuum?
seriously?!
go ahead... ******
oi! ****** *** Goliath!
that one song,
garbage's song...
stupid girl...
sing-along ballerina
happy...
aged 18 / 16 and thinking
she's a ********* fest...
last time i heard...
that was the legal age?
no?
Ficklestein was on board?
APPLAUSE!
APPLAUSE!
you want the opposite ratio,
of the *** galore of
the black swan ************
impromptu, introducing the french
into the conundrum?
no?
by now?
i'm so past giving a ****
that, giving a ****
is an act of conspiratorial neglect...
no... **** it...
you're on your own...
now watch my face;
pretending to assume the
****** expression of
being, bothered.
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 9:40 PM UTC
I had thanksgiving with my St. Lucian family, my
loud, unapologetic,
laughs-too-loud, generation-gap
homemade *** heads in phones,
blasting dancehall music
old ladies dancing
clap-back
talk-back
family.
"Play us a song",
my cousin and I sent to my room to play jazz chords, I
finger along clumsily. He's in college and his dark eyes close, fingers
sliding up and down the frets,
frowning in concentration, cursing quietly at a missed note.
My islander family comes over and prompts impromptu drinking games,
"I'm not looking, I saw nothing",
I lick a bit of vanilla ***** from my mother's shot glass,
alcohol becomes a family affair, it
takes away the danger and the stigma and throws a friendly, lovely
light on a vice.
It's raining, it's cold,
islanders do not belong on a Kansas porch smoking cigarettes in the dark rain.
I light candles on the wall.
They all outlast their welcome, between four and a half hours of transition
from uncomfortable "i don't remember your name", put on the spot,
only-child-becomes-one-of-several to
discussing baby names and family gossip, they
all wrap up their food slaved over at nine am, they
all troop out the door, they
take their coats, they
leave their wide smiles with us until next time.
Nov 27, 2015
Nov 27, 2015 at 2:16 AM UTC
Lobsters
@2014 Linda Barrett
They sit in the cramped corners
of the water tank
face each other
armored claws bound
with thick rubber bands
These shelled warriors
take on boxer’s stances
wait their chance
to attack each other
in impromptu bouts
They step over one another
pick fights for dominance
of their watery ring
Some desperate crustaceans
decide to make their escape
reach out for the tank’s top
but fall over backwards
onto each other
Those lucky ones
usually win
when the Seafood man
in his white coat
pulls them out
makes the champions
of someone’s dinner.
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 6:05 PM UTC
The oppression hangs stiff and unrelenting
And the sincerity comes off too awkward and from left field
I just want to move, but all I can accomplish are twitches in different directions
You're talking at me, not with me
And I'm close to fabricating an elaborate story to put you in shut down mode so that I can continue on my day
I don't care about your message
I'm not buying your book, I'm not reading your pamphlet, and I'm not joining your group.
I'm eating a ******* burrito,*** and that's IT.
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 8:15 PM UTC
To lose the robust and ephemeral vitality,
is waking up in dazed desolate imitation,
that creases and crinkles euphoric principality.
Blades of grass, sharp tipped spears of unreality.
A chilling, a challenged negation;
to lose the robust and ephemeral vitality.
Spinning round the ugly formality,
are snickers, unshy sneers of an evil salvation,
that creases and crinkles euphoric principality.
Thrilling no longer a verb, piano key pressing its precious mortality
into her throbbing thrashed temple dictation.
To lose the robust and ephemeral vitality.
A ****** numb soul with the criticality
of skeptics, chewing their lips, a dead cell castration
emotional stripping, slipping into complete impromptu filtration.
That creases and crinkles euphoric principality.
Jun 21, 2012
Jun 21, 2012 at 10:39 PM UTC