"infinitives" poems
I reserved a table for the two of us
at the only restaurant in the world
that not only offers atmosphere and setting
but tone and syntax as well.
First some articles for appetizers. They're
easiest on my pocket you know.
An an, a the, and an a.
Let's not even start on the punctuation,
I'm treating you to a rather large meal.
As large as the entire English language,
now back to the articles.
Sure these taste like lint but they still
taste. Petit fours but there you are.
Try to be disinterested or you'll
put me off my food.
Nouns now. My, what a variety.
Bit meaty, eh? These have staying power.
They taste like a bit of everywhere,
and everyone, and everything.
What's that? Surely they're not that bland.
Maybe you need some seasoning.
"Adjective" comes from the
French for "to the word."
So exotic aren't they? These
really are fantastic.
Exquisite, unique, zesty to say the least.
You must admit, they
make the meal worth it.
I hope you're not allergic,
I could have sworn I just
had something "nutty."
Oh, it had nuts "in it"?
There must be some prepositions
mixed in here.
(I'm glad we're getting through
these now, I've never been a big fan of them.
When I was a kid, I would always push my prepositions to the end
of my sentences. You just can't do
that in a joint like this, it seems.)
Ah finally. The verbs are served.
Well-prepared it would seem.
Yes, anything you can do to a verb
they've done to these.
Infinitives (too good to realistically be believed!),
gerunds, and participles (No, not particles. But we
did have some of those at the Japanese restaurant.)
Fairly lean too, as I can't see
any auxiliary fat.
For some reason
those adverbs (just to your left, under that
thesaurus) really go well with this.
Plus those adjectives from earlier, rather pleasantly.
Now a brief selection
of conjunctions, but don't ruin
yourself. They're not a meal of themselves,
just a link to...
Oh! Look at those interjections.
So delicate, so (Wow!) incisive.
I told you to keep your appetite.
Well, just try a little of this. Goodness, me!
And then everyone proceeds to
die
from a split infinitive.
Mar 21, 2010
Mar 21, 2010 at 7:44 PM UTC
How many times have I brought to the table
My Island flavors?
How many times have you read
my inner thoughts:
how many times will I share them again and again
It all began in 2004 from the moment I walked in
You wasn’t there and I didn’t really care
You ***** more than a female
you took on a huge responsibility
so you went out and brought the singular noun, pronouns
adjectives, plural verbs, preposition and the infinitives
For a New York minute you should have
brought Heather Taffet the grave digger for security measures
My poesy is my poesy
The sun always seems to be a symbol of life.
and life is worth living.
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 6:06 AM UTC
Semester Exam
Fluorescents flicker and fall upon bowed heads
And printed letter-paper, organized
By title, paragraph, number, and line,
Interrogations set in Bookman Old Style
And then words fall, flung bravely to each sheet
As desperate, inky thoughts flailing for breath
While to battered be by split infinitives
Demanding an A, praying for a prom date.
The paper's a mess, one’s mind is in shreds
Fluorescents flicker and fall upon bowed heads
Jan 13, 2017
Jan 13, 2017 at 1:55 PM UTC
to see
to touch
to kiss
to taste
to hold
caress
undress
to have
and when
you go
it's always
too long
to wait
for you
Oct 15, 2011
Oct 15, 2011 at 11:55 AM UTC
My tenses –
PRESENT
PAST
…future…
Creep into my soul in unison
...and in a voice
dripping with PASSIVE eternity
Scream
C
O
N
T
I
N
U
O
U
S
Momentarily deafened
I give up on GRAMMAR…
And gather the strewn words
Maybe…
I would need them to fill the gaps...
... in my verse brimming with INFINITIVES...
Dec 22, 2010
Dec 22, 2010 at 5:05 AM UTC
Mother bear in a waterfall
With bigger thoughts than blonde harlots
Eating porridge,
Fallen starlets with outer space in their hair.
Just you wait;
I'll be the happiest little sonofabitch
You've ever seen.
Some small consolation, if any.
That weekend we spent with our
Necks perpendicular to our spines,
Of course I still remember the films we watched.
I condition my hair with split infinitives
And live off the poisoned dew that settles
Every morning in my closet.
Turn your little black dress inside-out,
I've got this magic idea for a recipe
But we're going to need some ants
And that crazy Harryhausen dream you've got up in your attic.
Ten or twelve little blond kids up
On the cliff, each ten or twelve years old
And dancing with a flame-Buddha called "Home".
Let's spend this week underwater,
I'd much rather give up my weight and my due
If it ensured me any small hour
With you. Oh, god how I love you anymore.
I may have told you this a while ago,
But did you know the first Pledge of Allegiance
Put us some good height above God?
Sometimes I find the sugar in my gas tank
Makes for a rough start in the morning,
Not that I particularly want to go anywhere,
But it's what I've thought that counts.
He's a bit upset that I skipped movie last night:
But I can't play horizontal baseball
With my violent, violent imaginary friend.
The Rubik's cube beats deep in my chest
Without a hand to cheat and rearrange the stickers.
Claude enunciates something queer into my ear
And turns off the lamp with a snap.
Mar 5, 2011
Mar 5, 2011 at 8:19 AM UTC
buckeye flour,
almonds,
acorns,
tree-bark,
cacao,
wine
your only criticism is that i split infinitives and spit bitters.
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 12:16 PM UTC
I.
This is just another bad poem
Just vomited-thoughts-left-on-paper poem
This is a collection of grammatical errors
This would surely make my English teacher cringe
But no worries, I didn’t write this for her
II.
This bad poem is for you
May my subject and verb disagreement
remind you of all those misunderstandings that lead to raised voices
and nights where I cried myself to sleep
Sentence construction was never my strength, it still isn’t, maybe that’s why you never truly understood me—
called me difficult and bipolar
You said that I was too much
Did it ever occur to you that you might just misread me, like homonyms,
same words but with different meanings
misread my jealousy with accusations,
my concern for excessive affection
You said that I loved you too much
but darling, did you even love me at all?
Did I put too much meaning on your words,
turned them into similes and metaphors?
Turned your literal statements into figures of speech
You told me that you liked me,
so I blissfully interpreted it as a hyperbolic expression— called it love when obviously it wasn’t
III.
I was never good at using punctuations
I put too much commas,
unnecessary, misused, I kept trying to hold on
Afraid of the inevitable end,
Switched to semi-colons in an attempt to make it a few words longer
Because despite all our grammatical errors
no matter how shameful our piece of literature was to the English language
It was beautiful to the untrained eye,
To those who read poetry as it is
To those who don’t dig deep in search of true meaning behind the metaphors
It was beautiful to me
But I eventually learned that infinitives and infinities are different,
in spite of sharing infinite as the root word
Like our love,
started with something so promising
but unlike most novels,
there’s no happy ending
So I accepted defeat,
accepted the inevitable and bitter end
No more committing the same mistakes over and over again,
the same words over and over again,
Accepted the fact that synonyms existed,
words with the same meaning but also entirely different
new and unfamiliar, foreign and peculiar
IV.
I accepted defeat
No more commas or semi-colons
We have reached the couplet of our free formed sonnet—
I was never good with endings, I don’t think I’ll ever be,
So darling I hand you the pen, set us both free.
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 7:31 AM UTC
This letter, is to inform you, about a
bomb threat
that we received this, morning. Name of a Name
Unified Consolidated ISD,
a State-Recognized School of Somethingness,
Where Kids Come First under the theme of
All The Kids All The Curriculum All The Time
is committed, to the safety and education
of all our students and We Are Number One,
Go #Thundercatbears!, ‘Cause We are #All-Hashtagged
in Unity and Oneness. We also, want
to clearly communicate with split infinitives
And crazy commas all over the place
to parents about safety issues when they
get found out arise.
This morning, a phone call, was received,
by the receptionist at
The-Latest-Name-Held-in-Place-with-Velcro-Until-the-Next-Name-Change
Elementary School and Essential Spirit
Dreams New Dawn Progress Learning and
Technology Center of the Future
stating a
bomb
was present, on the campus.
After conferring with the Threat Assessment Team,
The Standard Response Protocol team,
the Chinkypin-Lizard Lick Police Department parked in the handicapped spaces at Tia Jolene’s Goremay Eats ‘n’ Bokays out next to the Interstate,
the cheerleader sponsors,
Facebook,
Twitter,
our attorneys,
and Superintendent Dr. Hamestus Goodoleboy “Spike” Ponsonby III,
the students were rapidly, and efficiently evacuated
to a safe area up in the football bleachers
where they would be more obvious targets
and the school was professionally and thoroughly
swept for anything suspicious and untoward.
During this time,
when no students were in danger,
another call was received stating that gunshots
were fired in the school. There were no gunshots,
fired in the school and
no children were in danger at any time.
Currently, we’re are is allowing students,
who were never in any danger,
to return to school as usual
where there was never any danger at any time.
We will have extra counselors and therapists available
if students or parents needs supports are
counsolining in spelling ‘n’ sentence structure.
The students were never in any danger at any time.
All threats to our school where
their was never any danger
and students who were never in any danger
will be taken seriously immediately
and thoroughly and investigated
thoroughly and fully except for that call
last week that we managed to keep covered up.
We wanted to inform you of the correct facts
because our correct facts are the only facts
so you can discuss them with your child/ren
Of any race, *** color, creed, religion,
or gender identification or not
and emphasize the seriousness of our facts,
which are the only facts. If you discover
Any facts untoward or out of place please contact us
At the district office at
*** *** xxxx ext ***
or the Chinkypin - Lizard Lick Police Department
immediately and thoroughly.
No children were in, danger at any time.
Feb 20, 2019
Feb 20, 2019 at 5:07 PM UTC
I gave the dog a bone
And he gives me God instead
The god, a bone, I gave;
And with that bone, he fled.
Great battle lines were drawn
By infinitives of legion-men
Both skirting around the split and splice.
But, **** those FANBOYS can’t finish
Anything.
Jun 10, 2015
Jun 10, 2015 at 12:45 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
To Always be Splitting Infinitives
Those who neither know nor care
[about split infinitives]…are a happy folk…
-Fowler’s Modern English Usage, 1926
I seem to always be
Splitting infinitives
And between you and me
These are definitives
Jul 31, 2021
Jul 31, 2021 at 8:22 AM UTC
Sorry old man, I think you thought that I would stay
Look after your girl like no other man, like only you can
I thought I would, but in the end
i couldnt stay, couldnt sway her that i cared
could say that i was scared
could split my infinitives
curl in a ball i feel so small
that i have failed you so
i could see in your eyes
I was so high to be approved
so close to you so accepted
you dont know how good that was
that you would trust me, and now ive bust me
dont look me the in the eye again
dont trust me with her care
she dont need me, got love to spare
i got other fish to fry, but i cant lie
i need her all the more
why did you have to trust me
betroth her with your eyes
make me see her need
where she lies
where you now lie, in your shelterd tree
Dec 20, 2015
Dec 20, 2015 at 1:41 PM UTC
Whiles I peruse the archives of the past,
Occurs a mental transformation fast—
As thru accounts I search, and journals read,
A bold mid-cent'ry impulse seizes me.
The words I write, in structured meters fit;
Infinitives begin to slowly split.
I have at last attain'd a style so grand,
It captures an Augustan poet's hand.
O what great writers we might have today,
If Dictionary Johnson had his way.
Jan 17, 2019
Jan 17, 2019 at 12:26 PM UTC
Thinking about you between meetings,
Between meals, between showers,
Between random scrolling on the internet,
Makes me giddy and profoundly safe.
Lately may have been hectic,
Crowded of thoughts and uncertainties.
Thinking about you solely,
Does not ease any of it truthfully
But choosing you among those things, does.
Remembering why we even started
How you make me feel enough and heard
How I can still picture vividly the first time you kissed me and how it smells
In hopes that the feelings and memories
won’t be slowly slipping away.
Those full infinitives
In the future are not what I am after all
From then on ‘til now
That’s what really matters.
Jun 1, 2023
Jun 1, 2023 at 8:37 AM UTC
You who crawl
Who can still feel fascination of the world
The hard taste of wood and cotton wool
Your mouth smiling for the first time
You're so young, so young
You who gains a thought
And thinks it alone
The candyfloss politics you understand
Your hands clenching into first fists
You're still young, still young
You who heaves
Who can still feel burning passion
That incense of obsession
Taking your mind seeing new things
You're young, you're young
You who lost at last
Who can still feel the pain of betrayal
The rot of blind hopelessnes
Letting your brain seep in chemicals
You're not old, you're not old
You who crackles in the fire
Splits lines like old wood
You who gazes out the window more than when you were young
When your eyes film over and lose talk
You've just grown, only just grown
You who looks at pictures
Who never finds nothing new
Who splits hairs as much as infinitives
Sighing at what hope you used to be
You're no longer young, no longer young
A feeling is gone, A theory remains
And what is to come is less still
What happened before was in hope for the life
That came but lost youth's hazy thrill
Lost
Mar 7, 2018
Mar 7, 2018 at 7:40 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Former President Trump Splits Two Infinitives and Botches a Number of Subject, Verb, and Adjective Constructs While Proposing the Arming of Teachers
“...it's time to finally allow highly trained teachers to safely and
discreetly concealed carry, let them concealed carry.”
-Former President Donald J. Trump
to the National Rifle *** 27 May 2022
All teachers trample the Constitution
All teachers promote contempt for the Flag
All teachers should be in an institution
All teachers are weird (and that one’s a fxg)
All teachers despise the military
All teachers should be slowly microwaved
All teachers hate meat; they’re vegetary
All teachers hate Jesus; they can’t be saved
All teachers are evil; the children are harmed:
And thus, they say, all teachers should be armed
Previously published as “Texas’ Proposed Concealed Carry Law” in Dispatches from the Colonial Office, 2018, available from amazon.com.
May 27, 2022
May 27, 2022 at 10:42 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The End-of-Term School Literary Magazine
She wrote that her poem had been inspired
By the Holy spirit, Who spoke to her
And guided then her hand upon the page
In a competition for Most Original Work
But the reflective reader cannot imagine
That the Third Person of the Trinity
Writes in free verse and says “Cerulean”
And splits infinitives in bludgeoned rhymes
In metaphors borrowed and rather tired
She wrote that her poem had been inspired
May 30, 2021
May 30, 2021 at 9:33 AM UTC