"misspelled" poems
I.
“No doubt they’ll sing in tune after the Revolution.”
-Kamarovsky, Doctor Zhivago (film)
Everyone seems to clench his fist these days
In solidarity with ephemera
While setting fire to green recycling bins
Hurling someone else’s bicycle through a window
Armed with their undergraduate degrees
The comrades liberate a coffee shop
Wifi-ing the revolution of the day
Empowerment by beating love to death
Loudsplaining authentic victimization
Posing for selfies with a stolen ‘phone
II.
Their inhumanity seemed a marvel of class-consciousness, their barbarism a model of proletarian firmness…
-Doctor Zhivago, p. 349
Everyone seems to clutch his flag these days
In solidarity with a past that wasn’t
While setting fire to misspelled cardboard signs
Hurling someone else’s beer into a crowd
Armed with their lurid Confederate tats
The Something.Right liberate a dumpster
Bull-horning the counter-revolution
Empowerment by beating love to death
Bellowing their Reconquista of stench
Posing behind their cheap gas station shades
III.
“I used to admire your poetry...I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections... it's suddenly trivial now. You don't agree; you're wrong. The personal life is dead…”
-Strelnikov to Yuri, Doctor Zhivago (film)
Some few embrace civilization these days
In solidarity with humanity
While lighting one small candle as a votive
Whispering an Ave into the Light
Armed with wonder through pen and flute and brush
Recusants choose the liberation given
In singing of the eternal verities
Self-empowerment happily denied
With love, with poetry, music, and art
Celebrating life on this summer day
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 5:09 PM UTC
World is given through her womb
Life by her love
She's a shooting star
Fulfilling the dreams of others
Forgetting her ones.
We don't dare to appreciate her
We don't care to her feelings,
Nor her dreams.
She swallows her pride
To serve us might.
Love her, she loves you tonnes
Ignore her, she loves you loads
Ignores our ignorance
And tolerates our flaws
Complaining never
Her cries are often unheard
With tears invisible,
Trauma a smile
Patience at infinity
With words unspoken.
She's a ocean
Vast to explore
Hard to understand
But plain as river
With thoughts deeper.
Her self respect
Often misspelled as ego,
Society mocks her down earth
And she raises like a tree
From a buried seed
Her every move
Is judgemental,
With several eyes poking her
And so she became unpredictable.
Never try to understand, rather love her.
She gives life. She is a mother.
She makes home. She is a wife.
She is a sister, a savior till the ends.
She is precious because she is a daughter
She refuses to retire because she's born a woman.
And do you feel she deserves just a single day!?
Mar 7, 2017
Mar 7, 2017 at 9:50 PM UTC
I was just a misspelled word
you so easily erased
from the notebook of your life.
Now,
how do I ever erase you —
the most beautiful poem of my heart?
Aug 21, 2025
Aug 21, 2025 at 10:39 AM UTC
English with 26 letters, is generally thought to be the simplest language on earth. A language built up on 26 letters is amazing.
But within just handful of letters, how many words can be misspelled..
My childish attempt to rhyme and write...
ei or ie, we are confused when we write,
it's then the words jump to end their lives.
Homonyms, homophones, homographs
It's fun to know the very facts.
Bear tried to **** Jack with its bare hands,
Jack had to bear the brunt of the bear.
Speed is what we thrive to do
If we forget to Brake, will break a head or two.
100 cents makes a dollar
Jack sent his wife to buy a stroller
She smelled the scent of a broiler
And forget all about the stroller.
The people who lives in Desert
do they have dates as their Dessert?
The dinner was perfect
The wine complemented the feast
The hosts were perfect
And were complimented for their treat.
The King who reigned Prussia
Rode high holding his horse's reins,
But his horse started to panic
As it started to Rain.
Drew looked at his new site
The building looked a perfect sight
When asked for the legal owner
He cited the document which held his right.
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 2:38 PM UTC
My hand smells of apple and
Iron in my blood begins to revolt.
A shadow puppet smirks, pulling blanket
Wrapped over the 14 year old little girl's thighs;
It's morning already, I've got to **** you,
I've got to **** you.
We found our bodies drowned at
The colorless side of the bottom of Gangga;
As if wars would soon start again
Like when we were older and you sang me
A farewell with such an emotionless voice --
The tuberoses had let you sing the sonnet alone
And since then you could not
Escape the karmic silence;
You began to replace Shiva with the ticking clock which battery's drained;
You ate the mercury, the mercury.
You began to carry your charger everywhere yet I kept
Failing to taste your tongue even for once;
For once I saw the clouds and they're blue
Like eyes of the blonde girl with plastic daisies tucked
On her hair and
Dried forget-me-nots grew on your wet heart;
The Mindanao helped me to get through
But such tight seaweed had tied my feet to you (to get me back to you, to get me back to you);
An island of fears, your homeland; mine; traditional songs and dances I refuse to learn;
City of fire was only your lies.
(I am sorry I got your name misspelled, carved on my soul.)
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 6:54 AM UTC
When I forget who I am
When sometimes I feel myself go sour
I look at my family’s recipe book
I hope in there I find the right combination
Of flour and milk that will make me eatable again
I thumb over the pages of hurried writing
Three generations of women glued to
Paper connected by their spine bound
By aging, once white thread
Each woman offering me
A different dish of myself
Depending on the nourishment I need
Their faces ageing backwards in my memory
To when all of their faces looked just like me
And then, there I am
Half cup great grandma
One cup grandma
Three cups mother
Written on floral stationary glued to lined paper
The edges of me and bend and stained from each constant gaze
That’s me, with my name in their book misspelled,
“Grandma’s Three Hole Cake”
Mar 4, 2013
Mar 4, 2013 at 12:51 PM UTC
This was never meant to hurt you.
It was a simple miscommunication,
a stumble of words.
"Words" can be so easily misspelled to say "swords,"
and swords can impale.
I suppose words can, too.
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 1:22 PM UTC
Gloria, latex snap. Opaque lipstick.
I should press holiday stamps
over those big blue eyes of yours.
Misspelled spoken word, whole hunting
from malignant orange ,
crosshairs and et cetera.
*** on me - stellar hardwood floor ;
the last unicorn was a battered woman
with certain dysmorphic symptoms.
My boyfriend thinks it's **** when
i read the dsm v the way i eat jello shots.
Still, I don't **** him how I would the
surrealish ***** in a polyester uniform.
He knows there's been a cowboy in a parka on the corner for days
politely asking about the three legged race. I have no answers for him
or his handsome eagle co-defendant.
I really think
I'll marry my best friend for her
enameled heart and health insurance.
I took my multivitamin , tapping out
morse on old formica ,
while telling my dead dog im sorry for
letting them **** him.
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014 at 10:06 AM UTC
I'm a big girl with a big name
I love whole-heartedly
I think with my brain
And when people ask
Am I'm suppose to feel shame?
When they don't ask the background
when they over hear my name
Misspelled or misheard
To them it all sounds the same
there's no history
Just black culture, no change
I don't roll my eyes just for attitude
I do so because your opinion is annoying and possibly insane
Not to mention rude
I don't roll my neck to be ghetto
It is an expression of my frustration at the ignorance that you are demonstrating.
And I don't speak slang because it's the only words I know
But it's a reminder of how my ancestors were forced to live with as little education as that yet still have so much more to show
And when I dance it's not to show off my body nor break my back
But to tell a story with my hips so that you'll never forget that
I AM DIFFERENT AND I AM PROUD
And my skin color shouldn't have anything to do with that now
It's 2014
Not the 1800s anymore
Never again your down low *****
But people keep assuming before I even open my mouth
That i have no future
No good upbringing
Since when were "ghetto" names defining
Well, since when were they not
But I will walk with pride across that stage
Only time you'll see my face on the news is for something great
Because
I'm a big girl with a big name
I love whole-heartedly
I think with my big brain
I feel no shame
I just smile because I know one day
People will know my name
It's not the 1800s anymore
It's the year 2014
Dec 7, 2014
Dec 7, 2014 at 12:52 PM UTC
Until tonight they were separate specialties,
different stories, the best of their own worst.
Riding my warm cabin home, I remember Betsy's
laughter; she laughed as you did, Rose, at the first
story. Someday, I promised her, I'll be someone
going somewhere and we plotted it in the humdrum
school for proper girls. The next April the plane
bucked me like a horse, my elevators turned
and fear blew down my throat, that last profane
gauge of a stomach coming up. And then returned
to land, as unlovely as any seasick sailor,
sincerely eighteen; my first story, my funny failure.
Maybe Rose, there is always another story,
better unsaid, grim or flat or predatory.
Half a mile down the lights of the in-between cities
turn up their eyes at me. And I remember Betsy's
story, the April night of the civilian air crash
and her sudden name misspelled in the evening paper,
the interior of shock and the paper gone in the trash
ten years now. She used the return ticket I gave her.
This was the rude **** of her; two planes cracking
in mid-air over Washington, like blind birds.
And the picking up afterwards, the morticians tracking
bodies in the Potomac and piecing them like boards
to make a leg or a face. There is only her miniature
photograph left, too long now for fear to remember.
Special tonight because I made her into a story
that I grew to know and savor.
A reason to worry,
Rose, when you fix an old death like that,
and outliving the impact, to find you've pretended.
We bank over Boston. I am safe. I put on my hat.
I am almost someone going home. The story has ended.
2.1k
Must be slightly crazy and have the marbles to fill the spot of
a semi sobber madman called Gonzo.
Must be good at starting **** and keeping people laughing.
Most be mildly atractive and really good looking
with the lights off with a buzz.
Must be willing to comment on poems and say cheers.
must be able to pass out behind a bar and write misspelled gems on bar napkins
And most of all to be the one to make people forget
there problems for awhile and share the spirts of wild turkey
can you replace Gonzo?
If your crazy enough to try
Then step right up and reply.
Mar 31, 2010
Mar 31, 2010 at 8:19 PM UTC
Their violence. Their fire. Their beauty.
Their clenching, unclenching. Their bedlam.
Their silence.
Their toes squirming in their shoes. Their sobs. Their seventy-mile-an-hour fury.
Their eyes. Their glimmer. Their construction paper dreams.
Their insecurities. Their melanin.
Their rapture. Their forgiveness. Their twisted-up mouths.
Their screaming.
Their laughter. Their spoiled innocence. Their decent.
Their wilderness of wit. Their barbed future. Their ineloquence.
Their noise. Their stretching limbs.
Their vigor. Their hair spurting out of their scalps.
Their secrets echoing and singing through low-ceilinged halls. Their desire.
Their chipped orange fingernail polish. Their belly aches.
Their misspelled crayon messages. Their ghosts. Their audacity.
Their fear. Their braids. Their arms tight around each other.
Their torn jeans. Their longing.
Their possibility.
Their harpoon words. Their blood. Their bursting hearts.
Their walls. Their art.
Their endlessness.
Their airplane arms and their shrieking and their streaming outside into the yellow ache of a sinking sun.
Their rhythm. Their nonsense.
Their hands cupped around their mouths.
Their reverberation. Their chapped lips. Their love.
Them.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 5:08 PM UTC
i crave the taste
of stale cigarettes and beer
cuz it was the taste of your mouth
what happened here?
i long for
the misspelled drunk texts
that once annoyed me
phone buzzes i flinch, reflex.
i ache for
the feeling of your chest
under my head as i fall asleep
only way i could rest
i hunger for
your love
-all to myself
we never should of.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 8:28 PM UTC
What's my name?
Take that universal,
that yeah yeah, that
ohm and play it backwards.
I'm that undercurrent,
the invisible force that pushes the hand, that pushes
the red button, that levels seven stories--for?
What's my name?
Take that post-post-modern literature,
that self-serving academia-meets-nihilism,
and think as far opposite, Herculaneum/Uruk,
and you might just find it, my name,
carved in Aramaic or Latin in a dark wet cave,
forgotten, misspelled in a dead language.
What's my name?
Look just past that buffering screen,
right before the pixelated beheading starts.
I'm between the zeroes and ones in that heaven-place,
the Internet, where people go when the final death takes.
What's my name?
Take that ever so subtle airport terminal muzak,
and listen for the counterpoint, the competing rhythm.
It, my name, swirls and mingles with that ever flowing
crowd, weary and reduced to numbered tickets and departure times,
speaking fifty different languages, a flattened and recurring Babel.
Take that ohm, and play it, play it backwards.
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 10:53 PM UTC
I start to write into a
puddle of metaphors
meant to be a love poem
and as I write down
the word love
for the thousandth
of the thousandth time
I accidentally misspell it...
...with the letters
of your name...
and I know visually
that it looks wrong on paper
but when I hear it in my head
it sounds right
and now I can’t quite remember
any other way to spell it
and thats not really the worst of it
because I’m really just rewriting
the same poem over and over again
somehow hoping that rearranging
the letters and the words
will somehow align the stars in heaven
causing my heartbeat to sync with yours
and somehow you will just know how I feel
and I won’t have to stutter
and stammer and choke on the words
because every time
you’re are sitting across from me
or standing anywhere near me
or being anywhere out there
in the world breathing
while just being you
causes my mouth and my hands
and my body
and the whole world around me
to tremble
as I begin
to feel so dangerously close
to not feeling so alone
and alone is a thing
I have grown to be
incredibly comfortably with
alone is a safe heaven
of quite and peaceful solitude
where pain is a thing
easily stitched away
inside secret pockets
of regret
that nobody knows about
alone is something that has
become the best friend
my heart has ever known
a secret companion
no one can steal away from me
the person that knows everything
about me that is too embarrassing
or strange
or heartbreaking to talk about
it knows things that
I don’t even know about myself
I am sure that I am
about to be swallowed
by some armageddon level event
and be forgotten by history
because this isn’t the kind of story
that i get to be a part of
except for the character
that no one notices
so there is no need to remember
who I was
or how when I thought
I misspelled the word love
with the letters of your name
was the first
and only time
I ever actually got it right
Aug 25, 2018
Aug 25, 2018 at 12:54 PM UTC
I became mesmorized by the water filter attached to the sink
From ***** to clean the water glides
Doing so to please each humans needs
Water the necessity, the core of living, life, existence
Filling each cup of energy
Filling each cup of life
Filter: a device to remove impurities
My mind drifted and with shaky hands I began to remember
Filter: a device to remove impurities
How similar I though how similar
Filtering , like my speech daily ,y words altered to be clean
To build into the right sentence, the sentence that fits into a specific place set and stone
Once it is filtered there is not return to *****
I remember as a child the day I was told to filter
The day I was told to engage myself within myself
To intertwine words in between my bones and hide them there untill they we're spell checked
to play hide and seek, more hiding than seeking
Make sure the words find approval
Ecspecially through man, because the word man is placed in woman
But woman not in man
As a defiant child I questioned life's reasonings
A woman found me, an adult figure I clung to like the last leaves on a tree
She spoke elgant and quiet
You cannot stand alone young girl you must think before each syllable flys like birds from the cage in your mouth
Suppress your mind disable yourself so you can exist among the superior
For generations to generations this is the curse
but such a blessing to live
We do not question humanity or the man in the w-o
You were born this way dear you cannot help whats under your skirt
I will train you to deal with the cards you have been dealt
But never speak of my teachings for out loud we are equal
I opened my ears like arms for a hug and stitched my mouth like buttons on a shirt
Ten years later I stand at my kitchen sink and I feel the words under my ribs and the sentences wrapped around my neck
I open my trap to let go of the misspelled words under my ribs
But there gone, seeking and seeking I want all my words back but they evaporated, forgotten among the earth
I take the filter and twirl it in between my fingers
Holding freedom between palms
filter: a device to remove impurities
I pour a glass of ***** water and take a sip, a gulp,
oh. the glorious tast, the glorious taste of impurity
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 12:43 PM UTC
I am a series of problems, you see.
I am that annoying song stuck in your head, the reason you can't get to sleep. I am the creepy girl in some horror movie that you swear you keep seeing around town, and the notification you got a little too late. I'm the embarrassing email you just sent, the one simple word you misspelled on an otherwise perfect paper, I am the stain you didn't know you had on the shirt you got two weeks ago. I am your work that nobody else seems to appreciate, and I am the voice in your head telling you that you are not good enough. I'm the grammar problem spell checks don't pick up on, I am the big piece of cake you promised yourself you wouldn't eat, but ate anyway. I am the ****** you won't pick in public and the moment your favorite cousin opens the birthday present you got her just to be very disappointed at what's inside. I am the thunder your dog is afraid of, the bikini you're too insecure to wear, the frizz of frizzy hair, I am the pair of jeans you had when you were younger that you wish your mom never gave away. I am your lost pair of favorite socks, a cavity, a weight gain.
I am your disaster, aren't I?
Jan 7, 2013
Jan 7, 2013 at 1:02 AM UTC
Two poems got away last night when I was dozing
bolted out the door
before I knew it
laughing like fools
Stole my last two beers
and they were gone
“Ya see, officer,
They didn't have their names yet
so they don't know themselves at all
or to answer if I call
They misbehaved and
Never learned there's rules out there
I'm a lousy poet parent, yeah,
I know
I shoulda been tougher on 'em
Half their words 'er scattered
twisted, misspelled, unreadable, inept
with rhythms all askew 'n weighted wrong
They will surely fall over their own lines
and into big shit-trouble
***** little scribbles!
sorta clumsy like their mother"
Meanwhile, the grammar cop is thinking,
“They do not pay me enough for this!
I'm looking for children of the village idiot and a *****
"...Across the yard and down the alley
They must've run
Hopin' they didn't figure out the stick
on the Toyota
I'll never see 'em again
Pretty sure they got my keys"
The cop is nodding, bored, polite
but I notice
He's written all this down
Feb 26, 2018
Feb 26, 2018 at 3:57 AM UTC
in first grade
i had my first crush
on a boy
who told me
that i was annoying
and to leave him alone
in second grade
i pretended to be a witch
and my friends
cast spells
and rode invisible brooms
in third grade
i lost a spelling bee
because i misspelled
the word cotton
in fourth grade
i started my first diet
because my sister
made fun of my baby fat
in fifth grade
i had to get an appendectomy
and when i came back
people remembered me
only because i was gone
in sixth grade
I started skipping lunch
to go to the library
and sit in the bathroom
and cry
until class started
in seventh grade
i pulled apart a shaving razor
and sliced the inside of my wrist
and hid the small line
with a bracelet
made of denim
in eighth grade
i cut all my hair off
with safety scissors
and i learned
that no one will date me
and that my lips will never be kissed
in the ninth grade
i smoked
and wrote
and stopped talking
because no one wanted
to know that i existed
and i don't
think i will make it
to tenth grade
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 7:35 PM UTC
Time to stop judging
Best to confess
Hiding behind your SOS
Feelings of others you ignore
Drama and chaos you adore
With your moralistic writes
Acerbic word fights
Sarcastic bites...
Why can't you be nice?
Instead, you play the part fully
As the intellectual bully
Disregarding the tears
Throwing misspelled word spears
Wielding grammar hammers
Pouncing when someone stammers
Hey, Bro! Don't you even know
What time it is?
Time to stop judging
Best to confess
Hiding behind your SOS
Feelings of others you ignore
Drama and chaos you adore
With your moralistic writes
Acerbic word fights
Sarcastic bites...
Why can't you be nice?
You say you're a godly player
But you're really a Sibboleth slayer,
An ill will conveyor,
Grand total naysayer,
Once you went away but then came back
Unbelievable, you're even more whack!
Hey, Bro! Don't you really know
What time it is?
Time to stop judging
Best to confess
Hiding behind your SOS
Feelings of others you ignore
Drama and chaos you adore
With your moralistic writes
Acerbic word fights
Sarcastic bites...
Why can't you be nice?
TONEY OUT - BOOM!
Nov 7, 2019
Nov 7, 2019 at 11:21 AM UTC
he craves online hook-ups.
But this isn't me
nor am I that intrepid
a torrent trampoline
on wireless ether engines
cyber silver surfin'
zone on / in .nets & .coms
searching fiber-optics for sight
browsing rooms of M4M / in-fantasized delights
an itch to fix
to sit transfixed
as if
subliminally attached
umbilically
digitally digitized digi-man
to a electronic felatio soundtrack
yet all the while detached
lurking duplicitly
reading pretend profiles explicitly
for *** sexified mind
dreaming up new fetishes
with misspelled texts
tandem testimonials as if written
by a Compaq-machine-head
Microsoftened lust
currents electric now as we turn into dust
with iBooks & faraway Dells on our laps
scrolling lists for Adams
status' with "anything goes"
remonstrating our vicious cycle
alive & blank with un/trust
gone viral...
this isn't me.
where is the warmth
of feelings, emotions,
malleable and infallible / love??
I am not as talented
as he
to be in two places at once,
but he
has the many faces
and genius of multiple personalities
Cybil
facets
of sabotage with Mommy Dearest grace.
Beautiful strangers his acquired
taste...
he says it was not him
(doing ****
my rage has only one trait.
two eyes (once wide asleep in the lies)
and velvet-rope-burned
wrists
my feet learn to fly
my heart un-breaks
my wings reanimate...
he has too many faces
doppleganger hatred
none to care for or embrace
When did I go blind,
and leave my many strengths?
Where do I now
again
begin??
(The rubble or the sin?)
Every night adieu
Every day anew
once again...
Jan 3, 2016
Jan 3, 2016 at 6:43 PM UTC
perhaps i kept you like a secret, but
you spilled and overflowed into everything i did
lingered oh-so-noticeably, like an expensive perfume
perhaps you left me, but you also left your presence
like coffee stains on my journals, like, despite my wishes
all of your reserved enunciations and misspelled mannerisms
still shadow alongside every line that i reluctantly write
my parents say i am selfish, and perhaps they are right
my friends say this is hopeless, i hate that they're always right
perhaps i still sing about how we were "right person, wrong time"
perhaps i still write about a different us living out a different life
one where getting to love you is still a privilege of mine
perhaps i've finally stopped writing about the day we reunite
perhaps i can't move on, perhaps i lie, perhaps you'll understand
when i tell you over lunch, on the verge of tears, that i'm afraid
that i will suffer a case of unrequited love until the day that i die
Feb 28, 2024
Feb 28, 2024 at 1:01 AM UTC
I'm a docder, pretty wizard, how d'ya like that?
I prescribe drugs, you just wear a pointy hat!
I ain't no Dr. Phil BS or Dr. Dre crap,
While you're busy casting spells, I'm savin' some poor old chap
Against me, you wouldn't stand a chance
I'm smarterer than you, and you just have a fancy stance
I'm a real life livin' docder
And you need me as a proctor
Just to drink some vodkar
And by now I bet you're wonderin' what ya just got in yer
Ya can't even rhyme
So why should I waste a single bit of my time
Fightin' with ma docder powers which are all so sublime
And here's a little gift
Before I shift
Back ta destroyin' all ya lyin'
Without even tryin'
It's a free little lesson
Better count it as a blessin'
Crap, wizard, that, warcraft and path
Don't rhyme, just do the math
And also by the way, you misspelled "WRATH!!!!!"
I can wear whatever I want, from my boots up to my hat
So, my little wizard, what d'ya think of that?
I can use anything, from a .50 cal to a bat
You just get a stick, and a stupid purple hat
I can eat 416 billion grams of fat
And cuz I'm a docder, I'd burn it off in nothin' flat
By just using a little brainpower to focus
All of my smartererness, against your hocus pocus
You could never mess with me
Or either docder buddy,
Jedingaling and Murly
You'd leave so freakin early
If we started a beef
So just can it, and save yourself the grief
Against Walsh, you would flee
And as of now, he hasn't even got his docder PhD!
Unlike me!
Yeah, try every fancy trick
And poke me with a stick
A docder can take any pain,
From a puny little stick to a saw with a chain!
And then the docder'd turn around and use an attack
And your whole puny world would fade into black
You are done
I have just won
CUZ I'M A DOCDER, SON!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jul 23, 2014
Jul 23, 2014 at 7:22 AM UTC