"neatest" poems
she asked for
a birthday calendar
simplistic in design
quite endearing
nonetheless
to collate
each and every
important date
mark them down
in her neatest
clearest handwriting
she thought that
if she hung it
in pride of place
on the wall
by the kitchen door
her eye would
be drawn to it
each time
she left the room
she would not
forget to send
the appropriate message
of congratulations
and many happy returns
when needed
or expected;
yet although
the calendar may
coincidentally
be showing
the correct month
it has remained
on that page
untouched
ignored or
unheeded
for the past
eleven months
Jan 30, 2023
Jan 30, 2023 at 10:02 AM UTC
It's a wet gray cloudy traveling day
These are the days that I fear,
these are the days that I live for.
Because the fear can't last, the planes
don't crash, & the clouds are pure up top.
It's a wet gray cloudy traveling day.
These are the days that I pray.
It's the neatest writing I've ever done,
it's the neatest end that we've come from.
And the skies keep fissuring.
The world keeps turning, skies
don't keep on burning, 'cept at the 838 mile-per-hour
my mind goes to freeze the sun in my eyes.
It blinds.
It's a wet gray cloudy traveling day.
These are the days that I pray.
It's the neatest writing I've ever done,
it's the neatest end that we've come from.
And the skies keep feeling fractal.
These are the days that I pray.
When the streetlights don't go out &
the skies change gray, I beg.
Because weather like this is for change.
When rain & sky never have a say
everything is here on the ground, I say!
It's a wet gray cloudy traveling day.
These are the days that I pray.
It's the neatest writing I've ever done,
it's the neatest end that we've come from.
And the skies keep flashing flat.
It's the neatest writing I've ever done.
It's the neatest end that we've come from.
The light stays simple, the lives end late,
but the clouds don't have a say.
Because they're the days I fear to move
& do & be. Be neat.
It's a wet gray cloudy traveling day.
These are the days that I pray.
It's the neatest writing I've ever done,
it's the neatest end that we've come from.
And the skies keep feeling frail.
It's a wet gray cloudy traveling day.
These are the days that I pray.
It's the neatest writing I've ever done,
it's the neatest end that we've come from.
But the skies keep turning.
But the skies keep turning.
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 12:03 PM UTC
The other marjoram and the clothes
Are chimes inverted for her story,
What if we had chives, asparagus?
And what, asparagus, if we had chives?
Why did all that rain fall
All day in the grounds
And on the bird feeders,
And through the clearing?
The neatest patrons are back,
Their statue tortured by your autumn sweater.
Then there is the storm of receipts.
The salad bowel needs sanding, but not this
Fall. Scatter the remaining marjoram like dust.
Sweet peas from melancholy gardens
Sautéed over her faux tofu.
Fruit flies like a banana.
Jan 27, 2016
Jan 27, 2016 at 11:36 PM UTC
I cannot replace a loss like Kathy
Who inspired my world of rhyme
Who encouraged my neatest metaphors
And urged me take the time
She cheered me to the loftiest
And made me reach plateaus
I never even knew before
I'd have the will to go
She was a poet and an angel
This human in disguise
She touched my life and made me see
A world beyond my skies
She kept my quill original
And made my words more wise
She'll come by I know she will
Each time my fire dies
Copyright Louis Brown
Apr 15, 2012
Apr 15, 2012 at 4:47 PM UTC
Chin up
What are you looking down on for?
I heard you were the winner of this contest
Why down
When you are already in the up
Your life is as high as the clouds
Tiptoeing on the gold
When every floor shines to you
People latch on you like a magnet
Hoping to leech off some basket of your talent
To me and the eyes of the envy, that is not humility
It is nothing but vanity
You have the neatest work
Organized and logical
Most understandable and desirable
You have the cheeriest face and smile
You have the coolest of fiercest lies
You have done the impossible
You have the peaceful of memorable
You have the breath freshing life
You have a simple but satisfying affection
You have somebody willing to sacrifice for you
Best of both worlds connection
You do not have a broken brain
That fluctuates on every thought train
To me, I see rain
Instead of the bow's grains
You do not faint
In world's every little madness added with vain
You stay rooted on your spot
Defending yourself even when the fire's hot
Dare playing forget-me-not
I ask myself everyday
Why cannot I be strong?
Why cannot I be independent?
Why cannot I be more talented?
Why cannot I be clean?
Why cannot I be innocent and still loved?
Why do I keep thinking?
Why cannot I just stop?
Why am I surviving?
Why
Why cannot be like them?
Why cannot I be like you
Always never enough
Improves but fails
Told to be yourself but I am tired of doing both the appropriating and the disappointing
Always hurt
Always inviting pain
Nothing to gain
With my self pitying
With my self degrading
Demotivating this miserably, hopelessly beating, drowsing heart
As I long stare on
Is it me
Is it you
Is it everybody
That I am crying out for this?
Repeating the celebrity thinking
To prevent sinking
You have to keep sailing in everyone's mingling
To forget what you are actually dancing
What you are living
Until you are completely failing
Fading
Because we are all missing something
Then blame it on everything
It is hard to maintain the:
"Just sing and soon everyone will respect you."
Feb 20, 2019
Feb 20, 2019 at 7:34 AM UTC
Naaman thinks
of Shoshana
muses on her
as he writes
from the blackboard
in class.
The teacher explaining
the rise of the Nazis
the resulting war
and the Holocaust.
His grandfather died
in 1936
and his great-uncle
in 1941.
The stain of anti-Semitism
having touched his family.
He wonders if Shoshana's family
had been hit so from the curse.
Naaman writes
in his neatest hand
the script the teacher
has written.
He hopes she
will be there
on the sports field
at recess
if the weather is fine.
He hasn't brought
his book today
he wonders if she
will allow him a kiss.
The teacher has
finished his script
and stands back
to view his work
hands on his hips.
He has seen a photo
of his grandfather
back in 1929.
Before the Nazis
came to power.
He is smiling
bright eyed.
Unlike that
Naaman assumes
when he died.
Feb 22, 2017
Feb 22, 2017 at 1:25 PM UTC
Today someone said the word
“Swing”
And it brought me back to a distinct
Flavour
Neither bitter nor sour, but
Sweet
Like the cookies, you baked.
Every time I visited I wanted to
Help
Bake the neatest of cookies and
Play
Afterwards in the playground by your now
Old home
You no longer live there but I remember
Every childhood beath I drew
Exist
In that home, nesting in the door
Frames
Measuring my height and the brick wall where we used to
Hide
During those summer nights
Apr 10, 2019
Apr 10, 2019 at 8:32 AM UTC
new was sitting across from me
her skinny was wider hips waist
hair by face was precisely framed
in the neatest skin of comely youth
i was talking my kept my mouth was
to slaver words dear as quickly heaving
as to her ears i might impulse the livid inch
of her pristine lips to defeat my useless sound
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 5:14 AM UTC
neatest strips of me
symptoms of tarnished soul
comforted by sighs
unguarded and pure
tangled up in truth
the woven layers of mind
you saw into my dreams
through brooding crypts of time
which wish to stay awake
victims of love denied
through beckoning ordeal
whatever may betide
you peeked into my strength
and all into my pride
through dusty shelves of old
regrets as steeple high
to put me in a rut
witnessed by falling skies
wetted by tears of joy
and parched with breeze of lies
for its a choice you shall
bequeath upon this being
unfurl upon my life
as surly autumn screen
amidst your promise which
hints of a crawling day
i tasted purest love
heartlessly ripped away
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 5:06 PM UTC
Letters
With a little paper and ink and the time it takes to think you can tie time and space together
Hearts warmest caring tucked and folded speaking stands in neatest rows sweetest love it shows
Mathematics consoled in problems extolled reaching bearing the load of heavy thoughts they to know
Some lines are like stairs they climb to heights the reader brought so far to enjoy pure delights
Some expression organized in quiet detail meant to push and move the listener beyond normal thought
Or in playful tunes the idea has no other content or purposes it only design is to leave you amused
Some would care to drive the point fast but the object is to assure you find what is urgently sought
Some contend and desire they be perceived with style they stand clothed in grandest attire
Perplexing other seems to go for the childhood game of hide and seek who isn’t intrigued by mystery
Others harder to define surely a secret communiqué these twist and turns truly cloak and dagger
Your mind devises images of stories that are found like currents ebbing and flowing with telling history
Stages are set everything in finest detail is set for viewing and dramatic effect your guest expect the best
Then for the end you must paint with deftness this portrait of words will be kept only in the heart
At first it enters the portal of the mind only the anteroom there the decision where does it belong
Then after careful study to deduce the senders true meaning you search a place for endearing art
What a read in the still quiet the mind smoothly draws the blinds closing you in with sweetest thoughts
Dec 1, 2011
Dec 1, 2011 at 9:31 AM UTC
He was on the edge of the world, his world.
Pondering what awaited him...
A single lone tear rolled down his face
He trembled for a moment
Then quietly, he began to write.
In his neatest handwriting, because nobody could read it otherwise
When he was finished, he sealed up the envelope, put it on the table,
and looked in a mirror, at the thing he hated the very most staring back at him
he stared into his own eyes, seeing through them into his own bleeding, screaming soul
Into his cracked, shriveled, and blackened heart
And into his own lost self, that had cried out for help so many times
But when he had help, he lied and lied, but couldn't say why
He had made so many mistakes, he wanted to correct them.
But he was about to make the biggest mistake of them all.
He silently left the house he had called home for 13 years.
The boy decided to walk slowly; for it would be the last time he would do so.
He heard the whispers of the night
through the hearing aids he had been teased far too many times about,
And saw the stars twinkle in the sky
through the eyes that had watered up more times than he could count,
and he breathed the cool summer air
through the mouth that had released sobs, shaky breaths, and cries,
And more tear tracks replaced the first.
He finished his walk, and found a place nobody would find him at
He smiled, a twisted, cracked, and broken smile
And left this world forever.
Little did he know
That when his parents woke up
And saw the envelope on the table
They read it, and tears poured down their face
And his little innocent sister would ask her parents
"Mommy, Daddy, why are you crying?"
"Where's my brother?"
And her parents would try to answer her,
but only more cries would come out.
And everyone, even his bullies,
Would be shocked that one so happy
Could've done such a thing.
And then they would blame themselves.
His friends would become more and more depressed
Some of them taking their own lives too
What he thought would fix his mistakes
Would be the biggest mistake of them all.
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013 at 4:50 PM UTC
speak me young
the *** your mouth
in clovers hot
transcending bond of mortal rot
('tsstupid your
the mouth
and swollowed
tighly
throat )
lift, cleaving
petals of neatest night
carry to heaven(oh and
YES
when your hands
quickly
wig my
burning ****** )the( i'm
fist the
kitty
yer
smell very erectly ) coffin
'o mundane plight
( i'll push between yer stocks
a
*****
like
they
'llpush
a
*****
'tween the dirt
where yer'll sleepin'
lay )
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 4:38 PM UTC
Confronting the cold caller is a testing fact of life
An inconvenient intrusion to your day,
In juggling the impulse to immediately hang up
Or persuade him to, (so nicely), go away.
But if ensnared by the silky trap of honeyed words so soothing
You delay, for an instant, your retort,
You’ll be caught by good manners and politeness opportune
To indulge this telemarketer’s report.
*“An Investment in a heath care plan, (I’d never seen before),
Or Insurance that’s so good it looks unreal,
Or the fund for At Risk Children and the Sunset Cruise to Spain
Combined make a fantastic package deal.
And it may have slipped your memory but I definately recall,
That special Charity you donated to last year…..”*
All creating guilt reaction and a surety of knowledge
That the Credit Card demand is drawing near.
Reaction is important, to stave off being plundered
An irate confrontation could ensue,
But the neatest fun way option is to play them by their rules
When you capture the initiative to you….
Pedantically you question every point the caller makes
Every aspect, every nuance of his speill
Or You hear a different version of what’s actually been said
Frustrating this intruder to reveal….
Reveal the actual nature of the message true intent
By forcing him to deviate from script
Or better still, create a massive barrier of bricks
Which culminates in disconnected click!
M.
9 August 2014
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 7:02 PM UTC
"Let's have lots of babies
and grow old."
He told her in a card.
Six years before she left
and one before the birth
of her last three children.
"Let's have lot's of babies
and grow old."
He promised her that birthday,
on an over the top card
that clearly showed
the light in which he saw her.
"Let's have lots of babies,
and grow old."
He begged her
as she packed her things,
us along with them.
Leaving him with an empty heart
and empty drawers.
"Let's have lots of babies,
and grow old."
He scrawled in his neatest chicken scratch.
The only thing that left in a drawer
years after she changed her mind.
Or perhaps she always knew,
and the day she took my fathers life
was the first day she quit lying to herself.
Nov 30, 2014
Nov 30, 2014 at 10:56 PM UTC
One more step and I swear to end this,
My neatest blade will meet my neck in a kiss,
My eyes will mirror yours beyond the deepest doubt,
I sit cradled in the corner with no peaceful way out.
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 11:04 PM UTC
You are very neat
And you're cool, and kind, and sweet
The very neatest
Dec 17, 2019
Dec 17, 2019 at 11:11 PM UTC
They continued to shout at her,
But she was not crushed,
Not a single tear left her eye,
Not a single word came from her mouth
But deep down the words of disgust
Had started having their effect on her
Now, I wouldn’t say she’s perfect
But at the same time, I would call her unique
For she was sweet and smart just like the rest of us
Her hands wrote the neatest calligraphy
And her inner star was ready to come out,
But those words of hatred had told her
You’re not us, you’re not worth it
I thought this happened once in a while,
But boy I was wrong.
Now every time they saw her
they would laugh at her
Call her the evil names
Tell her she had no friends
But all I wanted was to befriend her
Hours passed into days and days into months
They continued to mock her
So what if she wasn’t good at studies
She’s a rock star
And if continue with your atrocious behaviour
Let me tell you something,
It just proves something she has which you don’t
And if you think she’s not even the slightest bit near perfect
Well, neither are you,
And my dear friend who aspired me
Just remember, be less sugar and more spice
only as nice as you’re able to without compromising yourself.
Oct 26, 2018
Oct 26, 2018 at 8:27 AM UTC
the tiny thing life has hands making hands into gold against light
flashing against dark and bones beneath skin the smell of roses
and taste of a girl neck drunk in short hair and black nails chipped
catching in the chambers of its heart the easily nothing blood
that makes its hands to make laughter, saltsun, thighs deeply new
and rush thrusting with quiet silk and the neatest trimming of
health.
Aug 20, 2016
Aug 20, 2016 at 1:47 PM UTC