"qwerty" poems
-This is Nigeria,
Where Cattle’s fly their terrorism flag,
Stumping on humtydumpty green white green.
-This is Nigeria
Where corrupt QWERTY and busy ******
Puts food on the table of unemployed youths.
-This is Nigeria
Where clerics find paradise on earth
Lo! followers live as church rats withal.
-This is Nigeria
Where Eve plotted against a serpent
Hm! Mrs Philomena and her fairytale animal.
-This is Nigeria
Where Sundays are full of bibles and Qurans,
Yet her body stinks in poo of immorality.
-This is Nigeria
Where the mace is a mess in her house
As senators sleeps and vacate seats in a hearing.
-This is Nigeria
Where in Nigeria
We are looking for Nigeria.
May 27, 2018
May 27, 2018 at 10:46 AM UTC
Letters jumbled,
Here and there on a keyboard,
Looking through our code to see where the error is, the truth is you cant find a mistake if it never existed.
We were just programmed differently, the error was all along in a mirror when you look up and understand.
Most of you looking at the white light while we already passed through the prism.
It was never about leaving the closet, we were forced into it, never been allowed to touch the *** of gold.
Roads diverged but my options are more than two, our orientation isn't a highway but that doesn't mean we don't belong on the road.
They tell me opposites attract but I fell in love on the same side of the pole and sometimes on both sides of the pole.
Religious men telling me Santa doesn't like mistakes but if you look aside your blinders, your God made me.
Stuck between the door with a skirt and a pant, some forget I'm still questioning if I look good in a pant or a skirt.
Letters in a straight line, they push us to get in line and choose a road but we like to wander and wander we will.
Feb 8, 2018
Feb 8, 2018 at 7:05 PM UTC
A Tribute
A king takes supper on a creaking deathbed. Featureless, winged creatures zoom by the dark condensed windows. Micro parasites build adobe headquarters in his soft tissue. Reaching for a plate, he groans the terabyting howl that’s prescribed with chemotherapy. Qwerty and light from the drugs, he stares at the apple on his tray. Lost in its curves, he finds himself trapped in a safari of memories. A dream devolves upon his downtrodden mind….
The canopy is populated with twittering, angry birds. Pools of social blood attract flies to the googolplex degree. He stumbles through the dell, suspicious forest while a tremulous, fiery fox stalks behind his echoing footfalls. Pixar apes swing from trees chased by grisly, disney men with guns and trucks. A large eye tunes the darkness and blinks red upon an aging mountain lion in shadow’s brush.
The sony rays belight foliage in auspicious, plaid-orange hues. This amazon of experience plugs the wanderer into a hard drive of intelligence – a gateway to an encyclopedia of wikis and browsers, expanse enough for any backdrop rooftop audience to be faux-enthralled and eager. There are grumblings in the distance of another engine tromping the scope in search of something new and useless. A rumorous bat upsets the plagiarizing tide of the Atlantic Pea Sea. A snake slinks out of the blossoms clinging to the vines among a macintosh tree and bites the salty flier of the washboard night; cyber venom invades his veins.
The average, homeless, bounding, warrior awakens to find a cold supper on his lap and another syringe in his arm. His remaining gums support his teeth as they bite into the apple. He swallows, sighs, and rests his balding, crescent, once-handsome head on the white pillow. The green fruit tumbles gently out of bed and mutely rolls to the floor.
With that, Steve Jobs is dead.
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 12:03 AM UTC
There's nothing like running
your fingers through wheat
as you take a footpath
through the farmer's field
especially in the dead of night
when the silence speaks volumes
Though I wouldn't know
'cus I'm a city boy
I always say
a life better lived on
the road less travelled
clearly wasn't for me
Cloudy days and
cloudy apple cider
go hand in hand
with hand rolled cigarettes
and unread messages
and a qwerty keyboard
Things are gon' get better
things better get gone
have I neglected my writing
or has my writing neglected me
Thoughts are just electricity
surging through your brain
tiny little electrical impulses
molecules and whooshy stuff
I could do with some of that
Oct 25, 2018
Oct 25, 2018 at 6:33 PM UTC
write at midnight. edit in the morning.
write on a mountain. edit on a beach.
write inside a dream. edit & exist in reality.
write in a fever pitch as starlight kisses your cheekbones.
edit in the cold dawn light without excuses.
write loudly with Bjork screaming into the curtains.
edit in silence.
write as the clouds gather around the gibbous moon.
edit as the sun crests the hill & burns away the fog.
write inside, cozy under a blanket.
edit naked, cold on the front porch.
write asking questions.
edit demanding answers.
write blindfolded with your fingers waltzing across the qwerty.
edit bespectacled or with a monocle.
write like a mass ****** edit like a suicide.
or better yet
write like a homicide. edit like a detective.
write toward the open sky with your legs outstretched before you.
edit facing a clean white wall with your knees against your chest.
write because you are innocent. edit because you are guilty.
write during a fit of hyperventilation.
edit during mammoth exhalation.
write with complexity. edit into simplicity.
write, as Hemingway did, drunk.
edit, not sober, but hungover.
see your flaws in the sharp mirror of a headache.
write during sloppy explosion. edit during precise implosion.
write with your head in the clouds gnawing at the cumulus.
edit with your feet firmly planted in the ground.
write during violent collision.
edit during calm separation.
write with a pencil on soggy paper in a hot shower.
edit with a red pen sitting in tepid murky bathwater.
write among raucous laughter & banging skillets.
edit in secret while the kids are asleep.
write like a sadomasochist.
edit like a psychiatrist.
write while running on your tip-toes.
edit while lying flat on your back.
write in several languages with abandon.
edit beside a translator dictionary.
write as you are engulfed in fire.
edit with an extinguisher.
write with careless fluidity.
edit without assistance from amphetamine or coffee.
write with a full bladder,
standing up,
jitterbugging,
squeezing the tip of your *****
closed--urgently
squirm & trickle
your ideas onto
the porcelain page.
Jan 10, 2016
Jan 10, 2016 at 11:33 AM UTC
Who needs words
When you can simply go ???
Or !!!
!!!
This poem will not make me any £££
Or even $$$
But I don’t give a ****.
I just love writing 100%
& don’t **** a d***
About £££££.
I <3 to experiment with poetry and language,
Stretching those *****aries.
*** let’s have a good LOL
And even ROFL.
Let’s play the %s
And send my spell-check
Into a red frenzy.
Any ???s ?
You !!!s at this *****???
And I’ve only scratched the ~~~~~
There may be ####, #### more to come.
I <3 my Qwerty keyboard
With it’s !”£$%^&*()_+ at the top.
The more I look the more I see.
@ last I’m free
From the Grammar ****
=ly free from the tyranny of the word.
But worry not my lovely words
For I will always go <<<< to you
In spite of looking >>>>>>>
At all times.
The ***.
Paul Butters
© PB 28\7\2018.
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 28, 2018 at 5:06 AM UTC
click
click click
the letters
mix
and stir
and whick
my thoughts
onto the glowing white page
the qwerty keyboards
calling my name
write me
it screams
and begs
and pleads
it tells me the clicks
will wash away
the feelings of another lost day
the clicks whisper of hidden things
that time will pass
that mindless thing
as i sit clicking and whicking
and stirring up thought
and laughing
and crying
all inside
as
my family lives their
lives
that i forget to take interest in
as they all respond to their clicks
Feb 12, 2015
Feb 12, 2015 at 12:00 AM UTC
There's an atm in my neighborhood
That gives out singles,
Or three of them,
Or seven,
And so on.
It sits next to the drywall box
Filled with EBT dinners,
Next to the numbered gas pumps.
It glows in the predawn air,
While I sit on a cement wall
Across the street.
That hunk of junk charged me $3.75 to take out $7.
Next to me a man tells his inquisitive boy
Why the police act as they do.
"They the cops, man.
Not you."
I'm watching with rapt fascination
The ten inch screen
Of some wheelchair-bound woman's
Educational tablet,
While her hand, twisted by palsy,
Taps at a magnified qwerty pad.
She's playing hangman,
And I silently,
Secretly,
Guess along with her for almost fifteen minutes.
The bus arrives, and I'm grateful
It's the doubled kind with the hinge in the middle,
Cuz maybe I won't have to stand.
I take the empty seat next to
A Salvadoreña co-worker
I sometimes ride in to work with.
Our conversations are limited,
As are her English and my Español.
We laugh at the Georgetown gringitas
lining up with their morning runners' clubs,
And lament over the cabrones pobres
Peddling to strangers for jobs
Outside the big box hardware store
That won't hire them.
The sun rises as we cross the Key bridge,
And the wounded Washington Monument,
With its scaffolding and the floodlights leaking through,
Is a diamond-studded phallace
Shining over a town draped in a shroud of humidity.
I close my eyes and try to rest
For the eleven minutes between
Me and my desk.
Aug 4, 2013
Aug 4, 2013 at 5:52 PM UTC
My music
is spontaneous
and comes
from the instant
that it takes place
often without
any ideas
at all
so I am sitting
typing at the keyboard
playing little clicking tones
on my qwerty piano
writing about
nothing in particular
only this music
in its current score form
that documents
a person's existence
like this guy
here.
Feb 1, 2012
Feb 1, 2012 at 8:09 AM UTC
Thumbs
anxiously poised
slightly above the qwerty
like little frustrated court stenographers
with other places they’d rather be.
Head
full with more memory than words
worlds away
dancing naturally
in the synchronized but broken
rhythm they used to call love
in a time before they took away its name
and comforting rules.
With broken glasses,
thumbs stumble
frameless
into awkward silence.
Nerves
trembling,
close the phone.
Feb 23, 2011
Feb 23, 2011 at 4:36 PM UTC
They attract Ants,
mines a QWERTY
and guess what, one
has just gone from the
end of the Q all the
way from left to right,
stopped at the roundabout
after the I, then went for a P.
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 3:12 AM UTC
Don’t know you
Don’t know me
Don’t know everything that needs to be
Oh can you
Can't you see?
The bird beating in my chest
In no nest, but a cage
Old withered and aged
While you are so far away
Why can’t you
Please just see
This emptiness that’s in thee
Unclean, unshaven
Only waiting for your return.
Aug 9, 2011
Aug 9, 2011 at 8:22 AM UTC
I push the revolving glass door
Shuffling almost reverently with it's turn
A pilgrim to the written word, I am entering
The church of human consciousness.
The greatest minds sit here with some
That came in through the back door of
Specialist interest or just plain bizarre.
Alphabetical order belies the years that separate
These authors, some rubbing shoulders with giants
Who have barely been alive long enough to tell
Of real experience, then there are those who have
Stood the test of time, decorating bookshelves
In homes that have never read them, they just
Fulfil their reputation as if by osmosis bringing
An intellectual vibe to the coffee table and
Into the very fabric of the space occupied.
They are all here hiding behind their spines
Luring you with interesting fonts, bright colours
Like jpegs on a contact sheet waiting judgement,
Wanting be taken down and become your big picture
"We have made it, our voices have been heard,
All it takes is imagination to release us within the mind
Your images our words, we can make a movie together."
But I have been spotted, "Whatcha looking at punk
Think you've got what it takes to sit with the likes of us,
Don't go reading me and plagiarizing my well worn
Extensively researched mumbo jumbo clap trap,
So you can call me one of your influences on your CV,
Using my name to make you seem intellectual
Look around, how many do you think didn't make it."
I have gazed too long into the abyss and the abyss
Has gazed back into me, how can I claim to have
Any more to say than the greatest minds on earth
And yet, with pure heart my trembling hand hovers
Over the letters of my qwerty keyboard, pressing
The shift key as if in defiance, identical words,
Just not necessarily with the same meaning.
Jun 30, 2019
Jun 30, 2019 at 7:36 AM UTC
Oh little thing
beeping on my hip...
where are you?
did you find me,
green slider, and
tentative ring?
even your numbers
shiny 9 and 5
with 1s, zeros
QWERTY...an
entire alphabet
to love.
How is it
that without your
invisible electronic
leash, whispered
messages and
brilliant, **** screen
I would stand on
the street
lost in my own
neighborhoood...
It is the solved mystery
of the 21st Century.
Feb 22, 2011
Feb 22, 2011 at 10:42 PM UTC
What an emotional vacuum,
A world where one cannot express emotions clearly without the aid of the emoji,
This disease has bread a culture of animation rather than expression,
What ever happened to communication?
Disdain towards the age old conversation,
Discourse replaced by digital intimacy,
Fluent with the QWERTY keyboard,
The zest of adjectives limited to a few abbreviations,
Carried away to the vast world of cyber space,
Yet a human body always gives off subliminal energy,
I will always be drawn to that energy.
Feb 15, 2018
Feb 15, 2018 at 2:47 AM UTC
I remember
When the music didn't come
When the words did not flow
When creating didn't happen
I remember
Strangling my fingers on strings
Pounding my fists on keys
And my voice shouted hoarse
I remember
Ink flowing across a page
And the click clack of QWERTY
As words became sentences became stories
I remember
Sawdust on the floor
The hum of power tools
My hands building what my mind saw
I remember
The frustrations etched into my soul
When my soul was not at peace
And Death layed inside my being
I remember
When the music didn't come
When the words did not flow
When creating didn't happen
I remember
Wishing for my memory
To remove
Everything that I could remember
Jul 26, 2017
Jul 26, 2017 at 1:35 AM UTC
no. poetry can be swirling
across the keyboard like a Rachmaninov
order from chaos
no meaning or rhyme
no rhythm all the time
idolising Bukowski
ending abruptly
Nov 26, 2015
Nov 26, 2015 at 2:45 AM UTC
George Washington never saw a funny movie.
Culture had not knitted lightning into now, yet,
when the leaven in my bread was just a ******
beasty idea attempting to pass Jesus is Lord testing
half-way through today, right now, middle
of everything that's going on in and
around the whole internet connected reality,
right now,
we have magic in our qwerty trained brains,
we can recall the music, baddabumbaddabum
baddadabadah bump, p-ting
college prep
learning to type, mechanically, like a machine,
some one far more famous than me,
told me in print that no real poet types.
I found him poetically unqualified to prophecy.
---------------
May 7, 2024
May 7, 2024 at 5:08 PM UTC
Not sure if I'm
Depressed or not but
I am certain that I'm
Not happy.
May 6, 2013
May 6, 2013 at 2:02 AM UTC
I have, once more,
jailed my vision,
splicing diamond-cut thoughts with this
cross-bred and violently bleeding doubt that
feeds from the stomach and shreds the sanest of minds
It is here this rampant indecision
squawks in wordless tongue,
lashing its disposable fancies
(arrow-tipped precision)
at my shaking core,
bowels emptying
alongside any creative thoughts of semblance
All that is left to bear witness: a sweaty palm or two
– and silence –
as the webbing of my fingers um and ah
hovering, like midnight fireflies
over the speech-impeded womb
of my QWERTY keys
And, inside, I hear laughter
Jun 13, 2016
Jun 13, 2016 at 6:21 AM UTC
I'm alone
Compute feelings
Issue believe
Program the subconscious
Command action and entry
Rinse, repeat
Qwerty is my name
Hurt the game
Spell love
Mar 10, 2018
Mar 10, 2018 at 1:43 AM UTC
Qwerty how your Current Species must thrive
Of Decade-Space-Nine-Precede-Units-Three
Till this Decantery states his Arrive
And spreads his Menu on how to be Free
Or LIVE! Whichever Road suits your Best Spice
After all, Sharks-on-Ribbons you abhor
Yet must not come to you as a Surprise
For Mum and her Nudgies push your own Fore
Yet Understand: Such Meaning dispossessed
Take Growing Values your Difference prone
And if you Comply, least your Arbor stressed
Partake your Conscience then leave you Alone.
And alone as well till my Fuels have Spent
Then search for Another less your Consent.
Jun 9, 2013
Jun 9, 2013 at 4:42 AM UTC
It doesn't matter
whether
qwerty or azerty
letters from the keyboard
have it within them
to hurt me
the impersonal of
a personal computer
opened and loaded
with bullet points
to shoot you
and me
see
it really doesn't matter
does it?
Nov 19, 2018
Nov 19, 2018 at 10:56 AM UTC