Titling poems on Hello Poetry

Kyle Kulseth Nov 2012

How I hate to be a ****     havering ire and vitriol
But with great bombast    I must barbily insist
That you  stop that ****.

Alliterative verse because I am of Germanic ancestry. Please start thinking of titles.

mk Nov 2015

nikkah- marriage ceremony

she sat on the beige satin couch
looking down at her feet
which were designed with intricate patterns made of mehndi
her nails painted a light pink
a color much like the subtle blush on her cheeks
she was fair, but not pale,
she had a shine to her, a glow
her face was hidden for the most
with a white lace dupatta
like the midnight moon hidden behind translucent clouds
most of her hair was tucked neatly away
except the loose strand which rested on her forehead
a curl, the color of sweetened caramel
soft, delicate; and ever so sweet
she brushed it back with her small hands
but it bounced right back, falling on her face
she looked up, slightly titling her head towards the light
the way sunlight hit her eyes made you want to never look away
oh, her eyes
lined with kajal, they stood out
the kind of eyes you could find yourself getting lost in
hazel and green- with specks of yellow and blue
there was a universe within those eyes
like the rainforest after a summer sprinkle
lush, pure, mesmerizing
but they were quickly hidden once more
as she delicately pulled the dupatta closer to her face
and smoothed down the crease in her silk kameez
her movements were entrancing
you could not look away
the more you looked, the more you craved to catch one more glance
gentle, soft, kind
never in a rush
you couldn't help but imagine what it felt like to feel her touch
the only words we heard her speak
was right when the sun began to set
and the orange-red rays reflected in the pearls around her neck, the only jewelry she wore, yet enough to adorn her
her puckered mouth opened softly
and she was bearly audible as she spoke
her voice like honey: sweet & melodious
if she never stopped speaking, you'd never stop listening
she spoke with a tender sort of confidence & surety
*"qabool hai, qabool hai, qabool hai"

nikkah is the official marriage ceremony for muslims. here's what i've always imagined a bride in an eastern nikkah to seem like. the whole image is rather enchanting, i must say.
-
mehndi: henna
dupatta: shawl often worn by women in the east
kajal: kohl
kameez: shirt
qabool hai: i do

#love #beauty #marriage #gentle #muslim #ceremony #east #nikkah

beth winters Dec 2010

i give up on titling this

i want to scream you through my mouth.
i don't have to exist any longer, as sun
shine or stretched clothing that doesn't
fit any longer, the shirts in your drawer,
the scarves fumbled with and discarded
underneath the stairs of a community c
ollege. if you want this, would you tell m
e. i don't have to step outside this door,
not once or twice without you. because,
of course, there are better things. i don
't think i make any more sense than pre
tty birds that cheep unicorn songs, and
grow shelters for their green-houses. i
could write you a song, if you'd like.

when the sun shines for the second tim
e, i'll let you know. right now the clouds
are labelled grey, and drawing islands i
n the discovering sand does not remedy
seasonal blues unaffected by the medic
ation of your smile and racing for play-g
round swings that cut up my thighs any
way. if i could put you on repeat, i woul
d, but life ain't youtube, and people ain
't paintings you can put in a frame and
hang on the wall, they ain't songs you
can listen to until you go cross-eyed wi
th giddiness. i'm not new anymore, i'm
words i've already written, places i've
already been, i am people unfamiliar b
ecause i've talked to them for so long.

JAM Nov 2013

I hate titling #3

I hope you dont think
My lack of consistence makes me weak
Cause if I stink
Persistence has a smell and I ******' wreak
Stuck in my speach,
Cause "I dont give a ****" is hard to teach

So each week,
that goes by the life inside,gets weak

So life I find,
sometimes is outta reach

But... Time passes,
the days get longer and longer

Lookin' for answers in a pile of ashes,
as the resistance gets stronger

It's time to unwind, but I end up crashin',
cause I wandered

Keep it sublime, let the clock move slow like molasses,
while I ponder

-J.A.M

JAM Nov 2013

I hate titling #1

Bow to the strings
Three clicks of the drumsticks
Then the bass chord rings
The singer sings
The notes carry on with wings

Give flight to this music
Lock it in your sights then use it
Wrong the right, but dont abuse it
Day or night, just stay true kid

Whether your roped or cuffed
These stores are gonna open up
Break free from your half filled cup
Over flow your own, yeah fill it up
No matter how full you feel it'll never be enough

Even if your rich, even if your clock clicks and your bell rings
You'll never get sick of the rot this rich brings
Keepin your chick just to help sell things,
stable you are not,
your hopeless,
Your beat, your melting
Now you feel the heat that this hell brings

-J.A.M

JAM Nov 2013

I hate titling #2

If you got murdered today
Your family would probably hurt and pray
Shovel dirt on your grave
...possibly pay the debts you have'nt paid

Hopefully you've made a name
Hopefully you've played the game
Hopefully you've weighed the guilt and the shame

Now I don't hope, now I know you'll stake your claim

In between then and now
I'll sew tight the seem on your vow
Realize and redeem question marks you left after the word "how" ??

Click clack kerrrr Pow!

Every once in a while
Shivelry can punish a child

But give em' hope, give em' a rope

So verbal delivery can tame the wild
Call it "misery" call it "style"

This ain't "hot" so evidentley its mild.....?

Your not on fire, but 911 is what you dialed

Beginning to end, aint no trend like this worth your wild

Sit back...

Relax...

Your alive... Smile

- J.A.M

Brandon Jun 2018

You’ll Never Know The Joy Of Titling A Poem A Title Longer Than The Poem & Having Nothing To Do With Said Poem

I will never be at
The peace that I seek

Charlotte Reynolds Oct 2011

Martyr

Speculation proved
contagious,
misinterpretation
crept silently on patchwork soles
(odds n' sods messily stitched,
tittle tattle did no favours)
like a flu it spread,
hushed curiosities rested
outside ol' Hutch baker's door,
where even a freshly oven'd
batch might strain an ear
or five to net nearby tongue trading,
seeds straining on their brows.

Even those Mother hens
had a cluck or two left in them,
rumours about the
'Dust mite Martyr'
as she was dubbed,
“Does she have no shame,
sitting pretty in Matrimony's dress?”
one heaving checkered breast commented
titling her beak
to gain a better look -

At that shriveller slumped,
an examiner of the cobbles
with such a religious stare
her lids traced stones
within the darkness,
a traveller -
wanderer not to be trusted,
especially not
with bloodied lilies tangled
within her gleaming mop.

Ashley Day May 2013

Spellbound

Leaving those trusting eyes—
was indeed the cruelest act I have
ever partaken in.

Tagging along after numerous hugs,
These kids claimed that white bus—titling it as
mortal enemy. Now this nonliving
object was my ultimately my enemy.

Silently they wept, I wrap
my arms around her, I gave
everything I had to offer.
Hope

Washing over the diluted curvatures of
my face, my mind began to spin out of control.
Then his youthful face hit the floor like a bag
of unwanted rocks—Pain severed my core.

Every motherly instinct I possessed now
Stood,
perched in
tip-toed fashion.

Stunning those hopeful faces,
I turned my back—
like everyone else who had come
before me.

Sliding into the bus seat one final time,
my numbness took over—aching
taking refuge on a limb.

Had I held them back from their victory?
Or had I helped them pursue it?

Transforming, I will never be
the same. Will I go back for those
kids?

I recently went to Jamaica over spring break on a service trip to an orphanage. I wrote this poem a few days after I returned. I wanted to give readers a scope into what it was like to leave the children.

Ginamarie Engels May 2010

CPU

Microsoft "WURD"
slang font.
i know your type.
you like Arial.
you dig Arial Black cause there's no Arial White.
she wears a size 0.
invisible to the eye.
she's from Georgia.
print her out on white paper.
she'll be prettier than Courier New Times New Roman.
her Impact on Felix Titling will be extravagant.
she'll put him under a spell with her Book Antiqua.
you'll give up on her and take a train through the Terminal towards Tahoma in the "Golden State"
you'll come across Verdana who is a size 12.
bold as you are, you'll ask why she tries to underline her beauty by showing off her colon(:) .
and you ask her why women are always cranky before they get their period (.) ?

[arial, arial black, georgia, courier new, times new roman, impact, felix tilting, book antiqua, terminal, tahoma, verdana=different fonts]

Nick Kroger May 2014

Salvador Dali's Black Lipstick

love.
The knife rests on the counter.
Her freshly chopped hair
Feels so estranged.
A healing process
That seems to cut more than give.
Black eyeliner fresh to her skin;
Only worn after –
Never before.
Light flicks to her ear.
Her father’s gift of an earring
Ripped away.
A long ribbed scar
Of the letter “A” behind her ear
From a singed lighter burn.
The color was grey,
But it burned scarlet in her heart.
Impressionist choke lines ran across her throat
From her unwanted suitor.
Biting her lips with pain,
She felt a ruby red rawness.
Salvador Dali’s black lipstick
Twisted open to bleed
memories into mirrors.
Impulsive strokes of darkness filled the glass
With a diminished, backwards word
About a diminished and backwards girl,
She finished titling someone else’s art.
The gritty glass gleamed—
evol.

#love #fear #depression #pain #**** #hopelessness #victim #numbness

scully May 2017

its not even worth titling

it has become less like poetry and
more like a confession,
more like if i dont get these words out
of my palms i will burn up under all
of my anger.
how do i talk about not loving you
in a way that contorts my words into
honesty?
how do i immortalize this pain
into writing to remove it from
my heart?
i come apart, i am
undone, there is nothing i can
say that will erase how you
felt,
starry eyed and drunk in the
drivers seat.
be careful, slow down, don't
stop
there is no pity.
i cannot force myself to forget.
all i do is remember.
all i do is not-forget.

voodoo Jan 2018

why should i bother titling this

I’ve begun to hate the whole ‘I contain multitudes’ idea.

I hate every breath I have taken since I was twelve, I hate how I’ll never be okay with who I am, and I hate how this concept of containing multitudes means there’s more about myself that I will uncover and hate, again.

I hate how your curtains are chrome yellow, I hate how it spills sunlight on the scattered prints on your bedsheets that I’ve come to hate. I hate how my feet are either too cold outside, or too hot under the blanket, I hate how my neck both desires and dislikes pillows. I hate how I am never comfortable with comfort: I hate how your fingers pressing between my shoulder blades don’t relax me. I hate that I can only love if I hold it up against all that I hate.

I hate how I lie with your arm beneath my head and my mind just above it, thinking of all the things that I hate and how I never hated you. I hate how I write about you, how I hide it from you. I hate how I never said these things to you. I hate how I hate myself but never hesitate to glorify you.

I hate how I say things to make you despise me, how I twist your words to despise you, how I set us on fire and wanted you to save just me.

How delusional of me to want to worship every inch of your skin with my lips. How delusional of me to want to be divine and not lowly, to love and not to ravage.

How delusional of me to love when I can only hate.

#hatred #love #delusion #divinity #depression #selfhatred #selfhate #unhappy

Brandon Jul 2018

Titling Has Become A Chore That I Am Too Lazy To Pursue

Endless nights
Days confused
In sunlight
Close my eyes
Squeezed tight
I’ll never be able to block out all the noise

Tina Fish Aug 2013

Truth

Zen minimalist, tool
slipping words ******* in
and seizing hold, mixing in subtle verbs
spinning worlds, filling up voids
with a tantalizing wetness

Yes, minimalist
and less is more

so clean that up you ***** *****
and speak only silence
leave them lost in awkwardness
born from want and wanting more, like

‘I know you want this
and yes I got this
minus man or wing by my side
rising instead from happy feelings, inside
sounding wise enough to me
and maybe soon I'll see exactly
what they meant’

as we drop and rise
in two time beat
knees, bent, in, weak
quivering at the seams
diving into dreams and coming
out breath stopped, heart attacked,
jagged and off

then two scenes later, maybe three tops
jumping ahead, fast forwarding to
the quick bits
the grimy bits
the slimy bits
the ins and outs
proving what drive thru is all about-

- since there's no need to waste time
on the things we can do
again, and again, and again.

Then, reverse spin
back to the beginning, cowboy
back to the drawing board
back to the sheets

put your back in it and ride, harder
calves carved in, jump the fleet
lift arms up in victory

the downward dog days are over
and we saw them coming
inhibitions released
letting go of the sweet
and drizzling, no just
jizzing all over the ******* place

hot and flustered, in our face
rushing to encase thoughts that
had always filled the space
but still, found no place in design

rather finding the time
to bleed them out, in epiphanies,
calling them nirvanas
calling them divinities

but titling them Truth.

And swearing, on your life
that that's what it was to you

and I lay there, only trying
not to believe it too.

MacKenzie Turner Feb 2012

There are no mirrors, there are only lenses

1.     I have to stop when I catch myself mentally titling poems about how you and I do not belong together.
2.     Doomed like your mother, doomed like your father—don’t think it, don’t think it—loneliness is my birthright, loneliness is my bride.
3.     This is a mania, this is a phobia. Tag your neuroses and track them, keep track of them.
4.     Remember  _, think what happened to _.
5.     You speak of your friend like she’s dead.
6.     She is dead, though, only wakes up now and then to bury herself.
7.     What do you mean?
8.     I mean she reaches out with one arm from her shallow grave, and she buries herself. Great fistfuls of dirt.
9.     But?
10.   But she was not a huntress.
11.   And so?
12.   And so it got the best of her.
13.   Well, you tell me what I ought to see
                when I self-perceive
                       Would you lie to me?
14.   No, you’re a truth-teller, heart-sweller.
15.   The Age of Huts, man, I never had it in me. I’m all ravens and bell-jars.

Mona Jan 2017

Titling Is Optional

Inclined to stay in that imaginary pause,
Where you're being pulled into inertia's triangle,
The image of a sunset front and center
To a cloaked morning, where existence is deniable.

Suffocated by the storm of dust,
That the departing horses have left in their wake,
Behind the weight of two closed lids,
The silence is a marathon that inner voices partake.

And the world is but a whisper, so far away,
Trespassing to reality's sullen grounds is forbidden,
The difference in pressure makes my legs stateless,
Too tired of treading the same roads, eager to stay hidden.*

•●•

RebelJohnny Jul 2014

If You Only Knew a Rose

Mentally, I started titling my poems
“If you only knew…”
the minute that you left

See, we were more like
Mother Nature’s children
Than we thought

Both of us polluted
Like the Ocean, I’m so full of this
Trash that everyone seems to leave me with

You were like poisoned vines,
Twisted and full of thorns
And roses you hide from the light

We built a garden though,
psychedelic and shining through the nights
we always stayed up
late for

Three psychics told me I’d love you
And one of them
In a dying breath told me you’d be
A rose

Boy was he right
I pricked myself just to
Hold you and adore you
Every single time
And I’d do it again

See, gardening takes work
So I cultivate this imaginary love
I hold something fragile every day and
Practice moving slowly enough
Not to break it

I listen to strangers talk
Until I’m bored and I keep….on….
Listening
So that I never miss another word
Love speaks

I look at myself in the mirror
And I find something beautiful
So that I can try to grasp
At how it felt the few times you
Actually looked at me like
I was (AM) a flower too.

I AM A ROSE TOO, ******* IT

I breathe you in like the fragrance
Of these roses that bleed my heart dry
And I wish you cut yourself on my poetry
Half as hard as we both have cut ourselves
Wishing we could bleed out whatever
Makes us undesirable

If only you knew
That I hungered for the few times
You came and watered me with your tears
Nourished my roots with your lips
Rolled around in the dirt
And loved our garden

….More than you loved her.

q Sep 2015

Kiss

She felt the electricity sweltering as
She felt herself grow immensely fervent.

An accidental brush.
A lingering touch.
A stolen glance.

And when their eyes met again-they simply knew

That
She wanted him
As much as he wanted her
He lifted his hand up
Brushing the strand of her hair

She turned away
Casting her eyes down to her shoes
Like they were the most interesting thing in the world
His fingers softly moved to her jaw.
Titling her head back so
He could really see her lovely features

She shivered under his mere touch
He sensed her quite tense under the burden of his presence.
His eyes fell to her delectable lips
As he made his intentions clear
He wanted so badly to kiss her
He didn't want to hold it back anymore

Because she was so tempting.
Because she was there and he didn't want to lose the chance.
Because she smelled of honeysuckle and night.

Her eyes closed as if accepting his request and
When their lips finally connected in a chaste first kiss
A kiss of longing lips and yearning hearts

For once things went so right for the both of them.

This sounds weird since I dont have an experience of having someone's lips on mine. I feel gross with myself

#kiss #first #poetry #her #what #him

Michael R Burch Apr 2020

Polish

Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons—
the ones you trim to hide
the predator inside.

Ten thousand creatures sacrificed;
but really, what’s the loss?
Apply a splash of gloss.

You picked the perfect color
to mirror nature’s law:
red, like tooth and claw.

I thought about titling or subtitling this one “A mini-ode to manicure” but thought better of it. Please note that this poem is not about female predators but the way the human race “glosses over” its predatory nature. We may appear to be “civilized” but what are we doing to the planet and its other inhabitants? Keywords/Tags: polish, nails, talons, claws, predator, gloss, loss, red, tooth, claw, pollution, climate change, global warming, mass extinction, genocide

#polish #nails #talons #claws #predator #gloss #loss #red #tooth #claw

Helen Sep 2013

I have this friend....

he asks me

How are you?

I reply

You know...
same old same,
desolate...
antsy, empty...
and you?

His reply?

Same difference
but I won't complain
I'm breathing and talking
to you

He sits me down
in front of a virtual fireplace
and instructs me through life
leaving just a minuscule trace
of his own footsteps
even though his tread
should be heavier
for the burdens he carries
are colossal against mine

but he takes the time...

To listen to my words
and answer my pleas
He understands
and sees what I don't see

I erred in titling this
my friend
I meant
my Mentor
my Heart~ache, my Hero
my understanding unconsciousness
give, Give, give, never take

I have this friend
who never unanswered
any prayer
if you have an Angel

that you can spare...

Free her wings and let her fly
she knows where she is going
and she knows why
where she needs to be...

tell my friend I sent her

Angel dust and fairy wishes
are what he needs to see :)

from me... (((bear hugs)))

Dr Strange May 2015

Poem to no one

Poem to no one

I remember
I remember when I saw her for the very first time
The way she walked was so exquisite
Her lips were so plump and juicy
She was just a fine specimen
I remember wanting to run after her so bad
But in my mind I thought she was just too good for me
I mean look at me
I'm just a mere mortal born in the wrong place at the wrong time
While she, she was clearly an angel that fell from heaven
Everything about her was just perfect
Her eyes were like precious jewels that shimmered under any and every light
Her voice was so sweet yet had a certain essence of power behind it that could not be described
I remember my heart racing at the speed of light
Pounding so hard that I began to think that it would fall out
My eyes were beginning to dry because I couldn't find the strength to close them as she walked by
My speech became jumbled as if I was never taught how to speak in the first place
I'd curse myself because I feared that if I didn't say something soon another man would swoop her away
I mean she was just that beautiful
Too beautiful for me to muscle of the strength I clearly did not have
So I just wrote this poem titling it to "no one"
Because to her the girl I let get away I am no one

Emma Elisabeth Wood Jan 2014

The Lightest Touch

There is something
 other than a man 
about him

eyes bright,  lips
locked  tight

his fingers 
are not that 
much longer 
than mine

they too  know
chemicals

the touch of glass
 between your bare 
skin and acid

I tap words
through the sheets 
with my finger- 
tips

dot dot dot
 dot dot 
dot

and through the 
haze of sleep
he smiles

his mouth titling
 towards mine

we don’t call it 
kissing

it is the pleasent purple 
colour of neutral 
litmus paper

it is our data
spreading

from the corners 
of our mouths
into my  cheeks

my body betrays me
and colours them
red

but it is more
than a flush
of a fantasy
made present

to be able
to touch

this man who hides
(and lies)

to know
this light touch
of a man in
a mask

which he allows  
only me to
see  through

eve Nov 2017

It is what it is.

What you give me is what I receive,
The feelings overloading and essentially controlling me are forcing the inner version of myself to ignore thee,
Block off anyone who interferes with my life in the smallest of ways.
Stress is enough,
I can no longer think straight.
Consistently titling to both ends of our path,
I thought the starting would lead us somewhere beyond the fan stays of great,
But I was kicked and left in the dust with the others,
The prophecy unveiled itself,
I was right since the beginning, but my witless gut remained oblivious to my emotionally unstable self and instead stayed behind with the real you.
I grew attached to you, thinking everything for once would finally accumulate into one enjoyable entirety,
But you shattered me both internally and externally,
Now all I can focus on is how to fix these pieces back together.
Before I loose touch upon myself once more,
I ask anyone for forgiveness, begging on my knees for all to please.
I wish to give the little portion of my purity and happiness to you, now, am I considered the wrong and careless one?
Or are you, the heartless form of me?

“I know you, you're nothing but a sad boy.”

#depersonalization #crippling #depression #unhappy #vision #whatever #care #toomuch #itiswhatitis #life

Mateuš Conrad Jun 2016

γλωσσoγνωμια

too much poetry decides on what's essential,
nothing, is, quite, necessary. although: existential:
too much borne from inexperience
and too much from anticipating it,
yet the fewest to mind the passing as it was,
anticipation reduced to vaccines on the ready,
so much ******* idealism that it makes me sick...
quiet likely... variation of the onomatopoeia yuck,
and there are plenty... da pacem domine...
or questioning Babylonian tactics:
hanging garden' madness remembering the pyramids
prior the Eiffel overcoming...
the tongue! the tongue! the tongue prior cranium!
knock knock... who's there? who's who? who knows?
no, who doesn't care.
i don't know why tilting on the Byzantine titling,
seemed appropriate, what are you?
the leftists who took apart communism
and want censorship to curb right-wing opinions?
Mary ******* Poppins from afar! Birmingham thus far
and so should Venice mind - no river... no flow.
the left are truly readying a box, two gloves,
tango of feet, a header in a football match is like an
uppercut, grey matter extending... well d'uh d'uh d'uh.
glossognomia - the alter to Heraclitus' tears or Logos
v. Gnome, the laughing one's, atomic Democritus -
both a ******'s fancy without a wife -
wisest speech of the *** without womb -
men and tombs, women and wombs... shame we were
born yesterday and certain scripts were deemed holy
and subsequently undecipherable, unquestioned,
requiring prayer, necessary Koran, poetic justices of
expression, Milton und Blake... well hello the idea
of photosynthesis! maybe an Aladdin pyramid or two
on the flying carpet! who the gold digger now?

Kurt Philip Behm Aug 25

Nexum

Titling a poem
or naming a child

Which process harder
the future beguiled

“A Rose Is A Rose ...”
till maybe it’s not

Called do they answer
— once dubbed and begot

(Dreamsleep: August, 2024)

Sal Gelles Aug 2013

Untitled

it sickens me;
the lack of correction
in grammar,
in punctuation,
in style,
and in titling.

it disgusts me;
the apathy
and support
that go along with
spilling any idea
out; vulnerability
shouldn't be praised,
as it should be sculpted
and shaped, communally.

a sociopath's political piece

alxndra Sep 2014

us

it comes down to the forgotten fact
that we are all animals
simply mammals
acting as though our bones were made of chrome
our hearts were made of stone
and our homes were made of gold
instead
we are born with a soul
that needs nurturing to grow
never with a bar-code
we are not produced to be sold
how do we dare be so bold?
titling ourselves the smartest creatures ever to roam
in actuality we've become programmed weticos
all competing to fit the same unfulfilling molds
and to reach our conditioned goals
we spend our time
stabbing needles down the soft skin
of mother natures irreplaceable spine
repeatedly
allowing her to bleed out
slowly
over
and over
but while we all take turns
leaving our mark
we forget that we are her
all lost
in our purpose

Kathryn Paige Apr 2016

you, you, you

You have inhabited my 2am thoughts, and although I want to remind you just how much I love you in these hours, I know these aren't like old times. So I'll stare at my ceiling—reciting these lines— in attempt to muffle the sound of my heart breaking each night.

You have found home in my favorite songs, and although music is my escape from everything else, it has never been an escape from you. For every verse has a way of bringing up our love, and every chorus has a way of bringing up tears.

Memories of you have resided in the spines of all my books. I'll pretend the playlist you made me in December isn't the bookmark in one of them still. Either way, they are all collecting dust on my shelf now.

You are the common strand running through all my recent lines, and I want to stop titling all my heartbroken words with your name.

-k.w//you, you, you

Melanie Anne Paulos Mar 2023

Untitled

I have a hard time titling poems that I feel didn't introduce themselves to me? I just found them hiding underneath the way someones eyelashes hit their cheek unnoticed... Or in the way a retiree shuffles off the bus to buy flowers and tea.
I have a hard time titling words that felt borrowed from a moment, small & bruising.

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