"vowel" poems
You think I'm crazy?
HA! That's real funny.
If I were crazy, would I have written a twelve-hundred-page novel without using a single vowel?
No. 'Cause I did. And I'm not crazy.
If I were crazy, would I be able to predict the future by dropping empty tuna cans into an open drain in my backyard?
No. 'Cause I can. And I'm not crazy.
If I were crazy, would I love to slit your ******* throat just to watch the color drain from from your face and onto that cleanly pressed collared shirt of yours?
Yes. I would love that if I were crazy.
But I'm not crazy.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 4:50 PM UTC
heartbreak
parallel to eye
without razor
sobbing
wet leaves
pressed in
a book
will not
dry
next
tears
do not
outlive
themselves
discovery
for another
generation
still
when in doubt
quote rimbaud
no verbs
no more
choosing the vowel “o”
that
i’m not
going to
remember
again
6.9k
Living under time management ideas
As if the decision was ours
Night time seems never ideal
No time to question schedules or hours
Insomnia has chosen me
Ignoring these standards
And if it was on me
To chose her or not
And if I had the power
To decide my living fate
I would still be married to her
Because insomnia keeps you awake
She loves your eyelashes
Moving up and down
What else could I choose
other than those who love me?
And insomnia will keep you awake
No intention to bother, maybe
No intention to creep down your tense shoulders
And still
I would choose her
Sans hesitation
No other temptation
Because Night time is for the hungry
Night time won’t tell you you are wasting time
Night time is the ring insomnia carried the day she proposed
And so I sometimes wear the ring
It’s cold and simple
Nothing interesting for those
who have decided to dream
with their eyes closed
But to me, night time has no boundaries
The ring fits us well
The poets and the thinkers
But beware because this ring is also carried by the harmful
They steal the ring off a thinker once in a while
They are silent and could be watching you
Not owning their personal marriage to Insomnia
Only thinking to commit selfish acts
Waiting for you to forget about the ring and the vowel
Waiting for you to manage the little time He’s told you own
Beware of being awake too
He could confuse you with the harmful man
Because you are awake and only those who chose to ignore the imaginative scarcity of time are made to start a revolution for life
So sleep tomorrow, or the next week
Because tonight is all you have guaranteed as your thinking time.
Feb 4, 2019
Feb 4, 2019 at 8:51 AM UTC
The moonlight was just right for talking.
You hardly talk, that’s reason enough not to fall in love.
Do you know morse code? Maybe we can tap it out.
Wait, are you trying to 5educe me stealthily?
Can I just buy a vowel?
I'm not insulting you.
I'm describing you.
I’m being candid.
Feb 20, 2022
Feb 20, 2022 at 6:56 AM UTC
The answer sits awkward in my mouth
Like an Egyptian vowel
Some language I have yet to learn
And I stand like a third world country that there are no commercials for
There are no heartstrings to tug
No Sarah Mclachlan songs
No one sees the hunger
Building in the bellies of my motherless country
But if there must be indifference in this love
I want to love you more than you love me
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 4:30 PM UTC
A brand new breeze is blowing it's way up north,
It only carries one word but I want to say more.
So many things that I need you to know,
But I thought of one word and leaned out of the window.
I whispered it so delicately to ease the load of travel,
In hopes that when it reached your ears, it'd slowly unravel.
So you could hear each consonant and vowel of the word,
And hopefully it'd erase all the pain and the hurt.
I'm hoping that you get it, the word I said was "forever"
I want you to have mine, no matter the weather.
Dec 15, 2012
Dec 15, 2012 at 3:44 PM UTC
_Spin,
Mister
Fisherman,
Throw me a line;
A fluttering lure of burnished vowel chimes
Bait, braid and bailor - snap, swivel and fly;
Dub well your quill,
Hook me low,
Run me
High_
Apr 18, 2020
Apr 18, 2020 at 1:34 AM UTC
I wish I could love my life and love myself
a little bit more,
fall on my hands and knees at every chance
and praise the life I lead.
I wish I didn't hate myself quite as much
and I wish I didn't recoil at the idea of my life,
the Grimm's fairy tale where Hansel and Gretel got eaten,
Rapunzel never threw down her hair
and Snow White was never kissed by Prince Charming.
The hatred burns hotter when I think of myself,
poor little rich girl,
sat in luxury in front of a warm fire,
belly full,
as thousands of kids in Africa bloat to death with paper thin limbs,
families in the Middle East are massacred and scattered across their countries barren landscapes,
innocent, too soon nearly corpses whither away in hospital beds,
sinking their teeth into whatever life they have left, clinging on.
I'm stable on the mountainside.
My family have never even seen a gun.
I haven't missed a meal in my entire nineteen years.
What the hell do I have to complain about?
My unhappiness disgusts me nearly as much as I disgust myself.
Sitting on a damp bus,
watching beads of rain rush down the dusty windows in diagonals,
like meteors crashing into Earth,
I curse.
I curse the vehicle,
I curse the safe home it's taking me back to,
the three course meal it's taking me from.
It's ******* sick.
I wish I could smile and mean it.
I wish I could love and not hate.
I wish I could love myself.
I'm so sorry for not being able to fully appreciate my life,
for taking it for granted,
for sounding like a spoiled brat.
You probably hate me as much as I hate myself.
I.
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
*******
I.
That's a vowel I'm going to try and use less of
(at least after this poem),
I promise.
Oh the irony.
I am not looking for sympathy.
I am not looking to be compared to a dying child on the street.
I am not asking for a single kind word.
I just ask for a bit of forgiveness.
I don't blame you if you can't seem to find any.
Just know I'm sorry
and I'm going to try.
Now.
*A
E
-
O*
U
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 4:25 PM UTC
My "place of clear water,"
the first hill in the world
where springs washed into
the shiny grass
and darkened cobbles
in the bed of the lane.
Anahorish, soft gradient
of consonant, vowel-meadow,
after-image of lamps
swung through the yards
on winter evenings.
With pails and barrows
those mound-dwellers
go waist-deep in mist
to break the light ice
at wells and dunghills.
3.9k
a e i o u and opposing thumbs
my woman, she's a
snuggler and spooner.
burying herself on my,
no, in my
double barreled chest,
her blonde hair,
my field of gold.^
she landscapes my life,
paralyzing me with the
simplest of gestures.
she sleeps holding my thumbs.
locks me up.
locks me down.
so I cannot transcribe
the lines of poetry mindful,
landlines shut,
land-mines of verse
unexploded,
till these now,
hours later.
a few notes ago,
a few days ago,
heard an octet,
eight voices singing of
five letters, five vowels,
a e i o u.
you can hear what I heard too.
after you listen,
better understand
vowels are the butter of language.
the anointing oil of connectivity.
more than a line of code,
they are the keys to the code,
that make words and life musical.
I suppose we could mange without them if we had to.
spsz v cd mng wthot thm ff v hd t.
but not so well.
I suppose we could manage
without opposing thumbs.
learn to type with my nose,
paint with my toes.
but not so well.
here is how it comes all together.
a e i o u and opposing thumbs,
never give them more than a
never thought, passing over, assumed.
oh yeah, on some tv show,
you can buy a vowel.
these glues are the things that
give me the chance to tell this:
this poem it is a bit about me.
this poem it is a bit about her.
this poem is really about you.
I could live without
a e i o u and opposing thumbs.
but I could not live
without her landscaping my chest.
but
when I share this knowledge
with you friend, it becomes a
verified, realized, acknowledged truth.
So you see this poem is about
a e i o u and opposing thumbs,
but really about you.
In fact, I am thinking,
that if I did not love the title
a e i o u and opposing thumbs
so much,
would entitle it instead,
a wholesome democracy of love.
you, a registered voter,
vote then with both all the
a e i o u and opposing thumbs
at your disposal.
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 2:42 AM UTC
If I could simply overcome
Possessive nouns and vowel sounds
I would not need to study ******
Heavy lies’ beheaded crowns
But you make martyrs with your charter
School exclusive service sector
To systemically condemn me
To the destitution nectar
Of the corner story ******
Potential Cinderella caged in
The statistics of the mathematic
Overdose equation
Comatose’n like a Holy Ghost
Of tranquil ranking party skanks
Whose tanks plan out the projects
For the boys still shootin’ blanks
And then the slavers liberate
Some nation-state of god forsaken
Oil barons salivate
To taste the poison Apple’s stake in
Stock in stuffer markets takin’
All the products people makin’
Privatizing profit-docket lawless
Mother Nature rapin’
For some scarcity disparities
In wealth I can’t attain
You keep me feeding on the bottom
From the top, you make it rain
So as the brains continue drainin’
In amenity dependency
I tinker with the inner-machinations
Now the enemy
You’ve made me out to be you see
My generation’s future’s bleaker
Than the past in full HD
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC
I ask what your favourite word is.
You say you don’t have one, and
I don’t understand.
See. I’m a poet.
I tried hard not to be,
Rejected it with every
Fibre of who I am but
Words form in ways I can’t
Negate.
See,
You speak and I notice
There’s more in what you say than
You know.
Your voice is delicate,
Not in the way you sound words
But the way you phrase sentences,
Like the subject is something to be
hidden behind premises.
Some people grab chance by the throat,
****** you right into the center,
Until you’re drowning in meaning
And unable to listen to anything but the
Beat,
B-,
Beat,
Of your heart but
Not you.
I can respect that.
You’re all tact and logic and
It’s not about feeling
It’s about thought process and
I still don’t understand.
See, my tongue is clumsy,
It stutters and stumbles and smashes its way through life,
But it finds meaning where there isn’t any,
Notes how you say “Spoke”, not “talked”,
How you dance through every word in the English language because
Deciding on the right one
Has to be perfect.
I think that,
You are perfect.
My favourite word is puddle.
I don’t know why, but
When I say it, my tongue kicks
my teeth and
It reminds me of the way my
Consonants get heavier with
******* in my brain.
It makes language ridiculous,
Because the end of its vowel is so sudden
It should cut
But it’s so ******* round.
Puddle.
I can’t explain, not in words,
But I smile when you say it and
I promise you that sometimes
language is less about logic
And more about that feeling
in your gut
When you look
at me and verbs flow out of your mouth
And for once you’re not thinking
And, -
"I love you."
If you thought, it wouldn’t be true and -
"I love you."
Cogs whir to a halt and,
"I love you."
I don’t trust you for a second because
My mind is now skipping stones across oceans
Waiting for depth to show, yet
There’s nothing below,
but still,
Sail away with me.
Let’s leave language behind and use touch to define
The borders between where I start
And you stop.
We’ll find they’re less obvious than we’d thought,
Because I love you.
Not in the way that I say it but
In the way that your presence makes my stomach churn out musical notes
And I was broken, but I don’t want to seem desperate and
I guess that when you say you that don’t have a favourite
I realise,
Puddle’s a scapegoat.
My favourite word is whatever name you’d give for the
Goosebumps on your skin when I touch you.
My favourite word is the colour of your eyes.
My favourite word is the way your voice goes real high when you’re excited.
My favourite word is how I can feel where you touched my flesh, for days after we last met.
My favourite word
Is you
But I’m too shy to say it.
So here, take puddle,
And run away with it.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 3:07 AM UTC
No one born too far from Niedersachsen, said Oma,
ever quite captures their sing-song intonation.
Characterized by subtleties, like an umlauted vowel,
all non-native imitations sound inevitably as ******
as would a cry of “ello, guv’nah!” in a London coffee shop.
Her Plattdeutsch instincts neutered
by decades abroad, married to a son of Milwaukee,
her permanent, dormant longing for Salzgitter awakes only
to trigger hunger pangs of irreconcilable nostalgia
at the passing whiff of a Germantown bakery.
She taught me the word “sehnsucht” over lukewarm coffee
and a pause in our conversation: a compound word
that no well-intentioned English translation
could render faithfully.
It isn’t the same as just longing, she sighed— longing is curable.
Sehnsucht holds the fragments
of an imperfect world and laments
that they are patternless. How the soul
yearns vaguely for a home
remembered only in the residual ache
of incomplete childhood fancies;
futile as the ruins
of an ancient, annihilated people.
How life’s staccato joys soothe
a heart sore from the world,
yet the existential hunger, gnawing
from the malnourished stomach
of the bruised human psyche, remains—
insatiable, eternal.
Long enough ago, a reasonably-priced bus ride away
from the red-roofed apartment in which she babbled her first words,
a kindly old man in a pharmacy asked her
about her peculiar, exotic accent. Once inevitably prompted
with the question of where she was from, she responded only
that she was a tourist off the beaten track.
And when I pointed out, to my immediate regret,
that she gets the same question back here in Ohio,
I realized then that, not once, has she ever referred to the way
the people of her pined-for hometown spoke
as though she had ever belonged to it.
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 2:21 PM UTC
For Helen
who wrote it first,
who wrote it better,
and in doing so,
makes me see more clearly
the why
~~~~~~~~~
no poem should ever be untitled-
every face needs a name-
every poem needs just
one read for completion
but more than that, it is
a orphan still,
deserving of the due,
the entitlement to be titled,
a parenting of sorts
what was the thought that born it-
what was the emotion that conceived it-
what was the sight that demanded sharing?
this is the age of summary and synthesis,
140 and not one more,
so give direction, enable me to make
snap judgements, with so much on my plate,
we must predigest your concepts,
my multi-tasking slowed to levels unacceptable,
so I can adjudge you,
you worker poet,
before or never reading
after all,
why read anything untitled?
more than this however,
for the few who chew
each morseled vowel,
ken each constant consonant,
celebrate stanzas that halt the breathing
and then,
god bless the whole child,
flaws and all,
they more than anyone deserve
your consideration in return
for the title is the essence spark
of you-
and all the more so,
of what you have chosen to share,
your essentials honored
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 6:33 AM UTC
It's not all that hard, it's so easy to learn,
Each and every one of these simple rules.
You see, I'm not even American,
But not even us Mexicans are such fools.
I know this language like I know myself,
I never laid hand on the shelf,
Where everyone placed their literature books,
Just to drop it for looks.
It's easy to remember,
Why can't you see,
English is so easy,
Or is it just me?
No.
That wouldn't make sense.
Spanish was my first language.
Yet I've come to know English better than my native tongue.
You're not North American, British, or Australian?
Alright whatever, I'll let it slide.
But really, born and raised here?
Come on, it's a free ride.
Deosnt it btoher you taht erevy wrod is speled rong?
Notice can't that you is order your wrong?
Proud to be an American, it isn't really saying much.
Cuz it lik jus syin I cn bearle evn speek such.
Yes, I think you're stupid, every time you spell wrong,
Because it's so easy to fix even a word that is long.
It makes me wonder wether your autocorrect's off?
Because that simple thing, knows each time that you're off.
Is it really so hard to put in that one vowel,
Or put in the consonant so your spelling's not foul.
Or correct the double-negative, you know it's not true,
It's easy to do, just proofread right through.
We all have the ability needed learn,
Yet it seems your ability's been placed in an urn.
You've got a big brain, so why don't you use it?
Trust me, I know, you shouldn't abuse it.
If you have pride in nothing else,
That's fine,
But it's good to have pride in the fact that you know,
YOUR LANGUAGE.
Be proud that you can communicate well,
Be proud that even the nerdiest of nerds can't use words you won't understand,
Be proud that you know how to use correct punctuation,
Be proud to know where "ph", "gh", "ou", "eau" and the silent "t" are used,
Be proud to know which words comes first, and which one comes last,
Be proud to know English, you can learn it all fast,
Be proud to know the art of words,
The art so many ancient cultures knew,
The ancient Japanese, and Romans, and even the French,
Yet America has forgotten how to use words.
Be proud to be a leader of the generation in the USA,
The generation that brings back knowing our own tongue,
So that foreigners who come don't know us better than us.
Be proud to know the beauty of language.
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 10:08 AM UTC
the thing with falling in love with a poet
is that only the heartbreak is good enough
to qualify as poetry.
all the roller-coaster rush
and the picnics on the hill
and the first time your hands brush together
on your first date and they take yours
to fill the gaps between their finger,
and the aimless walks looking for
somewhere to eat
and the first time they said i love you
but it wasn’t perfect
so they’d written you a poem
because that seemed closer
to perfect
than those three words —
somehow, at some point,
all of these gets overlooked
like words in a history book
he wouldn’t read even if he was stuck with it in a dream.
the thing with falling in love with a poet
is that it is falling in love with a stranger
who writes poetry at 8 am or 10 pm, hoping
to find his lover back in front of him
when he reaches the last word and raises up his head.
it is falling in love
with someone whose walls seem to echo
the first time they said i love you
three years ago,
it is falling in love with someone
who could still be writing about the love of his life
and sometimes, the consonants
in her name
look like the
vowel in yours
but it’s not you, honey,
sometimes,
it’s just
not you.
he said i shouldn’t mistake
falling in love with his words
for falling in love with him,
so i thought
how could that be, when his words
were the words i wanted to kiss?
how could that be, when he was
the poetry i wanted to read?
one time,
i asked him if he would write me a poem
if he ever fell out of love.
and he said he would never fall out of love.
and he did.
without any warning —
without any melancholic farewell,
or messy kisses on the kitchen floor,
or desperate pleads for us to stay.
he fell out of love with me —
without writing any heartbreak poem;
but then again, maybe it was because
all heartbreak poems, even if it was us falling apart,
would still be written for you.
the night he left,
he forgot to take his poetry collection
all written in the tattered pages
of that black notebook i got him,
and it was full of pages folded in halves
and it was full of your name in lazy scribbles
and it was full of his words
wanting you back.
it was the night we broke up
yet it was still you, breaking his heart —
it was the night he decided he could no longer pretend
he loved me.
it was the night he decided he could no longer pretend
i was you.
Jun 13, 2019
Jun 13, 2019 at 9:08 PM UTC
I spent my nights reading books in our greatest libraries
Searching for what it is I am still clinging on to,
Then after the final vowel I realised
The one thing I miss about you, is you.
Feb 2, 2015
Feb 2, 2015 at 4:56 PM UTC
The air smells like you
Like a bottle of givenchy
Cologne, except brand new.
Like the thought of me and you,
The thought of something actually being true.
I think back on that afternoon
Where we downed that whole
Bottle of cognac.
When you said the three words,
Your pronunciation so exact.
You saw all of me that day
And I admired all of your
Charismatic ways.
The lights were kept off
And I took in every bit of your
Neatly kept loft.
You'd said that I was the only
Girl you brought to your home
And for the first time,
I didn't feel alone.
And I remember all of what you said,
Every syllable, every vowel I clung on to,
Cause I always think back on that afternoon,
Praying that for the first time
What we have is actually true.
Feb 6, 2016
Feb 6, 2016 at 12:46 PM UTC
Glances from across the room louder than the music
louder than the bass that everyone is waiting drop.
Musical notes clamouring against the floor,
don't pick them up.
leave them there,
walk around them
on tip toe
in ballet slippered feet.
feather light or lead heavy.
veins of lightning.
forming vowel sounds with my mouth.
ooooooOooOOO
EEeeeee
i. i. i.
AHhhhhh
Sew me together with fingertips like the soft kiss of lemon drops,
coming up the stairwell
the warmth of wanting
the bite of yearning.
Flushed pink.
Pinched red.
Pricked purple.
Spaghetti mind of soft thoughts
turning hard and stale like cracked chapped candy cane lips.
Naked and waiting.
Scabbed mosquito bites that bled bright red.
OOoooowww.
Gimme a sec.
3-5 business days until rejection.
I'll keep you posted.
48 hours of maybe.
Lemme get back to you.
No RSVP
establishing a lack of certainty.
but but but
Re: Urgent: Plz Respond ASAP
But when?
Jul 23, 2014
Jul 23, 2014 at 11:04 PM UTC
darkened eyes, a loss of sparkle
hardened by the starkest heart
marvel at the harmful parcel
imparted scars starting to part
discarded stars, embarking targets
barred from the starving art
pardoned by departing darkness
that was ardent from the start
(in a crescendo poem, the vowel sound you are working with must build up to a peak in intensity(crescendo), by increasing that vowel sound with each line, then gradually decreasing in the second stanza. for example, here i use /ar/ sounds...2 in first line, 3 in second and third lines, and 4 in the fourth line...then in second stanza, use same count backwards, like 4 in first line, 3 in second and third lines, and two in the last line...it can have a scheme of 1-2-3-4, then 4-3-2-1 or whatever, as long as it gradually reaches a peak(crescendo), and then gradually decreases. both stanzas must match in the amount of vowel sounds used)
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 9:41 AM UTC
i still spell gray
with an a
not an e
in my po-etry
does it matter
to the grammar?
hoo's to say
says the owl
to the vowel
it's a gray area.
r ~ 10/17/14
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 4:59 PM UTC
Men with your sort of name are dangerous.
The way each letter makes your tongue work as if it knew you would never be easy.
The way you sound sharp and ready to break me like the bones you wear.
You carry the weight of ghosts I'll never know, the way each vowel kisses the next.
Men like you are dangerous, and your obscurity makes you all the more sinister
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 7:38 PM UTC
They say I spilt good ink.
blood is inky blue, true,
only as long oxygen external
declines to be untroduced
strikes me as toxic ironic,
wherefore a goodly
dim sum of my
"Poetry"
comes from,
the ink in
the bottle,
what spilt,
gotta be
drops of
me sad bad/and you,
an iced tea mixed blueblood
by nobody's definition.
You see.
I
(oh how I dislike that ego vowel)
write of myself
for myself
but lock your gaze on that person
on the right or perhaps left,
in the panting crowd
of you voyeurs,
it
could be me
watching me
Writhe,
oops meant
write
If the tongue his inky pinky red
then you knowing who you
will be voyeuring,
me
ink spillin'
that oxygenized ink
that is writing the rusty
Blues
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 8:49 AM UTC
There are far more painful things than loneliness,
Like being surrounded by the deep,
Gnawing feeling that nobody quite understands.
It's hard to escape, this ambiguous notion of longing
For something that isn't quite there.
It always shows up, rubbing up against the edge of causal conversations, late night musing and crowded coffee shops,
Bearing it's ragged head in the reflection of silver spoons and tap water.
It's easy to lose yourself in it all,
To forget the subtle way you shuffle your feet,
And even the final vowel of your name.
These things seem so miniscule in comparison
To the wide empty feeling you get
When surrounded by a crowd of all the wrong people.
Mar 4, 2013
Mar 4, 2013 at 2:26 AM UTC
not one word is mine
there's nothing left to say
that hasn't already been said a thousand ways
if someone were to crack open my skull,
quotes of Palahniuk, Salinger, and Plath
would be spinning in a metaphorical blender,
mixing and morphing into a multitude
of depression and life lessons,
wisdom and just plain nonsense
all of which has already been said
i'm exhausted
Aug 6, 2015
Aug 6, 2015 at 12:10 PM UTC