Normally I do not write poetry. However, one day while doing an assignment for creative writing I did manage this one. I just had to get it off my chest because Word was driving me crazy!

Bill Gates; Poet

If I see one more red line while writing a poem,
I think I’m going to scream.
The screen telling me my grammar is all wrong-
A misspelled word here, wrong punctuation there,
How does it know what I want?

How does someone sitting in the programming office,
At Microsoft know whether or not my word in a new line,
Needs to be capitalized or the end of my sentence needs a period!

Listen here, Bill Gates, if I want to put the word ain’t
In my poem, get off my back it is where it’s supposed to be.
If I didn’t listen to my 11th grade English teacher,
What makes you think I am going to listen to you now?

Get off my screen and invent something, or better yet
Do the damn poem for me, since you seem to have
Perfect grammar and an infinite thesaurus.

Another long green line sits above this one
Demanding that I revise, revise, revise!

Ah Bill Gates, mathematician,
Scientist, Computer God,
Poet.

I love this!

I don't write poetry but I feel exaclty the same about Word's lack of creative writing (can it say "nonce words?).

Scattered shot
my brains rest comfortably
upon the floor

Expose the shape I'm in
the shape your in

Who gets the best of who

Malthus would adore
the job I've done

Expurgation you defeat

Faces of babble
crapping at me
desecrating my brain
with provincial reality

mind and heart
ache no more

the solution is the state I'm in
and still you feel you think

What purpose did he prove

Look to the dead
to get the truth in life
body rot an endless night

A legacy to-good

Don't feel for me
I'm through with you

With a tip of the cap to George Will, who said he wrote political commentary to pay for his Baseball jones, here is my plea for real baseball.


No Roof, No Rug

Baseball was then played outside
On grass
In the dirt.

A hard slide into second
Stained paints
Mom complained.

Short stop, to second, to first
Two out
Double play.

Tinker to Evers to Chance
Old times
Remembered.

Close call, the home team is out
Stand up
Boo the ump.

Everyone wore a ball cap
Drank Coke
Ate hot dogs.

Baseball should be played outside
On grass
In the dirt.

GaryG48 wrote:With a tip of the cap to George Will, who said he wrote political commentary to pay for his Baseball jones, here is my plea for real baseball.


No Roof, No Rug

Very nice Gary! Brings back happy thoughts to think of baseball. I loved to listen to ball games on the radio as a little girl falling asleep at my grandparents house.

Untitled

When the pain rises up
It lodges in my jaw
At the hinge that joins mandible to cranium
In the notch where the nerves thread through
Carrying all the electrical impulses of the words I will never say to you.

Saffron,
I read your poem and I kept thinking of the last phrase and so I wrote a poem beginning with that.

Of the words I will never say to you
Gathered up and stored away
In a room with tiny windows.

Look in and see them strewn about
Like comfortable old clothing
To climb into on a rainy afternoon

While droplets slip slowy down my pane

realiz wrote:Saffron,
I read your poem and I kept thinking of the last phrase and so I wrote a poem beginning with that.

That was pretty cool! I really like the image of the clothing strewn around the room.

Decanter

Ever have one of those moments
When everything seems right
And just the fact of living
Fills you with delight?

Your chest fills up with pleasure
A smile quivers on your face
Your eyes dance as they sparkle
Sweet happiness you can taste

Your world is full of promise
All life a rosy hue
This moment should be bottled
To decant when you’re blue

Untitled (suggestions?)

They met upon the hillside
In the sunny morning light
No witness to this reunion
Their eyes filled with delight

Birdsong barely registered
Mosquitoes buzzed and lit
On old and wrinkled aging skin
Unaware of being bit

They revelled in this moment
Expectations burning deep
Thousands of words unspoken
A harvest they could reap

In slow and shaky voices
The tales began to unfold
Of births deaths and marriages
Of slowly growing old

Decades ceased to matter
Their bond remained intact
Despite their aging bodies
Young hearts held a pact

A future they could squander
Of adventure, laughter, fun
All things they’d never spoke of
Riding off in the setting sun

Details did not matter
At least, they both thought not
Alas, they began to discover
Contentment not easily wrought

They disagreed on location
Quarrelled on how long to stay
Contrary natures emerging
And the skies began to gray

They distanced from each other
Unclasped their bony hands
A gulf grew up between them
Of inharmonious plans

Bickering through the noon time
With jibes and sulks and fits
She crossed her arms resolutely
That’s it, let’s call this quits

They grumbled for the afternoon
While heavy clouds piled high
Old bones protesting loudly
Old hurts refusing to die

The rain began to splatter
A bolt of lightening flashed
Elderly hearts a leaping
As booming thunder crashed

They shuffled down the hillside
Rain-drenched to the core
A tree root put him on his knees
She chuckled as he swore

Her hands reached out to help him
Lips trembling with mirth
He caught her leg while getting up
And pitched her to the earth

He tumbled to her mossy bed
Her steady grip unyielding
With mixed up limbs amusement grew
Below that cloudy ceiling

The chuckles started gradually
Full laughter did steadily grow
It reached a sweet crescendo
Before tears began to flow

They cried for love remembered
And love almost forgot
For children’s children’s children
So separately begot

They wept upon the hillside
In the dreary evening dark
No witness to this reunion
Their eyes still held a spark

Raindrops barely registered
Slowly dripping off their chins
Two old and wrinkled aging souls
Washed cleanly of their sins