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it showed
an utter disdain
for the conventions
of such an event
that they would
not toe the line
like the others
they proffered
none of the standard
shoulder-dipping
sidestepped shuffles
nor the exuberant
failing of arms
that have come
to be expected
of "good" dancers
those overused staples
that accompany such
predictable song choices
outdated and enjoyed
only ironically
this dance could not
faithfully manifest
their truth

they danced
not for that unnoticed
peripheral audience
but solely
to tell a story
to one another
instead they chased
cavorted and capered
with piggybacks
and fireman's lifts
arms-spread spinning
they became fireworks
their bodies
exploding apart
pulled together
breathlessly
slipping
   and stumbling
without a care
leaping shoelessly
from place to place
from song to song
ending always
in each other's arms
a dusky walk
through the middle
of the park
clear of
the shadows
of branch
and leaf
at its edges
the only light
stretched out
but struggling
from distant
lamp posts
or the
yet more distant
halo of moon
breaching cloud
it is enough
to plot
a route by
but not
with confidence

a leather flapping
overhead
tells tale
of bats
in their erratic
yet assured flight
abhorred
by many
perhaps for
that very reason;
unpredictable
unflinching
not flying
the expected path
Anais Vionet Aug 2020
I’m excited - the
republican convention!
I love magic shows.

They will reveal, with
sorcerous skills a new Trump
- bighearted, and selfless.

The man we all know,
the emotionally crippled
horror, will wear disguise.

Who will be deceived?
The children in cages will cheer,
the virus dead will smile.

Our Nazis will march,
ghosts of veterans will wail,  
What a fine party.
The devil will dance in a magic show for the ages
Here I am
once again..
It's 3 a.m
a rhyming game...

Daylight conventions taught
dictates all the 'ought's,
I couldn't pour a daylight thought
against the conventional odds.

An acquaintance, he died,
Sympathy I tried;
Empathy I tried;
but my feelings were dried.

I wonder why,
did I cry?
Not out of sadness
but of emptiness.

3 a.m is too good a time,
where the air is sublime,
to be wasted on sleeping
instead of weeping.

3 a.ms often make me wonder
if age is really just a number
on a waiting lift to mortality
or a mere human banality.

Here I am again
pouring my pain
for no gain
playing the 3 a.m rhyming game.
I am jealous of a person who died a peaceful death. Why can't people who want to die be blessed with death?
clear conscience Jun 2020
the democratic convention under the deck
———————————————————


all kinds have registered their displeasure
with the arrival of the human menagerie,
their boisterous ways, jive not with the quietus
of the island paradise, and under the shady deck
where the convention conversations are held...

open to all but the factions forming, squirrels most
populous, demand the gavel and the chairmanships,
because they breed best, knowledges of the yard
terrain, par excellent, have climbed every tree,
show no fear, boldly jumping on the chaise lounge
occupant by the lady of the house, quizzing her with a
side-tilted glance of what are YOU doing here????

they like their acorns from the Oaks, their fav poem
Acorns in August, naturellement, naturellement,
leaving the beheaded remains of the acorns devoured,
everywhere, to obtain maximum annoyance from them
interlopers human, delighting in the foul mouthed exclamations,
when their ugly footed bottoms, unshod, meet the pointy part,
proving squirrels natural ability to govern the swap infected
by the two legged in-cursors, who have annoyed for forty years...

the rabbits, seek alliances, they live full time neath the deck,
making babies, so cute, getting bolder as they get older, hopping
unashamedly across the deck, eliciting oohs and has, of the children,
who blissfully unaware, all this creatures carry the ticks of Old Lyme.
Though unnumbered, the rabbits, fat, throw their heft around,
promising to drain the backyard of the invading hordes, with their
smelly sun tan lotions and outrageously ugly bathing towels...

called to order by the light of the flickering television, a fire signal
that the humans are in for the night, won’t notice the shouting and
shoving not so cute, tween the factions.  Animals behaving like
humans, what a lowly sad sight, deals and promises made, give
me a hundred Likes, ten repostings, and five 😊, say the hedgehog,
who rarely appears but boy is he big and has capital to lend to anybody
who will give him what he wants...

the field mice, have little-power, their diminutive constituency, not
so useful, as they no longer make the female humans, shriek, nah,
now they are cute, until they chew the wires in the basement, and
hide their tennis socks in spidery corners where they leave them to
yellow, corrode, unravel, unfit for human footage anymore;
and while these weakfish of the under-deck, their longevity of encroachment must be respected for they have been since time immemorial, which nobody remembers exactly how long that is exactly...

called to order, resolution on the floor, who shall lead the charge,
plan the plan to drain away the inhuman interference for once and
forevermore; but the conventional dialogue interruptus,  by an unfamiliar voice: a scouting party sent, like the spies of the Israelites, fails to return, another party formed and returns, with woeful news, of a white van truck,stenciled in black death,
                 The East End Pest Company (Exterminators)
has been invited in, and sadly nobody of the animal world has in their possess, a dictionary or vocabulary so large that the word, exterminate, strikes a note of danger!

the booing and brawling silenced, the political skullduggery is replaced
by the sad quietude, until the insect kingdom returns to reclaim the lands,
they were driven from many decades earlier, and they big human eavesdroppers, well, they know that word well and won’t make the same mistake twice! but then from above, between a crack, come a tumbling a business, white, from the deck o the below deck, in hand upon the back write these words:

See ya next week!
We leave your property

as clear as our conscience


p.s. for security reasons, conventions are held now every four years,
the location unrevealed, until, the very last minute
Michael R Burch Apr 2020
Distances
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,
as if she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.

She has never heard of Faust, or Frost,
and she is unlikely to have been seen
rummaging through bookstores
for mementos of others
more difficult to name.

She might imagine “poetry”
to be something in common between us,
as we write, bridging the expanse
between convention and something . . .
something the world calls “art”
for want of a better word.

At night I scream
at the conventions of both our worlds,
at the distances between words
and their objects: distances
come lately between us,
like a clean break.

Published by Verse Libre, Triplopia, Lone Stars. Keywords/Tags: distance, distances, convention, books, bookstores, art, literature, poetry, chasm, abyss, divide, Faust, Frost, clean break
Breanna evans Jan 2019
It
took a lot

of searching,

but

I

think

I

finally found

myself
Àŧùl Aug 2017
I am thinking of a congregation of the Hello Poetry users at the Gateway of India in Mumbai. Anybody interested in organizing such a short and crisp congregation may inform me as well.
Do respond.
David Cunha Jul 2017
People have no idea what they are dealing with,
People don't know and don't want to know
What truly surrounds them,
                                If they did
                                They'd wish they wouldn't know.
                                They want a quiet life
                                A bread on the table
                                And cable TV.

Thing is, people are not themselves.
People were taught to be people by people who were manipulated and made people
                                                                            by people who didn't know what they were,
People look at a baby
And worry more of making him a 'people' of their own
Than to ask:
'Who are you?'
july 12, 2017
1:57 a.m.
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