Tag: free verse

It is forbidden

It is highly forbidden
To charge for a long time
Under unattended condition
So as to avoid the accident

It is highly forbidden
To decompose
Or disassemble
The battery

Batteries are forbidden
To be used
Or kept
Under high temperature

When charging the battery
Covering the charger
Or battery
Is highly forbidden

Batteries are forbidden
To be stored
Or transported
With the metal object

Batteries are forbidden
To be thrown in the fire
Or get heated

Metal is forbidden
To connect directly
With the polarity
Of the battery

It is highly forbidden
To upside down
The polarity
Of the battery

(Cheerson mini drone instructions. Submitted by Allison Jeanne)

Fail better

1
Is this your career?
Seriously?
Get a real job!
Writing postcards doesn’t count!

2
Turn up the television.
Anyone can do it.

3
I don’t get it.
The window has shut.
Don’t you even care?
Success depends upon money!
Asides must be dumped.

4
Your house is burning.
We’re out of vodka.
Your document is blank.
It’s a good start.

(Entries from spoil a writer’s mood in 4 words competition. Submitted by Howie Good)

The Ladies’ Love Oracle

It will be too glorious.
Go to your ruin, if you will.
It is needful that he be very good; yes, in spite of delays.
He will love you for a month.
Yes, at a country ball.

Wait, you will congratulate yourself,
Do not be uneasy.
You would be wrong by appearing frank and open.
Your least virtue.

No, my fine lady; be upon your guard.
By a more careful toilet, without doubt.
He’ll be handsome, like your present one.
The future will teach you it.

You ought not to hope. Why not, if you love him?
Yes, from midday to midnight.
Could you do without it?
Many things are opposed to it.

By a skillfully-managed intrigue
Don’t wait for it, you’ll only lose time.
Yes, a hussar. Yes, all except one.
Thy wit equals thy beauty.

Continue to ignore him.
You must renounce the world.
Handsome body, but deformed mind.
He smokes his segar and forgets you.

Count no more upon it.
It is useless.

(Answers to oracle questions in Madam Le Marchand’s Fortune Teller and Dreamer’s Dictionary, 1863. Submitted by Lori Hahnel)

A visit

Every place on earth should be like this; unexpected.
On a good day, you can see forever.

Restful sleep for a windy place.
Tranquility is a marvelous experience
sound of meadowlarks in the morning, music
for the body.
Breath and love are everything.

This is sort of my home town.
Where my father went to school,
took piano lessons.

I had stitches on my hand in this place –

Nice to be back home,
to see the old schoolroom and
place where I was born

Different than I remember it as

Hope we weren’t too much trouble.
Thanks for the beer.

(You will remember me by the broken chair)

(Guestbook entries at the Convent Inn in Val Marie, Saskatchewan, noted in 2006. Submitted by Shannon Bruyneel)

Spring is here

I’ve just been amazed at how rapidly
the last few weeks have flown by – like
tiny little birds not like
Canadian geese
who are like the B52s
of the Avian world.
I have more bird poop
on my car recently.
Spring is here.

(Email from my boyfriend. Submitted by Debby Thompson)

I NEED A PHONE!

I NEED TO USE THE PHONE!
NO ONE WILL LET ME USE THE PHONE
Did you try the Shell?
YES!
Did you try the motel up the street?
YES!
I NEED A CIGARETTE
NO ONE WILL LET ME USE THE PHONE!
What do you need the phone for?
I NEED TO CALL MY PHARMACIST BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
Your pharmacist?
YES!
I NEED TO USE THE PHONE!
NO ON WILL LET ME USE THE PHONE!
CAN I HAVE A CIGARETTE!
Sure. Here you go.
THANKS!
I NEED TO USE THE PHONE!
I NEED TO CALL MY PHARMACIST!
DO YOU HAVE A LIGHT!
Yes, here you go.
I NEEEEEED TO USSSEE THE PHOOOONNNNEEE!
Well I’m sorry I don’t have one.
WHY WON’T ANYONE LET ME USE THE PHONE!
I NEED TO CALL MY DEALER!
CAN I USE YOUR PHONE!
DO YOU HAVE AN EXTRA CIGARETTE!
I NEED TO USE THE PHONE!

(Conversation with a lady near my job at a Family Services office in Surrey. Submitted by Wanda Kehewin)

Of Monarchs and Milkweed

With the cacophony
of Interstate 35 traffic as a backdrop,
Tyler Seiboldt stands
on the side
of the freeway

with three other researchers,
all
scanning the ground.
Three ragweed, Seiboldt says to the group.
Litter one adds, Julian Chavez,

a research assistant
in the environmental science department.

Their seemingly indecipherable utterances
are the start of two days’ study
of plants along the interstate

from San Antonio
to Laredo
and back again.

(From Of Monarchs & Milkweed. Submitted by Ash Connell)

Dear Shirley

Olive Garden’s new breadstick bun sandwiches
are makdeplanedg their debut
across AmBelaica this week

cashede of these days disbelieving June,
I thchengk you should plashedch yourself
somewhgonofe and then follow
an Olive Garden truck.

I suppose they will make it to
Tucsfertilisations, Ariz.,
but I am not sure if any of them
will get to the Forks.

I dbordered’t know about you, Shirley,
but I always have enjoyed the skIshtarny
breadstick buns with soup and/or salad
foundlings Olive Garden …

Thexemptionse will be people who
cbioecologisttJapanizationsue
gobblgrandparenthoodg
up the unlimited sklampreynianions buns.

Thbackhause probably will be people
optcloaksg for the new fentrantstblended
bun sandwiches.

Nobody federalization Olive Garden
evcheesed asked me whgroups I thought.
I just wrote down some

obsanathematisingvingrowthsienswathes
three years ago and ended up braided
nbufferedifaintheartednessal televisidefencive shows.

This is a crazy world we live grotesquery.
We stopped exalters this Olive Garden
for a ldespoile denamelingsngone.

We all had the soup and salad,
and it was vLatinisesy good.
We noticed thintegral the bread sticks

winjunctivee diffdivisionent
from othdecrepitly Olive Gardens’.
They seemed to have less
buttimmoderation and garlic.

The scontemporizingvice was a bit slow,
but it was adequcommiserativee.
The restaurant was busy,
even highwayman a lchillnesse hour.

The place was clean
and nicely
decoradolescentsed.

(Almost invisibly small text on a phishing email. Submitted by Manfred Gabriel and Dale Wisely)