Suggestion Box
It was there on the wall,
a suggestion box,
painted white
as if to symbolize
purity or honesty.
He watched others
write on slips of paper
their suggestions
and then push them through
the thin slit at the top.
It gave some
a sense of satisfaction,
a small smile appeared,
a feeling of awkwardness in some,
maybe they thought
the suggestion dumb
or maybe they’d put in
a series of four letter words
to convey annoyance or grudge.
He didn’t write himself,
didn’t want to waste his time
with words that wouldn’t change a thing,
knowing that maybe when
the box was emptied
it was cast into the refuse bin
without an eye scanning
a single word or set alight
and left to burn.
He watched as others
put in their slips of paper
hoping for a change
or great improvement:
he chose no comment.
poem by Terry Collett
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Related quotes
The power of words
Sometimes when you had
an idea for a poem
you didn’t jot it down
and let it be
to fade away into the naught
as if it really didn’t matter
or your words had lost their power
or was there a hidden fear,
something that you didn’t
want to talk about
or something that you didn’t
want to appear,
something that you were afraid
would kill your luck
or disturb your thoughts?
When we spoke at times
you would sarcastically say
go and write a poem about it
and I wonder if you really
didn’t care about writing
or just not about me
or was it jealousy?
Sometimes when the words
of a great poem came to me
you would demand that I immediately
do something for you
to proof my love
and not give me the opportunity
to capture the sacred words.
Yet, as time went by
and I had to leave
the words came back to you
and great verses appeared
and you said that I could string out
poems to the nth power
and wanted me
to write great messages as well
and I was afraid that card like lines
would kill the magic of words in me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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And then the paper is dirty
You start with a clean sheet of paper
Write some words, scribble, draw some lines
Some curves, sharp lines, tangent to bold
Lines, and rough sketches of faces and
Bodies, thin lines that get crooked from
End to end of this limited space,
You doodle, you get wild with so
Many lines unimaginable, senseless,
The paper finally looks dirty,
And you do not like it, you crumple
It and throw it in a waste basket,
You get another clean sheet,
And this time, you think what is
It really that you want to make
Out of this new clean sheet of paper.
You think, you ponder, and you need
More time this time not to waste
This clean, glossy sheet of paper.
I think you are doing well with your life.
You see you are supposed to be careful
Every word is delicate and every paper
Is actually accounted.
Never mind guilt, set it aside for a while.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Faint Of Heart
I wish you could have read
The Letters that I didn’t write
Would’ve liked for you to have heard
Words I didn’t say
I wish you could have felt the touch
Of hands that didn’t reach out at night
Would’ve liked to know
What you didn’t feel…
When you didn’t hear the words…
Words I didn’t say…words I couldn’t write
poem by David Whalen
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Paper And Pen
Paper and pen
Trying to write a song again
Paper and pen
Paper and pen
Paper and pen
Trying to write a song again
Paper and pen
Paper and pen
Can’t think of anything to say today
Can’t think of anything to do
Can’t think of anything to play today
Minds gone blank
Leaving me here, just sitting here
Listening to my hair grow
Paper and pen
Paper and pen
And I look towards you
For an inspiration or a word or two
I try but I find
Every road only leads me back to these lines
Paper and pen
Paper and pen
Paper and pen
Piano, guitar
I try but don't get very far
Paper and pen
Piano, guitar
Paper and pen
Trying to write a song again
Paper and pen
Paper and pen
Copyright Colin Coplin 1985 / 2010
poem by Colin Coplin
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Once Again I Write...
This pen, this paper is once again my savior.
I write to save my sanity.
I write to ease my heart.
I write to cleanse my soul.
I write to feel alive.
I write to keep my mind strong and my thoughts clear.
I write my words of sorrow, despair, pain, and love, as well as words of wisdom.
I write so that one day someone will truly know me.
This paper, this pen is once again my inspiration.
It is the inspiration to what I see.
It is the inspiration to what I hear.
It is the inspiration to what I feel.
It is the inspiration to the art I create.
It is the inspiration to what I draw.
It is the inspiration to the love for my daughter.
It is the inspiration to the love for my husband.
This pen, this paper is once again my savior.
Once again I write to say thank you my timeless friends.
Thank you for saving me time and time again.
poem by Sara Jo Andrews
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Rational Shortcomings
(An intertexual marriage poem of an excerpt from a teacher’s letter to parents, a letter from a mother to the child she gave away for adoption and a letter that I should not have seen)
Dear Parents or Guardians,
First I want to say that I didn’t hand you over because I hated you
The photography man is coming
Hello, I just wanted to remind everybody about spelling
I didn’t hate you you might not believe me but I truly love you
Between 6: 30AM and 6: 45AM to set up
The last test scores were horrible and I threw them out
I want you to know that I am hoping you are reading this letter
I warned him that the klubs are here in the morning
I will not do so again
And hope you do not have any hate in your heart for me
Until 8: 30AM
Your child should practice spelling their words
Because if my life was different I would have kept you
He still wanted to come
And do their spelling homework every night
So close to my heart because you are so special
That’s his problem…
Spelling homework for the week is:
I know you are saying
Monday: Write the first five words three times
“Why she gave me away.”
Tuesday: Write the last five words three times
My life was so hard at the time…
poem by Christopher J. Grasso
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To Look At The World Again
TO LOOK AT THE WORLD AGAIN
To look at the world again
To see and name
Each kind of different thing
To surround it with words
And try to capture it
As it slips away
To paint in words
To write music
To make one vast description of ‘what is’ in words.
All these are unreal dreams
Someone else must realize-
I have my own small world of feelings
I return to again and again
My little universe of fears and loves.
Outside great and far beyond any nearness I can seem
The world goes on
While I can only
Write
Inside.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Your Dear John Letter
When you wrote me a letter
To tell me I'm better off without you
A tear ran down my face
I wiped it away
Before I thought anyone would see
I ripped the letter in little pieces
So no one would read it
But now I wished I didn't
I have nothing but your memory now
But that's slowly slipping away
And if you died
I probably wouldn't cry about it
Because I cried enough for you
In the last couple of years
I guess when you told me
I was better off in the letter
I didn't believe you then
But now I know
That best thing you ever did
Was to write the letter
That broke my heart that fateful day
The Love Letter
She wonders how to begin her letter
She knows he will read each word
Greedily for any hint of love. She knows
He will sniff the paper for any scent of her
She leans an elbow on her writing desk
And clutches her pen tight. She has got
As far as, Dear John, but then the words
Stopped coming. Before she had sat down
To write, the words flowed through her
Mind like a rushing stream, now nothing
She sucks the end of the pen. Say what
You would if you were face to face, her
Mother always said. She tries to imagine
He is there before her and what she would
Say if he was, but still no words will come
He writes to her so fluently when he writes
He always seems to know what to write
And how to put it into words. She tries again
Puts the pen nib onto the paper, gripping
The pen tighter. She reads what she’s written
Dear John. The pen moves, the words begin
To flow, her hand moves across the page
The images come into her mind as she writes
The things that they said last time they met
The things they did, she blushes slightly
That almost being caught out by the maid
In a state of undress. She pauses the pen
And sits gazing at the painting on the wall.
She looks back at the paper and starts again
The words tripping over themselves to be put
Down in ink upon a page; the images open up
In her mind, the colours, the smells, the events
The pen now stops. The love letter is written
The writing done. She looks at the words
Then she seals it in an envelope and writes
His address. She pictures him reading it: in bed
In his room, sleepy, in a state of his usual undress
poem by Terry Collett
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When you write.
When you write
You hunt for words
Capture them and put them where you
Want them to
Symbolize
An idea, words are symbols too
And these words can be more than that,
Like the word love
Symbolizing how you feel
About her
It can be more than that
Love as a word can go beyond
Its symbolism of
Affection
It can be demanding
About other words
Time
Money
Effort
And if you are true enough it
Can mean vulnerability
And nudity
One by one you remove every
Cover of yourself
From shirt to pants to brief
And there is more to that still
What you write
Any word for that matter
May demand that you remove
Your mind
Your eyes
Your soul even
So that in the end what you write demands
That you become completely
Nothing. Try it.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Didn't I
I didn't realise that you were someone else
Until it was too late
So fooled by your disguise, carried away
I thought you were my friend
But things change and you along with them
Gone are the days when we laughed through the night
And it will never be the same
I said it wouldn't last forever didn't I, didn't I
Don't want to say I told you so but didn't I
I gave you all my heart and soul and didn't I cry
Bus somewhere deep in your heart, deep down inside
I got to you
Oh baby didn't I
We made no promises, we lived for every moment
Together come what may
What need was there to lie, for heaven's sake
I love you anyway
But things change and time heals the wounded
Where there was pain there's a scar on my heart
Now I can't look at you the same
I said it wouldn't last forever didn't I, didn't I
Don't want to say I told you so but didn't I
I gave you all my heart and soul and didn't I cry
Bus somewhere deep in your heart, deep down inside
I got to you
Oh baby didn't I
song performed by by Lisa Stansfield
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Vellum
I write my name down on paper
paper that has a unrealistic desire
to be vellum
I read what I have written
for a sense of authenticity
more authentic than my image
reflected in a mirror stained with mildew
and toothpaste
The words on this paper
anyone can read
bums, whores, addicts,
homosexuals
intellectuals
and the broken old men
whose hope died
in the past
I write
but I don't speak
what I write
details what I see
The things I see
O, the things I see
could invoke suicidal tendencies
in a child who still believes
in Christmas carols
and hunting Moby Dick
whom rules the seas
How tragic it is
to let fleeting imagination
slowly die among the magic spelling
of the words we once spoke
on Christmas Eve
And now I sit
with the adulterated gift
of alcohol
and nicotine
writing down words on paper
whom wish to be vellum
but realistically
could never be
poem by Justin Tallman Gonzalez
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A Blank Page Blues
I know we have all done it,
sat in front of a pristine white sheet of paper
and got ready to write something down,
and then we are confronted
with the blank page blues.
The words of inspiration
then scurry and hide away.
You are left with pen in hand,
scratching your head
wondering what to say.
There is no cure for this syndrome;
writers get it all the time.
Some call it a writer’s block,
when nothing comes into your head.
You sit in front of a blank page.
You know what you want to write,
then someone disturbs you
and the words disappear out of sight.
How many times have we had that?
We sit down to write our masterpiece
and the telephone rings,
or someone shouts your dinner is getting cold.
You feel like screaming,
but you take it on the chin.
You lay down your pen,
answer the phone or have your dinner,
and when you come back,
the blank page confronts you.
Still you cannot write anything on it.
You stare at it for hours,
until finally you get tired
and journey off to bed.
Hoping and hoping tomorrow
a little peace, it will bring
and your words on that blank page
will really begin to sing.
10 May 2008
poem by David Harris
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A Strange Desire
I wish I could write a word,
Out of multitude of thousands,
That might raise my mettle,
And be recognized at the first glance.
The naughty hope whispering
Tells me time and again,
“Write, write and write more, ”
Some one should tell me how long,
I should write for writing,
Made me half dead.
The disjoint, disordered, paralyzed,
The dumb, deaf and mute words,
Give no voice, no sound and no sense,
They neither unlock their lips,
Nor convey my inner self.
Oh! God;
Give me a word alive and spirited,
That should share my joys, my worries,
Laugh, joke, play and ply with me,
Open the door of mysteries,
And in my absence respond at,
My name is addressed by someone else.
poem by Muhammad Shanazar
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Multitrack Suggestion
Years passing by
Vco
Vca
And again
And again
Years passing by
Let her go
Let her stay
In the memorys place
Gets a machine
Vco
Vca
Get the tape
Get the bass
100 + one
Multitrack
Patch bay, patch bay
Eq low cut
Free post
Frequency 1000
La da, da, da
Vco
Vca
In the memorys place
We let them pay
Vco
Vca
I am no techno-guy
The live ...
100 + one
Multitrack
Patch bay, patch bay
Eq low cut
Free post
Multitrack suggestion
Multitrack suggestion
Multitrack suggestion
Multitrack suggestion
Multitrack suggestion
Multitrack suggestion
Multitrack suggestion
Multitrack suggestion
Multitrack suggestion
Multitrack suggestion
Multitrack suggestion
Suggestion
Suggestion
Suggestion
Suggestion
Suggestion
Suggestion
Suggestion
Suggestion
Suggestion
song performed by by Vangelis
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Life Essay
if life is multiple choice
maybe we can get a perfect score
but life is an essay
there is wide white space
and questions life running above
maybe we answer like theory
or find our own words
maybe we don't fill the blank
because we don't understand
or we write thousand flowery words
but we don't understand what we write
maybe the written is full of correction
or clean and planned carefully
maybe we use pen or pencil
maybe we torn the paper or blot it
maybe we cheat
maybe we work together
maybe we don't care
but when the time's finished
someone will read
and examine our result
do we respect the question
do we try hard
or play around
maybe we wrong, maybe right
maybe half of both, maybe none
so before we can't change it anymore
when there's time
before we regret it
just write your thought
because nobody in this world
who has the same handwriting
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Why Do I Write
I write from my sadness
I write from the madness
I write because I have something to say
I write to pass the day
I write only from the heart
I write for sometimes I am not that smart
Whatever is in head just comes out on paper (in this case a word document) , and I go with the flow
Write to let my mind go
I follow my hand to where ever it takes me
I write all the things that I can see
I write when I am happy, but not as much
I write from my heart that you can touch
I write because I’d go insane
I am driven to write quell my pain
At times I feel alone so I write what I am feeling
I write for it is self-healing
Confident not so I write it all away
I write and write to pass the day
I write to comfort my soul that cries out in the night
I write for love is always out of sight
I write so I don't have to cry any more
I write for I have no one to adore
I write so someone somewhere will hear my plea
I write for someone is out there for me
I am lost and I the clown
I write to turn my frown upside down
I write to embrace the sadness I hide inside
I write with my heart opened wide
I write to silence the ghost
I write for I’ve been let down by the one I loved the most
I write through the stormy weather
I write for I am light as a feather
I am not a writer nor am I a poet
I write for the grief I do know it
I will write until I draw my last breath
I write because I'll die a lonely death
I have to write for strangers delight
I write because I have to write
I write for my own happiness
I write to relieve my stress
I write because I have no other choice
I write as if I was writing a letter
I write because I can’t do any better
I write because I am afraid not to
I write for this is what I do
I write for I give a damn
I write just because I am
poem by Wilfred Mellers
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Hotel Paper
I write, mostly on hotel paper
Knowing, that my thoughts will never leave this room
I'd be out of line telling you, leave her
So,I lie lonely surrounded by you oh oo
By you oh
Lately, I can't be happy for no one
They think I need some time to myself oh oh
I try to smile but I can't remember
I know tomorrow there'll be nothing else oh
[chorus]
And II wanted to be
Giving you everything
She's not giving
And II wanted to see
Because you didn't believe what I'd been hearing oo oo oh oh
You turned out to be more than I bargained for
And I can tell that you need to get away
Forgive me if I admit that I'd love to love you
We both realized it way too late
[chorus]
Maybe this wind blowing in just came from the ocean
I write mostly on hotel paper
song performed by by Michelle Branch
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It Is Me
He sat in his own world
writing down the stories
that came to his mind.
He never watched time,
for him there
was no time.
He wrote stories of love,
of mystery and suspense.
He wrote of everything
that popped into his head.
He was not a lonely person
as his characters kept him company.
He wrote things
for every writing sphere,
but there was one thing
he could not write
which may come as a surprise
to everyone.
He could not write a letter
no matter how hard he tried.
His mind went completely blank
whenever he tried.
Yet he could write
just about everything else.
He could write songs,
he could write stories at will.
He could write poems
on everything,
but writing a letter
was something he could not do.
Now all who read this
might take it as a joke,
but it is very true
every word I have spoke,
and how would I know that.
The answer is simple it is me.
19 April 2008
poem by David Harris
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I want to write
I want to write, something nice, but nothing comes to mind. Today words are unkind and will not come out from where they normally hide.
Today I want to write, write something nice, and make someone smile, to look forward to a lovely day and an even more an exciting night.
Words of the powerful mind, tell me where you hide, where in the world can I find, find you to create a masterpiece, burn paper with ink, write till I no more blink, as you take me to a place of so many tears, peaceful sleeps, sorrow, happiness, and enchanted dreams…
I want to write, something nice, but nothing comes to mind. Words have deserted me, why are they so unkind and will not come out from where they normally hide…
poem by Thato Maluleka
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