Poets driving their partners mad
onomatapaeing in the bathroom
the bedroom every b’ing room
leaving their careful sprinkle of words
in maddening messes on floors
on desks and dining room tables
Don’t get me started on allitering
papering, notebooking
back of fag-packeting
and not just analoguing on paper
penning, pencilling
biroing and brushing
but phone and computering
Google Keeping
Wording and Notebooking
Self-reminding messages
and Whatsapping words
in the wee small hours
from Dictator apps…
Poets burrowing into the web
to prompting and challenges
near and far, chapbooking
and self-publishing
“Editor seeking with a view
to “proper” publishing”
slamming and live meeting
to largely enthusiastic audiences
or those long-suffering partners
Imagist or metaphoring
epic realist or lyricisticly
minimalisting their themes
in seventeen syllables
from social satire to
inner deep-digging from
amorosing to tragedising
politacalling or environmental
consciencing – raising the banners
– poets just can’t –
keep their pen in their pants…
© Andrew Wilson 2026
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Björn Rudberg (brudberg) in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, invites us to celebrate the concept of verbification – “nouns and adjectives that are just waiting to take action. Not only that, as verbs they may work even better as metaphors.”
As requested, there are a few words here that the spellchecker frantically red-lined…
This is just brilliant! And a good laugh!
Do you have a long suffering partner perhaps, Marilyn… 😉
I so enjoyed this poem, Andrew, especially these lines:
‘Don’t get me started on allitering
papering, notebooking
back of fag-packeting
and not just analoguing on paper
penning, pencilling
biroing and brushing
but phone and computering
Google Keeping
Wording and Notebooking’
and
‘– poets just can’t –
keep their pen in their pants…’
I think I do all of this!
Thanks, Kim! I sometimes use a dictation app on my phone in the wee small hours and then share it to my(self) computer for the morning…
So much fun… love the way you described our situation in relation to the world around us.
My partner refuses to read anything I have written.
“My partner refuses to read anything I have written.” LOL mine too, mostly…
Lol! What an ending. I especially love the line: “back of fag-packeting.” I think that, in the end, this is why they love us.