11pm

This is a charmingly self-aware little poem about the act of writing poetry itself — specifically, about writing poetry late at night when one probably should be sleeping. Set at 11pm on a Monday, the poem follows a speaker scrolling through an online community (Threads), responding to a poetry prompt, and gradually surrendering to tiredness. It is lighthearted, conversational, and playful, and part of its humor comes from the way it keeps promising rhyme and then only half-delivering on that promise. The experience it creates is one of casual intimacy — like overhearing someone talk to themselves as they drift toward sleep.

The poem is organized into three stanzas of varying length: a six-line opening stanza, a five-line middle stanza, and a four-line closing stanza. There is no consistent meter or line length; instead, the lines feel loose and conversational, expanding and contracting as the thought demands. The first stanza opens with longer lines and gradually shortens toward its end:

11pm on a Monday night
A poetry prompt gives me much delight
On threads I scroll
To find a bridge with a toll
Of a whimsical poem
That rhymes

The structure here initially gestures toward a limerick-like pattern — the first two lines rhyme (night / delight), the next two rhyme (scroll / toll) — but then the pattern deliberately breaks apart with poem and rhymes, which do not rhyme at all. This structural collapse is the joke: a poem about finding a poem that rhymes fails, right at the crucial moment, to rhyme. The second stanza addresses this failure head-on, while the third stanza shrinks to just four lines, mirroring the speaker's dwindling energy. The overall trajectory of the poem — from longer and more structured to shorter and looser — enacts the process of falling asleep, the form literally running out of steam.

The diction here is thoroughly conversational and informal. Words like much delight and divine borrow from a slightly elevated poetic register, but they sit alongside casual, everyday phrasing like On threads I scroll and I'm quite tired. This mix is central to the poem's humor — it keeps dressing up in poetic clothes only to shrug them off. The phrase I must confess in the second stanza plays with the language of serious lyric confession, but the confession that follows is simply that the speaker is sleepy. The closing stanza's language is the most stripped-down and direct of all, as if the speaker can no longer sustain even the pretense of formality. The direct address to threads and jenean grounds the poem firmly in its social media context — this is a poem written for a specific community, and it does not pretend otherwise.

The poem is light on traditional imagery, but one figure stands out: a bridge with a toll. This is a curious and interesting metaphor. The speaker is scrolling through an online feed looking for a poetry prompt, and describes the search as looking for a bridge with a toll — something that offers passage but demands a cost. The toll, in this case, is the effort of writing the poem itself. It is a small but suggestive image, hinting that creative engagement always requires something from the writer, even when the result is playful. The other notable figurative moment is sleep sounds so divine, where sleep is elevated to something sacred or heavenly. This is a common expression, but within the context of a poem that keeps reaching for poetic language and falling short, it carries a secondary humor: the most genuinely poetic thing the speaker can imagine right now is going to bed.

Sound is where much of this poem's comedy lives. It sets up rhyme expectations and then breaks them, creating a pattern of comic deflation. The opening couplet establishes a clear rhyme:

11pm on a Monday night
A poetry prompt gives me much delight

This is followed by another rhyming pair — scroll / toll — which reinforces the expectation. But then the stanza closes with poem and rhymes, which conspicuously do not rhyme, despite the final word being the word "rhymes" itself. The second stanza plays a similar game: contain and line are near-misses at best — a slant rhyme if one is generous — and the stanza openly admits to its own lack of rhyme. The closing stanza offers one last attempt:

So goodnight threads
And jenean to
I hope you are abed
Too

Here threads / abed form a slant rhyme, and to / Too gives us a perfect rhyme — though it is a homophone pair, making it almost a cheat, which feels fitting for this poem's playful spirit. The rhythms throughout are loose and speech-like, with no sustained metrical pattern. The lines feel like someone talking, pausing, then talking again.

At its surface, this is a poem about staying up too late writing poetry for an online community. But underneath the humor, it touches on a few subtler ideas. First, there is the theme of creative obligation and play — the speaker responds to a prompt not out of duty but out of delight, yet the act still requires effort (the bridge has a toll). Second, there is a gentle meditation on the gap between poetic aspiration and reality. The speaker wants to write something whimsical that rhymes, and the poem that results is whimsical but only intermittently rhymes. This gap is not lamented; it is the joke. The poem is comfortable with its own imperfection, which gives it a warmth and honesty that a more polished piece might lack. Third, there is the theme of community and connection. The closing address to specific people — threads and jenean — transforms the poem from a private act of writing into a small social gesture, a goodnight wave across the internet. The final question, I hope you are abed / Too, carries a note of care: the speaker hopes the person on the other end is also resting. It is a tiny, tender moment tucked inside a comic poem.

The poem's structure — particularly the first stanza with its paired rhymes and comic closing — echoes the tradition of the limerick, a five-line comic form with an AABBA rhyme scheme. The poem begins as if it might become a limerick (the AA of night / delight, the BB of scroll / toll) but then adds a sixth line and drops the rhyme, subverting the form. This gesture — setting up a recognizable poetic form and then failing to complete it — places the poem in a tradition of meta-poetic humor, poems that are self-consciously about the difficulty or absurdity of writing poetry. One might think of Ogden Nash, whose deliberately awkward rhymes and uneven line lengths similarly play with expectations of what a poem should sound like. The poem's embrace of its own imperfection and its casual, self-deprecating tone also align it with the broader tradition of occasional verse — poetry written for a specific moment, audience, and purpose rather than for posterity.

11pm on a Monday night
A poetry prompt gives me much delight
On threads I scroll
To find a bridge with a toll
Of a whimsical poem
That rhymes

The opening stanza sets the scene immediately: 11pm on a Monday night tells us the time and the day, and the specificity matters — this is not a romantic evening or a weekend of leisure but a mundane Monday, late enough that the speaker probably should be asleep. The second line introduces the motivation: a poetry prompt brings much delight, a phrase that is slightly old-fashioned and poetic, as if the speaker is already warming up the creative engine. Then the action: On threads I scroll places us firmly in the digital world, scrolling through an online platform. The speaker is looking for a bridge with a toll, which is the most figuratively rich moment in the poem — the bridge suggests a crossing, a passage from one state to another (from scrolling to creating, perhaps), and the toll implies that creative engagement demands effort. The stanza closes with a description of what the speaker is seeking: a whimsical poem / That rhymes. The comic turn here is that these two lines do not themselves rhyme, creating an immediate ironic gap between what the poem wants and what it delivers. The word rhymes, sitting alone as the final word, almost hangs in the air, waiting for a partner that never arrives.

Although this poem does not contain
A rhyme on every line
I must confess
I'm quite tired
And sleep sounds so divine

The second stanza shifts from scene-setting to direct self-commentary. The speaker steps back and acknowledges what the reader has already noticed: this poem does not contain / A rhyme on every line. This is a meta-poetic move — the poem talks about itself, preemptively addressing any criticism. The phrase I must confess borrows the language of serious lyric confession, creating a brief moment of mock gravity. But the confession is wonderfully anticlimactic: I'm quite tired. The enjambment between contain and A rhyme on every line mimics the way the poem's own rhymes spill over and fail to line up neatly. The closing line, And sleep sounds so divine, gives us the stanza's one real rhyme — line and divine — as if the poem can manage just one rhyming pair per stanza before its energy gives out. The word divine elevates sleep to something transcendent, and there is a gentle humor in the idea that the highest beauty the speaker can conceive of right now is simply going to bed.

So goodnight threads
And jenean to
I hope you are abed
Too

The final stanza is the shortest, just four lines, and it functions as a farewell. So goodnight threads addresses the online community directly, treating the platform almost like a person being tucked in for the night. Then the speaker names a specific individual: jenean. This personal address is a small but significant gesture — it transforms the poem from a solitary act of writing into a communal exchange, a bedtime wish shared between real people. The word abed is a lovely choice: slightly archaic, it belongs more to the world of poetry and fairy tales than to casual speech, giving the farewell a faintly storybook quality. The final word, Too, sits on its own line, separated from to at the end of the previous line. These two words — to and Too — form a homophone rhyme, which is the poem's last playful wink: it ends on a rhyme, but a rhyme that is essentially the same sound twice, a near-cheat that feels perfectly in keeping with the poem's attitude of cheerful imperfection. The slant rhyme of threads and abed also quietly holds the stanza together, proving that even in its sleepiest moment, the poem has not entirely abandoned its musical ambitions.