Best Asthmatic Poems
In memory of----
Solely in my room, I can't stomach the sound of my pulse
I sit here alone to forget the taste of air.
Overwhelm by the scene -unbelievable footage
18 seconds long, "I can't breathe."
My judgment "GONE" stressing all night long
I use to fear dark colors, now I fear spinning bright lights
Red, White, and Blue, I spew the NY crew
What's wrong with your blue eyes?
You see him, you want him to die
What a day to trade -- a life for illegal cigarettes
Persecution and judgment day, sweet life - taken away
"I can't breathe", executed in broad daylight!
Bullets left and right
Who's policing the police
What happened to mind our business?
Moneymaker refused to be singled out
A hurting voice tackled by racism
Free to see, pouring his heavy heart,
Oinkers demand the ground, shutting down his testament
8 times too many, "I can't breathe!"
Where did his vitals go?
No one to tap him out, pound the pavement!
What the hell, why are you just standing there???
Stress, anger, madness, the voice of innocence
"I can't breathe." the volume to valium
"Officer, did you not hear the man?"
Are you deaf, have you forgotten how to save a life?
Is it just the NYPD or is it every other badge,
Insinuating crime's a one-color show.
We are all criminals, why the excessive heat?
Shot, tasered, beat down, pepper-sprayed, now on the ground
The mother of all chokeholds, murdered, outnumbered
The echoes remain "I can't breathe!"
- The truth!
Eric Garner robbed of his own natural path and youth
One man down eyed suspiciously
Perplexed minds suffocating him instantly
The mistrusted, the awe, the hate,
So tangible, uniforms using deadly force
One asthmatic in a chokehold
Slamming his head on the floor
Open wounds, worldwide tears
My heart goes to the family and friends left behind
A courageous last breath, for the first and last time
"I can't breathe," now deceased.
You left this world unwilling, waking up a strong community
Strolling in a safer world, where racial discrimination doesn't exist
"I can't breathe," Eric Garner Rest in peace!
By: PD
Categories:
asthmatic, abuse, bullying, color, discrimination,
Form:
Free verse
Listen, my dears, and I'll tell you a tale
Of a princess, a pirate, and glory.
There's a shipwreck, a rescue,
A romance, a ransom,
And a handicapped whale in the story.
There once was a princess, fairest of all,
But also quite vain and spoiled rotten.
She had a semi-private
Affair with a pirate
That would be but for me now forgotten.
The pirate, Mad Jack, was bloodthirsty and crude,
When upset, he'd explode, blow his top off.
Merchant vessels he sank,
Made their crews walk the plank,
Or, more rudely, their heads he would lop off.
One day Princess Daphne set out to sea
With her maid, they were bound for Majorca.
But the maid, in a gale,
Was swept over the rail
And inhaled by an asthmatic orca.
Lifeboats were lowered, the crew clambered in
And rowed quickly away, only thinking
Of saving their own necks,
Not the princess below decks
Left alone on a wreck that was sinking.
Then through the storm a ship hove into view,
At first Daphne thought it would dodge her.
But before she could hail her,
She felt courage fail her,
From its mast flew a vast Jolly Roger.
When Princess Daphne was brought before Jack,
She was haughty but thought he was handsome.
But to his greedy eyes
This fair royal prize
Represented a shipload of ransom.
But Jack was still human, Daphne was too,
And soon they were sharing their privates.
To his quarters she moved
And his crew all approved,
No one loves a love tale more than pirates.
But what of the ransom, yet to be paid?
Well, here the plot gets even deeper.
The stingy king said to Jack,
"No, I don't want her back.
It's cheaper for me if you keep her."
So Princess Daphne became Jack's sea wife,
And though common, but not mandatory,
When they became parents
They stopped being pirates
And passed peacefully out of the story.
For now then, my dears, that's the end of my tale,
An adventurous one hard to equal.
But, if I may be so bold,
And there's more to be told,
It may one day unfold in a sequel.
Categories:
asthmatic, adventure, humor, princess, romance,
Form:
Light Verse
Pollution is found in our rivers and seas
Of raw chemical waste and plastic
Toxic pesticides are killing the bees.
Mother Earth is down on her knees
This man made situation is drastic
Pollution is found in our rivers and seas.
In forests they're cutting down the trees
That is affecting everything climatic
Toxic pesticides are killing the bees.
Clouds of toxic dust travels on the breeze
That causes many to become asthmatic
Pollution is found in our rivers and seas.
More pandemics are coming with disease
The experts are not being overdramatic
Toxic pesticides are killing the bees.
Mother Earth will either burn or freeze
Seeing our earth dying is quite traumatic.
Pollution is found in our rivers and seas
Toxic pesticides are killing the bees.
Written on 14th April 2021
A MAJOR WORLD PROBLEM Poetry Contest
Sponsored By L. Milton Hankins
Categories:
asthmatic, earth, pollution, river, sea,
Form:
Villanelle
Breathe On Me God
"Breathe" on me with your sweet breath O Lord
Light inspiration's "gasp" with breathy embers
Sweep out my forlorn "whisper" of melancholy
"Utter" the familiar freshness I remember.
In soft whirlwind "murmur" stir my heart
Refresh my stale swirling breath
Resuscitate my starving breath
No asthmatic wheeze of strangled death.
Let me inhale your animation
My words exhale the "sigh" of life's prophecy
Your murmuring winds clear my blocked airways
To soar on wings of breathing majesty.
Open my passages of sighing palpitation
My soul alive in eternal respiration
5-3-21
Contest: Breathe
Sponsor: Constance La France
Required Words: breathe, gasp, murmur, sigh, whisper, utter
Categories:
asthmatic, life, wind,
Form:
Sonnet
There is a woodpile in my in-laws’ cellar, and some coal, but other rumored things also.
And it has been there a long time since anyone tripped down these broken concrete steps.
Maybe twenty or thirty years; we inherited this home a long time ago.
We have sold it four times on contract,
which has fallen through again.
My husband is not here,
He cannot take it.
But I can, so I take a couple of steps,
Until I get within a foot, when I stop dead as
I can smell the mold through the three-inch door.
The rumor is that there are treasures down there.
I do not know. We were never allowed near this cellar door.
Now I am sixty-six, so technically old enough to go down into this cobwebby den,
But I can smell the mold through the door.
So I back up and rest in an old lawn chair, left by one of the people who thought they
were buying the house before they decided to desert it.
I can still smell the mold, so I back up a bit further, the sun on my face, my feet leaning against a gentle lavender clover.
I am terrified of mold, as I am an asthmatic, and mold could trigger some awfulness in me.
So here I sit, staring as others wander in and out, poking among dusty things
That are disintegrating as they are being brought out into the sun.
Other relatives are coughing; trying to breathe as they haul green and brown stuff out,
Most indistinguishable as real things at first or second glance.
Most needing a power washing, that would completely decimate it.
Maybe she had the right idea, one says, pointing at me, as I lie here, soaking
Up the sun rays. I take off my shoes and push my toes into the clover.
Then I turn my face up, letting the sun hit my nose.
Are you kidding? A teenager yells. This treasure hunt is great!
She runs back down the steps to haul out more loot that her prissy mother
Will never let her take in the car, let alone in the house.
I know because I am prissy girl’s mother.
So here I sit, in a falling-apart green lawn chair, watching the show.
Thinking how my mother-in-law is probably up in heaven laughing, as she too
Smells the mold through that cellar door.
Categories:
asthmatic, moving on,
Form:
Free verse
His stories are out-of-this-world, the teacher says, in a huffy way.
Steven King, I think.
Another teacher slides into an empty seat beside me. “He exaggerates everything.”
Robin Williams I think.
The teacher across from me flips her hair and brags, “Her behavior is off the wall.”
Pink I think.
“She sings all the time,” says another. The lunchroom is on a roll today, wanting me to fix children.
Lady Gaga I think.
“The only thing he thinks about is basketball,” another teacher says as she walks in from her smoke break. A break they have to drive fifty feet from the school to have, but still she brings smoking pores in here, and I am an asthmatic.
Michael Jordan I think.
“He claims spirit is talking to him,” the principal says.
Prove it is not spirit, I think.
She catches my eye, turns and leaves; we are best friends, and she knows how I feel about spirit.
Categories:
asthmatic, humorous, philosophy,
Form:
Light Verse
At age ten, I found a trunk in the attic
full of leather-bound books and tied up comics.
Luckily they weren't dusty; I'm asthmatic,
dad scored them cheap base on street economics
but my recall’s somewhat melodramatic.
But for years, leery of Russian atomics
I would hide in the attic; my special place,
and read a book, from Shakespeare to outer space.
(Rispetto)
Feb. 1, 2019
Categories:
asthmatic, 10th grade, age, books,
Form:
Rispetto
Unseen, pollen floats suspended…
Asthmatic reactions in stratos.
Although a landscape looks barren…
Organism legions live in strata.
Salt water is so prevalent…
Thirsty humans can’t drink frothy surf.
*For the Sky, Soil and Sea contest.
Categories:
asthmatic, nature
Form:
Crystalline
“I CAN’T BREATHE!
Ya got my arm twisted
I have six kids
A wife I need.
Man I can’t breathe!
Get your knee out my back,
No reason for me being attack
On a New York street.
I CAN’T BREATHE.
How was I bothering you officer
I’m just a misdemeanor offender.
I sell cigarettes on streets
Cheap,
I’m not some murderer,
And this calls for being
Strangled and battered.
I’m asthmatic, hear the wheeeze,
Your Illegal choke hold
Is crushing my throat
Say man, I can’t breathe.
You twisting
My neck man QUIT THIS ****.
Doing number two
In my pants
WHAT DID I DO TO YOU
To cause all this?
I CAN’T BREATHE,
Don’t mean to be belligerent
But you’re killing me with your knees.
Hope nobody sees me like this,
A grown man spitting spit
As you cops make me piss
And they not hearing me.
Feels like drowning slowly,
My skin scrapping off on the ground,
Images fading now.
EMTs milling around shaking me,
No heartbeat.
My mother begs me to follow her
And I believe
She knows what’s best for me.
But all will remember
Me, Eric Garner’s
Final plea,
I can’t breathe” .
Categories:
asthmatic, black african american, conflict,
Form:
Enclosed Rhyme
Led to believe
you'd help me achieve
the grace of a ballerina
a voice operatic
from my usual asthmatic
cackle like a laughing hyena
Distaste despite
I endured your bite
the party with gusto to steer
true state of affairs
via video fare:
drunk, I'm a weirdo, witless and *****
Alone on my porch bench
abhorring my stench
I sit with my head on the pound
in hangover's claws
I glare at the cause:
scores of bottles strewn all around
"I'll drink no more
on wine declare war
as of now I'm calling you quits
thief of humanity
my reason for insanity
'cos of you my life's in the pits."
A-cuss and a-curse
I pick up the first:
"Say hello to the wall of the park
sing your last aria
afore I smash yer!!"
as with a discus fling a wide arc
"Nice tinkle I reckon."
bend for a second:
"You fiend, I'll smash you to bits
you dug me a hole
my life to control
stole the bigger chunk of my wit."
Tinkle-smash-tinkle
my eyes a-twinkle:
"Down with alcohol, scourge of society
to drink is absurd."
smashing a third
"You monster, you stole my sobriety."
"Whoa! Whoa! This one is weighty
unlike your mateys
with you I've never had quibble
in fairness to you
you'll lift my blues
for my woe I don't hold you responsible."
DELYSIA. FOR GIORGIO'S CONTEST.
INSPIRED BY:
"Dear alcohol, We had a deal where you would make me funnier,
smarter, and a better dancer. I saw the video. We need to talk..."
- Anonymous
Categories:
asthmatic, humorous,
Form:
Rhyme
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee like the ice-cubed world that has been dropped in Vodka,
splashing Pink Nuvo
Freezing the sands of time,
The Northern sky with the color of sunsets.
I love thee
Thy soul nude, drunk, and mute beneath the Aurora Borealis...
It's mystic music.
I love thee in here
Beyond skin and ribcages
all wrapped up in a cocoon,
Breaking through
Sprouting in butterfly season,
My dear Morpho Menelaus
Fluttering my sky into the Mariana Trench
the deepest blue... The deepest.
I love thee
my most quiet need to remain gasped in sighs full of awe.
I love thee burning into my vine green veins like the furnace of a forest fire.
I love thee in and out of breath.
With lungs full of asthmatic.
I love thee,
Thy love has sunken and engraved it's print into my back dimples.
It made its way into the marks my skin refuses to forget
Thy love has given my scars meaning,
it has made them beautiful.
I love thee.
With no words
No ink,
But simple and majestic as a candle's fire blowing in in the dark
Yet so present as the aroma of vanilla on skin and the thick of smoke.
I love thee.
Categories:
asthmatic, beautiful, beauty, first love,
Form:
Romanticism
In the sometimes so gloomy mornings
I think of you
Outside shrouds of water drape themselves
Around formless people who hurry
with their umbrellas, incomplete rooms
that offer only transitory shelter.
I think of you
You, to my unseeing eyes, so warm,
so mocha in your Kona Bean exoticity
with the raspy quality that warms both
of our asthmatic voices to sensually
(Did no one ever notice how erotically
asthmatic voices can sound?)
I think of you
I dream you around my lonely existence,
fold you over my desk in a pose
that smiles right into my emerald eyes
In such
breathtaking ways
that only
my inhaler
can
save
me.
Categories:
asthmatic, funny, health, love, romantic,
Form:
Free verse
THE ASTHMATIC
He was 53 when I was born,
A victim by depression shorn,
Never to know much of his own,
Enjoying neither car nor home.
Yet my father never gave in,
Struggled for breath through thick and thin.
And though nature’s victim, he thrived,
Knew well each tree and vine alive,
A regular fine sniffing hound,
Sampling from tree and from the ground –
Kicking up mushrooms after a rain,
Plucking berries again and again.
To us kids he never let on
How he struggled every day long.
Such are the heroics of man –
Stoic accepting his Lord’s plan.
Thanks to my dad for being born,
That bedpost nickel every morn.
…………………………………………………
Dad was off to work before I got up . Strangely, after all these years, I prize those nickels so hard won.
Categories:
asthmatic, sick,
Form:
Free verse
Beyond the gates,
Where the old bakery stood,
Was a memory of cold hands and
The saving glittering gems of the jelly doughnut.
Then late for practice and asthmatic from suicides.
My mother's voice calling in the wind.
When is it all reconstructed the right way?
Under what gray moon do things flutter with meaning
As deep as our bones?
Categories:
asthmatic, memory,
Form:
Free verse
The way the old lay,
weak, it's difficult to make out the words they say,
sometimes they speak nonsense and mumble away,
but somedays they are okay,
acting more like themselves from back in the day,
yet still with less than they once had,
and for them the best days have turned sad.
This is how I see hip hop now,
unrecognisable in it's current appearance,
transforming with age but yet somehow,
a small few prevent its total disappearance.
The lesser artist of yesteryears old skool,
would rule today over the best artists of the new school,
'cus todays artists are refused by all,
their rubbish has become the usual,
and rubbish is being kind, it's ear abuse and awful.
Even if the bar went up to high,
there is no excuse for the lack of good songs they provide,
I'd long for a new Red and Meth to buy,
and I don't care for the Eminem vs 2Pac divide,
I listen to both 'cus otherwise I'd be denied.
Rappers used to open the hole in their face,
they didn't sound like their jaw was tied by a brace,
you could hear the words regardless of the pace,
they never used languages found in outer space.
Today it's a disgrace, stumbling along in Arabic,
and grunting like some sort of dying asthmatic,
there's no talent here just a bunch of spastics,
and it's tragic how the whole song stack lacks a classic.
Rap used to be about verbal accounts,
rap was about the way words were pronounced,
then out pounced murmuring sounds of toddler playgrounds
and this bulls.... mumble was found.
Using commercial beats made to tap feet,
so you don't hear the retard trying to speak,
shouting out in anger all big and bad,
which I get 'cus if I couldn't talk I'd be mad.
Old skool rappers on crack,
have verbal skills that new school rappers lack.
This mumble is pitifully weak at the peak,
dipsticks with dick lipstick forging a beat.
So has hip hop died, hmmm
not yet, but it seems destined in time.
Categories:
asthmatic, hip hop, rap,
Form:
Rhyme