Best Couched Poems
A tad over three blocks down Merion Lane
on the left is, an idyllic Cape Cod.
I must've passed it a thousand times
my own picturesque, perfect, postcard place
couched in the right light, dappling rays
fresh-painted, white fence, ruby red front door.
Never once did I not try looking in,
a golden kickplate, bright brass knocker ring.
Begging to be seen, this family within
lotsa plain pane windows, no blinds, no sheers.
There it still stands proudly these many years.
In deep snows that had filled front walkways
in warming, romantic, radiated, lustrous light
hearth hues burst through the panes beyond the glass.
One spring, I saw a fine fetching lass run
across this closely manicured front lawn with her
bouncing blonde, long locks, glowing gleefully.
I mused as I passed by half-staring;
we'd marry maybe, wishful pairing!
And have a dreamy storybook Cape Cod too.
That fall, our family moved far away.
But was I not to see her, who's to say?
Still, I remember that house, that dream
I might've married her, my crazy scheme.
Last night it snowed. Drove that road again.
Five years later, that same house was still there.
On the outside, the front door now lime green.
Inside, a fire burns brilliant like before.
I saw this striking blonde while I gawked.
Startled, the green door opens, she walked
across the snowy street, without her coat.
Poised, she stood there and said straight to me,
"Aren't you the boy who used to stare?",
through my window I gush, "Why yes, I am."
She said she'd wondered about me,
even though they'd never known my name.
Star-crossed, my illusion had dreamt back!
Those private affections landed somehow:
illusions can come true, they often do.
Left my car, took her hand, then went inside;
over a cozy cocoa we chatted.
No longer a star from afar - so near.
New worlds would now open for us right here.
Lost love came home to the house down the road.
Written 2/19/21
Categories:
couched, dream, home, image, lost
Form:
Free verse
How can I fetch what's inside me?
It's a mental scream I can see,
They had poured fear through my mind's crease,
Tears swell deep ache, I grieve in peace.
There has been a real stage play,
Rumbling in the chasm and airway,
This caused the effect of the cease,
Tears swell deep ache, I grieve in peace.
Screaming voices drove me insane,
Shooters, killers, and guns again,
Frail life blights me on endless lease,
Tears swell deep ache, I grieve in peace.
We yield what we hear, but we hear,
In our blood, others' scars are clear,
We wipe tears but also decrease,
Tears swell deep ache, I grieve in peace.
My wounds are still bright in my mind,
Anguish since the long-term rewind,
Out of sight, cracked into pieces,
Tears swell deep ache, I grieve in peace.
We're together despite the waves,
Thrilled as tides rush us to the caves,
Earth seems to cast us a release,
Tears swell deep ache, I grieve in peace.
We plant hope as a human seed,
Love grows in the other being's deed,
These keen emotions can't surcease,
Tears swell deep ache, I grieve in peace.
What if rain wipes tears of sadness?
We'll free ourselves from the brashness,
Teases to shed tears of caprice?
Tears swell deep ache, I grieve in peace.
Whether you cry from pain or bliss,
It's not rain that makes that abyss,
Crying is nature, human peeps,
Tears swell deep ache, I grieve in peace.
My sorrow is couched in downpour,
Sobbing has not yet come down more,
I chafe drenched while I wait for cease,
Tears swell deep ache, I grieve in peace.
Behind my face, that beams a smile,
Long, twisty, and pitch-black road style,
Secret cries have been rife with geese,
Tears swell deep ache, I grieve in peace.
Checked by HMS.COM/ 8 syllables.com
1St place contest winner
Written: November 14, 2022
Pick-A-Title, Vol 33 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
Categories:
couched, analogy, angst, bereavement, cry,
Form:
Kyrielle
STORIES TO LIVE BY
Oh! tell me tales that lift the spirit, energise the soul
Inspire a faith that gives the strength to drive toward a goal
Let not the story of the nation be a book of shame
That current generations may seek solace couched in blame
Though there may be dark chapters of our history beset
With episodes of evil we now view with deep regret
True annals yet tell stories of bold quests by those of daring
Who ventured forth with courage, thought of self-preserve foreswearing
To conquer craggy peak, cross frozen continent and sea
And some of grace faced tyranny, risked life to set us free
Let victimhood and pointed accusation not prevail
Nor guilt and self abasement write a gloomy new folktale
As every day a page is turned to quicken and advance
Our lives, should we not be the author of our own romance
Then one day hence we may recount in parable or fable
A legend that all may embrace to hearten and enable
Categories:
couched, life,
Form:
Couplet
You want to hear me say I’ll love you forever.
And yes, I well could say those very words to you:
For after all, they simply state the current truth.
But at the risk of seeming callous or uncouth
They’re also words one could easily misconstrue.
And whether couched in language simple or clever,
In timeworn expressions or phrases fresh and new,
All such words would ultimately be misleading—
For how can anyone pledge a love undying?
The future’s hidden—to deny that is lying.
And nothing lasts forever… still, since you’re needing
Reassurance, this much at least I’ll promise you:
You are the best-beloved of my heart today:
I can’t foresee I’ll ever feel another way.
November 14, 2019
NB: This is an "almost sonnet"-- but differs in line length (12 syllables instead of ten) and, instead of having three quatrains before the couplet, I have used two sestets with an ABCCBA DEFFED rhyme scheme. Also, the lines, while each of 12 syllables, do not really have any consistent metrical structure. By the bye, the word beloved here is meant to be pronounced adjectivally, that is, with three syllables: be-'LOV-ed.
Categories:
couched, i love you, love,
Form:
Lyric
Tho’ the soft voice has an aristocratic tone,
the haughty attitude ain’t no street gutter different:
Being rude ... dropping shade
Dark keystroke mood,
shallow indigo indifference shown
Another bad online day made
Royal pain of a social media princess
giving good grief
With a sunny disposition staged
That same persona
is acting out in public again —
Digital tongue intoxicated by the viral fame
Drunken thoughts of superiority
are spilled on the laptop
As her mental runt rants spew more shame
But[t] always couched behind banal positivity,
trite emoji expressions
Mousy pooter loves to sphincter the blame
The same gaslight persona
is acting out in the public forum again —
Low heel clicks from lattice lips
Drama queen on a toilet spin,
gossip lovers say she has such a hater handle
Royal flush of a sent sewer clip
Petty web of inane intrigue
got much diva curiosity following her
A Twitter litter trail of trash-talking catnip
Different window dressing edit, peppermint vetted,
has the same bittersweet facade —
Hard candy hits from her gentle fingertips
Categories:
couched, humorous, imagery, psychological, satire,
Form:
Tristich
This is a long extended night,
The stars all hibernate,
The blustery gusts revolve around
The dreams which suffocate.
Now the torrents lash my door,
And now they slam the shade,
'Be couched right here, and do not move',
The whispers promptly bade.
Out there I glanced, the wild tree pranced,
She swayed her tipsy stem,
All drenched and dark, the leafy arc
Seems like her death-gown's hem.
Is that mere downpour, or a sign,
An omen of the time?
The thunders clash with louder splash,
Upon the lakebed slime.
My window pane is stabbed by rain,
One thousand spears en masse,
They prick the eaves, pummel the leaves
To the level of the grass.
The flickering lamp will die at once,
It does not cease to pour,
A marble sculpture drowns beneath
The water on the floor.
That which gives life can take it too,
Lo there it heaves its head,
The shrine's bemused, the priest presumed
A curse on holy bread.
It has to cease within no time,
The devil's thunder roars,
The gale allays his evil play
Withdraws his wondrous force.
28th September, 2021
Categories:
couched, gothic,
Form:
Ballad
Get the 'Nick' of Prime.. Transforming TV time.'
With questions well 'couched' what's the take' all about?
Negating generic preconception
Being His signature intention
Shaking the Quo is His 'art' status shows..'
unmasking 4 the nation those veiled sinuation
With His inimitable way; and ingenuity say
Honest enacted neither trite, nor retracting..
Not a ham per se that's my view by the way.'
Creation-sensation? (its your choice)
Now..' get us to the revelations..!
© Joe Maverick 6-3-2015
Categories:
couched, art, encouraging,
Form:
Rhyme
Masked maiden
In lacy black frills
Manacled, chained
Sensuous thrills
Birthday suit bare
Heavenly toned
Sweetened and ripe
In wanting groan
With her laced black fan
She lures with her scent
He slowly walks to her
As her eyes lament
She looks up to him
In hungering stare
As he looks down
Desiring her there
He offers his hand
His maiden in black
To rejoice their join
Passion attack
To a leather couch
He rests her down
His dark haired vixen
Lacy gowned
Hands encroach
In bodily roam
Synchronised
Heavenly home
In pleasurable touch
Their joys arise
In welcome slide
His pride inside
Rhythmic rhythm
Tantalising tongues
Hands homing
Sexually sung
Perpetual in motion
Writhing want
Cries of caressing
Her heavenly font
The mix of their motion
River of love
Quench of two
Eagle and dove
Rosy complexions
Flora flushed
Passions hushed
Pinked and blushed
Couched and cosy
Hunger appeased
Two covered in lace
In lovingly please
;-)
Categories:
couched, emotions, love, lust, passion,
Form:
Rhyme
GHANA!!!
The blood sacrificed for our sake is being betrayed
The landlors can't benefit from their own rich resources
We starve on the green space whiles we await manna from the sky
The hope couched in the star is gradually losing its black pigment. ..
Wake up Mother Ghana!!!
Happy Independence Day Mother Ghana!!!
It is your birthday!!!
I know you expected some panegyric spiced with literary devices on this day
But sorry , though it might be uncouth, I had to hit you with the truth
I still love you regardless Mother!!!
Your history is as rich as your culture
You have an enviable home and people
You instill discipline and abhor evil
No wonder your compound is always peaceful
I love you Mother!!!!
Categories:
couched, africa, age, anniversary, art,
Form:
Lyric
Philosophers, down the ages,
Have strenuously tried
To figure out language:
Their numerous narratives polarize
Into two Grand narratives, a binary:
Language is referential / differential.
This binary has yielded numerous derivatives.
On the referential side, for instance,
There’s the view that language is an instrument,
As advanced notably by Aristotle, Bhamaha and Dandin.
On the differential side, we have
Saussure’s notion:
Language is a system of differences
(without any positive terms).
Derrida, for his part, widened it:
Language is infinitely differential,
As suggested by his coinage differance,
which implies: language is
slippery, radically unstable,
which, in turn, gave rise to
mind-boggling derivatives
in this postmodern world!
Some of them are: Derrida’s (own) freeplay
of the (autonomous) sign,
Bloom’s (willful) misreading,
And Lyotard’s (incommensurable) language games
(which we all play in this postmodern space willy-nilly)
All these differences have led
Often to acrimonious disputes,
Couched, of late, in a language
that abounds in ambiguity
and neatly underpinned by illogic!
The predicament of these philosophers (old or new) is:
What they and we all observe
is not language-in-itself,
but language as seen by us—
which is similar to what Heisenberg said about nature!
These disputes remind us
of the dispute among the six characters,
in the age-old parable,
which reportedly originated in the Indian Rigveda.
(but now found in several belief systems).
It’s the parable of the six men
(as narrated by John Godfrey Saxe)
Wherein the characters tried
To figure out an elephant,
which, unfortunately, none of them
Had the faculty to see:
So, one called it soft and mushy;
for another it was like a snake;
for the third, it was fan-like,
And so on.
Thus, they “disputed loud and long,
Though each was partly in the right
…and all were [rightly] in the wrong!"
***
Categories:
couched, language, philosophy,
Form:
Free verse
a cavalcade wept ashore with frenzy like a beastly bus
oblivious of tribes who blissfully dealt without a fuss
triangulated within an ever narrowing pen
contaminated, decimated, eradicated “red” men
once a collection of indigenous separate “nations”
plucked by invaders who usurped america as their den
releasing poison couched as religion into the air
which indignities true colors became readily clear
when europeans “discoverers” fomented war-fare
to those who found themselves in deadly cross hair
every inch of “new world” grimly rustled in every lair
with deadly piping hot metallic bullets with near
with unfamiliar customs on par with a satyr
without means to escape any direction they did veer
cohesion of unity did annihilate without a trace
that belonged to those who stood apart as separate race
paraded as “exotic specimens” in some faraway place
bandied about as if some rare refined silken lace
of their rightful home by chicanery tactics base
to banality, effrontery, hostility though dined
with travesty from Europeans whose dreams lined
against so called original occupants who got maligned.
Categories:
couched, adventure, bible, christian, confusion,
Form:
Ballad
A Chinese girl I took to a nunnery
I
I led her
Her silent leg-irons cutting into my shins
That day when the air stood still
Dry as the day perhaps on the hill
when he spoke standing still
Drier still my words today
of a redundant ransom of flesh:
I’ll take you to the stopping place
Where the quiet cowled nuns make lace
They run a school for well-bred girls
In a cloistered fenced-in arbour
There where you’d have no need for curls
She turned just then seven and ten
Me barely two more when
She said in a breathless moan:
Take me to the French Convent
Here my road has come to an end
I want to learn
I want to gain
As much knowledge as my brain
Will strive to contain
I had no choice
I had no voice
In a Chinese school which stopped midways
She was the best of forty times five
Where I was hoarse from English and Science
She sat so close in the front row
She must have felt my breath at home
Her cowlick hand stretched crooked
Brushed my thoughts down my mane
Something about her dragging gait
Spoke of late hours as a kitchen mate
Or as the matron of squabbling squawking siblings
When the mother scrubbed and ironed
the landlord’s lingerie and loins
A saddened face she kept awake
All through the hours at stake
II
It took me days and days of doubting pains
To ring at last the nunnery bell
And to stare aghast at a pallid face
Not quite white and not quite couched in cowl
To register my request
The novice drew and barred the door
As though I would break down the wall
And as the minutes raced in anguish by
And I heard the rusted pig-iron latch click open
Two forbidding eyes contemplated my plight
Under strictly starched and stretched folds a-sail:
“Is she Catho…” she made to ask
Then as urgently withdrew her demand.
“Bring her tomorrow at eight,” she let her words
escape.
“Ring the bell at the gate.”
I never saw the demure girl again.
Her schoolmates thought she worked for the nuns.
Others: “ She took some vows!”
A sibling: “ She took no clothes for a change!”
Just before her silhouette effaced itself
Under the porch of creepers dense
She turned to give me a look:
Was it a look of despair
Or a well-thought-out
farewell fair?
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013
Categories:
couched, farewell,
Form:
Free verse
Issued paper fibers mirror those of the straw bale,
The waters of the great canal through the morning sail.
In spite Venezia was tied, the chairlift was jostling,
Twisting its way through the small calli in haze whiting.
It's safe to say man has a qualm, despite his skin tone,
The Earth spins around, put your location out of zone.
Informal suburbs have been overrun by strange walls,
The laws of the rulers, custom breeds devotion calls.
It's amazing how people fall for lowering strife,
Then residents achieve bad habits and lose their life.
Identity loss roots our quiet closed eyes, curdle,
Teams were the source of hatred for every step hurdle.
Its clogged and stuffed bowel burst, the young boy died of filth,
They stole his liver, kidneys, and heart, killing his health.
Idle boy's heart beats in a guest's chest; mom's tear-soaked veil,
The boy is dead or lives couched in flesh tombs as was frail.
Its tearful child asks his dad, "where does sorrow stem from?"
The sorrow you get is the kid of joy, if not some.
It's not just the sun's rays that draw forth the elixir,
The Oceans create clouds and those clouds from storms austere.
Isn't the fragrance that lures butterflies, but the same scent,
The flower that would a lover pick for his content?
It's not the light shining on your flesh in the mirror,
The light chases the reverse side's shadow to shiver.
It's when you're glad, know that it cost others happiness,
That you're enthralled recall it's someone else's sadness.
Individualism fails in vain, that's a grouse word,
This may never know how your fault brings oddly well-augured.
It opens endless doors to be tough, profound, and strong,
Though no book or teacher can teach you a complete prong.
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 23 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Mark Toney
1ST Place Contest Winner
Written August 30, 2022
Dot Your I's And Cross Your T's Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Hilo Poet
Verified and checked with HMS.COM, with 13 syllables in each line.
Categories:
couched, analogy, bereavement, conflict, creation,
Form:
Couplet
cuz...well...this cerebral cortex lacks
ability to comprehend anything
more complex than playing jacks
aware his severe cognitive ability hacks
away at such juvenile gibberish
and most likely exacts
a prediction my intelligence
on par with bracts
very much aware that
without recourse to contrivances
delineating the passage of time,
wherever said out
standing invisible essence
which moments lapse just now ago
Now!
no just a moment ago Yaw
that, this or another instant
did without so much as a wow
lapse, and lucky
21st *****Sapiens to vow
and lay claim thee or thou
aware the amorphous ether
one can reefer as a sow
or any other animate or
inanimate direct or indirect object re:
yule lie zing
any analogy, metaphor, simile,
et cetera a poor substitute to pre
sent every second, minute,
hour...that doth nee
dull our attention akin
to banshees, or comparison
to something else
totally tubularly off the wall lee
ving without a trace
only prompt a feeble yet apropos je
ne sais quois, yet even then any primate a he
than (if individual couched in this free
to believe in any religion country, and cre
may shun versus burial predicated
adherence to idea of a soul aie...aye
how write with frustration struggle to affix bye
and bye, some nebulous notion, that doth defy
tis a futile effort to codify, fortify,
identify abstract concepts, whose high
arc key eludes pinpointing a per jai
guru dev, place or thing (ha)...
Categories:
couched, 8th grade, heaven, imagery,
Form:
Elegiac Lyric
glad
in crux
near the gloom
that light nudge me
when it gets anxious
concerns that might leak out
my burrows are firmly couched
not a fiend nor a darling star
they thrust as the night sky gained their sight.
yet, both sorts score their way to my shoulder.
Categories:
couched, analogy, appreciation, character, deep,
Form:
Etheree