Best Coughed Poems
Sweet Butterfly, with wings now dry 'tis time to break away
and light upon the leaves of dawn while weeping willows sway,
not reminisce 'bout chrysalis discarded yesterday,
but treasure life, with colors rife in nature's cabaret.
Sweet Butterfly, you sometimes sigh "terrene so strange and new”,
but take a chance, with winged expanse of fairy-like bijou,
to taste delight in random flight, to drift beyond the blue
and then collect her naked nectar, sipped in morning dew.
Sweet Butterfly, you question why the breeze is seldom soft
when swirling you, your wings askew, while floating free aloft.
Some seem to find their peace of mind believing gods have coughed,
but others, downed, have often found more freedom when they've scoffed.
Sweet Butterfly, you needn't cry, the fields are full of clover,
and meadowlands bare braided strands that winds in waves flow over -
but if you fear that, more than here, another mead is mauver,
just flutter by, beneath the sky, unfettered flitting rover.
Sweet Butterfly, farewell, goodbye, you've left this world behind.
I oft gaze back along the track of flowers that you've mined
recalling days of light sashays and movements unconfined
that complement the firmament where beauty lies enshrined.
Categories:
coughed, freedom, life, time,
Form:
Rhyme
JED.
Jed the horse thief was a bit of a dope
Stole a pretty horse and tried to elope
Folk declared him a horse thief
And for giving them much grief
They dangled him at the end of a rope...
PADDY O'HARE.
A deep sea diver called Paddy O'Hare
Was on the sea bed without any care
His watch he forgot to check
Coughed and said" oh flippin heck"
Never surfaced cos he ran out of air...
BARTHOLOMEW LOTT.
The great explorer Bartholomew Lott
Was in the jungle with Jimmy the Scot
Cannibal's came in the night
They both put up a great fight
But were outnumbered and put in a pot...
FRED.
Fred tried to run away with his lover
Was caught in the act by his dear mother
She said this cannot be
T'will end in tragedy
His lover was the wife of his brother...
JIHADI (WON'T BE MISSED).
Bin Sayed said everything will be fine
Told a Jihadi bomber to cross the line
But Jihadi didn't know
Something was about to blow
A loud kaboom when he stepped on a mine...
LOUISE.
An old woman by the name of Louise
Had a fur coat that made everyone sneeze
Also they'd start to twitch
And scratch raw from the itch
She found out it was infested with fleas...
KEITH THE TROLL
There was a vile and nasty troll called Keith
Bullied the weak and shy into defeat
He lived in a small town
A victim tracked him down
Now he's seen walking around with no teeth...
Written 26th February 2020.
Categories:
coughed, humor,
Form:
Limerick
One day I delivered a poem
one that seemed to be premature
so I swaddled her up
and set her aside
to grow 'til I felt reassured
How she yowled and howled for attention...
how she cried so piteously!
How she coughed and she sneezed
whimpered and wheezed
then threw up all over me!
Still I tenderly tended her bedside
and lovingly nursed her along
determined to sacrifice everything
to raise her up healthy and strong
As she grew and recovered, she wandered
and crawled over everything
and I found I had trouble containing
my rambling, unruly offspring
She became an inexcusable bounder
a wayward and bratty ingrate
who despite all my love and affection
refused to make sense or read straight
She dallied in questionable places
she idled and shiftlessly shirked
lazily lagging, ignoring my nagging
while I selflessly, endlessly worked
Firmly applied discipline to her
and structure, and meter, and rhyme
but she bucked, and rebelled, and bit me
and stayed up beyond her bedtime
We wrestled, and wrangled, and brawled,
bickered in bitter altercation
if I didn't do something quite soon
she would ruin my good reputation
At length, I decided I'd had it
we had reached the end of the road
and although she clung like a wet paper towel-
I flung her and flushed the commode!
Categories:
coughed, humor, humorous, silly, word
Form:
Rhyme
"We're going to need a bigger fig leaf."
Proclaimed the teacher to her staring class
As the model removed the last of his attire.
A collective, almost silent gasp
and the clatter of a fallen brush on parquet floor
confirmed this to be true.
Among the downcast eyes of most
was an accusing glance from pink-faced girl
to blushing secret lover.
Others scanned the body top to toe;
some fixed their gaze;
not all upon the model's eyes.
The over-fondling of a brush,
the squeezing squirting of thick paint from tube
A pencil slowly rotated in a mouth;
gestures, lost of innocence,
in steamy, thickening room.
A closeted sigh.
A wistful moan.
The heavy silence broke;
"As you may have guessed," the teacher coughed
"The subject for your sketch today is Adam."
This or That, Vol 11 Poetry Contest Fig Leaf, placed 3rd
Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
Date wrote: 31st March 2022
Categories:
coughed, art, humor,
Form:
Free verse
There is always
a dull longing
that goes unlabelled
and hangs a layer or two
below a joy, a pang
somewhere in the soul
that can't be coughed up
or cut out, just endured.
A nonsense to the skeptic,
no more than perhaps
a twitch of an evolutionary
relic left unemployed within
the brain, now ossified
into an irritant jumping
across the boundaries
of our troubled sleep.
Whatever its origin,
it's always there
be it a hollow left in our psyche
from an umbilical when severed
by God or a buffering problem
in our brain,
the longing never leaves.
We try and quench it
with beauty, love, art
and myth but it remains
unfulfilled, as if a speck
of the infinite resides within
us all, that can absorb
everything we have
and then ask for more.
Categories:
coughed, longing, spiritual,
Form:
Free verse
I bent over to touch my toes
and the ground tore open like a backbone.
I tried to feed myself the sky;
to splice my tearducts into the universe
so that, when the pavement cried, it would mean something to me.
My fingernails punctured that slimy membrane
congealed with stars,
and I brought a slice of it to my lips,
hot and slippery like a jellyfish.
Peach juice, chalky-sweet, flowed,
fleshy particles snagged in my teeth,
and the colors erupted within my mouth.
Synthesia took over my lungs.
The hollows between my knuckles flooded with synovia
and all the ectoplasm threatened to separate from my cells
with a sound like thunder.
Diphthong tasted rusty like leukoplakia as it tiptoed across my tongue.
Tomorrow rose like the skeletons of trees,
groping for a feeling similar to catharsis
[catharsis tender as the broken wings of doves,
crunching underfoot like shattered glass.]
The clouds opened their thunderous maws
- teeth snicker-snacking, lamplight-eyes flaming the color of E#'s -
and consumed me.
I felt my skin turn to something other than skin:
thick and rough with scales,
my fingerprints melting into something waxen, smooth and opaque,
like pomegranate kisses on coffee mugs.
A feeling ignited deep in my structure;
cedillas blossoming like lilies from my lips,
fragmented sentences stretching taut as guitar strings
between my thumb and forefingers.
A flutter gentle and demonic as Calcifer erupted from my system
- splattering hot and frothing into my hand -
and fluid rushed in.
I dared to taste oblivion,
and the sky swallowed me.
My lungs failed to be lungs.
They flooded with caustic matter,
and I coughed up reflections sharp as fiberglass;
fighting with organs phthisical and sore.
I struggled to find a way to describe it:
the feeling of consuming something greater than yourself,
of opening your eyes and tasting the sound of rain.
It was like swimming,
but inside out.
I bent over to touch my toes,
and my spine tore open;
the loose laces unraveling, veterbrae poking out
like the tines of forks.
I tried to contort myself into the beginning,
but I only found where I end.
Categories:
coughed, allegory, confusion, depression, fantasy,
Form:
Free verse
* this was the first and last time I ever held my father's hand, a short time before his passing - he was not conscious *
~
they placed their scope to listen, soft
"he's gone", they said, but it was mine -
that hand he'd held for his last breath
the scraping rattles when he coughed ...
oh gruesome, that one vestige, death
not sweet, nor poignant, nor half kind
lost years ago through dwindling mind
these months since, far from dignified ...
so strange, the places tears thus hide
between weak clasps of cooling hands
or eyes gone blank for pain's demands
those muted mem'ries, sweet and brief ...
"why, yes ... I know," I'd sighed relief
his anguish gone, naught left but grief
yet, I remained and thought, how sad
he'd been my father ... ne'er my "dad".
Categories:
coughed, death,
Form:
Rhyme
(Preterition = the act of passing by or over; omission; disregard, in this case, charity)
Who can accuse him of lacking charity?
He felt the rain, cold and dank, too many people
without shelter, poorly dressed, wet and shivering.
I’d rather not talk about it. I’m like everyone else.
No one smelt the squalor of a place forgotten by mankind.
So he retired to his beautiful warm mansion.
Who can accuse him of lacking charity?
He knew well enough what charity meant.
A woman, beautiful and sick trembled in front of his house.
Inadequate clothes covered her body thin. She coughed.
Some drops of blood dribbled down her cheeks.
I'm cold she murmured. But cruelly he turned away.
Merciless night saw her wane as she lay exposed to the storm.
Don’t talk to me about charity. I know what it is.
I’d rather talk about beautiful things.
Morning came and found her dead.
They buried her outside the town in a forgotten grave.
Stop talking to me about charity. Tell me where I failed?
Alas, no bells tolled her demise.
They left her to the numb unfeeling cold
And slowly turned back to town leaving her to the merciless sleet.
Ashamed he felt that he should pray. May she rest in peace.
You see, he knew what charity means.
Categories:
coughed, betrayal, death, discrimination, poverty,
Form:
Free verse
CAR COURT
Enter, the older heavyweight steel giant,
The bailiff, a 1954 Hudson, reads unhesitant :
On the docket for this morning : guilty by implication - a Trabant,
In close custody with a Cutlass Supreme for supervision.
Next on the docket: a Pinto for likely gas-tank explosion.
Third on the docket: an English-made car (any marque) - body corrosion.
Lawyer for the prosecution, a pretentious character, a gas guzzler SUV
4x4 off-road with winch - for Saturday use on driveway only -
Hangs out with Vettes; and uses NO2 in fuel. Who?Drugs? Not me!
Downbeat guy as the defence counsel , a solid no nonsense Hummer,
A real enviro-bummer,
Klutzy ugly and personality like a mack truck in summer.
Trabant coughed its way to the stand.
Clerk of court Volkswagen, order in hand,
Read the indictment quietly, efficiently, bland.
Prosecution began with noisy opening musical-horn tunelets
The jury, all serious-minded stolid Volvos and Toyota Starlets
Were not impressed. Hummer clumsily interrupted with an objection, “Let’s
Stop, on the grounds of precedent,” but at this point Pinto reversed,
Crushed its trunk and its gas-tank exploded, and worst ,
Hit the the English car : and into flames they both burst.
Cutlass argued with the SUV, which was winched away pending sentence.
Case against the English car dismissed from lack of evidence.
Trabant was deported back to Germany: no import licence
Overseeing all these proceedings : the ever-reliable, I-won’t-budge,
The I-have-a-spotless-reputation, I-hold-no-grudge,
The mechanical virgin, the silent Rolls Royce as judge.
...........................................................................................................
Categories:
coughed, allegorycar, car, drug,
Form:
Verse
"I am feeling it." He said.
He meant his age. As I watched
I saw a vision…
Out from the cuttlefish bones of his breast
grime coughed up and dribbled.
I saw his heart stutter, the vapid flutter,
watched his lungs belch and utter
like a broken bladder.
A horseman on a creaking steed
raised its hoary head
and pointed an ancient ladle
speaking thus -
"Stir me belly lad," it said,
"spoon me sticky sump,
dole globs of lymph from here to there.
Me grease is dumpy and lumpy.
Me hip-bones crunch
while me dingle wilts and dangles.
Me ears is gummy lad,
I've gone to the bad.”
The specter faded.
The old guy smiles, rubs his thin hair.
"I also see it sometimes," he says,
"that liver-spotted ghost
that chains me to an even older vision
of you."
Categories:
coughed, poetry,
Form:
Free verse
The Wanderer
By: Aidan Gilbert
People say time ticks faster than it’s allowed
I say we walk too slow
People say stop to enjoy every moment
I say some moments aren’t worth stopping for
Everyone says the storm already passed
That just means I’m following it
Everyday black and grey
It’s all the same
I don’t know which road I lost my soul
Probably lost it before I started this journey
People say death brings sorrow
I say it brings happiness because that’s when you finally get your freedom
I ain’t know mistake in life
Just the sad thing it coughed up
This world is my jail time
It locked me up for wanting innocence
I am not allowed to pray for a better time
Because these bad times are the only times I am allowed
There ain’t no sunshine in Hell!
Just me wandering
Wandering aimlessly around
Categories:
coughed, feelings,
Form:
Free verse
When her presence trod the oak-hewn boards,
barefoot on the bees wax, lyrical on the shine,
the cypress calm coughed ruffle of her dress,
soaking slapped applause, her heart raged saturnine.
Thus before the altar of the grand,
when silence fell the expectation soared,
precisely correlated to the bated through,
cut musical astrology with every silver chord.
Carved of the detailed crystal shards of sound,
with fingers dipped in symmetry and fire,
each avalanche crescendo stilling breath,
perfection wrought from ivory and wire.
And as she mourns of marrowbone and men,
coitus with the discipline’s demands,
her metronomic thought has cause to dwell
on what possession haunts her phantom hands.
Categories:
coughed, allegory, music, passion, time,
Form:
Verse
Can Heidi Klum ( for Chris )
She weaved her way
On long delicate ankles
Floating under loose summer dress
No sign of a strap
The crowd faded
So much gossamer
So few threads
To scatter the shadows of form beneath her dress
Swelling curving
Blonde tied swing pony tail softly bobbing
The sunlight falling
A waterfall around her
He sat unaware of his stare
The half risen cup hovering between
Her and his lip
Trembled
She smiled
Was that smile meant for him
Those luscious long legs floating her closer
Movement lifting rising shudders feminine
Bottom lip lowering
Recognising; is that Heidi Klum
The waltzing goddess of his dreams
Sashayed ever closer to him
Drink ignored and now spilling
Heidi Klum walked right up to him
All loose summer dress and no sign of a strap
And smiling
And with that curious glint only a woman has
When she sees something she wants
She swayed like magic
Down to the seat that sat waiting for her
He fumbled his cup and coughed
But Heidi was all butter soft eyes and curves
In sensual hands and body language of moist
Parted lips in summer heat
Should he stand, should he sit, his bum hovered between
Should he offer his hand or proffer a kiss
More the kiss he so would wish
And Miss Klum hung poised to anticipate
“Well,” she said, “big man, are going to buy a girl a drink?”
And there he sat with Heidi Klum
All soft curl and sexual loose summer dress
With no hint of a strap
His careful whit made her laugh
And as the sun stretched its shadows along the walks
They went together hip to hip and arm in arm
The promised kiss stopped to linger with them
And whispered another promise for the night to come
Categories:
coughed, fantasysummer, kiss, summer, sensual,
Form:
Free verse
Last night's storm
has left its artwork on the beach,
a postmodernist exhibition
of brown seaweed strewn in clumps
like hair on a barbershop floor,
broken seashells
and a fallen rainbow of plastics
strung out along the shore
where now an exhausted sea
licks the leftovers of a meal.
Chaos has been distilled down
to washed up artifacts
and red bottle caps, drinking straws
and spoons buried deep inside a ball
of yellow twine. I cannot make
much sense of what is on display
or glean from this haphazard art
a hint of meaning
other than in its making.
All seems uncoupled, specimens
torn from lonely souls, bits
and pieces coughed up
out of the exhaust of a huge machine
whose pistons pump and drive
a spinning wheel that has no purpose.
I pick up a plastic sandal
and wonder whose foot
it once belonged to, then put it back
and walk home
alone.
Categories:
coughed, art, sea, storm,
Form:
Free verse
Tom Price phones up John Ely.
"I hear you sell some of the best horses in the county
I'm sending out my best guy if he likes the goods
we're buying one of your horses.
My guy is a midget with a speech impediment just to give you the heads up"
he concluded and hung up the phone.
The stud groom waited until the midget knocked on the door.
"Hello, I've come to check out your hortheth", said the midget.
"Sure, do you want a male horse or a female horse ?" asked the stud groom.
"A female horth, pleath" said the midget, so off they went to look at the horses. One lovely well bred filly caught the midgets eye.
"Can I check her ears pleath ?" said the midget - so the stud groom lifted up the midget to check the horses ears, then put him back down.
"Nith ears.......... now can I look at her eyth, pleath ?" - once again the stud groom lifted up the midget to check the horses eyes, then put im
down again.
"Nith eyth ............ now I'd like to thee her **** pleath"
The stud groom was shocked and a bit offended, so he lifted up the midget and shoved him
head first into the rear area of the horse and put him back down again.
The midget coughed and spluttered, and then said....................
"Perhapth I should rephwase that...... can I see her wun awound a widdle bit ?"
16~12~2014
Categories:
coughed, hilarious, horse, humor, humorous,
Form:
Narrative