Best Overwrought Poems
Un-nerved by formal sentencing assemblies,
Marks and Words, bound by conjunctive amenity.
The tried beliefs that short cuts speed words into action.
Made stuffy Old School feel out of fashion.
Punctuation board-slams her silver gavel;
“A shortened distance, yet far to travel.”
Marks are pushed into line to enter their plea.
Dash Dash Dash has trailing thoughts…
Comment remarks that it thinks too much.
Question Mark, curiously rotund and stout,
asks “What’s this meeting all about?”.
Proud Period, acquainted with the strident rituals of formality,
Quickly departs, leaving a daunting spot of terse finality.
Comma’s game of pause and snag,
grammatically adheres to one of tag.
Overwrought Exclamation Mark, nervously blurts:
“Unruly disorder can make matters worse!”.
Semi colon maintaining proper pauses,
Stays anchored between compelling clauses.
Colon fearful of growling barks,
snuggles closer to Quotation Marks.
Apostrophe’s like for word possession,
worries over changing word obsession
Oh, Oh! Oh? Oh…
These are shameful attempts to monopolize,
Even with trite words, of unassuming size.
.
Punctuation thinks her identity’s impaired
Might she be confused with the shrew, Grammar?
She calls to order a capitol thought.
sliding up to Exclamation Mark, shouts “’STOP!’
The object of this meeting,
Is not subject to self- beating.
No presence is here to criticize, or chastises,
nor harmonize.
If getting through is what stays true.
Will be understood by some , but always to you.”.
from the conch
whispers come
dissect
distract
blow upon
scintilla branch to intrinsic thought
weighed down
consumed
overwrought
mattering - so magnified
that I can't turn away my eyes
reach for able hand to soothe
what dread could deed undo, disprove
kisses stolen
by long lost words
explored lactic fallacies
become absurd
til endings are not the body expired
but exposure of every cell and every wire
cathartic grip held in awe
control depletes as hem and haw
til sadly swings
and bridges to shame
call time
I must
on the lugubrious game
Welcome KMart shoppers blares through the air as a mosh pit of greedy Holiday buggers hurl themselves through the glass and aluminum doors—Obese bodies press (children jammed between white-bread). Trolls in strollers screech in pain and howls of Christ mask laughter. The shopper's feet bombard the glossy, line-oh-lea-ummm floors as the overwrought, over-privileged, truffle sniffers, poke through the hundred and fifty percent marked-up—mark-downs, for things they already own in triplicate.
canned music
jiggle bells the room:
torn wrapping paper
Lifelong series, proliferation of dreams
Procrastination pushes cans to rear shelf
Crushed pineapple replaces peaches and creams
Depleted pantry unenvisioned of self
Back burners overwrought iron pans of sin
Awaiting an opener, woman of tin
Lifelong series, ambitions, intended plans
Plentiful in could haves, instead, dented cans
Written: 1/1/2018
Contest: Dented Cans
Hosted by: John lawless
What’s the use of trying any longer?
Nothing comes out the way I want it to flow
Words perpetrate my every being
And I strain to get my temperament to slow
But my cognizance is reeling in a panic of waves
The voltage of emotion is overwhelming me
What is this journey impending to?
What is my purpose?
To obliterate or build?
I keep assurances only to splinter and shatter them
I melt into their regrets and apologies without looking back
Then I am slapped right back in the face
With my own waves of shame and qualm
I wish I was like you
I wish I could put a guise on and never show my face
I wish I could take a dagger and extinguish the sorrow
Destroy tomorrow
But it keeps coming back with twinges and pains!
I want to scream my way into your existence
I want to end all the overwrought thoughtlessness
I want to be lifted in your ease
To be beautiful and clever like you
The demon is me and I am foaming with misery
My horns are melting by your pertinacious confrontations
I can’t reply to the desolation of nothingness
I can’t make it all go away
I’m trapped! RELIEVE ME!
Cursed adrenaline rushes about me
My body is prickling and waterlogged in blackness
I swallow the poisons of my backwash
And back-fire every stab in the back
I never planned to walk along the beach today…
Now I am glad my mind steered me this way…
Watching him sit there, lost in thought…
Evoked emotions, I was completely overwrought…
How do I get him to notice me?
How can a stranger make me weak at the knees?
Do I go for the cliché and send over a drink?
I have a weird feeling he might be my missing link…
Took a walk today on the local beach…
My pad in hand but my poem and words couldn’t reach…
So I stared out into the sea, hoping the right words to come to me…
And there walks a vision of beauty too far from me to touch…
I wonder, is she wearing a ring or is a broken heart her crutch…
Can’t let her go without a word or a funny line…
Maybe a cocktail or two if she gives the right sign…
I wonder should I make the first move…
He might think I am forward and disapprove…
My feet have a mind of their own…
Moving towards him, I can smell his cologne...
A simple hello can do no harm…
Who knows maybe my voice will work its charm…
She is moving closer and my nerves take a run…
The setting sun on her shoulders as the sky steels the sun…
Your smile glows as our eyes talk without saying words…
Then your accent finishes me off as soft words are heard…
Everything is a blur as you are the only clear sight…
My mind ponders just to hold you through the night…
Your smile a sign of our mutual attraction…
My simple “hello” a natural reaction…
As we sit across from each other…
I can’t imagine spending the night with another…
In the space of time which we can’t understand
a lifetime is lived
and memories
made in an hourglass
of sand though we
know that it is so
how it passes
baffles me in a day,
a year is spent
seems perception
is the key Harnessed,
we know it can’t be
nor can it be bought
Even too much
pondering makes it
overwrought what then,
do we do with time
with this hourglass
of sand live and
love, appreciate, that’s not hard to understand
Pleasingly Plump
Obese, bloated, overwrought with contrition
Lainey hung a chart of each yoga position
Couldn’t deal with stretching
Mice she’s still fetching
She defies my lectures on nutrition
When you paint yourself into a corner,
You have got to be insane
It's no use to blame others
When you are the one to blame
Standing in the corner.
Completely trapped and alone
Who's fault is this,
Your's Mister, Your's and Your's alone
I wonder what you are thinking,
It deserves some serious thought,
Does the position you have placed yourself,
Make you overwrought.
I doubt it, Mister,
You think you are superior,
Viewing others living in the world,
Braindead and inferior.
You have told too many lies,
That many have believed
The whole world is horrified,
Of the people you have deceived,
Stuck in a corner,
Trying to think of a way out,
Not this time, Mister
No matter how much you
Scream and shout
My vile tongue betrays me, rage defiles words.
A dragon’s flamed breath scorches far less.
From buried heartache, my ill soul’s duress
festers in mourning, locked tight and unheard.
Skies of ash smolder and silence the birds.
Their lyrics once earnest are lies professed.
Oh, dawn vengeful dawn, my foe to confess!
I’ll die with my rage, alone, I’m assured.
I wonder if death shall be my relief
from hours overwrought by lies and deceit.
My inner-rage boils, calloused is my soul;
a soul void of love and cloaked in its grief.
As chill of death comes to snuff rage's heat,
I pray for the love and peace, anger stole.
written 11/20/15 for John's Mad As A Hornet Contest
*Italian Sonnet - rhyme scheme abbaabba cdecde
Analysis read—and wronged—and pulled
Lulled into our idealistic mess
Words no longer ours but hung distress
Farced in carnality—they are ruled
Soundness remains what we will believe
And all else is but tethered nonsense
Clinched tightly in unfriendly absence
Overcome in overwrought relief
The judges judge on behalf of tongue
When ears and eyes close achingly tight
And perhaps in woe we find them right
For witches sought and bound must be hung!
Lower than the softened dirt that cures
Where worms in halves blindly come to eat
The higher crush with tormented feat
And the suns scorch what is left of hers
Answers never tried—and cured to hide
They look to superior sources
The rotten are the strongest forces
Ripened and toughened with bequeathed pride
-Iambic Tetrameter
Contest: Metrical verse
Sponsor: Giorgio Veneto
Laura Breidenthal
There once was a soldier,
So loyal, so brave.
He fought a long struggle,
‘til the end, ‘til the grave.
The struggle went on,
For days, for years.
No end in sight,
No break, just tears.
He fought alone,
Nobody would help.
No one would listen,
To his struggling yelp.
He fought on and on,
No food, no sleep.
Nobody had noticed,
Not a bit, not a peep.
But his loving dog did,
She helped, she cared.
But when her time came,
He fell, despaired.
The fight got harder,
The nights, longer.
He thought he’d survive,
He thought he’d get stronger.
Then after 4 years,
Of crying, of weeping.
A rooster had stopped him,
From dying, from seeping.
But after a year,
His new found-friend died.
He had to wonder,
And then he just sighed.
Was this life worth living?
Alone, afraid.
Where his best friends die,
And he’s left to fade.
There once was a soldier,
So alone, so distraught.
Who took his own life,
Suicidal, overwrought.
This man fought no war,
Not out of his head.
He fought mental challenges,
That left him up dead.
Almost always, as additional allurements arrive, ask as a Being...
By better borne behests become best Causes ?
Can causes create concise concepts Diligently ?
Do doers do decidedly dumb doldrums Ever ?
Each eek echoes egotistical efforts enduring Familiarity...
Faith fathers forgiveness for flaunting fabled Gifts.
Gasps give great grief, growing gruesome Hatreds...
Hasn't humanity had hurt hearts hung Innocently ?
Is insistence in increasing irritation inevitably incongruous Justice ?
Jimson jars...jitters...joggles...jolts...just jocose jurisprudence' Knell.
Kerfuffle kin, kickshaw kept ken, kindly knaves kneading Lamentations...
Leaving love's loaves, lordly lotharios, looking like lowlifes Made.
Marking more madmen mere moronic monsters meting mayhem Nearby.
Now, not never, nab needed nerves, nurture nasturtium near Openness !
Once only one, ordained our ostracism, outrage outdone on overwrought Plight.
Perhaps pride precludes passable patience, posing portentous prolapse Quickly !
Quiet quandaries, quarrelsome qualms, quivering quixotic quirks Resplendent...
Reaching relapse, revolving recidivism, reconstructed reflective reform Seen !
Searching secretive states, seemingly simple, sincere serenity sought Through...
Tender tears, touching together to total tympanic transformation Unjust.
Unique union...unimportant, unbending, unpopular, unless universal Veracity !
Verbose verbalism, vertical vignettes verify vital victory Won.
When written with wit...watershed words work wonderful Xerography !
Xyloid xylography, xeroxed xeno X, Yet...
Yesterday's youth, yowled yummy young yips Zanily !
Zeitgeist, zombie zealots zapping zonked zingers...Away !!
I don’t know how to start
The story that I want told
The parts that chill me to the bone
And makes my blood run cold
When I was but a little child
And they thought it not be heard
Though I was busy with my play
I attended to each word
Never spoken above a whisper
Barely breathed the truths come out
The darkness that lived within our town
Beyond gruesome was no doubt
A mother and her children small
While sleeping in their beds
Were each accosted everyone
And then were left for dead
The father when returning home
Was horrified at the question
That he would kill his family
Made him ill at the suggestion
He was overwrought and confused
Did someone have their four year old
Was he safe, was he well
This is where the darkness
Becomes a mystery no one would tell
Where’s the little boy
That looks after the sheep
Why he’s under the haystack
Dead asleep
Written for Debbie Guzzi's 'Something wicked this way comes' contest
Waking unbridled offering,
eyes open to nostalgic thoughts.
Lady Day* sings "Some Other Spring" -
by midday light, he's overwrought.
Hands brush the dust from typewriter
waking unbridled offering.
No tryst of words or deeds slight her.
He pecks the keys in smokey rings.
Those days long gone, one gold earring
reminds of when love did persist.
Waking unbridled offering -
a ticket taunts of red eye missed.
Faded lipstick on cigarettes,
a full ashtray still inspiring -
He types again to not forget,
waking unbridled offering.
*Billie Holiday's nickname
For Craig's Chopped III contest, 11/21/14