Best Shrinking Poems
I am shrinking,
I am shrinking,
I am dwindling away,
And i hardly need to tell you this is not a normal day.
Now i'm smaller than a pickle,
Than a pencil,
Than a prune,
And it's patently apparent i will vanish very soon.
I am shrinking,
I am shrinking,
I am smaller than a bean,
And unless there's a reversal,
I will exit from the scene.
I'm receding every second,
Now i'm smaller than a flea,
A midge,
A molecule,
And now i'm nothing to see.....
Categories:
shrinking, words,
Form:
ABC
Death masks
the intrusive
images of past thoughts
being burned. The soul's dark night dreams
lynched hearts.
Categories:
shrinking, depression, loss, sad,
Form:
Cinquain
I feel for gentle hearts in this loud world,
Ever suspect, dismissed and derided,
For long has been the shy a songless bird,
That Darwin dismissed as ‘odd state of head’,
Jane Austin gave shyness a broader scope,
Calling it a ‘moral, mental disease’,
And Freud, his fame fending for men no rope,
With sub-conscious cladding, a twist of his
That smelt of ‘displaced love of self-scored goals’,
A simple disposition framed as law,
Oh poking fun and scoring birdie holes,
In matters straight, cobwebs of gauze he saw,
And sensitive violets were on blame,
Poor things, shrunk with self-deprecating shame.
Violets shrunk with disparaging shame,
And shyness drawn from society’s unease,
Scarce unto standard mould can ever squeeze,
O get condemned— a jade that could be gem.
Though sensitive nigh to a gawking gaze,
Here am I basking still in benign bliss—
A shy soul, they say, more inventive is,
And tolerant the more to worldly ways
That mistake plane shyness as being cold,
Aloof, and worse still, somewhat arrogant,
And value those that be loud, neddless bold,
I’m happy now that they were ignorant.
Let critics bask under ill-informed bliss,
I marvel, how creative this bird is.
Creative, this touch-me-not kind of bird,
Or call it a flower called violet,
An introvert of an easy mind-set,
One blessed with fecund skills, a bit absurd—
Skills lacked by too talkatively inclined,
While some greats confess to ‘fainting with fears’
Ere giving speech to some so-called speakers,
Some loners lack the skills called social kind.
I know, shyness has no one ever hurt,
But self that feels cosy under own skin.
Let shyness stay forever verdant green,
Let it never make me an extrovert,
That I live in my own solitude proud,
Innovative, gentle in world so loud.
_________________________________
Two recent books set my thinking bird brooding over bashfulness: The Man who mistook his Wife for a Hat, by Oliver Sacks; and Shrinking Violets: The Secret Life of Shyness, by Joe Moran. These books advocate that the shy should get a better deal, for they tend to be more creative. Here is the why: musing over, these three sonnets (crown of…) materialized that made me feel a bit elated.
Crown of Sonnets | 01.03.2017 |
Categories:
shrinking, how i feel, introspection,
Form:
Crown of Sonnets
Shrinking dollars
Unpaid bills
Wealth unfolds
Categories:
shrinking, life,
Form:
Senryu
The list of destinations
Seems to shrink 'most every day
For when planning a vacation,
Fear should not come into play.
From the Zika scare in Rio
To most islands with a beach,
Sounds like tropical escapes
To many will be out of reach.
ISIS is another story,
Bombing airports and cafes.
Who needs travel filled with worry?
Extra caution always pays.
Now another horror's happened
With an awful truck attack.
Some vacationers in Nice
Will, sadly, not be coming back.
Though of course it could be anywhere
That people choose to roam,
All these stories will make many
Spend vacations safe at home.
Categories:
shrinking, fear, travel,
Form:
Rhyme
It's all smoke and mirrors,
Cocooned in magenta mascara and lavender lace,
The ever-elusive ivory stag now backed into a corner,
Delighting in an artificial solitude's icy embrace,
Brandishing a jaw of pearls to sheathe the dagger up her sleeve,
A being without mortal anchors but free as the cosmos,
An orphaned star adopted by the destitute and bereaved,
Bound to the earth by a single poisonous dose,
Of a senseless rebellion rooted in a confrontational domestic convenience,
Concocted from the distorted allure of abandonment and the lust of love,
Ravenously craving the ecstasy of disobedience,
All to avoid her association with the palm branch toting dove,
Ordained by the heavens as a herald of peace,
Galvanized by the wind carrying her carelessly adrift as innocent as can be,
Yet somewhere along the way she lost her head in the clouds,
A life of complacency chafing away at her growing curiosity to the beings scuttling on the ground,
Gazing longingly at these minuscule being's feeble feet,
Apendages reluctantly dragging their comatose bodies through daily rituals too tedious to consciously repeat,
Why oh why young angel do you let your wings wilt with envy,
Why do your eyes brim with tears over remorse rather than from a strong gale's sting,
Remember your home atop cumulus hills and streets of cirrus,
Rise from your oaken bed not with medicated anguish,
But with the fire in your eyes coupled with a confident strut,
That made me fall in love with you,
My shrinking violet.
Categories:
shrinking, love hurts, romance,
Form:
Rhyme
Betty was petite most of her life,
lately her doc telling her she was
getting even smaller,
due to osteoporosis and
her getting older,
she was shrinking an average of
5 inches every year,
so by the time she was 65
she was as small as a
button on a teddy bear,
her husband dealt with it
as a loving husband should,
trying not to step on her
as best he could,
one day Betty was
wearing her new
tan inner tube,
while swimming and
splashing in her dixie cup pool,
feeling tired and hungry
the water getting too cool,
she climbed down the little ladder
and dried off with a tiny cloth,
and couldn't get the tan
inner tube off,
hearing her husband
in the kitchen
fixing something to eat,
she ran over to the
breakfast table
with her tiny little feet,
climbing up the little stairs
all the way to the top,
by the time she got up there,
she collapsed with a plop,
just then her husband
spilt cereal all over the table top…
unfortunately for Betty it was Cheerios,
and she blended right in with her
tan inner tube,
her husband was so hungry
he grabbed a handful that had spilled,
thinking that what he ate was
100% food...
Bettys family thought
that she got so small
she just simply disappeared,
the husband thinking
it was the family cat,
always having that feline fear!
Categories:
shrinking, humor, silly,
Form:
Light Verse
Something I've always wondered about
A subject near and dear to my heart
Why don't sheep shrink in the rain
It's puzzled me right from the start!
A theory that sometimes is bandied about
Maybe their wool is non-shrinking
Sounds quite a bit far fetched to me
Someone's jazzing me I'm thinking!
Quite plausible if you think about it though
But whether it's true or it's not
Sheep I've talked to don't give a rat's ass
Damn wool is making them hot!
© Jack Ellison 2015
Categories:
shrinking, silly,
Form:
Rhyme
For tens of thousands of years man has roamed this planet
By nature a warrior..a conqueror..an explorer
He is a seeker of truth and a lover of grandeur
The Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rockies, the oceans -
Vast planetary wonders that stir a man
To look outward and beyond,
To travel to the moon in search of adventure .
Man is at his best on adrenaline
And yet.
And yet....
Near the millenium that marked the latest thousand years
Some man with a loud voice cried "ME, ME!..
I AM THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE!"
And man began to implode
He found himself amongst the subatomic particles -
The protons and electrons and ions and neutrons
Instead of grandeur he found himself in awe of himself.
He manipulated the subatomic structure - which his eyes cannot see -
To entertain himself and found that staring at a device
No bigger than the palm of his hand....thrilled him and occupied his time'
Adrenaline was no longer needed to satisfy man's spirit
He was king of his own universe
And it was no bigger than the palm of his hand.
And the world turned upside down
2/27/2017
Categories:
shrinking, adventure,
Form:
Free verse
Dollar bills flying out of the air
Trillions for all of us to share
Best send some more
The fast food store
Took a million for my dinner there
Categories:
shrinking, america, future, money,
Form:
Limerick
Borneo Pygmy Elephants are listed as, endangered
and they were isolated, about 300 thousand years ago
from their cousins, on mainland Asia and Sumatra
and they are known as, the smallest Asian Elephant
They have shrinking forests, with human settlements
and there’s a lot of logging, with a conveyor belt running
There are palm oil plantations, creating a lot of sediment
and a lot of agriculture, destroying their natural environment
Categories:
shrinking, animal, beautiful, earth, education,
Form:
Rhyme
An interesting form indeed:
this one’s the Shrinking Verse.
The more you let your ink pen bleed,
the more, stanzas get terse.
The opposite, I must concede,
for sure, would be much worse.
I can’t draw forth the words I need,
an older poet’s curse.
From eight to six to four to two,
so goes the stanza’s count.
Like run-off rain will often do,
a trickle from a fount,
and when you’ve pared to pairs, you’re through:
time for the big dismount.
The rhyming pattern does repeat;
’Tis just an ‘a’ and ‘b’.
The ‘a’ line always has four feet;
The ‘b’ line, only three.
In truth, it’s not that much to ask,
so I will not shrink from the task.
----------
The Shrinking Verse has a decreasing number of lines per stanza, typically 8/6/4/2, but you could start at 12 or 10 as well.
The rhyme pattern, 8a:6b, repeats as many times as is needed for the stanza.
The exception is that the final couplet is 8a:8a
Categories:
shrinking, appreciation, writing,
Form:
Other
Vacuum
Sucks Room
11-21-17
Categories:
shrinking, house, humor,
Form:
Footle
center
The shrinking horizons of human mind
Ever since Corona has confined us in our dwellings
It has changed our nature and human behaviour
In many fields of life
Not only, has it changed human nature
In a considerable way leaving few expectations
But it has changed unknowingly our thinking and attitude too
On social platforms, social media, TV and
At different other organisational level
Of public and private bodies world over.
.
Often we see, different restrictions and bindings are imposed,
Directly and sometimes indirectly
Only because of the shrinking horizons of human mind and
attitude. 02
.
It is happening only because
We are no longer to free to move anywhere
Where earlier, we were moving and enjoying
Expressing ourselves and part taking in social gatherings
As per our will love and likes. 03
.
We used to see Cinema in picture halls,
Used to take part in music gatherings, dramas, games and
Other outer events and restaurants and
Often many of us used to enjoy out most lovely foods and joy rides
We were free to enjoy even out lovely sports in our city state of
Even anywhere in the world and
All these things used to relieve us
From the weights of different pressures and problems
Which are no longer available
to take part in them as vibrant spectators,
in a comfortable manner, as were habitual of
And such thing used to enchants us often
Only few months and weeks ago. 04
Young lovers, husband and wife
Who used to enjoy the togetherness of their partners
Like the chattering pairs of loving birds
Are no longer getting those lofty moments
As many things have changed in everyone's life
Everywhere in the world. 05
But, the day is not very far off
When old days would once again be with us
Although many of us may miss
Some of our loftiest friends and dear ones
As those vanished people
Would then be waving their hands
From a very far off distance
Where the Sun spreads its golden beams
With a sound of music
Which flows freely on each one of us. 06
Ravindra K Kapooor
Raipur India 28th June 2020
Categories:
shrinking, change,
Form:
Free verse
Visiting my childhood home
standing on a patch of grass
I called my back yard.
Looked up into a tiny sky
with an even smaller moon
and little stars.
Thinking there was a time that
sky appeared as the vast
never ending universe,
The great proliferator of
this boy's imagination.
My perception of the moon
and stars all those years ago
seemed so much bigger
Older and devoid of adolescent
innocence, “the belief that somehow
all my hopes and dreams
will magically come true”.
I realize now, like that tiny sky
I gazed upon that night, my life too-
has become smaller...
Categories:
shrinking, analogy, deep, time,
Form:
Free verse