Best Stricture Poems
God rest ye merry gentleman
Thank the Lord that you are able
By devious manipulation to
Keep the turkey on the table;
All praise to those good bankers
Who in spite of committed fraud
Maintained the Status Quo
For which we thank thee Lord;
All hail to the Establishment
Who in spite of envious stricture
Have made it more possible
For the rich to get much richer;
Our blessing on the poor
At this blessed time of Yule
Long delayed may be the time
They cease being so easy to fool.
In humble display of
How sincere are our thanks
We’ll donate our table scraps
To a couple of food banks;
All hail the Brexit process
For nothing is more surer
The rich may not get much richer
But the poor will sure get poorer;
God Rest ye Merry Businessman
Vast profits may you display
All hail the secularisation
Of this Modern Christmas Day.
Amen
Every morn, I wake to a blank page -
A canvas, on which I paint
Today
I often revisit past illustrations;
Some statuesque,
and others with rips, tears, and folds;
"Okay" at best
Yet as the sun rose Today,
I did not hearken back
nor begin the day’s depiction;
I turned to the future and wondered:
What will be written?
Rather, what will I write?
Forced to ask my reflection
what he wanted in his
Big Picture
I hoped to mimic his vision wholly
Without much stricture
Does he want uniqueness?
With splashes of vivacious colors
to strike society speechless?
Or just a camouflage to hide his weakness?
Maybe he wants a replica;
a proven success.
Tracing another’s outline,
not self-expressed.
He certainly won’t want a still life!
He’s destined to incite change;
That’s how he’ll fulfill life,
and how he’ll fill that page.
Gazing into this mirror -
into my eyes and my mind -
I find a cloud, nothing clearer
No exact path to which I’ll bind.
For I am no omniscient being,
as this blank page can attest...
I want to help.
I want to hope.
To show love to all life
through an optimistic scope.
I am no omniscient being,
as this blank page can attest.
But one thing is definite:
I’ll enjoy life’s quest.
Once I sat upon your throne
to visit a familiar chair
I am the Empress overthrown
I no longer rule or scare
My face is in the picture
since 1968
There is no kind of stricture
I'm sitting at the gate
I stand for birth and promise
of a new dawn seeping in
and of gifts awmous
refraining from any sin
So lay out the cards of ink my friends
and see me sitting there
you need not for to make amends
I'll grant your wishes fair.
Wrestling with time,
an illusion supreme
Its trinity empiric,
three masks to deceive
Past, future, and present,
our dreams undefined
Outside of their stricture,
new presence unrhymed
Rejecting convention,
short sighted and slight
Imprisoning our vision,
with capture and fright
In seizing this instant,
its moment sublime
All truth flowing freely
—unfrozen in time
(Villanova Pennsylvania: September, 2019)
Sweet September, see how splendidly she shines!
Subtlety submitting seasonal splendour, she
swamps summer’s splendiferous sights,
by stealthily shrouding splendid scenery,
with suffused sensuous, sybaritic, scenarios!
Sublimely serene, she spatters and splashes
slivers of saffron, sepia and sienna shades,
slapdash over the sedentary summer scene, sending
sightseers silly! Soon, spooky spectres sporting skittish
shadows, surprise and startle singularly sensitive givens,
seeking soothing solitude someplace. Suspicious solo
sentient stalkers, suspecting solo sailors sometimes, shiftily seen
spying on sequestered sibylline, spectator savants, stay silent.
Such suppressed servile sophisticates, spotting smart
Seedy Senators, sitting sloppily slumped - some silently
supine - send sensual suggestive signs to sexy secretaries, as
subdued sartorial suitors stand speechless. Some, sober and staid,
state spasmodic spates of salacious, and sometimes sanctimonious, statements.
Seemingly superfluous, scores of servicemen and seniors suggest
specific superficial senile support services, should shut shortly!
Studious spokesmen suggest scads of spurious suggestions in September,
send scrambled signals, since severely symbolic sentence structure,
should seek speedy severance from sedulous speculative stricture, and
stimulating scattered sophomore senses and sensibility is senseless!
Since scathingly scanning this alliteration, it seems successful!
Hopefully a fun filled frolicking folio with ‘fin-esse?’
Rhymer. September 6th, 2016.
She is watchful and ambitious in a nail biting fury
Another new victim another story
She pulls him in and caresses his mind
There in the darkest of nights where she finds
Keys are clicking faster and wild
The pupils of her eyes grow and her beat is riled
A tale and a lie or two, perhaps
A phone numbers and address now check out the maps
What to share where to go from here?
What will I say what will I wear?
A dab of makeup and perfume on her wrist
Her heart is rushing the thrill persists
Last but not least on go her black heel
Her mind is moving like a spinning wheel
Down the street she makes her way
A smile of nervousness and she’s ready to play
Will he be there will he look like his picture?
She wonders if he’ll like her or will he be her stricture
So they met and they smiled and carried on with there conversation
In the quiet of their minds falling to deeper into temptation
He took a chance and asked her to go home
Her eyes were perky and eager to roam
His lips were sweet his hands were warm
Soon enough it was time to perform
He turned his back to pour the wine
A chill of madness ran up her spine
She pulled out her bag and found the dagger
And struck him in back where he stood and staggered
She finished the deed and ran the course
She had to hit him with a powerful force
Her mind was cleared and free from the rush
She cleaned up her hands and watched his blood run in a gush
His fluids continued to prevail across the floor
On she went with no apathy or shame
Beware of the serial sweetheart she kills for fame
( Fiction)
Pardon my Gardens; they're withered and grey:
Unkempt and wild and quite defiled
Given my odd and reclusive ways:
Eccentric is my fashion style
Look at Life through special glass:
I see it all now magnified
But my gardens grey, my cage, alas!
Damn society- be defied!
You should truly be in pictures,
You were born for it, you see:
Nevermind your fear and stricture;
What a starlet you would be!
Come and visit my grey gardens:
Bring your cameras; we will talk
Mother and I have long been hardened
By the way the others balk!
Jackie O. was in the know,
And embarrassed by our home
We let her in since she was kin
Though we sought to be alone
I am Edith Bouvier Beale,
A model once I was
Did cabaret 'til my dying day
When the flies began to buzz
Human life deserves a platform to unfold
Away from straitjackets of pious scrutiny
Whose eyes, ears and hands feel so cold
They reject freedom and project a mutiny
Born from the scorn society pours on freedom
Curtailing every progressive move towards expanding
Frontiers of free thought, thought outside the stricture kingdom
Where dissenters earn the label of antisocial branding
Perceived by untested notions whose dubious value
Lies in objecting to new ideas, new approaches
To matters where life suffers because critics with no clue
Claim innovations and expansions in thinking circulate cockroaches
In citadels that preserve culture and tradition
To limit the extent to which inhabitants expand the scope
Life ought to enjoy without any undue restriction
Imposed by custodians of traditions whose pope
Preaches limitations on abortion and exploration of modernization
In the wake of disruptive technologies
That spawn conundrums in which efforts of socialization
In traditional societies and African mythologies
Die a natural death
When social media facilitate new ways of communicating and connecting
Whose wealth and health
Diminish and extinguish mores, norms and customs, projecting
Arguments whose cogent basis tenuous at best
Can’t stand reliability and validity
Scrutiny and which traditionalists attest
Matter to defend the utility and solidity
Archaic notions offer to society’s progress
In which the worth and splendor of life
Matters more than efforts to suppress
Moves to eradicate and eliminate wife
Battery and slavery in the context of gender based violence
Rife in African townships and homesteads
Where traditionalists promote the importance
Domestic violence plays in subjugating stubborn heads.
What If Destiny...
Deeded Mine Singular Default Mode To...
Communicate (temporarily,
strictly and hypothetically)
merely allowing me to burble
essentially rendering, limiting,
and fixing me tubby nonverbal,
where frustration ensued -
inducing passivity, asper myself
shrugging shoulders in resignation
coon sitter ring thy fate
nsync with that of a gerbil?
Thus codifying, con
fining, and consigning
stricture to a sorry lot
perhaps finding me
envying fun
Gus of ergot,
which organism at least participates
in a pro active life cycle,
though one may say,
said organism doth rot.
Now...all Joe King aside,
an attempt will be made tried
though daunted to cogitate beside
Ritch ching deep inside
and remain on - ride
ding the straight and true
so please dont chide
restricting me to bide
with guise of seriousness,
when aye decide
did to complete on
par tragedy thalidomide
wrought, yet this poem, though belied
and bedeviled pondering
how Yukon not induce tongue re:
totally tubularly restrained,
sans tubby unable to talk
plus afflicted with autism,
hence guide
did through extreme effort
pretending, thus
to feign being denied
critical skill to chat
with a snap allied
(NOT with van knit tee),
but dead seriousness try
ying with futility hypothetically
impossible to imagine tubby
accursed without means to speak
compounded by autism,
an immeasurable frustration
must mount inside,
viz unfortunate behavioral demeanor,
nonetheless I cried
inside when the limp deceased body of
six year old
Maddox Ritch – already died,
drowned mainly supposedly,
when dashing ahead,
he didst play hide
with his father (Ian Ritch),
while the special needs child
(unknowingly) both spent
final hours together
bonding at Rankin
Lake Park in Gastonia
within North Carolina.
Dearest friend did I mention,
that I am not yet convinced about these coalition cocktails.
These cocktails of compromise can quickly cause confusion.
Traditional reliables, mixed with fresh and new infusions.
Watered down potency, muster these illusions
Of neutrality, accessibility, of binding, and of fusion.
Contrasting composites of strong and fruity mixtures;
Colliding compounds of strange, exotic elixir.
Confounding ancient wisdom, and conventional stricture,
On the logic of certain combinations, I'm sure you're getting the picture...
That I am not yet convinced about these coalition cocktails!
I'd rather just one strong taste, and done.
The first passed the tongue's usually the one.
Now undesired flavours solicit my reactions,
And unpursued tastes reduce my satisfactions
Each fighting for the limelight, each vying for my attention.
Like my pallot was the ballot, and my chioice like an election.
And though sometimes a blend works, to the point of sheer perfection.
As the flavours fall away, the after taste often reveals the nature of this artificial mix,
To which I'm sure I have mentioned...
That I remain to be convinced about these coalition cocktails!
www.mikeconcise.com
First look, glasses as my eyes glance
From left to right I begin to read
Much as if I were in a trance
My education faulted for this deed
Second look with randomness I search
Looking for a pattern, no not the glasses
Does this person attends a formal church
This poem is one of their trespasses
Third look now the compulsion takes me
The poem was edited to fit the picture
But I say this isn’t possible, it can’t be
If so they surely deserve a stricture
Three looks, glasses or not, all were done in vain
If you copy, paste, add punctuation then it’s plain
Poem by Wayland Bunch for Occlusion contest. This is a rhymed form of poetry under 20 lines, but technically it fits better into the category of Sonnet, so I don't know if it will be accepted. If not back to the drawing board lol.
To your achromatic canvas
fresh without a mark upon it,
I'll paint a crimson road of chance
and a bright tangerine bonnet.
With detail, I'll add two young girls,
coffee-skinned lasses without cream,
made sweet by their long, dark tresses
and hopes for that bonnet, their dream.
Down the middle of this tableau
I'll trace a canal in cyan
which crosses the road - a stricture
twixt girls, the bonnet and their plan.
A well-bronzed boy and russet raft
I'll sketch to solve this small wrinkle.
Then I'll craft a second bonnet;
this one colored periwinkle.
While this image seems incomplete
in your mind's eye, with poet's brush
you will create a final scene
of flamboyance. No need to rush.
written: August 1, 2012
When closed are mine eyes
I can see only those butterflies
Surrounding me and my prince
Ouch, a wake up back does wince!
A great man, all white in beard
All acclaimed and well feared
He speaks with the sound of thunder
And glares at the sight of blunder
Should you ever wonder
Who is mine own wonder
Why? He is in my heart
Kept as a secret sweetheart
That one great man, so well known
For him, I shall go to those ways still unknown
Someone I cannot name
For so great is his fame
Such a man do I admire
As my own identical peer
Such a man I shall dance with
Even if to have a dance shall have me in grieve
A tango, a waltz or even a slow
Whichever style the melody will flow
In him I shall lose my stricture
And bear with his own pleasure!
As I sit in this old, rugged chair,
And direct my gaze upon this blank paper
I ponder a vastitude of rhymes with great care
Yet, this scheme of notions begins to taper
Lo, I have acquired inspiration
And begin to articulate a most humble work of literature
That of which is a most modest creation
Yet, I do so with no fear of harsh stricture
If one is to write out of fear,
Then by these terms, one should live by fear as well
Nay, I shall write with an undying passion, such words I hold dear
For those who will read, these words shall compel
Every life is valuable, and my own, I shall cherish
Let these words last in perpetuity, long after I perish
Doing nothing, for no
obvious reason, engaging
the travails of self-watch, I do
not want to confront the propensity
of withdrawl.
The elder pain blooms, again
like Ipomea. Will not stand the
bright sun’s gaze, I will sail?
out between the blackened
teeth and stammering
words.
It sucks, the female snake.
The phloem, the flora. A tree kills
its own birds. Cannot ambulate
tender promises. A stricture
chokes the poem. Double-
edged truth lifts the weight.
Moon knows the art of giving.
Sends the blood tears.
Satish Verma