Choke Poems | Examples

List of Member Poems

The choke hold of fear

Some days I seek beauty
In places I have not been before
I wonder if they will await me
While I find courage...to be the beauty
That I was made

Some nights I search for a future
That eludes me
I wonder why
I do not have the courage to
Settle into today

I uselessly toil in the found
Because of a fear
I do not even know

Drowned

From unconsciousness
I rise, sputtering
Warm liquid erupting
Belched from the lungs
Choked out, retching
Airways blazing
Rasping, gasping
Writhing for oxygen

That time I fell asleep
In front of the telly
With a mouthful of tea :)

Premium Member Elegy for a goat

She got oat stuck in her throat.



AP: Honorable Mention 2026


Crush

 Sanity, trampled by
her narcissism
Weeds grew & 
choked the beauty 
of daisies.

Torrid Affair

If, as the saying goes,
'There's no smoke without fire,'
is it smarter to ignite a spark
(illumination causation)
than bedamn the dark,
and thereby induce a funeral pyre,
or, better yet, a safer bet,
to avoid gossip and accusations,
find the substantiated fact(s)
(true datum)
before you act
and land in sorry situations?
It's no joke, on soot you'll choke,
yet, on the greener side,
carry the torch for earth non-scorched
but best your light you hide,
(it may be life-transforming)
beneath an unburnt bush,
so as not to incur global warming.

Choke

The sweat sang to me 
more than anything.

From outside, it must
have looked like a 
dog fight. 

But in the clash,
in the din, in the 
bruises and blood, 

there was enough heart
to choke the vultures
circling above us.


Premium Member Smokescreen

Do I miss you, or do I miss the smoke -
Of your promise on my lips?
Both are warming on a chilly night,
But here I struggle to breathe, I choke.

Premium Member We choke

It’s not as though we lost our cool
without any reason at all;
the unschooled should follow this rule:
no smoking’s allowed in the hall.

Others may call it a defect
but it’s the butterfly effect,
against which fragile lungs protest
and smokers, we speak not in jest.

Peace of Cheese

Can you forget that piece of cheese
that you inhaled? Oh, just a crumb it was.
But breathing while chewing, then choking!
Was it Cheddar, Cheshire?

Or that Limburger, Parmesan?
But, oh, that piece of cheese!
Not a morsel you'll forget,
or a temporary amnesia that will bring you peace.

A double Gloucester, some feta or mozzarella?
What about that Parmigiana-Reggiano?
Better, far better, not to inhale
a piece of cheese. It's peace you need.

(8 Jan 2024)

Water of Life

I
On this terrestrial ball
Water is it, almost all
But for prayer

II
When love blooms, we can fast
Avoid breakfast, any repast
But "whence such love"?

III
Prayer will consume private sins
Or Sins "will choke prayer,"
Wrote J.C. Ryle before dying (1900)

IV
When all is dark and I'm hopeless
Yet i pray (Thy will be done, O Universe)
Because prayer is my water, living water.

Premium Member They Just Choke On Their Artichokes

Just about to launch a new career
Or maybe I should call it a hobby
Dani Spies has certainly caught my attention
With her mouth watering recipes
And easy step-by-step videos to help us along
I'm drooling all over the keyboard as I type
I'm always game to try something new
The payoff at the end is the ultimate reward
Now I hear some of you saying...
“Are you nutso!!! Aren't you kinda old 
To be firing off in a new direction?”
My answer to that is, “I ain't dead am I?
I'm always ready for a new challenge!”
And boy, what a rewarding hobby... yum, yum!!!
I'll keep you posted as to how much weight I gain
(ie. One of the annoying side effects!)
Wish me luck all you nice people!
Next I'll have a show on PBS entitled
“Old Chefs Never Die
They Just Choke On Their Artichokes”

Smoke

Today is one of the days I feel like smoke. 
Choking myself.... bottling every feeling, 
not allowing myself to breathe. 
Covering everything with white ashes, 
turning things monotonous...black and white. 

I am not kerosene yet. 

I am not kerosene yet...it never corrodes,
 it forms impenetrable layers…
not allowing a chance for reversal. 
Not letting down a breathe,
excluding from every other thing... 

I am not kerosene. Yet. 

I am not even wrapped in a warm blanket. 
I am cold. 

I'm cold.
Sitting in smoking temperatures, I am cold. 
Frozen. Numb. Insensitive. 

Not wrapped in a warm blanket, I sit cold.

A Christian Mother Unhappy With a Smoker

Your swell appetite for tobacco 
Is a sure life-time divider;
Of winds making her a sirocco,
Even as she stops being your provider …

Softening and calmer, asks you aside
And entreats you to her sit beside
For a voicing of her disappointments in you
And challenges to say “It isn’t true!”

Soon, absorbs her rude shocks
And for you Heaven’s Gate unlocks
But against further errands for Lucifer,
Unless you wish to with him suffer …

A mention of your black lips that give you away
And the Acrid Smell of The-Gone-Astray

“So, my son, it’s a U-Turn now
And I’m sure you understand ‘How’
“No more celebratory twisting of lips
To free cigarette’s atrocious wisps 
Nor plying of routes to the markets
That would circulate it in packets’.

“You now crush the sticks not smoked
And not into it read pleasures choked”.

Coughing, Bound To Choke

Clouds above are covered, flying kites of smoke
Yet we, careless, continue to disappoint
Murky Mother Nature, coughing, bound to choke

The world’s beautiful wonders we must exploit
Leaving its shining rivers dry and broken
Climate change arguments, just to make a point

Its rich gold minimized to money tokens
As we complain about the rivers flooding
Our own atrocities going unspoken

Violent change is about to be budding
Millions of us will perish, ‘lone in the street
Soon there's no coming back, there will be nothing

Using nature as a piggy bank, they cheat
Leaving those poor in the burning world wide heat

-20th of February, 2020

Smoke You Choke

You see them puff, of that they smoke
they think their tough, like a manly bloke

We’ve all had enough, of that we choke
so let’s not bluff, or we all will croak

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Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.

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