Short Baited Poems

forlorn... my love swims seeking... baited hooks await...

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Quiet lake…floating ducks…
baited fishing lines plopping…
silent sun setting....

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What would you do
When you never knew 
Who hated you
And baited you
To do
What you
Didn't want to do?
What could you do?...

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A cacophony of mockingbirds
Waiting with baited breath
Pacing each other,
In this candy apple sky and
Chasing this morning glory...

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the hammer falls
setting the pendulum in motion
a moment of truth
after a long silence
held together
by a single baited breath



posted on October 18, 2018...

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Boorish hater of light.
Bashful, burrowing soul.
Baited with putrid smells,
Bereft of colorize.
Basking in dirt and damp.
Baying at sounds above.
Being ... once a human....

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I knew all me bad luck was gone
When I caught myself a leprechaun
Trap baited with beer
He abandoned all fear
I found him passed out on the lawn





Happy St. Patrick's Day....

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Salt lick temptation
lures that dangle,
camouflaged darkness
masks and blinds

Easily captured
when most attracted,
flypaper memories
—trap and bind

(The New Room: November, 2021)...

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Roses 
Once fully bloomed,  
Now adorning my room. 
I sit and wait for spring's return 
On baited breath I wait and dote   
Poetics of a rose, 
I must compose. 
Roses...

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   The truth is outdated
      Falsehoods inflated
    With hyperbole
      created…

    Fishing poles baited
      wriggling worms slated
    to reel in us guppies
       addlepated… 
...

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All 
alone 
in the crowd,
justice 
stood
seeking
someone
to please.

Like a lonely fish
swimming in a school,
she bites a baited hook
and is reeled in—scaled 
and thrown back—unwanted....

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The Sun selects her cheeriest face
   when heaviest rains abate

There's nothing worse
   than daylight gray

as with baited breath
   here on Earth
      the Sun's face
         ~ we do await...

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Unwanted	

All 
alone 
in the crowd
justice 
stood
seeking
someone
to please—
Like a lonely fish
swimming in a school
she bites a baited hook
and is reeled in—scaled 
and thrown back—unwanted....

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unrepentantly
love
stopped by
today
to say hello---
again---
with baited caution
she was let in
and
we locked on to each other
without shame
exchanged pleasantries
and agreed 
to give it another try---...

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Like fish in a pond
we are often fed lines
baited with lures or hook
so tempting. 

Offerings hung
from invisible threads
shimmering promises
so tempting.

Trust not glittering words
deadly snares
so tempting....

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Dinosaurs have always been cool.
They crawled, snarled and baited
and raped, and stole and the others.

We'll never know what they are
but Jurrassic Park was close.
remember the snarled acid spitter?
It hocked in Newman's face....

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Tic Toc  Tic Toc
Ever so slowly
Tic Toc  Tic Toc
With baited breath
Tic Toc  Tic Toc
The time grows nigh
Tic Toc  Tic Toc
Christmas Eve
Tic Toc  Tic Toc
Is almost here



AP: Honorable Mention 2021

Posted on December 26, 2018...

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Where the heart and soul compress
Is a secret garden of helpless bliss
Foreshadowed by any distorted pain
Unrelinquished freedom yet never vain
And I shall await your baited breath 
Today tomorrow until my death
For you are I and I am you 
An interwoven love no one a clue...

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Italia, Italia
I write to you with baited breath
How I long to step in your sand
Sink down to the souls,
Of my ancestors,

Il sole e la sabbia 

Your sand in my feet
Your sun in my eyes
Italia, you are my home.
The one I have yet to reach

Nevertheless, my heart belongs to Italia...

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Dark lines betray
A lover's soul
Shadows cast
Within the tunneled alleyways
Hidden beneath
Sun sparkled peaks
Traps sprung in loneliness
Baited in despair's longing
Scented
With false hope
Watched over
By predatory pain

A rat scurries
In the silence.

John G. Lawless

1/7/2020...

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When I awoke,

I started thinking.

Am I rising?

or Am I sinking?

I live each day, as just a day, and carry on my merry way

But there's something more I am trying to see...

Open my eyes and show it to me!

I shall live each day with baited breath,

Giving in to Life or Death....

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The little girl who once rode my pony
I asked this day to marry me
Her baited breath quivering like happy lips
Over a bowl full of spicy hot chili
Her hazel eyes twitching all aglow
Excitement suited for life’s safari
I imagined this day dressed in genteel
My heart in wonder of standing hairs or bruised heel...

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Painted up with that color I love,
baited with a pair of blue shutters;
Fated to call this vacant dwelling,
sacred shelter with just four letters;

Replay of a riff from the back porch,
a taste of that song got me homesick;
Betray my gypsy heart for a dream?
‘Stay, this is home.’ the seductive lyric....

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I flew past my past,
now I passed the past
to present my presence in the present.
Baited by fate, the crescent future faded away.
Darkness or blackness? red or blood? white or snow? love or hate?
this is my mind a blurry premise on a route to a gloomy demise,
obscure voices, faces, places, races died out in this abyss....

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Severed from the cut of your jib
Alone my aching heart's
Vitality left on a baited breeze
Erasing what was left of me

Memories oh sweet sweet memories
Erase this daunting pain

Plucked from a sacred truth
Left to soar in a clouded blur
Erase this scary dream
Alone my aching heart
Sleeps
Erase these fateful dreams...

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