Short Cautionary Poems

Short Cautionary Poems. Below are examples of the most popular short poems about Cautionary by PoetrySoup poets. Search short poems about Cautionary by length and keyword.


Cautionary Tale

A Cautionary tale 
trail and error 
Wasted years of
Needless drama 
ups and downs 
Failed attempts at
Reversing damage done
age
Form: Lyric


Premium Member Do

Do

What you must

As long as

You know what

You are doing..

Which can and

Cannot be known..

A Cautionary tale...

Cautionary Tail

There was a chap from Queens
Who loved big bowls of beans.
He ate them with delight
Both morning and night.
Blasting a hole backside his jeans.
Form: Limerick

Archaeopteryxes

Dinosaur-bird bones:

Dark, cracked stone wings splayed in flight;

ground to a halt, still;

victims of cruel, heedless time;

cautionary timelessness.
Form: Tanka

Premium Member A cautionary expose

fruit extravaganza
dream vacation
dinner bell
a word of caution
while time waits for no one


[using titles of my 5 recent poems]

AP: 1st place 2025
Form: Cento


Premium Member A Cautionary Tale

Passions are a slowly burning fire
Keep them steady and certain
But once excited, stand guard
The blaze will engulf.

A cautionary tale
From a not-so cautionary male.

Cautionary Tale

Trust
true, unwavering
confident certain absolute
belief shattered, changing views
Strength
© Ann Roske  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Cinquain

Premium Member Not quite so innocent

Seduction as a means to engage
perhaps you welcome the playful naughty invitation
cautionary word ~ price may be high



Wordku: 5-7-5 words

AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Form: Other

Premium Member Crumbs

Words are the crumbs I leave along
The trail of my thoughts should you
Want to follow.  Some are rhymes,
Some are signs, one is, cautionary. 
Equal, too, the unmarked post
For without mystery there can be no discovery.

A Cautionary Ditty Concerning Fast Food

There was a girl called Polly Esther,
the fastest girl from downtown Leicester.
Pre-packaged food was her sole fare,
For healthy meals she had no care.
In the tum for food there's room.
There plastic wrappings end in doom
Form: Burlesque

Premium Member Cautionary Tale

Ditsy blonde mother of Red Riding Hood Sent her little girl alone to the wood… Once upon a present time That would be a heinous crime, Mom and grandma for neglect would be sued. February 25, 2022 Syllables count: 10 and 7
Form: Limerick

Premium Member Bunkers Bonkers

Bunkers Bonkers
(we are our own archie enemy)

The nastiest fiction 
has come to fruition 
The cautionary tales
have tipped all the scales
The global minority 
has declared their authority 

The white man is God
and humanity is fraud




For Arthur
Form: Rhyme

Poetic Triage

Today a Poet needs to cast
a hook with many tines
To reel in those who’re lulled to sleep
with cautionary lines

These days a Poet needs an edge
much sharper than before
To cut through all the excess flesh
— and save the metaphor

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2018)
Form: Rhyme

Poetic Triage

Today a Poet needs to cast
  a hook with many tines

To reel in those who’re lulled to sleep
  with cautionary lines

These days a Poet needs an edge
  much sharper than before

To cut through all the excess flesh
  —that blocks the metaphor

(Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2018)
Form: Rhyme

Head Space

Paralysed with fear I awoke
surrounded by vampires feasting
Diabolical, my eyes provoke
Normality is decreasing
Now an alien abduction
Whisking me aboard a spacecraft
Blood pulsating introduction
Halloween alcoholic draught
Cautionary trickery dawns
Reality hangover yawns





Date 10/23/20
Halloween Challenge Poetry Contest
Sponsor Emile Pinet
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member Warning Angel

An ethereal specter adorned in starlight and bearing celestial globe of star-essence appeared to me and revealed the future... A warning angel bearing a cautionary scenario regarding human ego and Earth’s fate at the hands of human-created androids... “Imperfection cannot create perfection”, she warned and I wept at the sight of the indiscriminate bloodshed.

A Shattered Self

My brilliance is finite
Like my will to live,
I’m running out of light
 as sand falls through a sieve.

And as a life i fail,
My wicked blood runs black,
A cautionary tale
In a second hand stack.

My cries will cause a flood,
Giving proof to my old fear,
That between the cracks seeps blood;
Even mad ones don’t come near.

For a shattered self repels
And a sorry self denies,
Mirrors show no parallels
And none reflect my cries.
Form: Verse

Cautionary Tale

One may land in hot water skating where the ice is thin or end up in a jam going out on a limb and hoping to reach a goal by swimming upstream could prove no more than a wish perhaps purely a pipe dream investing the least wanting the lion's share the end result might induce a scare woolgathering head in the clouds unaware of what's around sounds like fun but more's accomplished with both feet on solid ground
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member A Hammer to Apathy

Forget the cautionary calls for restraint —
this world doesn’t need saviors.
It wants hands that claw at the roots,
Sick fangs that grind old ideas to dust.

Ideas aren’t soft; they’re detonators,
charged and ready to shatter the silence.
You don’t repair a broken machine
by merely shining its rust.

The absence of thinking is a pandemic—
eradicate it like a disease.
Smash apathy with a hammer.
What we create afterward
is in our hands.
Form: Persona

Grandma What's a Fairy

Grandma what's a fairy?
A wee little person who has a passion for play
Every day.
They're cautionary
Not imaginary
Swift and gay.
Grandma what's a fairy?
A wee little person who has a passion for play.
Flowers sweet in our back field around the lake
Is their sanctuary.
Grandma do you think we will see one one day?
Anything is possible Shay.
Let's see if there are any in the rosemary.
Grandma what's a fairy?
A wee little person who has a passion for play.
Form: Roundel

Premium Member Halloween's Drummbed

Halloween’s Drummed!

Alien vampires hunt around the block,
Seeking abduction, plus feasting on prey
No trickery  with haunt,  just a soft shock.
Serious tracking to Vampires it’s play.
Delicately preparing this blood day
Striking their juglar rewarded a whiff
Cautionary. silent.. draining til stiff.
Slightly paralyzed delicately numbed
Halloween vampires come for a short jiff
Diabolical? Some say its quite drummed!

Jeannie Flinn Furlong
Dizain
October 16, 2020
Form: Dizain

A Cautionary Nursery Rhyme

Solomon Grundy, Solomon Grundy, sniffer of glue, when offered, on Monday. The Tuesday was hash, a whopping great spliff; on Wednesday took coke, a generous sniff. For Thursday some crack, the dodgiest brand, and Friday’s dope needle was quite second-hand. When Saturday came, a massive OD; on Sunday it ended, this hedonist spree. In spite of the blurb you find on a packet, right up to the end, he thought he could hack it! ~
For Debra's 'Nursery Rhyme' Competition.
Form: Verse

The Climb

I climb and climb,
This mountain seems to have no peak,
No peak in clear vision,
Though I tread forth-
Letting the stone support my wide feet,
I have waited my whole life-
To get as far in height-
As I have already achieved,
This mountain offers cautionary signs,
Cowards back down making vile excuses,
I silently force myself on,
My body is withering like a rose lacking water-
Though I have so many reasons to continue the climb,
Success is a mountain,
Do you accept the challenge?

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