Short Cocksure Poems

Masquerading
as though
fashioned from cloisonné;
cocksure pheasants striking arrogant
poses...

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crowing of the cock
wakens robust summer sun
a pompous rooster


~Haiku contest by Rick Parise...

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Who thought teen girls' ears 
    could never be pried from their phones

   Was cocksure gay couples
    would never marry or own their own homes...

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By a wily old pro taken to school
Cocksure rookie, premature, lost his cool
   His face just couldn't contain
   The money he thought he'd gain
His eyes teared, and his mouth began to drool...

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Cocksure were we that Spring had sprung
Unprepared once again to be stung

   by Old Man Winter
   fresh back from vacation ~
   Fossil Fools we be, reigniting 
   CO2 home heating stations...

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He felt so cocksure
his Midas Touch was proctor.
Vegas pulled him down.
Now his Midas touch is brown.
His failure was a shocker.

NB: Inspired by, but not entered in, Edward Ibeh’s This of That, Vol 15 Contest...

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In a new place in old clothes
along winding canals,
you are twenty again, in Amsterdam

with sunshine hair and spirit
still cocksure.  Not steering
this dark ship through

Friday, being the one night
you should never....

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I’m here as observer -
watch mankind the master,
see how he treats nature.  

He has such cocksure ways.
His arrogance amaze.
But what of future days.

He thinks he’s in command
as he is oh so grand.
But I know he is damned.

I’ve seen the evidence.
Mankind has no defence.
Shall he face death sentence....

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Paisley prettiness, navy and ivory,
A cocksure purse hangs from my shoulder.
Vera Bradley, oh how I love thee.
Gifted me, ten past jubilee older.
Mine little quilt, behold her.

Trademark Quintain Contest
Sponsor: Sara Kendrick

English Quintain: Five lines with no specific meter
Rhyme scheme: a,b,a, b, b...

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Only a Tiger will approach a Tiger,
Lions never do

To give him pause and make him think,
“What will this Tiger do”

All other beasts he rests cocksure, 
a meal they will become

But faced with one of his own kind
—to stay or then to run

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2020)
‘For Kiley, Hunter, Braden & Parker’...

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We used to hold hands in public all the time,
not so much now.

You sometimes try holding my hand
out in the open.
I feel dorky with your hand in mine – sorry.
I hate the thought that those that pass-by
see us as two cute oldies.

Cute was never the self-image I saw in my future.
I thought I would be forever a tough-nut,
keeping my cocksure swagger well oiled,

not this,
not downcast and grumbling like this....

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Among all crimes you adore
Anger is of the first cocksure!
It is so vice that it does shower
On the weaker whom they abhor.
When one encompasses, one bore
A deep profound peril in his adore.
I do, but hate me why not I deplore
Anger – my timidity – shown ashore.
The best place for it be boudoir
Where no one feels no gore.
Anger, for me, just like a claymore
Which hurts none but us before
We realize or understand or lore....

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