Short Strictures Poems

When the old fellow died,
the cage opened wide,
and a very rich chick
Madov mighty quick.

Moral strictures aren't always a guide....

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the river bank calm
and the augmenting silence
between us.
minds enveloped in scepticism,
actions tied with strictures.
“Can we ever be the same?”,
she asked.
her eyes nostalgic.
time paralysed. 
i could say nothing
but shed a tear. 

-gurumali...

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i get you,
your obscure words
meaning the world to me.
your innocence
very dear to me.
yes i get you…

meanwhile,
my cursory mind
rests at the feet of forbearance
misfit to feel your longing.

i hold back 
for my strictures are strong.
but i feel it,
the intense you.

-gurumali...

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From life’s final dissertation,
  logic must be barred 

A blueprint of our limitations,
  its legions burned and scarred

In that last final closing moment,
  transcendence kindled bright

The strictures of its failed excuse
   —left victim to the night

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)...

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Pioneers are frontier first responders,
More afraid of becoming than risking. 
After a boundary is breached, the dice rolled,
Or a solution envisioned, come the sequiturs,
Each with enhancements for the thesis
To shade its sun and tame its winds
With their strictures of stasis.  

Pioneers wither under conditions of such certainty....

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Listen to poem:

I engineered an intricate design,
determined to be action,
not thoughtful stasis.
But, isolate and distant --
a preserver of decorum --
formal, unexposed, and safe --
with bounds determined
by tight, sane strictures,
I did not struggle,
could not escape nor abandon place --
became, instead, a creature
habit-ridden:  a cousin
to the circus seal
that honks a horn
for fish....

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They are the “inklings”
Of a thought
Taking form
Faint etchings
Slowly scrawled
Scratched out
Born again
In halting hope.

A matrix of dots
Roaming an arid plain
Searching
For shape, form
and purpose
constrained
within edgeless boundaries.

Inklings,
Children of thought
Feeding on the rootless
Scrub grass
Of ancient strictures
Smearing their frustrations
On the castle walls.

John G. Lawless
©4/12/2023...

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Fiery Spirit


Epic tales heard from birds in golden bars
Spreading feathers they zoom up in their envisioned flight 

Animals in captivity is decried aloud
Their glued movements kill their roaring might

Potted plants are sweet and dainty
In bedded grounds they sway to fancy's delight

Rules and trite strictures murder us in strife
Freedom from bondage fires us to titanic height



April 1, 2016
Where Freedom Finds The Fire
Justin Bordner...

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The ego of the atheist,
himself the standard bearer
Where power of a mortal mind,
inflates beyond repair

His facts he weds intensely,
dimension fencing in
What’s not explained, he must profane,
all emptiness within

Whose formulas and strictures,
his Rosary to proclaim
What can’t be solved, new facts resolve,
dismissive in his shame

The ending predetermined,
his choices lock the door
Alone, his dialectic dies
—naked to implore

(The First Book Of Prayers: January, 2022)...

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