Straitjacket Poems | Examples

Iambic Pentameter

When it came to iambic pentameter
Alexander Pope was no dumb amateur.
In his strict use of it he achieved a skill
often with a monotonous overkill –
a danger every poet should not commit
unless he likes his thoughts in a straitjacket,
and the flow so turgid and mechanical
the line will cease to sound natural –
more strident, unmellifluous and harsh
like a stomping, goose-stepping march.
Now here’s a fast and easy suggestion
to unclog a line’s bumpy congestion
which Pope and other poets used to great
effect when they deemed it appropriate :
they added an extra syllable or stress 
which opened it and gave it smoothness.
These little extras acted like a breach
and made the line read like spoken speech.
It may not work even with a first try
and take it from me, it’s not a lie. 
In fact, you may require a new line or couplet
to be rewritten with a little extra sweat.
But, hey, think back to when you started writing
how many drafts required no editing?

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

there's a second ocean
sprawled like an accident,
a spill of plastic guts and chemical veins
choking what swims,
suffocating the tides
that once dreamed of moonlight and salt.

we did this.
with our coffee cups and straws,
our six-pack rings,
our shiny wrappers crumpled
and forgotten.
a monument to convenience,
an altar to laziness,
floating like the unburied dead
on water too poisoned to sweep.

somewhere out there,
a bird swallows a cigarette lighter
and calls it food.
a turtle struggles in the straitjacket of progress.
and the ocean,
the god we ignored,
becomes our mirror,
ugly and infinite,
what kind of emotions do you feel when I call you out about that?

The daily grind

Trailing clouds of glory do we come 
Until by the end we are left dull and glum.
How it all came to this
We are responsible
 For being so remiss 
The magic of our early moments 
 Emblazoned in our minds
 Fades and disperses with every pressure
Our world brings to bear upon our pleasure
Exams, bills, targets, workday worries
blunt our perceptions
And drive them undergound
Occasionally to spark alive in a dream state
Eluding our grasp 
once we come to our senses
Wide awake and once more blind
How to recapture
And to resurrect
That rich inner spirit
Which came with our birth
That should be our aim
Too many earthly concerns
Within  our clay
Must take the blame
For that  loss of courage 
To break free from the constricting frame 
Forcing us 
To forget the beauties of the day
To play the stultifying economic game
The  stifling straitjacket of life
Keeps us playing

Death by Clothing

I worry that my coat will murder me.
Hanging on Banister’s Edge it’s a man lurking, dark.

I’ve seen rows of killers shadowed and waiting,
hidden in the ridges of the living room radiator,
ready to pounce during a moonlit trip to the toilet.

From my position in bed, a stool could be a gremlin hunched,
the door frame a monstrous arm arching and looming, holding a hollow void.
The sheets around my feet are vines, all patterns the jaws of a Venus flytrap. 

Snap.

Black cabs are hearses, flowerbeds fresh graves;
babbling brook rope swings form a noose, gravel paths stone me to death.

My cardigan knows it should be a straitjacket,
socks and watches nod knowingly towards shackles and manacles imaginary.

Cushions on a sofa? Nothing but false sense of security quicksand.

(Competition title: No 1299)

The Question - Better than the Answer

   If Life is not a straitjacket
                            ~ why is it bursting at the seams

Strength Shirt a Fashion That Few Wear

there is a certain sort of fashion
similar to mother of invention
but only crazy show
only when madness grows
straitjacket is solution

Straitjacket

I have a dream
Why it is not there

I am ready to go
Why I am stuck

Desperate for freedom
Yet unable to

The baggage on my shoulder
How long I have to carry

I cannot break free
Stuck in my head
Going backwards

Tied up in chains
Nothing to hold on 
For hope and faith

Covered in straitjacket
Brawling my tears out
Why this is happening to me

Do I have to go through this
Battling in turns and twists

Body stale
Mind rots
Stubborn stains of negativity

Barely grasping air
On the surface
Sustain sanity

Too weak 
Voicing help

Down
Down
Bubbling away
Fading trace of me

Remains
Feeling pain
Leaving world unrest

© Sue Sanzz 2020

Consign Eddies of Mounting Ire To a Pyre Fire

Inside a bar in my town
I drown brown sorrows, swilling beer after beer
Feeling tall in my gaunt gown as I play the clown
Wishing I could wipe away her memory into a low gear 

Which in my Corolla I engage
Thoughts tumbling, feelings grumbling
As mind and conscience I enrage
Fumbling, crumbling, gambling

Until eyes get bloodshot
Mind goes bleary
Brain overheats so hot
I get weary and teary

But what the heck! What to me’s a little peck
To shout consciousness back into business
No hard feelings at all for the neck

That cranes and deigns to break
The cycle of reveries I indulge 
Imagining I’d washed away the wreck
Thriving on the madness I encourage

Drinking my life silly
Driving my happiness away
Praying I’d longer remain the hillbilly
Held in a straitjacket bay

Which in my saner moments can’t countenance
Unless up around the bend I conspire to expire
Condoning and contemplating selfies without substance
As in my throat roar and soar eddies of mounting ire.

The Color Blue

I have a passion for the blue color
Dark blues like the deepest oceans
Or light ones as the brightest skies

Navy blues bring out the poet in me
And I meditate using a Lapis Lazuli
My protection spell is a teal circle of fire
And of course my wedding ring has a Sapphire

But that’s not all, mind you
I love my denim jeans of indigo blue
I just have to buy anything blue I see
From a peacock phone
To a cobalt TV

You can call me crazy 
Or really eccentric 
Since my car is a shiny blue electric

I still want to paint my hair
With all shades of blue
But I have to convince hubby first
To not put me in a straitjacket…
…UNLESS IT’S BLUE…

***

January 26, 2017
1st place in the Contest: The Color Blue
Sponsor: Janis Thompson

Struggle

They want me to dance
Always dance, never anything else
Dance
Always dance, their hopeful eyes
following my every move
Dance
But my music is mine
My moves are mine
Alone
Mine alone

I used to dance for myself
They saw me, wanted me to
Wanted me, all of me, devour me,
Dance
Dance
The world used to be mine
My world was of colour and moving
Moving colour, music and me
Dance

When I became their obsession
Possession
Objectify, Hunger, straitjacket
I lost it
Dance
I lost my dance
I lost myself
Became a blur, bore
Forgot worlds of wonder
Worlds of endless joy

I want no more, no more
I am of no one but me
If I dance
If I dance 
It will be for me, for me alone
Alone
Of no one
But me
Dance

In Quicksand

It is the truth which 
never was. After many 
deaths I will come to you 
to repeal my verses.

The festering earth was 
making the rains green, 
to suck the dry sands 
thrown by the angry winds.

The soul upturns the body. 
You will crawl in a tunnel 
to come out for sedation 
accepting the karma.

A non-acceptance of the
straitjacket. Let the anxiety
rise like a beast.


Satish Verma

Three Wise Monkeys

Must our eyes even when we blind see
I closed my eyes but   Zipporah D ‘Ead was aborting the Evil
Zipporah says Kevin Daddy closed her eyes not to see
And that mother sees but to her it’s no Evil
Remember my daughter all we have is nothing you have to see
Until it’s too late we must see no Evil

Must our ears even when we deaf Hear
I closed my ears but Mama Zipporah was screaming like she saw something Evil
Kevin Daddy says she is stupid she want supposed to hear
And that Zipporah my sister died of nature not Evil
Zipporah my saint pray for mother I need you to Hear
And don’t forget she did her best but too late she is not evil
Remember in this our world money buys ears they all can’t Hear
Until it’s too late we must hear no evil

Must our mouths even when we Dumb Speak
And closed his mouth but Kevin Daddy drunk in his straitjacket must be something Evil
Zipporah and her mother he says to him they speak
Another one they say cray like the world it’s Evil
Remember the voices in our heads shouldn’t Speak
Until it’s too late we must speak no Evil 

CHECK VID ON https://youtu.be/uV3uoIK0C0Y

Nowhere Is Better Than Here

Nowhere to go but vertigo
Going vertical on weary tippy toe
Tinker and thinker
Of time traveler gizmos
Warping
Escaping
Jumping ship on life saver worm holes
Colliding lips of psychos doing the calypso
Wearing colorful straitjacket calico 
I see everything using eagle eye ego
Playing peekaboo peeking through
The peephole seeing the truth 
Behind all the lying people
Who pretend to be sincere and humble
Anti-hero with a mouthful 
of marihuana sour diesel
Sweet magnetic mouth massaging
Your modem mental muscle
No more simple fast food rhymes
Overdue on eating your complex
Edgar Allen flow vegetables
Lines like these are instant
Movie star action figure collectibles
Vintage
Classic
Top-notch like a shot of aged scotch
Shocking, leaving a tingling feeling
In your aging genitals

I'Ll Show You How To Feel

The words are falling outside my window
Burying even the snow-covered paths.  

The words will never end
Because you’ll never end. 

You’re gone.
You’re mine. 

Why should I discard your pretty torture?
Abandon the wild pain your calm eyes stab me with – no. 

You can’t love him like I love him,
You can’t burn with a smile on your face. 

The night is strong, and it threatens to engulf
And drown me slowly with the cool winter wind.  

I’m learning ways of dying through the life you inflict,
The sweet, sweet, sweet stabs of life.

I can’t love you any more
But I think there’s still some more, a bit more I can love you. 

So if these words hurt you, I’m sorry
Go be at peace with another, I’ll carry on somehow. 

But just in case you want those pretty stabs too
I’ll show you how to feel.

And I’ll be tied up in a straitjacket while you watch me
Holding her hand and telling her how you loved her reflection.

Revoking Doc's License

Revoking Doc's License #1

A word from the State Medical Board committee
The #1 injection will always be P.D.
Doc, I am considering to slam you out of pity
I do not mess with poets whose licenses come from Hello Kitty.
You overdose my patient RED, getting down to the nitty gritty.

At this time, your practice has been revoke
For coming after me as I wear my black cloak.
I got a grip on my scythe pressed against your throat.
Pees running down your legs leaving you all soak
Doc, I got your body full of Narcotics and Painkillers as a joke.

Dropping you like a lawsuit on the examination table with one smack.
Denying you morphine as your vasectomy goes wrong in this attack
I already drove you insane labeling you a quack.
Your hand I flushed in (TRANQUILIZER), slapping you with a black Jack.
Waking up without your gems blood all over your sack.

Restrain you in a straitjacket, throwing you in a padded room.
Covered in your own s*it as you were in your mother’s womb
Poet-ing like a disco biscuit on ecstasy, before I made you go SKAT-boom! 
Engraving your Poetic Doctor Degree on the outside of your tomb.
With the words that speak, P.D. was the cause of your poetic doom.

by;P.D.

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