The Dying Trance
A soul will rot
in boredom
The spirits
dying trance
Once disengaged
all feelings fade
without
— a sideward glance
(Dreamsleep: September, 2026)
What Eyes Miss
Children
cross those barriers
that adult’s
hide behind
Wading
into no man’s land
instinctively
alive
Children
cast fate to the wind
without
a second thought
Seeing
what our eyes will miss
in strictures
— we’ve been taught
(Dreamsleep: September, 2026)
Voices
Alive
no longer conscious
my words
survive the grave
When read aloud
to lift my shroud
in voices
— time belayed
(Dreamsleep: September, 2026)
Lost in wondering who I am today,
Cost of living for the current day.
Pictures of myself looking like a stranger,
Fixtures of typical I perceived as danger.
Tossed straight into the frigid bay,
Crossed easily by those who know the way.
Strictures of expectations, 'you must change her'.
Scriptures, theirs; an itchy manger.
The f-word is a word I’ve always savored.
It’s so evocative and so multi-flavored.
It’s the only word I know that’s worth a thousand pictures.
Too bad it’s so often met with the severest strictures.
Even at Poetry Soup, the f-word is not allowed to be heard.
God
brought to children
in sorties of pain
Strictures
and scriptures
religion ordained
The wings
of an Angel
lie buried within
Iconoclasts
pawning
— original sin
(Dreamsleep: January, 2026)
Trickle, river fickle.
Step lively by the side.
Fate, thy strictures tickle!
Hell, Heaven, woe betide!
Wind atop the high cliff wall?
Funeral, thy pall.
Cherry blossoms, heft to haul.
End Times, give a call...
Thunderbolt, hover above.
Levee, fail to hold.
Fit, misfortune! O my glove!
Coals within, glow gold...
Will of human beings?
It must not have the clout.
Everybody, pack thy things!
Doubt, begin thy bout!
Ruin, cover all our world.
Dim hope, flee from here.
Dark fire, lava, how you hurled!
Grind them, O my gear...
Ravine out back, what to pack?
Stuff it in a crack!
Failure, will you? Fade to black?
Turn about and tack!
Sullen honeysuckle?
How better to make wine?
Bridge, beneath their feet buckle!
Doom, undying dine...
I weave a narrative of unspeakable taboo, a symphony of sighs and groans, a cacophony of defiled innocence.
Your body, a temple of decadence, a sanctum of sadomasochistic excess, where the strictures of societal mores are rent asunder, and the very fabric of reality is torn apart.
Echolalic luminaries periodically tilt, their sumptuary influence shrinking villages into steel vexations.
Precedence of principles and codes, a paradigm of insecurity, influences vermillion equations.
Jeopardized crescents and tacit furor satisfy the economist’s balloons, coached through versions of fossilized tutelage.
Cathedrals of vice and transgressions wraith through legends, inferring civilian nudists infected by hurakens.
Cultures torque and embark, communicating through the columns of Groningen.
Chiaroscurist initiations of mnemonic memories effloresce in alabaster vigils, aberrant cadastral mortmain consuming convergent dispossessed flâneries.
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
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
In the soul where thoughts take flight,
Creativity prances, its spirit dances free,
Inspiration sprouts ideas, shining so bright.
Making a cloak of colored dreams for all to see.
Creativity prances, its spirit dances free,
Unencumbered by strictures, it seeks its own way,
Making a cloak of colored dreams for all to see.
Inside every hue and tint, emotions holds sway.
Unencumbered by strictures, it seeks its own way,
The mind's vision and scope entwining, forever turns.
Inside every hue and tint, emotions holds sway.
On heart shaped palette, the blade blends and churns.
The mind's vision and scope entwining, forever turns.
Brush strokes and knife swirls, like a seascape flow,
On heart shaped palette, the blade blends and churns.
The masterful expression continues to grow.
Brush strokes and knife swirls, like a seascape flow.
Inspiration sprouts ideas, shining so bright.
The masterful expression continues to grow.
In the soul where thoughts take flight.
Presence complete yet in form feeling incomplete
Surrenders imagined knowing at an unknown God’s feet
We must be truthful about this, having not seen the unseen
That in timeless time, in as ordained, we may reclaim soul’s sheen
The ultimate truths have been repeatedly affirmed in various scriptures
There is nether bondage nor limitation; self-imposed are strictures
Confining awareness to the thinking process, we are bound
Myriad fears and desires then inevitably twirl us around
Relinquishing the delusional need to weigh and size
Who in truth we really are, staid silence enables us to realise
It is, we may say, something like waking up within life’s lucid dream
Where the unfinished movie plays on shaped as thoughts we did stream
Reworded, we may say that in reality, by so knowing, life flows as before
But now having garnered clear sight, there are no goals to score
We thus remain here present, aglow in our light luminescent
Cognisant of this divine play of descent and ascent
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
As a tiny tot
We played dot to dot
Connecting pictures
With nada strictures
Innocence prevailed
Colouring detailed
No problems to solve
Our small world revolved
On connecting dots
Without other thoughts
Having grown up now
The world has changed, how!
We flit from dot to dot
Scrambling from thought to thought
Responsibilities
Beyond abilities
Dot to dot image
Varies with each page
Whole picture not seen
Till there you have been
1st December 2022
For Kim Rodrigues' "Dot to dot" contest
THE SUN BEATS ITS DOWNWARD GAZE
The sun beats its downward gaze
Onto a spread-out garden,
Shimmering among the arrayed blossom,
With sultrily humid, sweat-inducing rays,
To break up the encrusted ground.
A resurrected form unbinds itself
From winter's hardening strictures,
Uncracks the crowded confines
In a stretched, yielding chrysalis
To emerge pristine of shape and hue
Into the burgeoning brightness
Of a gold-gleaming dawn.
Such is the harbinger
Of pleasure, tempered with ease,
Unhurried by the current of time,
And restful as an infant at sleep.
Yet rising from slumber,
Like a phoenix but gradually, in its way,
Not wasting effort or energy,
White-feathered wings grown out from
Broad, strong shoulders.
I watch it become what it always was,
Ready to claim its right to the skies,
Blue, unclouded, sweltering.
The summer's day melts into
A forgetful haze of meaning,
Of no need for answers.
The answer lies in nature's glory,
Matching it in every regard,
In tune with the seasons,
Where the cycle of life, death
And regeneration never breaks.
Perhaps I ought to publish my position
(as if there's anyone disposed to care!):
I'm not convinced that open competition
is profitable. Poets, self-aware,
and full of self-esteem (as many are!)
increasingly seem disinclined to share
the fruits of midnight labour. From afar
(and I do not possess a crystal ball)
I think that I perceive a lowered bar:
requirements (this is just my judgement call)
to dress one's thoughts in rhythm or in rhyme
do not delight our writers. They appal.
We need not think of strictures as a crime.
Does discipline torpedo erudition,
or might it help us grasp at the sublime?
Requirements, or strictures, often stifle creativity
Thus, I tend to avoid forms with strict syllable count,
I appreciate a suggested topic, but I may not feel it,
And the message of any poem should be paramount.
Best expressed in the poet’s unique choice of phrases
Its origins are necessarily found in the poet’s psyche,
Blossoming with rhythm reads with robust originality
Prepared themes often cripple the poet’s authenticity.
The great poets of yesteryear allowed clear departures
Which accounts for the proliferation of poetry forms,
Today, our mutations of the long-accepted sonnets,
Variations on old French formats, are accepted norms.
So, none of the aforementioned are revealing secrets,
But giving credence to the diversity of poetic outlets.
Written July 11, 2022
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.