Tsk Poems | Examples

And This Man Has the Nerve to Call Out Trump

      Jolly jelly-belly J.B. Pritzker
      Your wife’s health you took pains not to risk her

         Flew her on a private plane
         While with Covid you raised Cain 

     Hypocrisy portrays you ~ tsk, tsk, sir



      ________________________________________________
     J.B. Pritzker, Governor of Illinois, flew his wife
     to Miami after imposing travel restrictions on
     'all Illinoisans' and closing all schools and
     most businesses during the 'Covid crisis'
     of Spring, 2020.

A Catholc Girl’s True Story

A Catholic Girl's True Story


               I was only nine, when I was
               denied absolution!
               I had eaten meat on on a 
               Friday, tsk,tsk.
               To burn in hell 'twas the
               Priest's resolution?

               Daddy raged at the Chancery
               Office.
               How dismayed he was at all 
               this!
               I had to go back to the Church,
               the pastor heard my Confession.

               How frightening this was for
               a little girl!
               Who thought she was headed
               for hell!
               I thought obeying my parents
               was more important than eating
               smelly, halibut from hell.

               Mom had cooked the meat not
               me.
               I was simply following her orders!
               How the Church has changed!
               Now they cannot keep their priests
               to follow sacred Holy Orders?

                     11/1/2024  Poem 5

When things go sideways

I took an unexpected trip to Accidental city,
bruised ribs, torn ligaments, a state most
would pity..
Yesterday I experienced a trip and a fall on
uneven asphalt outside a local mall..
There weren't any witnesses to observe
my little feat.
I focused on getting back up and safely
from the street.
My left hip's been iffy for quite awhile so
I pulled myself up in a downward dog style..
If it were only a few bruises I would just
say tsk tsk but once up I realized my pelvis
I had twist..
After reporting it to security I went directly home.
A night with heat and arnica and several mournful moans..
I could bear weight on my right leg so I hobbled thru the day,
until I discovered if I walk my left foot side ways, it keeps the pain at bay..
The author of this poem is still hobbling and hurting so
would some one out there kindly get up and close my curtain?

Overrated

If ratings give meaning, symbolled with stars,
Then always keep on your ratings radar.

I’m trying to write my best poem by far,
Please rate it between a one and five star.

Lines as, ‘She brakes me as if I’m a car,
While my engine’s roaring like a jaguar!’

What, that’s too simple, need to raise the bar?
Ok, how about some hardy har har.

Like, ‘Friends of mine truly think they’re the Tsar!’
I say ‘Tsk, tsk, Tsar.’  Is that a one star?

Alright, alright let’s try something bizarre,
With a foreign slant; you with me so far?

‘Jones’s travels brought him to a bazaar;
He wanted dinner, but had no dinar.’

Ok folks, please rate that quip from Dakar.
Does it yet approach a two or three star?

Give me one more chance to get up to par,
For the next line may be a real all-star.

‘The sturgeon roe’d his boat for caviar.’
Is that great line worth at least a four star?

Why rate ‘show and tell’ like a kid’s toy car;
Does rating give purpose for who we are?

Ratings are playthings for wanna-be stars.
Still, increasing ratings’ rates is in our,

Need to soar somewhere, maybe way out far.
Yet, let the cosmos govern the five stars.

Come To This Like a Child

Swinging watch of a hypnotist

Look into my eyes
You’re falling into a deep deep sleep
Forget who you are

In a red tie
I duck out my work backdoor

Stop
Stare
To a baby robin

Sways upside down back and forth
Suspended before my face
In the breeze of a luscious June afternoon

Chirps madly for rescue by its mother

Leg strung to its nest
By a wiry line meant for fishing

First flight

Plenty of blame to this tragedy
I guess you could even tsk tsk the mother
Who thread her nest with grass, twigs and hair
But also plastic and string
Scrapped to our parking lot below

I cut the fledgling down with scissors

Takes two hands
To hold its ruffled orange and brown body

He cries
His mother screeches from a perch near by
This leg is broke and nearly sawed in two

I snip the wound line from the worn slice of its leg
Creature flops
Its wings won’t extend

What to do

A shadow joins me and says over my shoulder
“Ah, nature.”

And walks away

But I stay
Remain in trance
Quietly weep with the choir

For the Earth we have re-birthed from Saturn and fire.

Put Out

Is Putin going Kaput
He has morbid losers look
Some Russian soldiers have had enough,
Of this slaughter and murder stuff
Whatever they were fighting for
They are weary, sick of war
They can no longer understand
Why they are fighting for a piece of land
A land where fellow Russian dwell
Putin has made a living hell
Putting his comrades at risk
Naughty Putin Tsk, Tsk, Tsk.
You deserve that worried frown,
You have let your country down
I don't think you will have a friend
When you meet your tragic end.
One thing that is becoming clear
There will be no winners here,
Win or lose: It was all for nil
I pray it's you who swallow the pill
The pill that tastes very bitter
And it makes you a dummy spitter!

Hesitation In Vain

on the way home,
i change the new map
to the longest scenic route
though my Sweets is waiting for me,
i cannot find myself to punctually return
i stop at a newly built rest area because my hypertension is expressing
the mess i made will not go away like my atrial flutter
it just sits in wait like the many times before
my Sweets snaps me out of my fantasy world with a text
always the realist half, she gets on me a bit and asks if i am close to home now
i reply by telling her a multicolored lie about my bladder and a harsh deluge
she replies with an 'unhappy' emoji,
so i start the car, cut on the air, and continue my unfortunate trek back to reality
rental cars and women, tsk tsk, forever the realists
i make it back on time by the skin of my teeth
my Sweets runs to me with open arms and a smile
in my ear she whispers 'i was preparing to kill you'
i reply by whispering in her ear with a sigh of pure contentment 'i know'

'tsk, Tsk'

We all swore ‘Never Again’
  to let a maniac terrorize millions
Never Again, Never Again
  so swore pundits and wise men  

A new Hitler's in front of us now
  What’s our reaction? 
‘Tsk, Tsk,’ Vladimir, you butcher’
  ~ as we stew in our inaction

This Disgruntled Troll

I am not inventing this disgruntled troll
Who writes nasty messages gloomy and droll
Seems unhappy with everything I prize
Glad I do not see things through her eyes

Nor do I believe everything is going to hell
If only things were her way, all would be well
Unfortunately her view of America is morose
Which she disses with poems much too verbose

Why should I sit back and allow her to scorn
Without response to her pitiful political p**n?
But I do, yes…I do restrain myself most often
I am sure she would like me laid in my coffin

Lately she is disgruntled with a current event
And takes the opportunity to open her vent
I won't say her name, but, you'll get the hint
Too bad, tsk, tsk, tsk, she isn’t our president!

written September 7, 2021

At Your Own Risk

They can’t get lifeguards for the lake
And everyone’s on summer break
And so, just for vacation’s sake,
It’s swim at your own risk.

For swimmers, there’s a lot at stake
And when their skin begins to bake,
It’s quite an easy choice to make,
Their water entry brisk.

Bravado is a breeze to fake
And confidence is hard to shake.
Let’s hope this choice is no mistake
Or we will hear tsk tsk.

Tsk Tsk

Homicide and genocide
Need punishments to be applied
And fratricide and suicide
Are awful – that can’t be denied.

But something else I can’t abide,
Although, in this case, no one died,
Cannot be what we take in stride – 
A crime that’s known as verbicide.

Unlike insect- or herbicide,
Its perpetrators tend to hide
And, if confronted, they’d be snide;
Corrections down their backs would slide.

Some criminals are hanged or fried
But as for writers, here’s a guide – 
To those engaged in verbicide,
May lots of tsking be supplied.

To Keep Away the Blues Avoid the News

Tsk, tsk, tsk, will people never learn, 
this is ludicrous, can they not discern?
We cats are not owned by the human, you see;
they are subject to us, it’s the best way to be.

Cat wisdom dictates that humans belong
to the cats that live with them, it’s been all along.
Yet they still believe that we are their pets,
it’s time to take them to the head-shrinking vets!

They must learn who is boss, in the house
or they may start thinking the head is the mouse.
They are such a pathetic and confused lot;
this human species, cats, they are not!

What would become of us, without human’s money?
I dread the thought, it will not be funny.
No TP, no box, no gravel, no news;
Oh geez, I can’t stand it, I’m getting the blues.

Specificity In Poetry

Alas when specificity is masked in its duplicity
to temper its intensity it may have a propensity
to touch the edges gently to stimulate us mentally
to hide within the lilting verse a subliminally errant curse
with subtle lines a bit too terse - then again it could be worse
they could insert an asterisk - induce headshaking “tsk tsk tsks” 

So when asked to specify, I try, I try, I truly try
to force my words into “the norm”, confine my ink, make it conform
and yet it flows – a violent storm, from deep within a whirlwind born
a spinning, loud and raucous horn wailing from a pen pricks thorn
howling in both joy and pain, ranting at both sun and rain
sitting ‘tween tracks rusted stain waving to life’s passing train.

The trick - to call a word a word - not split it with poetic sword
claim it left us empty, bored or thrilled, awakened, reassured
the trick – to let the words find us to chip away our readers rust
outwit our “learned” poets crust, open our hearts and slowly trust
that in its harsh simplicity it stabs with cold specificity
at the edges of rigidity and the barriers ‘’tween you and me.


John G. Lawless
©3/29/2019

Up Your Asterisk

I’m not a fan of censorship
But there should be no risk
When writing of a body part
To use an asterisk.

When not used as a swear-word,
Which might garner a tsk-tsk,
A mention of a tush should not
Require an asterisk.

We’re grown-ups here and therefore
Criticism should be brisk
When chosen words are censored:
Shove it up your asterisk!

Shorter Than Short Shorts

Watching young girlies walk by at the mall
Can still get a rise out of me
With their shorter than short shorts and halter tops
Tsk, tsk, thinking bad thoughts, are we?

Just purely for their copious youthful energy
This exuberant younger generation
It's got nothing to do with gawking or ogling
Tsk, tsk, think I've succumbed to titillation?

Really much more sophisticated than that
My sweetie would tell you, just ask her
In fact, there are many times I even look away
Now now, I'm not a child molester

Just like every other of earth's male inhabitants
I admit I enjoy nice scenery
Especially shorter than short shorts and halter tops
Tsk, tsk, thinking bad thoughts, are we?

• Short Tsk Poems
• Famous Tsk Poems
• Best Tsk Poems
• Read Tsk Poems
• Long Tsk Poems
• Tsk Quotes