The blur was green or maybe grey
That past his turgid senses flashed.
The skin would burst soon anyway,
All his tastes and visions smashed.
Grey or green, most perplexing, yes.
The membrane full, his senses stretched.
To smash the wall would cause a mess,
He'll look and search, with nothing fetched.
Green or grey, but could be blue,
Now the cover will surely burst.
An idea, but what to argue?
Must determine the colour first.
Grey or green, did he see a pink?
There's something missed or maybe hopped.
It's now he teeters on the brink.
Be careful now, it could have popped.
"O, joy", he cries, he's found it out,
Not pure and single colours seen.
The pressure's gone, a welcome spout,
He's stemmed again what should've been.
.
with still hern
bedroom eyne
thick
dream'er shut
hern speak's
turgid
flesh wishper'd
"hey"
"morning muse
mister"
hern digits
mitt's
lift'did her bed frock
"peek-uh-boo
my-do"
')>
Somewhere
Between the nascent light
and
Everlasting
Peace drifts motionless
Like the painless waves
Washing over us when
Neither sleep nor turgid
Strife possess our souls
my mind
Grinds into dust like the
Surface of Mars where
Darkness blinds
our
Worthy ambition in colors
not
yet
discovered
04/08/26
.
greeen
too
bless'd with thick sculpt
'bout thoze
hern
seez
overwhelming
my
wild
thinks
gently
mine
duke's digits
az mine lips
caresss
hern
periorbital turgid
unto mine
intoxication
hern
hypnotize
stagnant water still
stale grief slithered shattering —
finch twitters be free
path a hundred deaths
shake chains raining draining blood ~
write novels free be
turgid losses drown
in insolence they waited …
wife escaped be free
break bones to reach cave
courage climbs steps and steeps __
weep not nights free be
rods crack cords unfurl
ten thousand miles in riddles ~
shed shackles be free
eat parrot’s peanuts
pantry is empty laugh loud …
observe pain free be
smoothly plane cuts through
staring at unwinding space —
judgement flies be free
time moves then stands still
doors bang on open escape ~
awareness free be
petals circular
align with Sun straight down spine …
eyes dazed be free
~::~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~::~
In retrospect
I often whisper
To words cast upon a sea
Of turgid thought
Struggling within
The borderless confines
…Of poetry
I let them out to play each day
Knowing some will drift away
Others wait in silent queque
Unsure of what to say, or do
Some mock the Rugby scrums
Snarling mice in search of crumbs
Oh, those words I can’t recall
That stood their ground
Just wouldn’t fall
Now come back to haunt my dreams
New brushes can’t undo old scenes
For words are but a scribbler’s tools
Etching thoughts of wisdom’s fools
Upon the hearts of passing pawns
Encased in a mist of breaking dawns
John G. Lawless
©11/20/2025
.
i felt thuh
strain uv mine globez
i felt
their stretch
mine eyne
whilst she shared
her torso'z pluperfect
in ourn 'lone
her back to thoze
her tunic tank's tilt
front my
expose'n
turgid domez
trigger'n mine happy
digits
theirn
roam
I need to write about the sky today
for oft I pen as to my turgid past;
I look towards the heaven, lo, it's gray
the fresh dawn's shining yellow-purple hues
long surpassed by darkening clouds of hate
but is there ever beauty in the news?
Perhaps, but mostly hidden deep of late.
Ominous clouds of thunder threaten storms;
and lightning strikes in peaceful urban spots
while every year our little planet warms.
Today, it's Social Media calls the shots
long gone the sanity of just debate.
I need to write about the sky today
it may prevent me getting too irate
I wish it to be sapphire blue, not gray.
At the risk of coming off turgid
I offer this tale esoteric
Hoping it’s not found insipid
Nor causes one to be apoplectic
But rather received with alacrity
Without the need for paroxysm
My word there’ll be no chicanery
And avoidance of anachronism
Far from being sesquipedalian
Nor need for any razzmatazz
The tale of the slubberdegullion
Who thought himself full with pizzazz
Though being so supercilious
His affect stirred only dudgeon
Any good was so very fugacious
From this untoward tatterdemalion
Yet still he persisted a mumpsimus
If you will, and worse a panjandrum
So aggravating and rumbustious
Redeeming qualities not a modicum
An unquestioned snollygoster
Given to being quite vagary
An ill-reputed hugger-mugger
And a voice of such cacophony
But I see that you are insouciant
And consider my warning malarkey
Since you wish to be recalcitrant
My apologies for being persnickety
I end my tale of the rapscallion
Without further ado or rigmarole
Avoiding becoming ultracrepidarian
I have met my supererogatory parole
Describe what you see my love, she queries
A game they often play in the depths of the forest
He replies, Turgid are the woodlands densely they’ve died back
creeping where no life is seen,
between the flowery meadow's cracks
The poplars have shed their leaves leaving violet trunks bare
For it isn’t rare, sun light that shan’t filter thru the canopy
Entrapped is the pale old plant ivy green
However, the white roses striving and yet flutily parade
whilst tolerating the languorous shade
As he describes his innermost inhibitions
without interference or shame
In the distance, expanding their horizons together
Both aware 'tis a harbinger of the end game
Terminology:
Crystal booths in a nocturnal snow.
significant downpours of shedding stars.
This said, feel free to scatter, scrabble or mash.
Words are fungible,
many still believe that poetics
do indeed belong to the fungi family,
though some have been classified
as many-limbed Triffids
of the squishy kind.
Now throw moondust at the reader's eyes:
Obscurity is essential, however, first create a window
that opens to reflect the thrower.
Rain down upon the moondust until mud takes shape.
There are no words for this process,
so, make some up.
Flourish:
Without a final flourish the poet is left with a turgid puddle
avoid turgidity at all costs, especially puddles.
Sprays of celebratory tinsel
or globs of gore are always effective.
Reaching for the stars with a palsied hand
will jerk tears out of a slab of concrete
eventually.
Swiftly leave the space you are now occupying,
other's will be impatiently waiting to craft their next masterpiece.
Rebirth:
Tragedy has been your favorite genre—
A fount of acts and scenes
of wailing tears and excruciating scars
punctured alive by so-called healers.
That oozing wound
paints the genre that trickles down the plot of your story.
The parched lips, a speaking metaphor of your turgid deals
In the hands of those wandering away with lots of your heart in their claws.
I know the shivering voice hosted in the tender sheen skin of yours
Is not a language of aging;
a simulacrum of those who promise heaven
but shuffle hell down your throat.
I know your fate in the cruel, crooked hands.
fueling you, of course to make your heart a Jericho.
And swallow pain to yourself
only to sing the dirge in love.
I know love never resides here
Neither has its chorus any memories of remembrance.
I think it died.
If love is dead, let me be the raising prophet.
Let me tender this desert back to Eden,
where nature plume and sing again.
.
‘Twuz uh hot
Spring
Mine door’s gong
Rapped
‘twuz the welcomed
the
pretty box
the surreptitiously delivered
All rapped up
In my favorite
Colour
‘glint’
Such the
turgid sweet
package
From mine front stoop
into
mine grateful room’s
Imagine
vernal fever
on uh
(shhhh)
sun burst'n
breezy
morn
*packtage spelled correctly
artistic license
;)
.
Without light
Gold will
Not
Glisten
Without hers
Turgid fupa
‘Tatched
Az molded
Clay
Unto
Hern thicks
did i mention
‘Bout the gold
*Glistening*
"regard not the
scop
the bard iz the
punctilious
carnivore"
hm
Cups on their hooks rattle
the train rumbles through the town
icebergs crack and fall off the roof,
they crash through two stories of chilled air.
Dad heaves himself off the sofa,
empty plate in hand.
Mother has a new electric carving knife,
the turkey is in meaty ribbons already.
The train is still rolling,
its high-pitched horn
blasting through wallpaper.
We are all a little upset,
for our little terraced home in England
has time-slipped into rural Ohio,
and the only person still alive
sits on a rocking chair
in a post turkey stupor.
Thoughts plow through a turgid brain.
He begins to imagine
that all his poems have been derailed
in a train crash
somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean.
The incongruity if this vision
does not strike him as at all odd.
Intuitively he understands,
that If the Cloud bursts now,
he will never be existential.
The idea is almost appealing.
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.