Lineage Poems

Long Forgotten

The tree of life has roots to the beginning of time
infiltrating depths unfathomable
lost in the nebulae of bygone memories
the illusion of neat lines soon tangled in a fog
hiding stories obsolete and long forgotten

Diluted storytelling buried beneath fresh tales
and soon hazy with its clouded details
the feats out of mind fade into oblivion
facts turned to hearsay are cast aside
with stranded witnesses turned to dust
and players past and long forgotten



AP: 2nd place 2025

Submitted on May 17, 2025 to contest YOUR CHOICE R sponsored by BRIAN STRAND - Honorable Mention

Lineage

I sit here with guilt and recent understanding.
I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
I sit here with remorse, and now I’m rebranding.
Because to live is to learn and to learn is it grow.

It is like I stepped in your shoes when I became a mother.
You were doing your best, one foot in front of the other.
They don’t know yet that I really don’t know.
But, to live is to learn and to learn is to grow.

Because one day they are here and the next they are gone.
In parenthood, there’s much more grief than what was led on.
You cradle and hold and put them to sleep.
Then you find yourself trying your best not to weep.

At times we wouldn’t speak, and at times, we would fight.
I don’t remember the last time I hugged you goodnight.
One day it stops and it hurts indescribably bad.
So many times, I just want to speak with my dad.

Time is precious but quick to pass by.
You deserve more credit than I ever provide.
These kids are my world, of the lengths I would go.
To live is to learn and to learn is to grow.

When Samuel L Jackson discovered his Lineage in Gabon

“…. It’s a deep thing to find out that you belong somewhere.”  
Roots
Dirt
Black
Time
Roots
Drums
Feted
Tribe
Roots
That you belong somewhere, is a deep thing to find out.

Bill Marable 12/15/24 
12:20 pm

Lineage Holds

A man loses his father 
and adulthood begins
Bathwater draining
the baby within

A son who is sireless
new destiny’s child
Whose choice is to run
or to stand and beguile

Alone with his memories
one image sustains
The voice but a whisper
its spirit reclaimed

To carry the title
his lineage holds
A surname retendered
—new history untold

(The New Room: July, 2023)

Poetry Lineage

I am a son of the verse and the word,
                                 the spoken and written word...
                                 I am the fruit of platonic love
                                 between carnation and rose...
                                 in truth I am made
                                 of meat and flowers,
                                 bones and dreams,
                                 muscle, blood and truth,
                                  and mostly I'm made
                                 of poetic immateriality
                                  that is poetry...!

Lineage

to be silent even though it might hurt
our ancestors, our sons and daughters to
I feel the fangs of dogs ripping their shirts
the hoses of hatred drowning our roots
the hats we wear those imperial crowns
will silence doubt and reveal our lessons
to fight on both legal and sacred ground
the art of war with non-lethal weapons
should we stand still and simply bow our heads
believe our woeful lot better than some
let us not pause to weigh what they have said
spirits of freedom might deem this loathsome
their words, their blows will forever be flung 
we of color must never still our tongues

Lineage

Never forsake the lineage in which we
originated from because
the ancestors are watching us
Their eyes are on the sparrow
anticipating us to soar into
our excellence 
Wash ourselves in their royalty
while remembering they were 
kings and queens long before
they became slaves and strange fruit
Society wants to wipe the slate clean of
our heritage by pruning the limbs
of our family trees 
waiting in the shadows for the
opportunity to kill it at the root
We cannot allow someone else's antidote
poison us with amnesia that may
cause us to forget the power 
of our inheritance
We are much stronger
than they care to know
We must use our pens to flex the 
muscle of our minds
Granting permission to build strength 
enabling us to balance the truth
on our shoulders
Lets stand our ground and never fold
claim our titles as griots
and let our stories be told
It's up to us to lose the fear  
Use the ink in our veins to 
to go against the grain of
the lies they expect us to swallow
and washed down with our pride
--LaLa
©4-3-2020

Poetic Lineage

Describing my lineage ,    
I'm a son of
word and verse,
of the sword and the shell ...
I am the fruit of love
gestation of the rose and the carnation ...
I'm made of:
bones and flowers,
flesh and dreams
of muscles and truth,
but mainly I am
made of poetry ...!





 lirics of the song EU CANTO below the URL

   Eu canto
Fagner & Cecília Meirelles
do disco "Eu canto (Quem viver chorará)"

Eu canto
Porque o instante existe
E a minha vida está completa
Não sou alegre nem sou triste
Sou poeta
Irmão das coisas fugidias
Não sinto gozo nem tormento
Atravesso noites e dias
No vento
Se desmorono ou se edifico
Se permaneço ou me desfaço
Não sei se fico
Ou passo
Eu sei que canto e a canção é tudo
Tem sangue eterno a asa ritimada
E um dia eu sei que estarei mudo
Mais nada

              here  belowthe url
       https://youtu.be/yJqrQk9Ol48
 suggested song EU CANTO i sing by Fagner words from the poet Cecilia Meireles

Lineage of Fire

forging
noble timeless art
brute strength and skill
reverence for the forces of fire
innate passion for working metal
precious knowledge passed down the ages
honoring with pride millennia of blacksmith ancestry



AP: Honorable Mention 2020

Posted on May 26, 2019

Curse of a Dragon Lineage

Between a castle and a moat
One small goat
Strays too far, too long
But nothing happens
Yet scared stiff, the goat is scared stiff
To see this beast, this terrible monster
The medieval lands have made him out to be
What can this beast do to prove
There is beauty beneath his sharp teeth
Beauty behind his scales
Beauty beyond the smoldering ash belonging to the distant corner of the cave
This goat retreats and the animal escapes again
For the fleeing goat will bring enraged villagers
Local pillagers who think it’s an ultimate title gain
To slay the beast which breathes in coal and spews the hottest fire
But the beast, far from majestic, contains neither dark deeds nor twisted motives
He is not part of his parents’ disgraceful lineage
The violent overtaking and burning down precious fields and wildlife
He believes it to be intolerable, unimaginable
And if he could, he would change his complicated anatomy
And happily breathe water, become a different animal of peace
But this is a curse from a destructive dragon lineage
That refuses to stop haunting a mercy-filled being

Your Legacy Your Lineage

Time takes age and does what it will
Man ages and wishes time to stand still.

There is infinite turning of the hands on a clock
As mortals we hear the constant tick-tock.

There is a human desire to leave something behind
Hoping our earthly possessions ease our greedy mind.

What is gathered on this planet of earth
Can not bring us back to our place of birth.

Helping others should be our lifetime goal
Not cluttering earth before you're put in a hole.

God gives us an ultimate rule
Love one another and not to be cruel.

If we really wish to leave something behind
Teach your children to give and to be kind.

Your legacy should not be what you can obtain
But what your lineage does each and everyday.

Lineage

Discarded old car
Star on Grill
Still a Mercedes

Lineage

It was set on fire, the market place:
from a distance I was watching, the
hieroglyphic climate of the cutouts;

some shoes with yellow human feet embedded 
in them, were thrown on the images
of gods, lying on the steps of tanks:

on hills the sex workers were doing 
brisk business in private retreats
of the holiest of towns, a golden dome

was being erected as an insult to poors,
the streaked priests chanting the sacred
hymns, hurling the abuses on red faced

simians waiting on the rooftops,
ashamed to share the inherited lineage
but why one should kill one’s own daughter?


SATISH VERMA

Family Lineage

Honeycombed crocks, like patterns 
On an old quilt
Start and pause without reason
Long dandied extravagant  Peacocks
Strut below airships rising above
Pale blue seas…dust has no  taste
Light reflects off shadows of rouge
Rubbed rough by tears
Only today matters.... white caps roiling
Over  loyalty, held for centuries,
Never released,
          ………never released

© All Rights Reserved

Lineage

It was set on fire, the market place:
from a distance I was watching, the
hieroglyphic climate of the cutouts;

some shoes with yellow human feet embedded 
in them, were thrown on the images
of gods, lying on the steps of tanks:

on hills the sex workers were doing 
brisk business in private retreats
of the holiest of towns, a golden dome

was being erected as an insult to poors,
the streaked priests chanting the sacred
hymns, hurling the abuses on red faced

simians waiting on the rooftops,
ashamed to share the inherited lineage
but why one should kill one’s own daughter?


SATISH VERMA

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