Long Acres Poems
Long Acres Poems. Below are the most popular long Acres by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Acres poems by poem length and keyword.
Their grinning heads cover the fields for acres
A sea of happy mini suns, welcoming us to Kansas.
We stare, amazed, having no idea this was possible.
There are photo moments and we take them all.
A gift shop sports stuffed dogs and cats,
With sunflower headbands and kerchiefs.
Everywhere we look a plate, cup, tumbler,
letter opener, Christmas ornament with a sunflower
This is sunflower hell my husband observes, so I send him to the car.
He can wait for me. I pile sunflower notepads and pens into a basket.
A lady wearing a sunflower apron, hat and socks smiles at me.
She gets closer and whispers. “Be sure and look in the bathroom.
Of course, I do and am not disappointed. Everything fancy.
Sunflower rug, sunflower chair, sunflower faucets.
I have to admit I was very disappointed by the plain white toilets.
Until I saw the sunflower toilet paper.
A woman carrying a child wearing a sunflower bib walks past.
“Where did you get it?” I ask her. She points.
Good! Sale rack! A manager comes over and offers to hold my basket.
When I get home with the bib I remember my youngest grandchild is five.
I have marked my place,
I stand now in the
bulging vein of the moment.
No more hunting for meaning
or for anti-meaning,
all socks are white or not.
I am here.
a one-sized loosely fitted mind,
a tick and cross
on an illogical checklist,
acres stacked upon acres
of fifth dimensional
doubt, faith, and gnosis,
a bottomless barrel of chewed-over laughter.
I am all things and nothing,
happy to be
whatever you see
and I will not
gainsay your worst opinions,
but embrace every layer of the onion
even though you cannot perceive
the chameleon gifts
of my all too human superpowers,
or my agreeable acceptance
of your legendary life.
I am rooted in truth
and conspiratorial speculation
finding no fault in either
but still a knowing of what I am,
could have been or was.
I am raised up in my lowliness and glory
no longer there or anywhere
simply this kit and caboodle, this enchilada.
deeply sorry to be so unrepentant
and mostly happy to be sorry,
not a worry
or any flurry of guilt.
Expunged and indelibly revealed
as this ingenuity of self,
here now and gone
all along.
A Country Worker
Watching grass grow, seeing paint dry, doing the dishes
Are mysterious consuming matters since Madge moved on
Grass grows a little slower, decays
Paint peels and flakes through age
Dishes get dirty and pile high, break
This all sounds so very boring I’m sure
Still the lower 40 acres won’t tend themselves
They have Old Alvin to plant the corn
Who tills the soil tired
He takes time to remember the tender years
Rolling marbles down the highways and hills
Waiting for their return
There is nothing left of the lost plantation
After a while all grows silent
Nothing comes back
No one is at home or in the field
Waiting for the telephone to ring
No. I don’t think so
Just another boring thing
Not worth mentioning
I’m from small town homes and rose bushes overgrown, with
Close-but-not-too-close-close-knit-crazies.
Where my best friend lives down the block and I make late night trips to her house past the town curfew, because I am from just inside the city limits.
Where I can’t drive underage in a non-road-legal vehicle on the road but I do it anyways.
From hydrangeas to big dead oaks with darkened limbs and forgotten branches. Unattended to hidden ponds with sand dunes keeping close company. Winding trails through the woven pines and golf cart rides through the night.
From two tracking at 2am, to popped tires riding on rims all the way home.
Bruised up and down and scratches I don’t know how I got.
I’m from sunday night football with crockpot cheesy potatoes
to rolling blackouts and chasing charter vans down flat onto our bottoms.
Muddy heels to get to the dance and paying seven dollars to watch my hometown football team lose.
I’m from where smoking our meat and video games in the garage is a party but we are the only company we need.
From corny jokes inside and out and witty humor, none taken. From where insulting one another is nothing but love and curfews are often a thing of the past.
Descending from lovejoys I am often filled with both love and joy,
I’m from oddballs and country folk yet we have evolved.
I’m from soccer games even when it’s raining. From no quitting all the way to you tried your best.
From high- highs and even lower lows.
I’m from the land of schnitzel, pickled beer, and pizza. From ‘go play outside’ and ‘walk it off.’ Nuts and bolts for christmas snacks to ‘honor thy mother and father.’ Sunday school lullabies and don’t use his name in vain, following all the common Godly precautions.
I’m from waking up early just to see the sunrise even though the trees are a war barricade from the burning fire you long to see. I’m from the fog that made my acres of yard an abyss that I can’t see through, even though I know what’s there.
I’m from family trips and a loving home, missing it when I’m gone and hating it when I’m there. I’m from supportive love and ‘can’t isn’t a word’. I’m from you can do anything if you work hard enough, and whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.
When he discovered that big city life was not in his future,
He wasted no time, reversed his life, and made his departure.
The story has it that he accepted forty acres and a mule,
settled down in the land of cotton and became a farmer.
TELL THEM ABOUT A MAN NAME HENRY.
He married a beautiful young lady and started a big family.
He didn't whine and complain about the times being hard.
He knew that he was strong and that God would be with him.
He also knew that times would change, and he was harder than the times.
TELL THEM ABOUT A MAN NAME HENRY.
The mule turned into a big tractor and the forty acres grew larger.
He and his wife had six beautiful girls and eight 'football size boys'.
He beat the odds against failure, keeping his family fed, clothed, and warm.
God made a way for Alice and Henry. So few can be found like them today.
TELL THEM ABOUT A MAN NAME HENRY.
Remind his ten surviving children of the giant of a man that he was.
Tell all his grand and great grandchildren that he was 'an action hero'.
Tell them that a road named after him runs along the farm that he founded.
Tell them about the tears he refused to shed, and the pain he took like a man.
Tell them he saw them in the distance and bore the shame because of them.
Tell them! Tell them!! And keep on telling them about a giant of a man name HENRY.
061522PS
HFD
Come sleep with me she said
Bring some warmth to my bed
That seems to spread acres wide
Now that it’s empty on his side
Just for a while hold me tight
Shorten just one endless night
So full of hours that I have wept
Until exhausted and finally slept
There’s been no word since that day
He rang and said he was going away
No longer needed in his life
Just one more abandoned wife
Oh I can live and will survive
Already starting to become alive
But for just those lonely sheets
Where our love was once complete
Give me this one night as a friend
Help me bring grief towards end
Oh please tell me you will stay
Please don’t yet be on your way
So I held her there as she wept
Held her there until she slept
Then slipped away as first light
Broke the power of that night
Come sleep with me she’d said
Bring some warmth to my bed
Which hadn’t seemed to her so wide
For the time I’d spent on his old side
A rouged sky paints a clown's face,
on a dawn rising moon.
The open earth, that not closed in
by brooding trees,
but is as spread-out acres,
where the hush and harken
darken eyes and ears,
to surmise with a blind expectancy,
Yonder fields of tall, unhooded grass,
rattle their spines and tremble,
before an unseen avalanche of doubts.
Stiff hedgerows crouch
over darkly webbed roots,
fears huddle under thin skins,
a subdued ground waits to be found.
It comes,
the storm inside the stillness
blooms, still unseen
its tumult as yet a far stretch.
All the cup-shaped,
all the cupped and hollowed,
will be gagged and drowned,
by a plunging sky --- one not yet nigh.
Too late,
a squirrel barks a warning.
A teacup of terror has been spilled,
unbowed heads unwillingly turn,
wondering -
wherefore, to where?
Underdog and
Days of our lives.
General Hospital
And mama tried.
Casper and the
Tonight's show.
My three sons
And Hazel.
Hogans Hero's and
Mayberry RFD.
Green acres and
The Archies.
Aqua man and
The Lone Ranger.
Deputy Dawg and
Wally the Gator.
The Thunderbirds
And DR No.
MR Rogers and
Ode to Billy Joe.
Star trek and
Lost in space.
Batman and
The wacky race.
That girl and
How sweet it is.
Gidget and
Porky pig.
Easy rider and
Wonder wall.
F-troop and
Valley of the Dolls.
The Monsters and
Spirit in the sky.
The wild bunch
And Popeye.
The Monkey's and
Family Affair.
Sesame Street and
Yogi Bear.
Turbo1904 ?
While closing my eyes, I return once again
to an image that nestles at the foot of the mountains
Snow crowns San Jacinto as it shadows the valley
I am there as a child in the house with white shutters
Red brick and mortar, and siding like butter
A southern front porch, is facing the hills
There are tall amber trees, and a stream, I recall,
somewhere that wanders, like a dream to remember
Bits and pieces are kept in a keepsake I've held
They filter on down to shelter me now,....
To wrap me in comfort, when I dwell in the dark
grieving for loved ones, who were there at the start.
When the chill of the winter, or those sleepless nights, tossing,
fills me with losses, that shadow the moon...
I'll see grassy knolls, and bright alfalfa acres,
A house and a barn framed with painted white fences
The house unpretentious, where yards need attention
Mist skimming the water, ducks swim in the pond
A small corral… my Dad, dressed in Levi's…
and a pitchfork, in hand, holds sweet golden hay
A barn, and twin stalls, a red chicken house,
a clothes line, where white sheets are bleached by the sun
The house is alive, morning bacon is frying,
Mom is listening while cooking, to a radio show
Clattering of dishes, and the chattering soap stars
fills the kitchen with sunshine, like a breath of fresh air
Warm are the colors, resembling butter
Wallpaper borders in bright, happy yellow.
There are echoes I hear, of a house in the night,
Comforting sounds of a room in the dark
My cat nestled close, at the foot of my bed
where I'm wrapped in the memory of that place where I lived
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9/16/15
Night…to Morning
————————————-
Very often,
my night hours
Keep awake,
Keep their occurrence
Until morning’s rise,
Keep their words
Under darkness…and
Their poems wait,
Disregarding
Inspiration from
The luminant moon
In favor of the sun’s
birthing day.
I keep my sleep’s
dreams abloom
In the acres of
gently waving,
Vibrant yellow,
Billions of sunflower
Petals
Opened to extend
their beauty into the
Summer’s minuets —
Moving silhouettes —
Along the horizon…
So, so clear, even
To these sleepy eyes,
Through these
glistening tears.
===========
(c) sally young Eslinger 9/8/21
Thanks be to God