Long Arc Poems
Long Arc Poems. Below are the most popular long Arc by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Arc poems by poem length and keyword.
Pope Joan and Joan of Arc
Mysterious women
Both known
For their parts
For hundreds of years
Hidden by history
But time would reveal
What some would not let be
Women dressed like men
Having Divine reason
Chosen by God
Each in her season
The Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries
Is where each lived
Did one know the other
Or was another life lived
Saint Hood and disgrace
Would divide
Their purpose in life
In which the one lied
The other a warrior
Undisguised
Making France what it is
Though a martyr died
History still hides
What men would divide
Why was it disgrace
For a woman in that place
But the two yet different
Are still the same
What they did back then
Has the same name
We now ask the question
Why a Saint and the other a shame
We now look to God
Who has given it a name
1431 and 1555 The Cow and The Moon
Life on a bagel with memories and cheese
Beyond tragedy
The way It brought you to your knees touch you
The way I am
Talking to the girls
People shame me as a man
Build light and build card houses straight
The Final dance to help rescue me
Mysterious fool
No escape
No Proof without a sacred stance
I have made a mistake or two
Living more or dying less
Music's little sensors captivated audience
Being gentle with the times makes me mad
Guided by nature
Into future disasters
In this hood they yell out
Give us more
Liquid cigarettes
Talking appears as a game
The listener always wins
Looking through the peephole of the insane
Cheap love or no at all
Go back to the Bible
Think back to when you were a child
Faking the innocent
Taking a walk down the tracks
With some cigarettes
Ice cool iron
Screaming to keep out the heat
Out of luck out of shade
Right through the summers night
Holy shoes with everything unmade
And a stick like a bindle
Id like to take you across the skies
Ill just let you go cares and crys
Standing with no base
Something new
A perfect time
Wearing new souls
Trading liberty for gold i hate it i hate it
Bring the ship about
We are heading south
Diamonds demon poor seedlings
Feed the laughter
laugh at struggles
Laugh cause we don't know
Purple tears so thin
Naked is the night when all is hush
Party's dim their lights, Amongst the nocturnal shapeshifters,the deepest of lusts jetters
and shakes
But nobody sees
Nobody knows
But the moon which tells the cow
The secrets of the night
The cow lives for these stories
Then he himself has many dreams of human beings
Their character and appetite for lust and romance
The cow has accepted its fate
To dream the events of any given night
Produced by the Moon
Susan and I met in the fall of ’67,
two girls in English class
who recognized each other
before we even spoke~
the way some people do
when they share a tilt toward
uniqueness,
toward books that smell like rain,
toward movies that linger,
toward clothes that felt like
small rebellions.
Friendship was instant,
effortless,
as though we had been
walking toward each other
for years.
Then life,
with its wide and wandering hands,
pulled us apart.
Graduation scattered us
into different futures~
hers across an ocean,
mine across a state.
She raised a family in Germany;
I raised stories in Texas.
Decades passed
without our names touching.
But fate~
or whatever quiet force
keeps track of lost connections~
found us again
through the strange glow
of Facebook.
A click,
a message,
a memory rekindled,
and suddenly the years
were not a wall
but a bridge.
Now we write the old-fashioned way,
ink on paper,
postmarks traveling
from Germany to Texas
like small migrating birds.
Her handwriting arrives
with its familiar tilt,
and I feel sixteen again~
the girl in English class
who knew instantly
that Susan was someone
near and dear,
someone who would matter
even if time tried
to convince us otherwise.
Distance is only geography.
Friendship, once found,
remains luminous~
a long arc of time
that bends us gently
back to each other.
Joan of Arc was the holiest one living in an era of kill-and-take,
she led the French army against the British who were slowly advancing;
was she forced to disguise herself as astutely as she could by wearing
soldier's clothes to prevent brutal attacks and possible rape?
Tied to a pillar like the Witches of Salem,
she screamed in fiery blazes invoking angels for comfort while she was dying;
they accused her of heresy, but her humble words were true and convincing...
" I proclaim truth as Jesus of Bethlehem! "
" Burn, warrior, burn for your lies until your bones turn into ashes! "
Were the cruel insults of the raging British soldiers blocking out mercy;
" I have seen saints, not demons: I ask for compassion, not sympathy! "
Joan of Arc shouted Christ's name overwhelmed by smoke and flames.
Who was to blame for her atrocious death? The British? The French? The Clergy?
Who didn't have a tarnished conscience, not believing she was a true saint?
" I forgive you for your madness; free me now, spare me the pain of agony! "
She begged the mocking soldiers who didn't feel a bit of pity but continued to chant.
...Then working with the government,
who always liked more western cash,
they set up an agreement that
they hoped could contain this backlash.
Two scientists could see the arc,
and work to verify its age,
one from Harvard, and one Cambridge,
and to Axum both made their way.
The American, an old man,
Professor Hammond was name,
the Brit was a young grad student,
named Alice, with a genius brain.
As they settled into their work
neither of the scholars could know
that in neighboring Somalia
an evil man plotted a blow.
He went by the name Ibrahim,
whether it was real, no one knew,
established as a terrorist,
an Islamist, quite tried and true.
He’d built a name in civil wars,
the kind that always racked that place,
made a reputation with force,
he left death, and people displaced.
And though the man gained followers,
he was frustrated by his land,
ruined and lacking resources,
Ibrahim was an ambitious man.
When he heard the arc had been found,
an idea grew up in his mind,
Christians and Jews worshipped the thing,
a route to more money he found.
He took with him one hundred men,
slipped the border, went to Axum,
keeping his people outside town
until shadows of nightfall had come.
Then they attacked St. Mary’s Church,
stormed the building with guns blazing,
killing priests, security guards,
anyone they found resisting.
Quickly they sieved the old relic,
took Alice, Hammond, and four priests,
hostages until they got paid,
at which point they {might" be released.
Chased by police they all fled east,
back into the Somali state,
where they hid amongst the chaos,
where all involved did celebrate.
A scheme pulled on the infidel,
they would now pay to arm their foe!
They had no choice, if they did not
then to hell their relic would go!
Ibrahim put out a message,
a video, as such types do,
demanding millions for the arc,
it was seen by more than a few.
And there was a bunch of chatter,
amongst talking heads on TV,
talking of how such a relic
just found, could soon be history.
Religious types the world over
spoke of how it would be a crime
if such a thing would be destroyed,
the loss of a wonderous find.
All knew some action would come soon,
too many folks were up in arms,
talk of commandos, and or raids,
to Ibrahim it raised alarms...
CONTINUES IN PART III.
Contemporaneously, you’ll be painting rainbows.
The canvas’ wet and dreary, let’s don our boots
— rubber duck yellow and bright cherry red.
Choose your palette —
coats that pierce and blister the dark.
Your snowy pup sees only black and white, how sad,
but he feels the reverberations of your happiness
and today he’s glad, as he embraces a glimmer
of your grandstand reveries — he flips, does tricks.
Strike a pose over the imposing and impressive applause,
even as the rain slaps your cheeks and undoes your curls.
Smile, let the thunderclap know that your the boss.
The ecstatic shower blooms in watercolor whorls!
Park your umbrella high above your head
and smile and cheer the hail of rain, the storm
of blue-black clouds and the quack of puddles.
Stomp loud the splashing lake of carpe diem!
9/7/2018
Contest: A Rainy Day Poetry Contest/Photo #2
Sponsor: Sara Kendrick
sea-urchins in rock pools –
the flesh, a delicacy –
sparkle –
protected from the ocean
where anemones proliferate –
by a mist-glistening
heart shaped rock:
the keeper of my secrets –
a cache of memories
of mornings snorkelling
surface
eddy on the periphery
—homesick for my roots—
a keeper lost to shifting tides
white horses
masking risk in its wake …
a plastic wrapped sushi tray
on the kitsch kitchen counter
awash with the detritus of daily life—
a cold cup of coffee
milk skin
swirling like
liquescent marmoris
fluctuant under
fractured light
tender moments
where flaws hide in the spotlight
Laetrile induced
unsettling riptides
where occasionally colour swirls
marbling visions
the future liquescent …
I’m drowning in
proposals of memories
to be made with loved ones
family secrets to
be offered up
a dish that could be as
risky as Omakase …
smiling indulgently with my eyes
as a mirror-smooth ocean –
a north-westerly wind
whipping up the occasional white horse –
hides its turbulent depths
so a state of amenomania
settles over me
the final images
– as requested –
the secrets of my life
tucked away in an abditory—
eddying between past and future
the key to
unlocking it
—left in their hearts—
The good thing about the end of the world is,
For some, it never even began.
A world filled with hate, suffering and lies
And every kind of self serving alibi
I start back over so many times i forget it hurts.
This world is a lonely graveyard with darkening hearts
It strikes heartless and hard.
Days of thunder is like an arc above an ark.
The world is at its doomsteps it elevated to itself
Just another step in stonestep preps
Something to carve their name into,
thinking it will fulfill them
Its just a wasted shot with a wasted breathe
But though the darkness descends,
The dawn must recommence once again.
Miniscule dust particles float effortlessly in the sky
unaware of their imminent downfall.
Water vapour seeps heavenward from mother earth
condensing on the encountered dust.
The creation of raindrops – heavier and heavier
so dark rainclouds muster.
And then, the burden so heavy,
millions of raindrops fall.
The time is right for nature’s gala performance.
They sat on the hill ridge auditorium,
watching the valley theatre stage darken with the rain.
Behind them nothing until
the slightest glimmer as distant clouds part.
The sun in all its glory bursts through,
shedding light on the valley.
They watch in awe as, on cue, nature performs
its meteorological phenomenon with reflection, refraction and dispersion.
Every raindrop reveals its DNA;
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
En masse – a rainbow which they see as an arc,
but nature knows to be a complete circle.
Encore! Sunlight intensifies, raindrops increase –
double rainbow – bravo!
They feel so close to this ephemeral wonder,
not physically but in their hearts and souls.
Rain recedes, performance over,
valley bathed in pale sunlight, silent.
They rise, make their way off the ridge uplifted,
no longer searching for that materialistic pot of gold.
MAID OF ORLÉANS
Poem written for and submitted to “Myth and Memory” Poetry Contest, Vanya Evangeline, sponsor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A warrior saint came from the plains of rural France,
a beautiful maiden named Joan, dressed in simple clothes,
not of noble lineage, but of modest beginnings
her faith unmatched.
Shielded by heavenly whispers,
she took up a religious cause~
mounted on horseback, brandishing God’s mighty saber,
she fought for her country in the name of the Lord.
Unscathed from battle she emerged,
waving her banner of courage throughout the land,
but treason and betrayal
would one day bring her untimely end.
Alone she stood in the court of politicians,
falsely accused and forsaken; yet,
in the face of pain, Joan’s faith and resolve
would not be contained, her spirit and fortitude remained.
The humble shepherdess warrior, was bound to a stake
her body consumed by fire, her valor inspirational.
This humble warrior saint, later canonized and martyred,
continues to embolden and enthrall.