Long Bleak Poems
Long Bleak Poems. Below are the most popular long Bleak by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Bleak poems by poem length and keyword.
A seasonal malaise plasters
stray tendrils of wayward thought.
Another dreary gray day hovers.
Vacant is the sky, as empty as the
surface of an unwritten page.
On days such as these the mind strays
through the attic’s dusty remnants.
Times freezes mid tick.
Stale…and salt less..simpering day,
humming to the background noise of distant stars.
Age has brought with it a leathery sensation,
as crusty, picked over bundles of brashness
failing to ignite the fires of laggard thought.
Severing the ties, the starched cotton strings
of apron which held the crumbs of motherhood,
hopefully, causes a rising of, if not a phoenix...
perhaps, a cardinal of a different Spring.
Juices from a dry well, well, perhaps not dry?
Crisp, precise, if unpunctual, cookie fortunes
flutter upward, on curled strips of sugar coated white.
Who is to say, who is to be, the center
the jam in the depressed hollow of my life?
Let the mind soar for a settlement of glee.
Let it roar for the loss of flexibility and
trumpet a coming of age so rare…
for it is not madness which hovers
in the grey of dawn, or the wet bleak day,
but, the elegant solace of silver strands
their tendrils spreading unhindered
cuddled among the cue, not vacant at all.
Waiting…waiting to breathe.
Crossing the Pennines, rocky spine
Of the country running North South,
Following the motorway west
From the Humber Estuary Mouth
It always felt cloud bound whatever
The weather or the time of day
Stretching out on either side of
England’s highest motorway.
Saddleworth Moor, place of ill fame
It looks desolate and bare and bleak
And I felt uneasy as I criss crossed it
Each Monday every single week .
It’s a place of pain and torture
Murder, loss and despair
The victims being young children ,
Callously buried out there .
Their graves unmarked
On that unforgiving ground
At least one poor boy
Was never ever found.
The perpetrators taunted parents
By just refusing to tell,
Each enjoying their notoriety from
The safety of their prison cell.
Every Monday as I crossed it
I swear I felt pain and grief
And having crossed on return
Swear I felt a sense of relief.
That already dark bleak place
Earned a such a sinister fame.
Saddleworth Moor entered history
As a sinister and haunted name.
In memory as I crossed over,
And I know this can’t be right,
But it never ever seemed
To be bathed in sunlight.
The leaves rustle still in Letsby Avenue
Though how they do, no-one I know ever knew
Nobody crosses it, no-one walks through
And nobody lives there and never will do
Curtains hang limp for they’re torn and tattered
And pigeons now coo from where windows are shattered
Only young thugs will go anywhere near
Until the breeze calls, ‘Let’s be ’aving you... Dear.’
And only the one made it back home alive
Young Jake Malone did his best to survive
He told his tale once and then no more would speak
And one day they found him face down in the creek
The men with the dozers, they don’t come no more
They came in the nineties and three times before
Those long rusted dozers remain in the street
Left when their drivers took off on their feet
Men died where they fell while attempting to flee
Necks broken akin to a fall from a tree
So no houses fell to make way for the new
The leaves rustle still in Letsby Avenue
Long time ago in nineteen-O-one
Young Tyler Letsby would climb trees for fun
His mom called him down, Let’s be aving you... Dear
The fall broke his neck and she buried him here
The leaves rustle still in Letsby Avenue
Though how they do, no-one I know ever knew
For no trees now grow in that bleak avenue
Since the axe took them down in nineteen-O-two
28 August 2021
Contest: The Avenue
Sponsor: Julia Ward
The world is weary,
weary of the fear but
afraid for the future.
Political campaigns
ugly and growing uglier,
airwaves choked with
insults and outright lies.
Hate thrives and turns
friend against friend.
Covid lurks in wait
outside our doorstep,
invisible, threatening health
and possible death.
Masked people shy away
from one another in stores.
People isolated and lonely,
visitors often limited for seniors.
for many, one bleak day
passes blindly into another.
The only recourse
from television news
strangled by political infighting -
The Animal Planet,
The Great British Baking Show,
old movies, perhaps a Zoom meeting.
The world is weary, but
this, too, shall pass and
become part of our history,
and we will survive with the
hope of creating a better world.
Just hang in there.
An equal share of victory and defeat...
greeting happiness, summoning sadness!
An equal share of victory and defeat...
rejoicing in light, trembling in darkness!
How we live and age depends on circumstance and time...
an equal share of victory and defeat!
Youth is pure glory when the body is not weak...
an equal share of victory and defeat!
Before sixty we were vibrant, now frail and ready to die...
an equal share of victory and defeat!
An equal share of victory and defeat...
greeting happiness, summoning sadness!
An equal share of victory and defeat...
rejoicing in light, trembling in darkness!
Taste rain and feel sunshine, ignore wrinkles, age spots and such...
an equal share of victory and defeat!
Leave gold and everything behind, it's troublesome for the rich...
an equal share of victory and defeat!
Have we lived fearlessly or covered by a sheet?
An equal share of victory and defeat!
An equal share of victory and defeat...
greeting happiness, summoning sadness!
An equal share of victory and defeat...
rejoicing in light, trembling in darkness!
What we accomplish through life remains bright or bleak...
an equal share of victory and defeat!
Gray hair means wisdom, neglect the puffiness under the eyes...
an equal share of victory and defeat!
We came into existence to lead meaningful, not purposeless lives...
an equal share of victory and defeat!
An equal share of victory and defeat...
greeting happiness, summoning sadness!
An equal share of victory and defeat...
rejoicing in light, trembling in darkness!
We have chili and oyster stew and the kids sneak desserts.
There is a plethora of storytelling going on.
Lots of laughter; Uncle Bill says things that are not for children.
He gets dressed down and acts compliant but isn’t.
We have gathered at grandma’s house. It is a potluck.
Six of the seven children are here; we speak of the seventh.
But he never comes; his wife’s family claims him every year.
We might see him in the summer, but only if she allows it.
There are seventeen cousins, and we have to open one gift at a time
While the grown-ups laugh and make fun of some of them.
There is always a gag gift, which we are encouraged to open first.
My gag gift was a 42 double D red bra when I was in 7th grade. Horrifying.
A family prayer before the meal; we gather around the table, hold hands.
When we do not all fit, we still hold hands, but from the next two rooms.
We know the handholding is imperative before the meal.
Always a burp and we accuse Uncle Bill who seems immensely pleased.
I had no idea how bleak Christmas would be without Uncle Bill.
But he passed of lung cancer in 1997, and it was a different Christmas.
Son Mike did his best to do the burping, but he was not as good at it.
We began setting a place for Uncle Bill and told stories about him after that.
Reflections That Reside
Innumerable Cumulus clouds gather just up o’er the green hill
Considerable quiet lathers the air as my heart begins to fill
Formidable resolve tethers me to the place I’m lingering on the window sill
Forgivable sins repeat the circuit and relieve me of my iron will
A small repentant afterthought claims it’s steak inside my mind
I almost fall resplendent in the juggernaut of feelings that I find
Standing tall among the prevalent moments of doubt I remain refined
When it all remains like a defendant standing brave among the blind
I see children starving at the edges of abomination in the name of humanity
I see men standing on the ledges of their own attempts to avoid suicide among all the profanity
I see women begging for the bombs to stop awash in the depravity
I fear that it all will remain like time forgot to stop the repetition of this insanity
When things were light and I used to smile for the entire day
There’d be delight and I could revile in inconsequential play
Now there’s no respite from the suffering as I fear I’ve lost my way
As the insight from the introspection affects everything I say
Abolishing racism and colonialist beliefs that oppress the people
Have made things even graver as they take refuge in the steeple
Polishing my urge to save her while they contest what is classed as lethal
Admonishing the conversation while they continue to conceal
I retreat back to the clouds to take a break from all the slaughter
Then repeat the smoking of the shrouds as he sells off his teenage daughter
I’ll linger long and play it loud as I miss my longed for laughter
Because the haughty and the proud keep taking coins from the local pastor
So bleak in my reflections of a society that is lost
I speak in reverent genuflections as I think about the cost
Of having wayward turns of bad intentions that manifest as spiritual frost
Ill try to burn the condescensions as I stand up and take it all upon my cross
The End Copyright Elizabeth Moroz
Flowers fade and decay through wintry hours - waiting for rebirth."
Quote by - Constance La France
The night extends its life longer
The temperature gets colder
The colourful landscapes fade to orange
Rustic browns shape the scene
Sepia tones indicate age
The natural world decaying
Stripped back; the bareness of finality
Stark images of looming death
The bleak imagery of winter
In still and dark whispers of light
Destruction pervading terrains of white
Enveloping the ground
Daylight returns in victory
For darkness relinquishes strength
Bare desolation is melting away
With sunlight warming earth
Glimmering shards of renewal
As buds begin taking new form
Birthing beginnings; life everlasting
Cycle of change restored
Ursus Maritimus ...
I entered your world in quietude, slipping through the granular, soft.
Long slats to feet parting the frozen. Cold of a previously unknown
Extreme, nipping, sharp, the epidermis with ardor. A Mid-May akin to
February, homeward, first warning of extrinsic ire, ignored. Hours of
Similar (sobering) revelations ensued, supplanted by days, weeks,
Moons ... reality - icebound and born of abiding trial. The basic
Elements staggering, swallowed by the providence around me. A
Vastness beyond vast, afar ... crushing cold of limitless value, each
Sunrise a new contingency for measure of my insignificance. How I
Adored you for your beauty - such reward for the naked eye, there
Amidst a denuded struggle. Shaped by eons of selection into a
Creation of perfect form and ease, as at home with desolation as
I at a warm hearth and aliment. Moving sprite through your environs,
All senses attuned to the mind's axis ... at once knowing and known,
Master of a savage domain. Every dynamism a fluid dance, every
Steamed puff of exhalation a waif of delicacy, bespoken. Do not the
Gods aspire to such? If there were deities afforded such barren and
Bleak scapes, it would be none other than you - as exquisitely
Magnificent and divine as the forbidding but breathtaking element
Around you, my brother. Yet, I fear I have doomed you, for others
Will now follow ... others who find no such elegance in anything
But graft and greed. By the simple act of watching I may have
Sealed your fate, firm and grim. So, I will not turn to admire you
As I leave ... but rather keep you forever as a phantom in my mind
And heart and longings - to let you devour my spirit and join with
You, ever after straining to hear the echo of your lonely, distant
Growl, the one that so often haunts my thoughts and meanderings,
Dark and cold in the arctic night, dark and cold in the willows ...
Deep and frozen and dreaming, of your gleaming and breathless
Beauty. If but mine to touch ... to know. Forgive me and farewell ...
Brother Bear.
Lovely pristine white snow began following at noon.
By seven in the evening, the world was transformed.
From a bleak leafless December to a gorgeous wonderland.
I stared at the deep lush snow; no footprints
By the light of the moon, the tree branches were glistening
The blanket on the ground looked like it had been bedazzled
It reminds me of rhinestones, my grandmother said, looking out.
We should go out there and sled or something.
She was staring at the ground, as if it was magic, and it was
I think there are winter faeries out there, I told her.
They probably do not want their playground disturbed.
Let’s stay inside and drink hot chocolate with marshmallows.
Which is what we did.