Long Brambled Poems
Long Brambled Poems. Below are the most popular long Brambled by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Brambled poems by poem length and keyword.
(Part One) The first few hours.
I was just a ordinary man
caught up in the unruly throng,
The mob jeering and ranting
insults on the road along,
I pushed and shoved my way
through all the furore
to see what all the fuss and melee
was all about at the fore.
My heart shrunk as I eyed
in total dismay that ghastly sight,
From what befell my eyes, that Friday morn
befouling that dawning day with blight,
Was a Man sparsely clad, and bloodied soiled,
And about fifteen and a half hands tall,
His nut brown shoulder length hair
now caked and matted in disarray.
The way His hair and beard
was parted in the middle down
i knew that Man then
was belonging to the Nazarene Sect,
And brutally entwined upon His head
was a brambled thorny crown,
What more torturous and bestial
torment can a naked body be subject,
His body oozed and dripped sweat
all mixed with blood and grime,
And even more the gruesome
was the criss-cross lashes mark,
So visible, as He staggered along
on that arduous path that morning time,
Dragging a fifteen cubit long sycamore
torture-stake on His shoulder, bared stark.
His back bent and racked in obvious pain
bearing that one and a half hand in diameter log,
Then when, He stumbled in His stride
and before the Roman Centurion Him wanted to flog,
For that Man's wretched agony
and pain, I no longer could bear to stand,
Then in haste that Man to help
I shed my outer garments and tossed it to another man,
I stayed the Centurion's hand
and hoisted that stake upon my own broad back,
For I was Simon an Grecian man from Cyrene
and favoured arduous labourous toil,
When that frail worn-out Man turned
with blue-grey eyes and looked at me,
I saw in that look, relief and gratitude
then I knew, I did just right,
He sadly smiled as He said these words to me,
"Do you too now drink from this bitter cup?",
And added, "You shall indeed sip
its rim with Me to the end of time",
I knew Him then no ordinary, man could be
His voice so gentle and mild,
And I truly then wandered who this Man could be?
to suffer so cruelly, in the hands of man,
When He lightly placed His hand
upon my shoulder, I felt the load lightened,
as if I walked with a feather
on my back, and not His gruesome burden no more,
As we together trudged, on that path
that road, to Calvaria, that place of death,
I then knew that Man at my side
Was a Holy-man by His touch alone.
Before that day splashed everything with light
I played in solitude with cuddly clouds
And watched them form changing figures, blight
The sky or bring the sobbing sludge of rain,
Or etch your portrait
where the spindly sparrow fly
looping your beauty with the breathless sun
We watched them
fall like shattered diamonds
once from a window battered
with fragile
dreams
of tomorrow
And you said they were our prancing children in the water
Little Shangos you called them, and we kissed
In passion, filling love with lissom lilacs of laughter
For life was an eternal summer then
Winter was barred from where it had never been
Barren landscape scarred by the lecher, not the sun
Shrivelling petals and prayers, lynching the hearts like trees
Barren
and scraggy
shredding the eye
Brambled
fingers clutching sky
Tolling voids of air like a crucifix
Self important because of the importunate
Castling citadels of calamity against the hearts fear
The wind exploits the calamity of leaves
Only a shell of sultry shadows was left
And I bereft
Tented my exultation
To wait your coming again
And the annihilation of pain.
Clouds are drifters of the sky, I am enfolded in cerulean blue
Dark indigo of heart on the promenade
Children feet splashing the frazzled dry of sand
I shriek like a gull slant against the wind
Where the splashed sand grits the eye
Summer seas are all of winter's tears rinsed in light
Itinerant birds frolic here: innocence excited emits delight,
For lovers are children
Too trusting uncarefully
Undermarcated wrong or right
As summer splash them like sprays
Glinting the eye Where the starving eagle plays'
I slant away to reminisce alone.
Written: January 24, 2025 For contest Sponsored by: Brian Strand
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the galumph of morning breath
a chandelier of dew,
Barely inching through the cobwebs
dreams hammock in gleaming light
A jaded heart finds solace
in this tangled respite,
Lummox magpies whisper tales
crisp with truth renewed.
Magic twilight dolphins
swim through esoteric skies,
Flummoxed by the palette hues
purple crocus and yellow celandine,
Surly winds sweep through vastness
where shadows intertwine
Trapped beneath a cloak of darkness
spying on sighs.
Brambled paths lead to riddles
a sharp needle piercing skin,
Bleak wilderness unfolds its wings
reckless thoughts bear flight,
In abyssal thrall to katabatic winds
that howl at night,
Fodder for desolation grip
where slithy worms start.
A reckoning draft reasons
in cosmic dust and glowing flame,
Juggling shadows and whispers
with each breath eternity bestows,
Bright brambling duets waltzing
where sapphire waters flow,
Obsession's echoes in an alder
tarn untamed by shame.
Straddling the edge precariously
puckered lips exhale pure art,
the trickster stalks among obsidian trees
weaving lucid dreams unraveled tight;
a goldfinch’s trill alchemizes
into hope’s flickering candlelight -
each note dissolving petulance
from placid hearts
in these moments as I wander through
the glistening morning hue
surmounting plummet throes
where orchids boost
raw life on a hopeless slope.
I blundered …
through the dark forest -
I knew where I was headed
though I’d lost the trail many hours hence
but darkness had now fallen
and my face and arms
were etched red from my many stumbles
(tripping in the inky black briars) …
the scream came again
though scream was not the word for it -
no, not nearly the word
for the night dripped a vile voice
that had no definition -
that moved with no bearings but
those of the dark mists
and the sanguine fluid let for their causes …
a sound like no other
that took the shadows, the dampened
deep, and the rooted rot
and strangled them like a jealous lover
an unholy wail of heinous intensity
wrapping the gloom in a
terror unequaled
and wringing every dream and
star and hapless hope from the night
like a vein …
wrung of its coursings …
its echo growled in the brambled wood behind me
my tortured tympans aching for a silence
that would not be …
I glimpsed a bit of starlight ahead, hoping
and the horrid yelp came again
chilling my marrow as I stepped into a clearing
the forehead of a crimson moon
peeking o’er the eastern reach
daubing the ground fog
and turning the glade to bloody brume. …
yet, the sound was nearer
a wet, guttural tone added to it
and it was clear now that it was chasing ME -
hunting me …
though just what and why
I dared not imagine …
for I was miles, still, from home
cold, damp, and nearing exhaustion
and this night of howling trepidation and pursuit
had just …
begun.
ON PREDICTIONS
( by S.Jagathsimhan Nair)
What paths and brambled brooks I passed to halt
In this corny beat, to question my salt
What transcends this sum and what spills over
This reminder as scowling recompense
What more in an uneven air that chafes
At its own breath. What questions after such
Unmixed wisdom come of unspoken word.
Read my palm and the tangle of lines in unsuspected stir
Read my planets making planned mystery in motion overhead
And tell your considered surmise of my roller-coaster drive
And tell if it’s right that mine is just another clueless tale
Don’t keep staring in my eyes and telling all mumbo-jumbo stuff
Unravel you can’t even the contents of a grain of sand
You can tell of goals to aim at but not the sights I lose
You can tell of failures gone through but not what I failed.
Here lies the burden there lies the dream but where is the promise
Where lives the omniscient sage the old truant sobered with age
You and I are making journeys to the death-holes of prophets
Who dies after who dies after who dies after who and when.
Try gather my conscience encapsuled in unearthy voices
Try equal my inkling into the insides of a riddle
What hoodoos what predictions what jinxes and sordid warnings
After all that and what not of just a peep into one’s life.
S.Jagathsimhan Nair
For Skat's 5th poem on soup contest
Child, when you begin to remember, whose memory
Do you remember best? Is the one told to you by bias
Art, and reinforced by a contentious history?
Is it the one imagined while we are apart, the pale Judas
Of all grieving heart? Or did you take time to scan
The logic in your head again, the silver in your hand
Before you plait my crown of thorns, or exiled me
To drink the hemlock drops squeezed from insecurity?
I have some blame, for justice cannot deny my sin
But when to priest ot Pharisee you render praise
Scroll for my motives, read the simple schema within
Look at my life, see what was doled to me. My ways
My dear was a mocking, scourging path to tread
And all for the love that alienated me. Heaven made
A dark cloud of no greater, and more terrible dread
Than the heart in which sweet adoration petals fade.
The flowers fall, and the brambled thorns left behind
I wear with stoic grace. Praying for you each scentless
Day, the rope will rot before your soft, sightless mind
And the measure of my worth without wan bitterness
Will be the soul's desire to love, promised intention
Unspoken while stammering crowds howl their madness
Baying at a serene moon. Jealousy is pride's invention
Truth wears humility in the saged silence of its sadness.
What do you say
When tree leaves fall in spring
And the heart becomes ice
Amidst the flowers of May
Will the answer
Love is never enough
Be good enough
To patch the wounds of hope?
Or shall I tell them
We are worthless bleached of all the savour
Of knowing our fault
In that mirror that sees no self, but the other?
You do not know the pain
Of knowing which way to go
When no one else can believe but you.
Every game of survival is not a game
For we do move until
We have left something precious behind.
I am tired of leaving so much of me.
Inside a man's chest there is an archive
Of so many unforgotten things,
And I feel the air there struggling
With every rib extracted like a tooth.
I use to it though
My demise makes so many false heroes,
People who lie to have their own way
And keep the facade of morality still.
I give them their desire voluntarily,
Since I do not cause any such pain
By forcing them to commend my wrongs.
They come back to me again -
Not the flowers and bird song
Not the child left laughing on the shore
Not the dreams like kite strings
Tangled in time's brambled tree.
It is such a weight, the richness of memory.
Old men are stronger when young
Wiser when old
And both still tremble in the shivering cold.
I saw you
In the tender birth of a summer’s day
Emerge,
Fragile to a new life,
New freedom,
Feast delights of nectar
On the brambled cliffs.
I saw your fluttered dance of courtship
In the gladed woods
Above the Lyn.
Those crowded flights
Of summer’s quiet agitation
Fade one by one
To loneliness.
I saw those wings
That floated in the easy lightness of an August heat
Falter,
Chill-damped
In a late September mist
Above the bouldered shore.
I saw you
Weary of life once precious,
Hesitate along the edge of the western bay,
Your wings dip to the water’s gentle swell.
You rested brief
As though to rise again,
Gave in to weakness frail,
Surrendered to the ancient sea’s embracing wave,
Pale essence of those cycled ways,
I saw you die.
On holiday in North Devon, watching a tortoiseshell butterfly at Bucks’ Mill as it fluttered along the gentle shore.
I forgave them, the anointed flock, rinse them
And wash them, and put them back
To wear your robe, your borrowed diadem
Walk to Golgotha with curse at their back
I forgave them
For they never felt the fire, knew no heat
You covered them
Before they made a prince to walk the street
O could they know black faith coming back, come back
O could they tell the deluge
And see the white robes above it, coming back
Into the brambled tents, the host of refuge
They would forgive
Had they known you, the cross before the throne
They would forgive
Their erring pride in one who walked alone
O Christ, what jealousy consume our faint name
In ignorance cage castling
Curtains of glory from tattered rags of shame
What cattle blind in jostling
I forgave them
For by these words they know again your heart
You forgave them
Long ere they forget or love flew apart
Coming over the open horizon
My eyes prospect the garish cliffs of day
And find not gold in the morning light
By sorrow sifted away.
But there and there across each state
The subtle sun of spring
A new crop harrowing brings
Into view ... and crows cawing to devour
The contentless cases of crumbled minds
Tent cities, like old cotton bales
Tent cities, like cold rotten tales
Of gypsy curses bringing here
Retributions of brambled despair
And I panning through tears
Turned away from the condition
That was for my history the predetrmined condition
But I could not shake the thought
Of butterflies by spiders caught.