Long Caravans Poems
Long Caravans Poems. Below are the most popular long Caravans by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Caravans poems by poem length and keyword.
Smells of boiled hot dog sausages,
beef burgers and onions.
Mingle these with - wafts of candy floss,
toffee apples and brandy snaps.
Whirring of engines
chugging over noisily,
half drowned by thumping music,
screams and laughter.
A multitude of lights flash and spin,
in time with the rides
that dash before your eyes;
round and round,
side to side,
back and forth,
and upside down.
Over and over, on and on they go.
Crowds pushing and shoving,
impatiently they each await their short turn.
Money changes hands,
speaker blasts; 'Hold tight, here we go...';
While greedy fair lords
count their cash profits;
before packing up at end of night,
to go home to their caravans;
sleep briefly
then hit the road once more.
Onwards they go to next town,
ready to start all over again....
Scents of burnt embers flowing over my windowsills
Charred are the palm tree fronds that
once fanned the breeze
Seized are the pods, timbers
Torches sparking shrills
Behold the ashes drifting
as they fall from my smoke-sooted skies
O but in b 'tween choking and tearing eyes
Bright orange-colored clouds shade
So fiercely they invade
If you look West…
The 'golden glow’ shall arrive
He who heeds the warning
and flits, may survive
A brush fire has lit the landscape
furiously waves its crimson cape
Tangerine smoke suspended in time
surrounds the hills all around me
congesting the natural scenery
Arousing anxiety, anticipating
the scale of the expansion its spreading
Swirling fire, twirling tornadoes
ravishing existence in its pathway
Flames so blinding that align the sunset
In my field of vision – I’ll never forget
Frightful yet surreal,
I hear myself whisper it’s not real
Nonchalantly, Winds sweep in firestorms
Notorious for its name the ‘Santa Anas’
Lingering, its breath; smoggy haze swarms
The brave battle the blaze, corral the flame
As the hills die, an obstinate inferno resurges
"To extinguish life" its aim
Like the Phoenix rising again and again,
but this isn't the Phoenix
it is something sinister
Guide us along the road to a safe place
Away from the drought,
O home, there is not a trace
Chaos turns on every cornerstone
I’m back where I started, I atone
Circling all areas, as others do —I do
With nowhere to flee vs warnings to eschew
Perhaps I’ll make it to the highway
with westbound caravans I’ll stay
There I’ll keep alive
If you just look to the West…
The ‘Orange glow’ (fire) has arrived!
~
There are legends I've heard, old songs in the dark
of the old folklore tales, and the old gypsy trails,
where traveling caravans of rugged old wagons
still echo, with longing, in valleys below...
Where each treasured belonging,
was packed in a hurry
all the stories, all the worry, all the heartache would travel
all the sunshine, and the sorrow, celebrations to marvel
and dreams of tomorrow, were kept on the road....
The trail was a friend, and the loam was their home
Their needs were quite small,
They didn't expect, to be wealthy or rich.
All the riches they had, were scarce and so few...but they knew
that happiness could be the sun on your back, or a sky, wide and blue...
Not much to expect, and not even respect...
would be theirs to be owned.
As the twilight would come, under a red setting sun,
with the fragrance of loam, and the tired walk done...
they would bed under trees where the heather was strewn
they would burn a small fire, and prepare a warm meal,
with smoke in the breeze, while the whippoorwill's song
and accordion tunes, would drift by the face of the moon
On their heels was the dust, in the noontime sun
They rose with the dawn, and the gold of the past,
wearing the colorful hope of tomorrow's new task
Working wherever a meal, and dollar would come
Then moving again with their band until dusk
over, and over and over again...
Some called them tramps, or small petty thieves
But the heart of the matter, was the love of the sun,
the love of the life that came from the moon,
from the stars, and the grass, and the rust of the leaves
For those who encountered, and who gave them a chance
could learn many things by watching them dance,
and learn many things by hearing them sing,
and pay close attention to how much they knew
that fortune is something that comes from inside
It comes with the pride, of knowing what matters
The tattered, lost life of the old gypsy tribes ....
might be the saddest of stories, or loneliest song...
a song that has faded,
that has dwindled and died....
_______________________________________
5/18/12
101 in a ROW contest - 12
Sponsored by PD
God Save the King! So echoed round
the village halls, the pubs, the streets
the day our Charlie Prince was crowned.
Homes decked with bunting, cake, and treats.
We celebrated with a rave,
or knees-up, as my grandma said;
with piped music via short-wave.
At two pm, it went ahead.
They closed the street the coppers did.
Then out came tables, plates, and chairs
lace runners, doilies, too, amid
assorted china tablewares.
The caravans and four-by-fours
were parked elsewhere to clear the way,
they even shut the local stores
and closed the schools, hip hip, hooray!
Outside of number seventeen,
twixt the sausage rolls and jelly,
rested a crocheted King and Queen
removed from atop the telly.
Not to be beat, at twenty-two,
they placed a lifesize photo out;
which overlooked the cheese fondue,
soused herrings, and some sauerkraut.
Betty and May sang old-time songs
atop a shaky stage, arrayed
with bunting; made from their spare thongs;
while Ruth, the ukelele, played.
The Aussies were there, well, on screen.
Bobby, Kenny, and Aunt Maud too
to toast the King and mourn the Queen
with tea (and a tinny or two!)
Simon and Peter went all out,
made a spread called L G B tea;
with brightly coloured cakes throughout.
Open to all, as it should be!
Douglas and Rex from forty-eight
sat with Lil as she won her prize;
for the most original plate,
coronation jerk shrimp surprise.
Prizes too for best-dressed table,
front door, and garden gate, won by
Teddy, Fred, and Aunty Mable;
all well-deserved, we can't deny.
Captain Brett (self -titled we think)
gave a roaring one-gun salute
sporting a coat of dazzling pink
over his Royal Navy suit.
Thalis, made by Shrimati Nath,
were such a delicious hit they
caused a queue up her garden path.
(They paired well with Andre's Cabernet.)
We kids, long past our sugar high,
so full of cake, shrimp, nans, and stuff,
were told to say a quick goodbye;
we'd been awake quite long enough.
As the sun set on our nation,
Old Fionn Byrne began to sing,
a joyful amalgamation;
Danny Boy and God Save the King!
I was bored and strapped for cash,
Badly needing a vacation.
So I took a voyage of the mind,
With my vivid imagination.
Across the open seas I sailed,
To some far and distant lands.
While perched atop a camel's back,
In caravans on desert sands.
I climbed the Himalayas,
Behind a Sherpa as my guide.
To see Nepal and then Tibet,
The Dalai Lama by my side.
Crossed the Great Wall of China,
In a mammoth hot air balloon.
Floating high in a starlit sky,
Tipped my hat to the Crescent Moon.
Back to Earth, I made my way,
Skimming the Sea of Japan.
To the Port of Tokyo,
In a rickety Saipan.
Growing weary from my travels,
My mind no longer fit to roam.
Next time I'll visit other sites,
For now it's time to journey home.
FRINGE BENEFITS FOR WANTING WHAT I CAN NEVER HAVE
snaggletooth and lonely
hungering for hunger and boney
in my mind, wanting to love you only
when you pass by, i gurgle in honor of you
piss poor and destitute, my shrine of you expresses from a quiet
place on the downlow
hip hurting and shaking for foundations of my body heat, my thoughts of you leave me with sticky icicles
crying like a baby to the open diary of the moon, i daydream in zonules of rocketship anecdotes
i am a pinball wizard rolling caravans of wishful thinking around the many mazes that the stars create
then i pause....become blank....lose focus....become devoid of all thought
i sleep a stiffened steep sleep till morning
then i become the antisocial broken record again buying flowers for all my thoughts of you.....
our lady of Guadalupe stands alight in corner air
her gown emerald, cerise, gold
Don Pedro stands afore
glass to glass in an amber glow
Lowry’s beaked bird of uva descent
shadows flicker here, there
on the morrow lies the tropical carnage
the insect floor, the frogs call all night
offshore the everlasting beacon of an occultist light
humanities illusion of delusion, forevermore
calling ships to a harbor where i have none
the rain praters, the storm roars, the poet walks the floor
she stirs, i am not there, panther pillow rising
Morrison's Spanish caravans
once more the earth pulls as Don Pedro and i kneel
the carnal carnival between her naps
is when my desk finds the lines
while waiting for the sun
Abilene 6/18
“How, unless you drink as I do, could you hope to understand the beauty of an old Indian woman playing dominoes with a chicken?”
? Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano
for those of you who have attended an Arts and Madness conference know the story. Edna St. Vincent Millay, master of the sonnet, the rage of her age now collects dust in the library and no longer studied at the university. her life of addiction and the cost in the wake of self-induced destruction surrounding her. the stupor of Elizabeth Bishop cost her the chance of a happy marriage. i could go on but what is important to me is that 28 years ago i walked away from the madness and kept the art.
Who am I, walking not into glory,
but across this desert of duty?
Since childhood my hands have known the shape of buckets,
my shoulders carved to carry what the ground refused to yield.
I grew taller, but the path to the well did not shorten;
its dust braided itself into my skin,
its absence of comfort hardened into ritual.
The years have passed like caravans some loaded with promises of development,
some parading banners of progress.
Yet always I return to the same horizon:
the well, the bucket, the walk.
I have watched glass towers rise in the distance,
watched their shadows fall upon the villages,
yet no pipe was laid to end my thirst.
My thirties vanished in this absurdity.
The slow erasure of a decade measured not by milestones,
but by footsteps to and from the same parched ground.
Time here is not counted in birthdays,
but in the deepening grooves of a water-bearer’s palms.
With the beginning of the new century,
voices arrived speaking in futures,
their tongues ripened with words of abundance.
They offered horizons painted greener,
fields where the rivers would never falter.
They spoke of wells that sang all night,
of hands unburdened, of thirst to be quenched.
But the bargain was ash dressed as bread,
a mirror held out to blind us from the ground we stood on.
Roots do not follow the hand that would uproot them.
So the village held its breath and endured another set of summer and springs.
And still, the quiet unrest continued,
not of armies but of small hands against great machines,
not of slogans but of persistence,
the refusal to vanish into the indifference from forgetting.
So I carry the bucket still,
its weight a history,
its water a testament.
If glory does not arrive endurance will suffice:
to walk, to bear,
to stand as witness in this desert of duty,
where even survival is a form of defiance.
Written: June 23, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Robert James Liguori.
Note: The poem is about interrelated art. Visualizing the picture while reading it makes it more captivating.
***************
I stand before the canvas—
the earth stretched wider than shepherds’ strides,
longer than harvest songs,
its pigments spilling caravans,
wild horses scattering sparks,
a child chasing butterflies
to the rim where sky melts into amber.
The horizon folds into shadow,
shrinking when one heart grows narrow.
The brush has balanced it
on a mustard seed,
fragile, trembling,
straining to hold two brothers
quarreling for olive shade.
How can a heart turn narrow,
The strokes seem to ask—
born in camps vast with mothers’ prayers,
raised in tents whose ropes clasp another,
taught to break and share bread,
guided by women who lit lanterns
against the boundless black?
In the lower corner,
iron glints—
a figure sharpening blades
to silence the olive’s song.
But across the canvas,
summer lingers:
cicadas thrumming in amber dusk,
children weaving laughter through sycamores.
Painter’s hand insists:
a heart is made for vastness,
for ardor, for sharing,
for love that endures.
And beneath the final strokes,
a refrain is written:
Let no heart grow narrow.
It was born wide as the welkin,
deep as the harvest,
tender enough
to hold the whole world.
Ask nurturers,
parents,
librarians,
nurses,
maybe even a doctor or two,
What's required for my long-term commitment
to re-invest
for necessary long-term resilience?
The answer,
health,
seems sufficient
and yet not the sacred purpose
for resonating my optimally wealthy life.
My purpose is growing healthier ecosystemic life
invites finding meaning through EarthCentric ZeroZone healing
resilient cooperative climates,
now increasingly volatile while desecrating
degenerating dissonance
through over-investment in automated comforts
and defensive apart-ness contracts
and absence of liberally loving WinWin contacts
at LoseLose unacceptable prices
of long-term automated consumer trends
decaying while grabbing remnants of shattered competing markets,
especially labor
and water
and soil
and entertaining soul root nutritional systems,
Rather than re-investing in cooperative love,
grace at home,
positive karma abroad
energy democracy,
resonant resilience,
polyphonic paths toward sacred health
rather than more competing climate of business apartheid pathology.
If we go back far enough
on any current survivor's family tree
we will find intersections of multicultural love
immigrating on business
and/or involuntary survival pilgrimages
in caravans of naked hope
for better,
more resiliently healthy
interdependent futures.