Long Confessional Poems
Long Confessional Poems. Below are the most popular long Confessional by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Confessional poems by poem length and keyword.
A complex psychological poem of a vivid portrait of a person caught up in a morally wrong, intoxicating passionate affair.
Inescapable, aware of its moral and social implications, but still addicted.
It reads both like a love letter and a confessional piece.
Layered with dark beauty, guilt, defiance, desperation, and an intriguing question?
Can two cheaters ever be truly happy?
A theme portrayed endlessly in soaps, drama's, film but more realistically, life.
Well, what do you think?
Can two morally corrupt individuals live happily ever after?
Title.
The Affair.
(A lone voice whispers)
We always meet under the moonlights priceless silvery rays
We dance like entwined consummated eternal lovers
Forever engaged
Married insidiously by Father Darkness through our wicked salacious old ways
The thoughts of the world
and all outward consequences
Simply burn on our old relationships funeral pyres
And like grey smoke
Simply float away
Carried aloft by the cold now dystopian midnight air
This crazy relationship which once started as a Facebook and Twitter conversation, and
now such a thrilling, exhilarating irreducible dare
Is now my every living breathing prayer
This may last or may break
It may end in a heartbeat as we share a slice of the Devil's
delicious seductive cake
But you were always worth the risk and long waits
Your three words now just bind me and sing to me
Whenever my green eyes close
Three words within eight letters, I just love to hear
I love you
It just keeps me star-struck
Like a Hollywood big actor
Lost on your big screen projector
Regardless of our sins before God and humanity, and our unspoken marriage
As we ceremoniously slide through dark shadows like unseen lepers
I know we'll win and buy that beautiful dream, we often speak of together
For we're just one of the world's many unknown sinners
Swimming valiantly in one of life's many deep rivers
Holding tightly to each other as we sometimes struggle to breathe
Trying to be together forever
Whatever this judgemental
world believes or conceives
Married together insidiously
through our wicked ways
As we weave gaslighting Machiavellian plans
To always deceive
(C)
Copyright John Duffy
The afternoon's a fire, but my head still frozen to the pillow.
The fan blows soft and I lay softer.
Without a signifier I'll get up for the 4th hour in a row,
I'll stay ignorant to all the day can offer.
That's the sixth day out of eight I've laid, late.
Fostering doubt.
Guess I'll try out gout.
Stuck in the bed that I've made.
They took the trees down on Spring Garden
"Regrowth is a process" I said lying
I remember stretching out my arms when
I spread out these roots of mine.
Branching out, I watched bark harden
As we were dying on the vine.
I used to see the pasture line
Far beyond what I can describe
These days I just can't seem to find-
The right words
Make all the difference.
All your sins laid out before you, which ones would you keep?
What misdeed really makes you proud?
I know you have one too, that ball of black down in the heart, deep.
But you just won't say out loud
It's okay, take your time
It's a tough question I know
Could be a theft, maybe a lie.
Could be something darker though.
I betrayed the one I loved
I did my very best impression of Brutus
It's what I'm most shameful of
When I broke the trust between the two of us
But it set off an avalanche
That broke the mountain, truly
Memories of our last dance
Taunt and tease me cruelly
But then I saw another chance
So I reached out and pulled it to me
I was looking to come to terms
With the people I hurt and the lessons I learned
When I saw the sun set on the skyline through someone else's lens
And I waited for my new life
And my old one to end
It inspired me to live again
To put the past behind
Take the opportunity to make amends
"Regrowth is a process"
I mean it this time.
So this is my confessional.
Every passage is a penance.
I put myself on trial.
With every line a sentence.
No doubt it was bad, I couldn't prove you wrong.
Afterward it really dug into me
And I tortured me for so long
But there's a lot to personality,
People are complex
And when you do the work it seems
Your personage resets
So judge me all you want you see
I'll gladly be the black sheep.
Because without it all where would I be?
All my sins laid out before me, which one would I keep?
I think I'll just keep all of me
Cloistered within the restroom stall
eavesdropping on my peers
soft whispers echo off tiled walls
revealing secrets, hidden tears
Somehow this restroom has become
a sordid confessional booth
a place of refuge, safe for some
to air their inner truth
Co-workers cluster, confiding things
they wouldn't want the boss to know
nasty hangovers, weekend flings
soap-opera worthy woes
Some speak carefully, checking stalls
noting unfamiliar shoes
while others quickly unleash it all
like they have nothing to lose
“That ratfink took credit for all my work
but I'm gonna wait and be patient-
'cause I've got a plan to fix that jerk
next week while he's out on vacation!”
Young woman details a wicked trap
to catch her mortal foe...
while on the door, the impatient raps
of another who's “got to go”
Next there is an angry mother
scolding her wayward son
something or other (he did to his brother)
the fussing has just begun
“Listen Mister, I've had about all
I can take from you today
Oh, now you're sorry, no- don't you bawl!
I wasn't born yesterday!”
Then tripping in, catty office girls
meowling with purrs and sighs
pretend to freshen their faces and curls
while sniping and scratching out eyes
“...Lovely green sweater you're wearing, my dear-
wherever did you buy it?”
She means it looks quite awful on you
“Here, this smells good, you should try it!”
“Gangway girls- I'm comin' through!”
woman bellows, bursting through door
the others pause, and then continue
nonchalantly as before
Eventually they all trickle out
and two teenage girls traipse in
whispering about poor What's-Her-Face
and all the trouble she's in
“She's only twelve, and such a shame
tried to kill herself last week
they said she's crazy, that she's to blame
a loser, misfit, freak...”
“So they had her institutionalized
and she sits, spaced out, and stares
while they tell her the abuse was 'made-up lies'
and she knows that no one cares”
Sooner or later, there's silence
as the restroom door swings closed
then after a flush, a wash, a rinse
I get myself composed
Finally, I'm all alone here
in this magical, comforting place
voicing my own insecurities, fears
to my mirror-image face
I emerged / born with a silver pen in hand
…and a tempest raging within.
Words writhe, a serpent's coil
…tightening their grip
A soul adrift in a sea of
…self-made iniquity.
I buried my daddy
…in the black shoe
…by the Yew tree
Yes, I, the beekeeper’s daughter
…bearing the weight of hexagonal cells
A hive of memories
…buzzing with secrets.
The bell jar shattered
….a fractured hive.
Its glass walls no longer a prison
…but a shattered cocoon
……a metamorphous!
Pain and disdain drip like honey
…a bittersweet nectar of survival.
He, a poet
…crowned in the harsh light of fame
Bound in chains of duty and shame
His words
…a romance of lure and alarm.
Echoing the sirens' song
…enticing and harmful.
Yet, his tongue
…a viper’s forked lie.
Whispers truths and half-truths
…conjuring illusions to die.
Wandering the maze of being
A little fugue of
…fractured fairytales.
Each note a fleeting glimpse of clarity
Lost in the discordant
…cacophony of life's emptiness.
Like my "Little Fugue" a dance of shadows
A journey through the corridors of the mind
Seeking answers in the interplay of light and dark
Striving for harmony amidst the chaos
Parchment of blood and ink I leave
A riddle of life and death's plea
Maniacal madness with visions slight
A macabre dance upon the night.
Ariel, brings lightning and fire!
With heavy heart
…I sealed my children's room.
Softly kissed them farewell
……Extinguishing the final flame within.
Enveloped in oblivion's velvet veil
………Yielding to the oven’s cold caress.
…………No, more morning songs...
Inscribed a cryptic goodbye
Breathed in the silent slayer.
For, I Lady Lazarus
…Dying is an art
……Faded into the ether…
Her blacks crackle and drag, a fire of new birth
Flames licking at the borders of life
Consumed by oblivion's greedy blaze
Lost in the vast cosmic ray.
The embers die
…a fleeting spark gone
No masterpiece
…….just dust reclaimed
A silent echo in the void unstained.
A mystery lost
………never quite explained.
Yet, God's Lioness
...Fierce and Untamed
Roaring her defiance
…Covered in darkness…
----
Underneath the star-strewn skies
A fleeting passing note.
Lost in the vast expanse
Living on the edge
For, I am but a speck of dust.
"Lemonade"
Agency sent me to
the territory of
Lemonade dreams
where secret rendezvous
were disjointed
and criminally spent
shooting the cool breeze
she blew hot and cold
covertly coquettish
while they waited for
absent common sense
to repent in her confessional booth
like diamonds their eyes twinkled
their smiles stroked
the changing colours of her
scaled existence, waiting
she smoked their egos
like she was patting
lackadaisical fur
she reminded herself
they were all reptilian
lazy nights with the
Blue Iguana
lounging long legged
stilettos sharp and lethal
schmoozing sonorously
with shiny wet lipped
slick talking smooth
barflies and lizards
talking tangled tongues
they kissed the air
hissing, this of course,
blithe and thin,
full of promises
and sensual missives
taking their lives
with shots of time
tempering caresses
along the tumultuous
tears in the fabric of a frayed life
short skirting the rim
swallowing a small esse essay
while they gobbled wild turkey
straight,
shooting words like bullets
no ice and bent stories
they would appear as monks
religiously flagellating
regular and on point
tomes of despair
lacking their one
shot at a heroine
whose fair addiction
psychoanalysing
muddled minds
bubbled like lemonade
cool, she was a long tall glass
sucking dreams up
her sucking straw
seen through her cut green
glassed shards of mirrors
they were all transforming
into colourful big beaked
squawking macaws
while she read lines
with her man Coleridge
and considered everything
“as if this earth in
fast thick pants were
breathing”
she turned their bent pages
fey and crooked and
burned the leaves for mystic tea
an aphrodisiac as sacrificial offering
to a plot twist
dei ex machina
surely all gods would come soon
in time to a party
bare of good men
where the rule
was no law
(LadyLabyrinth / 2020)
"There was a moment, a hole opened in the sky
A chance to join that pantheon
For all the times they never heard your battle cry
Now even angels sing along"
video of "Ironic" is for my 'Cinco De Mayo' contribution.
Alanis Morissette, emotive mezzo-soprano voice
and confessional songwriting with a feminist’s choice
Canadian, nineties rock-star famous for Jagged Little Edge
Raw naked cringe-y to the profound, empowering by virtue I pledge
(She’s helped countless women and girls to find their voices, to speak out, and to take up space)
Thank you India
symbolizing spiritual awakening and enlightenment
Thank you terror
acknowledge the challenging and painful aspects
Thank you disillusionment
of life that can lead to growth and wisdom
Thank you frailty
highlight vulnerability and accountability as essential
Thank you consequence
components of personal development
Thank you silence
suggests finding peace and clarity through
introspection and contemplation
let go of something burdensome, which ultimately leads
to personal growth and transformation
A pivotal moment, represents as a turning point
where she gains a new perspective and begins to understand
the value of forgiveness, living in the present, and embracing her own divinity
How 'bout me not blaming you for everything?
blame the moon, release unriquited love and like a bird that doesn't know where their home is, fly away
How 'bout me enjoying the moment for once?
How 'bout how good it feels to finally forgive you?
How 'bout grieving it all one at a time?
Thank you frailty
The moment I let go of it was the moment
I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it
Was the moment I touched down
How 'bout no longer being masochistic?
How 'bout remembering your divinity?
How 'bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out?
signifies emotional release and catharsis,
suggesting that facing and processing emotions
is crucial for personal evolution
How 'bout not equating death with stopping?
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarity
Thank you, thank you silence
Ladies sing along with the goddess Alanis
Thank U Providence
Thank U Canada
Thank U Alanis Morissette
Losing the Light
by Cheryl Higgins
UNSUPPORTED CODE - with a quote
from J.D.
McClatchy's
three-part poem
"Three Dreams of
Elizabeth
Bishop" UNSUPPORTED CODE
What sold me on the
architect's clever
evening tour
besides designer
lighting and too
many vodka bitters
wasn't this
relentless dawn
scraping every
skylight in
every room, but
chasing you into
this one
where the moon blued
your foot behind the
big chair
wet, still, from
testing the spa in
your cocktail gown.
When you snatched it
back from the pale
light
it was then I
thought I could live
here with you, all
folded against the
west wall and
listening to me
pretend to lose
interest and read
erotic sonnets aloud
to the moon.
Or was it finding a
corner of Cassiopia
from your pillow
unlike any other
from mine?
Did we live in this
place? With this
unsleepable light,
I’m working
before the paper
even hits the door.
Through the sliders
on the redwood deck,
a glass, still,
of ginwater gathers
gnats and acorns
from the last
one-night stand. My
robe wet on the
rail.
I'm wearing yours.
And why did I want
to hurt you one last
time?
When you left I said
leave it the robe's
mine, but it wasn't
not really or why
did I give up my own
to the
ONS and stalk naked,
moody, after I lost
that
first slurred slip
of your name
to the roaring tub.
Your belt trails me
and my coffee.
The robe's too long
for my tastes.
Alien, familiar, it
slides on my skin
not unlike
your more wakeful
nights in and out of
my dreams.
And I thought I had
something of yours
after all
from the pocket, a
letter to me or a
note
declarant or
confessional, either
would do.
What I found was
some acorn caps
and the architect's
designer card.
We'd called from a
pay phone that
night.
I said we'd
forgotten the price.
You said I never
asked.
What we forgot, I
heard a voice
behind me say, was
everything else.
Love will leave us
alone if we let it.
Say the price.
Out on the road,
love winds away in
the dark.
The moon strobes it
through the trees,
the night
follows its own
unlit way.
"The Value of Reading"
messages impressed
upon the secret keepers.
when is late too late?
to divulge the truth?
"I know this is a shock"
arrives far too late
when it is anticipated
by the writer pundit
keeping tabs
on runnaway horses
trained at the gate
tokens laid for bets.
what then sister?
if all should go awry?
the next caller phones
and relays, it is you,
so-and-so, who has
passed away today,
chemo didn’t save
the day.
"I know this is a shock,"
the other says,
"Love you, call me
when you want,"
breezily relayed
"here if you need,
call me
when you want";
but you, so-and-so
are already gone.
cruel deception
closed doors
on all that was
once close,
always true, forever
standing ground,
turned away.
betrayal keeps close
its cruel deceits
for untrue stories
buried deep.
cruel keeper of secrets
what cloistered
confessional opens
its sorry doors?
to understand
you, the you
who utterly
shamed and ignored.
LOVE
delivers
the
the truth
without delay.
Christmases,
Easters,
graduations,
birthdays,
two lives,
adequately
destroyed
r.i.p.
today.
cloudy
messages
adroitly
employed:
LOVE
came,
it considered all,
not once did it turn
away.
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
"I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it."
betrayal, lies, deceit, trust, books, death, loss, mirror, silence, sister, love
I'm the son of all that's been
Drinking deep of my sin
Of premarital and of lies I've told
And responsibilities I hold
Scattered them all in the breeze
It barely even bothered me
I thought I was king, I knew everything
Thought the world was just a jewel on my ring
But now I see that I was wrong
And I'll confess my sins in song
But like a God that failed you all
You don't believe in me
I went through most my life
Coasting by on luck
And when my lucky stars blinked out
Man, I'd just get stuck
But every day, I'd pray
To a God
That I'm not even sure is a thing
But a spiritual energy
Inside every living thing
Praying to myself and you
City of the lost
Crying out for something to live for
Slaving away in this small town
City of the lost
In endless boredom we found sin's the cure
That's what history has shown
So me and her found a place to sit
No one else knew about it
An hour passed and the air was hot
The sounds were sweet and it was just what we sought
We didn't think about what we'd done
We were just looking to have fun
Now I'm laying alone in bed
Worried sick and I'm clutching my head
Can't afford a mistake
It's more than we could take
Hoping for blood
To end our flood
Of sin and tears
Dearly beloved, can you hear me from afar?
All the way in the other town, where distance keeps us barred
I'm sorry I've lied to you but it's something that I'll fix
Even if you never knew, it still makes me sick
I'm kicking my addiction so I can make you smile
Figured I'll toss my sins with it to make it worth my while
Might as well improve myself so if your blood graces our day
We can try again way on down the road some day
Til then, these are my crimes
From now, til the start of my time
I've lied, stole and coveted
The peace of the dead
And it took until today
When the sky was clear and blue
I left the shelter of my home
And maybe I'll find my way
And leave this town with you
But first, I must...
Atone
It's leaving
I'm leaving
We're leaving
Looks like we're leaving it behind
They placed me in a wooden box
and then they put the lid on. They left
me to shiver the cold night through and
picked me up next day around eleven a.m.
I heard dogs bark and children play, I heard
sweet songs among the dirges; friends and relatives
said such lovely things about me that afore were quite
unheard of. Inevitably, old Uncle Jim came out with
the one about the actress and the archbishop,
and what the fallen woman said at confessional
to a rabbi who'd taken over from the priest
for the day in a spirit most ecumenical. Then
the pall-bearers at last bore the box to the
spot assigned for burial. "Ashes to ashes,
dust to dust," said the reverend with
solemn finality as they let down the
box with me inside into the yawning
cavity, and that, if you'll allow me
add, with something akin to
alacrity. Then just as he gave
the final sign
to set the spades
showering earth down,
I lifted the lid of the box where I lay,
I said to the assembled all gasping and white:
"Sorry to stop the proceedings so late in the day, but one assumption I
challenge as completely unfounded, though it's been all too readily
taken for granted:
Far be it from me to cause an upset, but I think you should know--
I'M NOT DEAD YET!"
Some of the assembled felt very let down
and made no bones about it.