Long Content Poems
Long Content Poems. Below are the most popular long Content by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Content poems by poem length and keyword.
Our beauty is hidden in our words!
Rumi (M. Mafi, trans.)
Our content in contentment
hides within commitment toward integrity.
Our beauty is hidden in our words
said only toward ourselves.
Barometers of mental health
for how we are and are not feeling
beautiful,
good,
fair,
balanced,
just,
harmonious,
confluent,
content,
graceful,
like good mentors without external hypocrisy,
and sometimes not such good mentors.
Mentors with words redolent of harmonic peace,
or maybe sometimes too much non-violent peace,
passive aggressive surfing, searching back and forth,
or even violently imagining unworded diverse futures
of yourself,
those around you,
generalized economic and sociopathological
and therapeutic
States and Species of thrive or demise,
and planet Earth,
and our Universe,
sometimes a metaphysically closing system,
sometimes more beautifully opening
although with considerable stress
tipping points,
trimming tabs and scissors,
adjusting balance, halves of ecologic,
within our internal voices of environ-mental health
as hope for cultural beauty.
Humaned nature adds economic
and cultural
and psychological freedom to evolve
kindness of mutual subsidiary intention,
an active love of peaceful mind.
Nature is only limited by absence
of regenerative orthopraxis,
caring and nurturing,
economically and politically powerful values
exercised within the classroom of each day.
Ecotherapeutic voices in our nights
and days of reconnecting consciousness
create our daily practice
of natural systemic design,
this song of synergy,
creative universal intelligence.
Cooperative kindness and competitive unkindness
are capacities coincident to all of nature,
a polar range from regeneration through decomposition,
from synergy through negentropy,
Kindness and love self-optimize as "Truths of Beauty"
when we freely choose sufficiency of contentment,
with full will and ecojustice intent.
My words surf my beauty and hope and synergy,
in and out,
back and forth,
listening for my listening gracefilling bicameral heart
and comprehensive consciousness,
discovering contentment within my content,
form within my information,
ecobalancing function within form,
fractal frequencies within bioregenerative
self-optimizing function.
Surfing echo frequencies,
Earth's words of microwaving grace.
The morning soars with skylarks singing
o'er the greening meadow and the pliant pasture,
the ocean sighing, gulls aloft on wings of prayer.
A sudden shower would see me running
fancy free between the rain drops,
I cried 'Excelsior!' and set the hills alive;
I skittered, happy, crisp and clear,
like God's first measure of a holy hymn.
The air alive with songs of praise,
the gentle winds a sacred message,
His grand prescription like a dream
that streamed out from the pillows of the heavens.
I liked to wander by the sea shore
skipping stones, disobeying laws of gravity,
as a lamb on shaky legs and tumbled freely without care,
'til gasping, I would stop to catch my breath.
The halcyon days of youth came true,
when I would race forever 'neath the tawny sun,
bedaubed in Autumn's blood, the flame
a blend of hues the likes of which
would make a young boy doubly blind,
and lead him into kingdoms where the battlefields
would blister scarlet, happy times
that made me see my childhood clearly.
The weather turned again, and shanties
high atop the hillside loomed like castles drifting
in the sea-blown mist, the noise of boats,
their nets pulled, nudging at the jetty.
From the sand the village was a hazy spectre,
the chapel steeple peeking like Rapunzel's lair,
her hair a daydream falling soft,
O fanciful imagination!
I thought to when my mother took my hand.
We skipped the cobblestones and shopped for wishes,
toys which we could ill-afford;
a Batman cape, a red fire engine.
The lanes were thick with merchants and the joy of life,
haggling, chattering like crazy seabirds,
loud, and mouthing their wants and wares,
and then we wandered home exhausted.
I never lost my youthfulness,
my joy at seeing herons gloating, eagles floating
high on zephyr'd breezes free as spring;
hallowed times, in Jesus' presence.
I measure now my moments as the hours shift by,
thirty years and blissful, regrets are slight and few,
I count my blessings, feel content
that tribulation never came to bother me.
A birthday cake is waiting for me,
candles flicker, frosting beckons, hope eternal;
my wish the same, for peace on earth
to all men, greetings and goodwill!
I lie down in the close and holy quiet
while the village sleeps, and slips toward a new adventure,
safe in His keeping, perfect day
with promise of a bright tomorrow.
There is, in the Los Angeles area, a well-known brand of milk, called Alta Dena. Near also,
is the city named Alta Dena, and my grandson lives there. I asked him if he had seen the dairy there, and he told me that it does not exist. I then asked him if he had seen herds of milk cattle there and he said that he had not, and doubted that there were any. Of course I wondered why the milk had such a name, and jokingly asked him to look for at least one cow in the city, since it was well built-up, and there were no obvious open pastures at all. I told him that we could only conclude that it this had to b a very famous and rare cow that could supply all the milk needed by a large urban dairy, and thus must be insured, protected from the idle public, and secreted in some private home where she would not be disturbed. The whole story and speculation grew into a riotous family "search" for this wondrous animal. I, of course, ask my grandson each week when I see him, for a progress report on the search. Finally, I have decided to turn it into a poem:
A Search Continues
Something very hush-hush is going on
and Alta Dena folk aren't going to tell.
All cowdom secreted within its bovine lair
yet Bo would stare contentedly at us
with no incursive moo directed at the hellish
vine that she must eat, in lieu of meadow grass.
That ever-present cud must still
be masticated; yea, her celebrated udder
must be filled.
Yet none admit to having sighted her.
Beastiana though she be, no Altadenian
will dare so much as low on her behalf,
no bull, Eden-bound, is ready to exchange
his bold, testicular desire
to service mewling ruminants
who merely run away.
Nay, uncowed are they, though cowed they be,
and cowards not--and if you do not see
their wisdom, chalk it up to power,
Bo's mammary magnificence, so easily
in jeopardy before a single squeeze,
not of a nipple but a trigger
thus applied, and speeding out of sight.
Challenge, indeed, our quest to find
this noble and prolific queen
who dominates with graceful quietude
her milky empire slurping quite
without a care, lush liquid destined
not to slosh within her, rather
in those tumescent tummies
ever crying out for more.
Would I betray them for a share?
Of course. Away with those content
to sour the milk of human kindness
with deception. Let the search go on!
~
The morn's alive with skylarks singing
o'er the greening meadow and the pliant pasture,
the ocean sighing, gulls aloft on wings of prayer.
A sudden shower would see me running
fancy free between the rain drops,
I cried 'Excelsior!' and set the hills alive;
I skittered, happy, crisp and clear,
like God's first measure of a holy hymn.
The air alive with songs of praise,
the gentle winds a sacred message,
His grand prescription like a dream
that streamed out from the pillows of the heavens.
I liked to wander by the sea shore
skipping stones, disobeying laws of gravity,
as a lamb on shaky legs and tumbled freely without care,
'til gasping, I would stop to catch my breath.
The halcyon days of youth came true,
when I would race forever 'neath the tawny sun,
bedaubed in Autumn's blood, the flame
a blend of hues the likes of which
would make a young boy doubly blind,
and lead him into kingdoms where the battlefields
would blister scarlet, happy times
that made me see my childhood clearly.
The weather turned again, and shanties
high atop the hillside loomed like castles drifting
in the sea-blown mist, the noise of boats,
their nets pulled, nudging at the jetty.
From the sand the village was a hazy spectre,
the chapel steeple peeking like Rapunzel's lair,
her hair a daydream falling soft,
O fanciful imagination!
I thought to when my mother took my hand.
We skipped the cobblestones and shopped for wishes,
toys which we could ill-afford;
a Batman cape, a red fire engine.
The lanes were thick with merchants and the joy of life,
haggling, chattering like crazy seabirds loud,
and mouthing their wants and wares,
and then we wandered home exhausted.
I never lost my youthfulness,
my joy at seeing herons gloating, eagles floating
high on zephyr'd breezes free as spring;
hallowed times, in Jesus' presence.
I measure now my moments as the hours shift by,
thirty years and blissful, regrets are slight and few,
I count my blessings, feel content
that tribulation never came to bother me.
A birthday cake is waiting for me,
candles flicker, frosting beckons, hope eternal;
my wish the same, for peace on earth
to all men, greetings and goodwill!
I lie down in the close and holy quiet
while the village sleeps, and slips toward a new adventure,
safe in His keeping, perfect day
with promise of a bright tomorrow!
Let not the pain of death enter my body
I the Pharaoh, son of the gods
Here my wife, who is the daughter of the Nile
The daughter of Isis sits beside my throne,
Is she not beautiful?
I live and roam the abode of the gods,
In eternity I stay with the majesties
Of the immortal gods
Mortality has no hold of me
I alone carry the staff of Osiris,
Behold! I judge thy weight of the heart,
With that of the golden feather
Thoth that measures thy heart shall tell me of thy heart’s content.
If I find thy heart lighter than the feather;
And find thy honesty,
I shall let you enter the heaven of the gods and goddesses.
If not, then, a beast to devour thee, waits for the dishonest.
Know me by my throne, made of gold
I am cloth with ornaments made of jade and sapphire,
White silk of clothing, with jewels from faraway lands.
Anyone that dear look down upon me shall die
And those that despise me, shall fine their homes burned down,
with fires from heaven.
Who am I? I have asked thee
Look at Anubis, the son of Nephthys bringer of death.
Do you await him to bring me great sorrow?
Shall he warp me with a yard of cloth?
Shall I find peace in death and my fate be judge by him?
If so, I have a place among them.
My afterlife is in paradise, their awaits a bundle of joy
With music of the immortal, with harps, lutes, lyres
And servants to tend to my every need.
But even if I die, the weight of mine own heart, shall be as light as a feather.
For I know mine own honesty.
As I sail across the sandbank of Apophis,
I have my guide, Ra, the god of the sun to light my path
No monstrous serpent of chaos shall wreck his boat,
The boat in which, I am in.
So, I ask thee, traveler from the west
What is thy business with a god?
Look at my palace, is it not magnificent?
Has is not, the decoration and flowers that surpasses all human designs?
I have built these with rocks
Sands was the foundation of my legacy,
Shall all things compare to that of the past days?
I carry the burden of my glory, and yes, it is heavy.
But will such foundation as the sand be strong enough to hold against the tide?
Love is abiding that is true, but only in those who welcomes it.
My love for my beautiful wife, oh! How well have I been treated
With love from her is better than any pleasure a man can have.
Faithful to the gods or my wife? That I know not.
...inspired by 'Poem In October' by Dylan Thomas
The morning rings with skylarks singing,
o'er the greening meadow and the pliant pasture,
the ocean sighing, gulls aloft on wings of prayer.
A sudden shower would see me running
fancy free between the rain drops,
I cried 'Excelsior!' and set the hills alive;
I skittered, happy crisp and clear,
like God's first measure of a holy hymn.
The air alive with songs of praise,
the gentle winds a sacred message,
His grand prescription like a dream
that streamed out from the pillows of the heavens.
I liked to wander by the sea shore
skipping stones, disobeying laws of gravity,
as a lamb on shaky legs and tumbled freely without care,
'til gasping, I would stop to catch my breath.
The halcyon days of youth came true,
when I would race forever 'neath the tawny sun,
bedaubed in Autumn's blood, the flame
a blend of hues the likes of which
would make a young boy doubly blind,
and lead him into kingdoms where the battlefields
would blister scarlet, happy times
that made me see my childhood clearly.
The weather turned again, and shanties
high atop the hillside loomed like castles drifting
in the sea-blown mist, the noise of boats,
their nets pulled, nudging at the jetty.
From the sand the village was a hazy spectre,
the chapel steeple peeking like Rapunzel's lair,
her hair a daydream falling soft,
O fanciful imagination!
I thought to when my mother took my hand.
We skipped the cobblestones and shopped for wishes,
(toys which we could ill-afford;
a Batman cape, a red fire engine.)
The lanes were thick with merchants and the joy of life,
haggling, chattering like crazy seabirds,
loud, and mouthing their wants and wares,
and then we wandered home exhausted.
I never lost my youthfulness,
my joy at seeing herons gloating, eagles floating
high on zephyr'd breezes free as spring;
hallowed times, in Jesus' presence.
I measure now my moments as the hours shift by,
thirty years and blissful, regrets are slight and few,
I count my blessings, feel content
that tribulation never came to trouble me.
A birthday cake is waiting for me,
candles flicker, frosting beckons, hope eternal;
my wish the same, for peace on earth
to all men, greetings and goodwill!
I lie down in the close and holy quiet
while the village sleeps, and slips toward a new adventure,
safe in His keeping, perfect day
with promise of a bright tomorrow.
The idea of a living constitution
has the same forensic indeterminacy
as a committed dream.
I am content to trust this dream to the end
to have it fill my cup of hope all day and night.
I am content to receive its order
to hasten to obey without a pause.
But, the old voice sounds
unrelentingly in the chamber: Do not
compromise. Punish.
Crucify him.
The infirm musing of a perpetual dreamer
rising up with eyes wild for relief.
I am content with the terror and anticipation that
keeps turns by watching me:
Justice, once imagined, cannot be undone.
I have been left to think along these lines
to look for the abandonment of arcane unfairness
months after months.
The months
burn up as a fading lantern
homage to the majesty of the absurd:
A muse easy to bear, Camusian laughter to
suffering’s exalted well —
what single rule might break the dry spell?
Sometimes the unforeseen, the unpredictable
springs in the heart of justice
bending its way upward
again and yet again
towards a distant point
all unaccountably, into the strengthening clasp
of fresh now-born idea,
nearer to binding faith
than wild dismembering injustice.
When the far-distant element
of suffering humanity
looms out more clear;
the faint, far, complex notes of hope
its head moves near
and new flicks of justice’s well
unfolds beyond the known.
Is there any new depth to this well?
Say, what is its true nature?
Quietly nature covers over
the dying bird and the dead rover.
If justice’s dead, it is as though
a robin died beneath the snow
tucked away neatly, whose bright eyes
once stared with impudent surprise
at every tit-bit flung to her.
Now every season we must bear
to live without its whistled air,
for law lives beneath the Spring,
like a sequestered paradise
exiled from the steady hammer of faith,
a trackless rice field
ever trudging through groves of
crouching, unconquered territories.
Oh enchanted universe
conqueror of earth’s stadium
in your wild, singing glory
the faults you committed live.
Come hear my sharpened cries
surely, you can hear my note of crisis.
Ceaselessly I raise my cry.
My cry ascends and floats away
scattered by whirling winds afar.
* “Endure what you suffer as being a father’s punishment.” (Heb. 12:5b-7)
Author's note: written on the anniversary of Harvard's abuse of my human rights
Mornings shrill with skylarks singing
o'er the greening meadow and the pliant pasture,
the ocean sighing, gulls aloft on wings of prayer.
A sudden shower would see me running
fancy free between the rain drops,
I cried 'Excelsior!' and set the hills alive;
I skittered, happy crisp and clear,
like God's first measure of a holy hymn.
The air alive with songs of praise,
the gentle winds a sacred message,
His grand prescription like a dream
that streamed out from the pillows of the heavens.
I liked to wander by the sea shore
skipping stones, disobeying laws of gravity,
as a lamb on shaky legs, and tumbling freely without care,
'til gasping, I would stop to catch my breath.
The halcyon days of youth came true,
when I would race forever 'neath the tawny sun,
bedaubed in Autumn's blood, the flame
a blend of hues the likes of which
would make a young boy doubly blind,
and lead him into kingdoms where the battlefields
would blister scarlet, happy times
that made me see my childhood clearly.
The weather turned again, and shanties
high atop the hillside loomed like castles drifting
in the sea-blown mist, the noise of boats,
their nets pulled, nudging at the jetty.
From the sand the village was a hazy spectre,
the chapel steeple peeking like Rapunzel's lair,
her hair a daydream falling soft,
O fanciful imagination!
I thought to when my mother took my hand.
We skipped the cobblestones and shopped for wishes,
(toys which we could ill-afford;
a Batman cape, a red fire engine.)
The lanes were thick with merchants and the joy of life,
haggling, chattering like crazy seabirds,
loud, and mouthing their wants and wares,
and then we wandered home exhausted.
I never lost my youthfulness,
my joy at seeing herons preening, eagles floating
high on zephyr'd breezes free as spring;
hallowed times, in Jesus' presence.
I measure now my moments as the hours shift by,
thirty years and blissful, regrets are slight and few,
I count my blessings, feel content
that tribulation never came to trouble me.
A birthday cake is waiting for me,
candles flicker, frosting beckons, hope eternal;
my wish the same, for peace on earth
to all men, greetings and goodwill!
I lie down in the close and holy quiet
while the village sleeps, and slips toward a new adventure,
safe in His keeping, perfect day
with promise of a bright tomorrow!
I watched as the dark grew around his eyes.
He came through the window,
Stepping like a shadow.
He was the night, he was the ghost, he was the
Unaided fighter as he reached for my side.
And I so desperately wanted to caress his masked face.
His pace was noiseless and so attractive,
Yet death was nearer with every step,
I thought.
Still, I didn’t care if my life would have ended
That night, stolen by the elusive ninja…
I wanted him even closer.
He quickly searched the inside of his shozoku,
Only to reveal a deadly suriken.
Breathless, as he approached, I stood there,
Not wanting to disenchant from his spell.
With one blow, the suriken ripped
The shoulder of my nightgown.
Flowing red stained my pillow
And it felt so real.
Oh, how I wanted his knife at my throat,
Me, his target of the night,
And how I sighed when he drew
His katana.
With one lethal strike I would have
Plunged on the floor, choking for my last breath,
Yet he gently traced the contour of my
Trembling chin… trembling, but only for his touch.
My tears sparkled in the cold, hard steel
As I sensed his breath arising.
I only heard his samurai chuckle and with no warning
He hurled his sword back into the dark.
We both moaned in anxious passion
When he bore my hand into a painful
Wrist lock.
I did not care, I did not see, I did not feel anything aside
The dark-haired ninja over my hips.
Our mangled bodies mirrored in the shiny steel of his forgotten blade,
His chest crowning over mine,
His hands fondling in my hair, down to my aroused breasts.
Two naked bodies trapped in my jujitsu legs.
A ninja so dark, so passionate, so fast,
He gently pulled aside my hidden Sai from under the cushion.
He kissed my breasts, my wrists, my hair,
My lips…
My shoulder, he patched with his soothing mouth.
We locked in kiss so quickly, his tongue
Bitter from my blood, snapping at my neck
And torso while he pushed inside me, deeper.
Invisible in the dark, he loved me
In endless ways, my fragile ninja rested
On the top of my chest.
I stroked his hair in content and silence,
Not even knowing his name.
A dark-haired ninja lay over my hips
When dawn came chewing at our lashes.
I then turned, not to see his figure,
Relying on my silent samurai
Of the dusk that I’ll go back to sleep
And he’ll go back to black.
© 2009 Stefania Carmen Misaila
An English Life
It is midnight the Milk train pulls into darnall station
No ordinary passengers here
Steelworkers with their families
Loaded with fishing tackle, sandwiches and maggots
The Fossdyke in Lincolnshire, their destination
The fare Half a crown for happiness
The long walk in the dark,
A stairway to heaven in my memory
Dawn on the Foss and a cup of tea,
Fever in the blood, the first eel of the day
Our cane rods lovingly handed down from father to son.
I remember, Pheasants looking for mates
Shrieking their songs of love
Swans begging for scraps
Their majestic white necks, nodding,
A greeting into their kingdom
The mist off the water revealing families,
being together, laughing, enjoying what was free.
For tomorrow the grime returns.
A conversation with a stranger then out of a bag,
The rabbits, sometimes hare, sometimes pheasant.
Onions and carrots, shortly follow
The smell, forever linked with summer
The scent of my childhood
Summers were hotter then;
At times I drank the Foss, for I was nature’s child
Being clean was never a priority,
Catching fish was, never killed always returned,
Our Covenant with Nature.
For it is the sport that we honour.
And with age comes reflection,
Poor I may have been, my education neglected
But I have a Doctorate in nature, for I have seen the dawn
Away from the factories, where the pheasant runs free
And where the swan reins king, I was part of them.
It was here I learned what family was,
To share, my last drink of pop with my neighbour,
A simple life, maybe, but what a life
For I have seen what Constable painted
Lived every word that Wordsworth wrote
Understood the Fragrance of the Flowers
And revelled in the poets dream.
I loved every colour, every sound, every scent,
And every fish I ever caught.
Father and mother are gone now,
Never complained about their Station in life,
For they found paradise on the Foss.
They left me the seeds to their heaven
And the key to my happiness
A key forged in a mans worth
To open up my soul to the beauty
That surrounds us all.
Dawn on the Foss, was my church
My soul was cleansed here
And my heart was shaped here
My memories kept safe here
And the Foss fever still resides here
I will die on some bank side, one day
Rod in hand, and I will be content,
So Tight lines my fellow Anglers.