Long Custom Poems
Long Custom Poems. Below are the most popular long Custom by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Custom poems by poem length and keyword.
Rules and regulations bring economic strangulation
Policies and procedures serve the whims of weak leaders
Statutes and ordinances pave the road to subordinance
Hypotheses and theories render creativity weary
Laws and by-laws stick fast in your craw
Custom and tradition tie the hands of ambition
Axioms and corollaries, originality bury
Torts and contracts recall long-dead artifacts
Plea bargaining, eminent domain, the statute of limitations
Reek of appeasement and Machiavellian machination
Give me a world without all the perverse legalese
A world of brave men, who dare do as they please
The familiar pit in my stomach
From the hole in my heart
April 6th in 2011 was our first month apart
It was your Birthday
It felt so strange not to call my friend
But, as they say, all things must End
Just a few months later
I stood in shock at your stone
We didn't have a chance to say goodbye
I'd never felt more alone
You knew me better than I even knew myself
I take your photo tonight from it's drawer
And place next to my bed on the shelf
It's Just for your Birthday i tell myself
For I have moved on in many ways
But for this occasion you smile back
As You're proudly displayed
As is secret custom for me on this day
To celebrate your Birth and the life that you made
With it's True Love, passion and the energy that would too soon fade
I used to be jealous of others
I felt always Living carefree
Without this pain and to know much grief
Now I just feel bad for them
For they didn't know you like me
I guess I knew I was special
And I always will be
It's inauguration day, January 20, 2021.
I could be at home, watching the TV presentation
pomp and pageantry. But old, achy, onerous and
anxious, bladder full with no toilet near, I wait
in a chilly car in a VA clinic parking lot,
entry to warmth and light prohibited by
the COVID pandemic.
Inside, my life-partner -- afflicted by
diabetic, infected purple insensate
second toe, left foot -- seeks news
of its possible fate: to be treated
or scheduled to be permanently removed
from its too snug position among
the other toes. Fidgety, I have settled
upon re-reading for the umpteenth time
selected pages among my (now) collection
of loose sheets between two crumbling
covers held together by rubber bands:
what's left of my copy of The Vintage Book
of Contemporary American Poetry, edited
by J. D. McClatchy. Many of these poems
(all perhaps?) are no longer "contemporary" --
this is a 1990 paper publication with poetry
from the preceding 40 years. I still treasure
many of the poems.
My custom, when alone, is to read out loud, and
to mark or circle poems, selected phrases, lines,
or passages that I choose, for whatever reason,
and often to think/fantasize how or whether
I might (or would) have written and then recited
in my own words, in my own voice, my own altered
poetic echoes of those lines, those thoughts, those
rhymes, those carefully or recklessly considered
pronouncements and descriptions.
And to wonder whether my own contrivances
would blend well with the originals that fostered
their appearance.
I conclude: my ersatz poetic products might be
somewhat like an infected toe that could be
snipped away -- or treated and tended, nurtured,
cured, made healthy, worthy enough for a place
crowded among those others.
As I have tried (fitfully) here to do.
Surviving the Venal
by Odin Roark
As we peer into the future
As far as we dare see
There glides effortlessly down entitlement throats
The six o’clock cocktails of gin and vodka
While cups of water appease
Shrunken stomachs in desperation
As after dinner snifters of brandy
Flame amidst knavish whispers of next-day scheming
Prosperity’s throw-aways
Boil tea above dwindling Sterno
Identity’s loss struggles to stay warm
Evenings of silk and down covered comfort
Remain the usual
As cardboard insulation is adjusted
Making another night doable
For the other kind of usual
Tomorrow’s few who can make a difference
Seldom venture past their pitiful hubris
Their custom suits and handmade shoes
Grabbing news hour attention
While the needy languish
Through another empty-dish dinner hour
So goes Washington’s plague of indifference
That place where
Diseases are but for profit
Reality’s ravenous-cries fall on deaf ears
And legislative conscience continues making gestures
Wanting us to believe they’re human
Food stamps for subsistence
May never visit the Hill’s automatons of human representation
Yet we can hope that another kind of hunger for survival
Will ravage their psyche
Come re-election time
This is our observed phenomenon report.
It appears the earth people have a strange sport.
They swing a wooden stick at a horsehide sphere.
When it goes over the fence, it’s “outta here”.
Move counterclockwise on a diamond-shaped field.
Numbers on the scoreboard, a “run” is the yield.
This is a strange earth custom that’s revealed.
To athletic men, this is a profession.
People pass through turnstiles in a procession.
One hundred and sixty-two times each season,
men wearing numbers participate. What’s the reason?
Non-participating “fans” are spectators.
Sounds can come from the non-participators.
Each can sit and cheer while watching in their seat.
One team has victory, the other defeat.
These actions all occur in the summer heat.
When the home team loses, they make a “boo” sound.
This is indeed strange behavior we have found.
Again and again in a world
dreaded I most.
For unknown certainties tears apart
the collated I.
Again and again in a world
Faith of him seemest to fall
for unknown either like before
in real past one.
Again and again in a world
death! Preferred?
For unknown cruelties puzzle
hearts in fixed making.
Again and again in a world
unfound easiness breath dizziness,
stiff up queasiness so tempest
on this total-fixed thing.
Again and again in a world
ball pen and pad sought
penning down black and white
though as custom, really?
Again and again in a world
dreaded as the sight of a chasing gargantuan cobra,
for unknown certainties questioning
the embittered fixed heart so badly.
I will guard not against rules, but my conscience
And never shall exult in the esteem of men
For we all are brothers and sisters and friends,
Offspring of the muck whose bosom we embrace.
I live my life like a passing wind
Gently surfing through all the matters of life
Engendered and crafted by the hands of humans;
I view all things and weight their values.
They, as of a running stream on beds of rocks
The waters never lie still or become absorbed
So that water and rock cannot conjoin
So is my life with the materials of earth.
Are mine to find acquaintance….
When the heavens mourn, plants flourish,
When heaven is at its brightest moment
The plants of the earth shrivel in misery?
Yet they complement a cultivatable life.
I shall adapt to the intrigue and go my way.
I am brimmed full of her…life, life, life…!
Her great bowel is fraught with stale noise,
And she breaks wind into the atmosphere!
I am disgusted and will wander off
Wherever I shall have the balm of silence.
Silence is the overall answer to the
Nagging conundrums of the world.
I have had enough of the din and roar, now
I seek wisdom in the quietude of nature.
In a million of roar and hullabaloo of life
I find not a lesson to take to heart
But in a single word from silence
I have acquired a million lessons!
I will live in the prudence of silence and
Quiet my name, my pride, my ambitions.
Lo, the silence of God and the silence
Of nature makes me uncomfortable
To see my vain humanity and cravings
But in that shall i seek safety and solace!
Much has been the noise about love and
Peace yet to find. I shall deny myself goods
And seek peace from the alcove of my heart!
What is more to life, to eat, to breathe,
To be honoured or to acquire goods?
I tire of this humdrum existence.
It is one mind from bad to good,
It is one spirit from Jainism to Islam,
It is one flesh from poverty to wealth,
Only the result from the aura tells.
Hear, both tears and laughter have
Complement my health.
A man in a cell is being restrained by law
And same a man on the open street is being
Restrained by custom and constitution.
A man who knew was once not in existence
And cry to have come forth from womb
Why weep again who is to be gone to oblivion?
Don't stop
Roses are not meant for love
In my zone
The ladies prefer cash to nature
Top up the volume Richy
Cos some one need a flow
There are things with time
That becomes a custom
Cos poverty is bad
It turns the good so confused
Easy to fall to traps of needs and solution
I saw no joy in Zion
Africa keeps bleeding
Hunger still devalue the worth of my people
So I started this Poem with words
That are enough for the wise
Don't stop
I promise my mother a better life
I took bold steps to better my life
I traveled left home
From this long miles
Life never separate me from it essence
I wish to be good
I pray to be a better person
I can't let down the souls looking up to me
I feel there interest
I know there story
I just want to leave my foot print
Showing the worth of humanity
Before the eternal long night
Life is short so help me God
Never to make it shorter
I feel the glory I feel the fall of life
I stand to rise
I rise to fall
I get confused cos it not easy out here
Yet I remember the eyes of my mother
I saw the love in her eyes
This is a blessing to me
If I have a reason never to move on in life
This give me a hope never to
Don't stop
My friend’s house caught on fire when she was gone.
It was a gorgeous house, in the country, on fifty acres.
She had painted custom murals and decorated every room fancy.
The kind of house people “ooh and ahh” over, due to its beauty.
She had worked on this house for over twenty-seven years.
She was gone that day. It was a devastation. A total wipe out fire.
Not only did people drive out to watch the fire, they brought snacks.
I don’t know which was worse, she told me.
Losing my house or picking up the trash people threw out of their cars.
I was horrified and of course, she was devastated.
Who does this? Some people did, driving up into the yard to watch.
As if it was a bonfire. Sadly, some treated it like a tailgate party.
Utter disrespect for another, leaving trash in her yard like that.
Two dwellings in one single block
(the peasants at the back).
One market garden, orchard, flock:
No asphalt road. Just track.
The men were in the bottom field
to get the barley in.
“It’s looking like a bumper yield:
don’t lose it. That’s a sin.”
The Master’s doing ‘market day’ –
four bottles. Pinot noir.
The peasants joke: “He’s making hay!
He’ll wreck another car!”
Maria looked up from her paste –
that pasta needs a tweak –
it’s never good, if done in haste –
no meat or fish this week.
She felt the window drawing her:
Where’s Salva? On the grass?
The Lady, in her Sunday fur!
Tomorrow’s Martinmas!
This was the day, with harvest picked,
when bosses, ‘cleaning house’,
by ancient custom could evict,
could tell their staff, “Heraus!”
But Salva wasn’t in the sand,
or playing near the cellar:
the Lady, clutching by the hand
her daughter, Arabella,
called out “Maria! Come to me!
And don’t you dare refuse!
This yard is filthy. Can’t you see
what’s happened to my shoes?
Your boy was playing ‘gallows bird’
with Bella, in this mess!
And what if something had occurred
to Bella’s yellow dress?
The first thought in Maria’s head
was, “So – we’re not evicted!”
The second, “That girl’s overfed –
her midriff is constricted.”
Signora, with her other arm,
held Salva by the scruff.
“You peasants,” sneered the farmyard marm,
“are naturally rough.”
“They’re getting to a certain age,
and well, I mean to say …”
Maria swallowed down her rage.
“Fine. Far apart they’ll stay.”