Long Despoiled Poems
Long Despoiled Poems. Below are the most popular long Despoiled by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Despoiled poems by poem length and keyword.
Steamy daylight seeps into
flesh, bone brick and drywall.
It’s late July
and a large fly is trapped
between the curtain and the hot window.
I can’t tell if it’s angry, desperate, or confused;
the buzz is intermittent, the pauses
lulls of restoration, or instincts in abeyance.
Maybe it just forgets to be anything.
I wonder if its purpose was decreed
before its short life?
The plan pronounced,
breathed into the embryonic grub
by a divine resolve?
It’s mission:
to eat the dead things of the earth,
bury its body in the rot,
the waste and heat of corruption?
Then to fly on
despoiling the despoiled,
maggoting the future.
Will the fly, on judgement day,
be called to confess the sin
of being caught
between sultry glass and fabric,
where the sun sears and strafes;
its purpose uncompleted?
And shall I, on that day of judgement,
be mystically sprayed
into a similar chemical silence?
The farmer looked on sown fields with dismay,
Be-spotted with tiny holes in despoiled array.
Each spot where mice had dug up and eaten.
Wheat seeds sown with mice-controls well beaten.
The farmer had tried to poison the mice.
Tried birds of prey once or twice.
Tried cats and smelly scent deterrents,
All to no avail to beat the endless recurrence.
One night the farmer awoke from fitful sleep.
Ah Hah! I have an idea cheap, neat and deep.
What if I make the entire field smell of wheat,
By spraying the field all over with wheat-oil neat?
Sure enough, the over spray with oil worked a treat.
The mice dug a myriad of holes with tiny feet,
Where their smell, said wheat should be,
Only to find all their holes empty, no seed to see.
Frustrated, exhausted they paused their paws.
Cursed their noses, tricked by the scent-only cause.
A wheat field, over-sown with superfluousness,
Made their search, dig to eat meaningless.
I've written of longing and pensive fears,
of sorrow, pain and my ravished emotions.
Tomes of poetry are an expose' of my soul
before my pen ran dry and my heart resigned.
Despoiled by devotion and ribbons of lies
is a tarnished ring, my circle of gold.
Love's wounds on paper, continued to bleed.
Poems in testament to what once had been real.
In dust-laden books I shall never again read
are Sonnets beaded with ardor, I chose to impart
now lie hidden from my eyes, impaled by a dart.
Each one a dagger thrust to the pith of my heart.
With a sigh, I filled my ink well one last time
to pen the lines, I render in my last confession.
Words I had dared not whisper into your ear.
I lingered just a moment to wipe an errant tear,
but on parchment, they fell in rapid succession
then wrote with quivering lips and trembling fingers.
"When I lie pale and cold in death's possession
my love will live on, flowing beyond death's door.
When my eyes are closed, lips tinted pale blue
and the rhythmic beat of my heart is no more ~
maybe then you will admit that you loved me, too."
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 23 Contest
Sponsored by Mark Toney.
Originally posted on 12/19/2019
We cannot tame a raging storm, so with patience,
we must wait for the calm. ~ by poet
The balmy afternoon had been fulgent and warm
Until darkness foreshadowed an approaching storm
Wailing winds of the nor'easter would soon cause grief
damaging fragile coral growth upon the reef
Leaden clouds encroached and shrouded the gloomy day
The aura changed from gold to hue of graphite gray
It seemed as if an eclipse turned day into night
as feathered wings rose in unison to take flight
Thunder's billowed breath blew across the ocean's waves
as if the tempest was demanding what it craves
Atmosphere grew heavy with each powerful roar
White caps rushed with clangor against the sandy shore
With vengeance, the storm hurled jagged lightening strikes
Split second flashes that resembled silver spikes
* * *
Then, the deluge rained like arrows, sharp as metal
That would've wounded men like a stinging nettle
The monsoon swept overland, clear across the dunes
on zephyr winds that howled diabolical tunes
The storm seethed with a furor that was unsuppressed
leaving the seaside landscape despoiled and distressed
Battered by ferocious weather that was to blame
Nature's forces can be impossible to tame
Finally, squalls dwindled and waves no longer surged
Glowing rays of sunlight defiantly emerged
And so the storm came with raging temper to vent,
pillaged treasures from the sea. Yes, it came and went
It was quite a balmy evening, fulgent and warm
Upon the beach seashells lie, displaced by the storm
They say Rome wasn’t built in a day
Yet little time it took to crucify Jesus,
Last night I was throwing and rolling dice on the heart of a despoiled lady,
I found her struggling to hold on to her life as if it weighed the titanic,
She sold me dreams and I spoke to her literature,
We made a beautiful mixture.
The words out her mouth claimed my poems were sugar sprinkled on her lemon days,
And her eyes have found pleasure drinking these lemonade words.
This October I have sacrificed my days working to try and make a place tender for her heart,
If the heart of a man like clocks are broken when they fall, then my time is only right twice a day,
And the rest, I spend recalling words I said that sound like they were meant to be said to you.
I have changed my tense once more,
For sometimes I feel like I met who I love,then like I’m yet to meet her
and on other days I’m just in love with other people’s women,
But yet Rome wasn’t built in one day,
So it might take me Time and again.
My brothers, sisters, all of this I’ve seen
As every day across the sky I’ve been.
Whilst you have watched the flowers gleam and grow,
‘Twas I that held the lamp that made them so.
And I have wept for regions, now despoiled,
Where I have shown my strength, and you have toiled.
Yet we, who know so well the careless void,
Cannot destroy Creation, though annoyed.
And we who swore to fill the empty cup
Must never be the ones to break it up!
My brothers, sisters, let us not forget
That reason rides but roughly them as yet.
If reason’s lower facets were a tool
To better arm the base and blundering fool
There’s yet a cooling calm within this jewel.
Perhaps as they shall peer into its glow,
Perhaps the pull of peace they’ll better know.
And they shall give their substance to a thought,
And bask within its glories, as they ought;
And find it dwells in peace: in turmoil, not.
My brothers, sisters, give me leave to seek,
To yet pursue our dream, however weak.
For we who see the furthest have most kin,
And we must raise, not lower, those who sin!
As reason served as reason’s ruin, well said.
Yet reason shall by reason’s ruin be fed.
For I shall send my student ‘midst their throngs,
The scholar Chiron, who all learning longs,
And through his reason, shall we right their wrongs.
For teachers are the torch the gods may send,
Whose patient light, the wounds of darkness mend;
Who, but they bring beginnings, there be end.
The Fall of The Winter King
He had risen to power
fueled by a vicious and ruthless determination
to reclaim a lost throne.
His tactics had stunned the unsuspecting,
laid barren the fields,
blanketed the forest,
silenced the sounds of life itself.
A dictator, seeking no counsel,
accepting no offers of surrender,
driven by the desire to destroy
the kingdom that had usurped his throne.
Rumors spread of a daring bud – sprouting -
a tune hummed by the imprisoned trees
adrift on the whipping winds of war
in defiance of the heartless king.
A call to arms sounded
by the most gentle, the most delicate.
The first acts of open rebellion,
The resounding crack of the ice jamb
the aching roar of the river’s rage
surging over its banks
awakening those still held captive.
Slowly the insurrection took root
buds gathered in hidden clusters,
trees quietly bloomed
muffling the screeching gales,
offering safety to bands of rebels.
Flocks of warblers met -
feathered archers - hurling their
darting arrows against the glare
of a cold king’s horror.
Sweet grasses spread across
the brown, despoiled fields -
a verdant gauntlet tossed in the face of dread.
Flowers crept from thawing dungeons
waving their colors,
swarms of banished pollinators
followed the call to duty.
The ebb and flow of battle -
frosted retreats,
clandestine sunrise maneuvers.
The resurgence of heart,
the growing hope of warmth.
As memory of the chilled repression
faded preparation was made
to receive the beauty and bounty
of a new and peaceful King.
John G. Lawless
1/11/2015
For SKAT’s Winter’s End – Poetry Contest
The gods are angry
and growing angrier.
Poseidon views his beautiful ocean
despoiled with garbage,
poisoned and polluted
by heedless humans.
He rages to Hephaestus
and Vulcan, gods
of creation, but, when angered,
purveyors of
fire and destruction.
He exhorts Jupiter, highest
of the gods, for retribution.
And now
the world is ablaze or
buried in snow and ice.
Boreas, god of the North Wind,
unleashes catastrophic winds
that fan the flames
in one region,
turn snow-laden, below-zero blasts
onto another.
Cities are flooded
or turned to dust in droughts.
Crops fail.
Disbelieve in us, they say,
at your own peril.
I dare not tread waters concerned with my demise
or the fear of mortality will appear before me.
Morbidity is not a subject my eyes wish to see
nor my ears deign to hear
for death is a forbidden topic of deep disdain.
One that I find profusely profane.
With thinly veiled trepidation,
I also broach the matter of promises broken,
a betrayal that should be taken seriously
when words are spoken lightly then forsaken.
They leave the blood in a heart frozen
without hope of warming.
I find the breadth and scope of such folly
something with which I fail to cope.
In sorrow's hand I would cradle my heart,
wounded by deceit as it lay battered and bleeding.
Blood dripping like rhythmic raindrops....
rivulets running down a windowpane,
tantamount to tears trickling into an ebbing sea,
rather than face the silence of solitude
where it would linger until the finger of death
ended heartache's misery.
To perish thus, alone and lying on a shore
surrounded by pledges broken
as if they were fragile seashells and nothing more.
How profound are such thoughts
that broken promises could haunt a heart
until death becomes its destiny; a demise to thwart.
Fealty should be honored as if worth more
than if it were a way of keeping score in a game.
It is the same with a vow made...
A broken one is like a house built with a fake roof
that collapses on an unprotected heart.
It was hammered in place by words
recited while aloof.
Look at a broken heart if you need more proof.
A promise given and then despoiled is a soiled
and painfully cruel thing
that hurts like hell, akin to a bee sting
or a train that derailed and tumbled off its tracks
from lies told that were never taken back.
I cannot abide a promise broken
nor take it in stride when the damage it causes
is a heart taunted by turmoil and falling apart.
Don't promise anything that isn't truly meant.
Another rent in a vanquished heart is too much to bear.
It's easier to discuss anything else...
the number of stars in celestial skies
and naming them as if they were phylum of butterflies.
It may be void of tenderness and emotion
but it will never betray loyalty and devotion.
(Bang-e-Dra-114), Khitab Ba Jawanan-e-Islam.
These are Golden words by Dr Allama Iqbal.
Khatab Ba Jawanan-e-Islam
Address To The Muslim Youth.
In short, in words can I tell to you what were these desert men?
Holders, Keepers, Saviours, Adorners of what we call the world.
If I should draw the sketch aright limning the form in words,
The vision I’d draw would be better far than all your fancy paints.
There is no standard by which to judge Yours and your father’s worth.
You utter words but they did deeds. They roamed: you stay at home.
We have despoiled the inheritance that we from our fathers won.
The heaven from the zenith has dashed it down
And cast it on the ground. what is this weeping at ordered things
That it is the affair of a day? Except the help of all-certain law
The world has no other plan. but if those pearls of learning’s lore,
Those books our fathers wrote we see in Europe made scholar’s joy, The heart is rent with grief.
O Ghani*, behold the darkened day Kinan’s old man once knew,
That the light of his eyes to Zuleikha’s eyes might bring the brightness of sight.
Kalam e Iqbal Translated by Miss Aliza Kashmala Kiran.