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.
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 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.
Hooves of horses thundered across the fields
Onward they came urged by murderous men
Huddled behind stout stone walls
Women and children in the halls
Tears were shed as in fear we waited
Not knowing what would happen
as evil came to our door
Where are you we cried in despair losing all hope
Would we eventually swing high on a rope.
Faith misplaced on invisible beings
We were few against a mighty force
Heat from their breath felt on our skin
Our men were doughty fighters all
Soon though they would eventually fall
Over run by superior numbers
Trampled in the dust by sharp hooves,
Cheering from throats of viscious men.
Those that survived broken and bloodied
Hung by their necks until they passed
Mutilated and despoiled now gone to their peace
Jeering victors tied us and carried away
To imprisonment in hanging gibbets
Facing all weathers and words of hate
This in the end was to be our fate.
Andrew P McIntyre. 07/01/2025 (c).
In parts of Derbyshire and Yorkshire
there are still pit-valleys,
where industry and nature collide,
marry, and have their natural born children.
The earth once gouged, raped and laid desolate,
is landscaped by those who once despoiled.
Time plays its part, plants its seeds,
it up-roots high piled slagheaps,
softens broken mountains of concrete.
I have walked these valleys,
in some I had to stumble over the fractured bones
of abandoned and rusting machinery;
the fire scorched detritus of coal mines.
I have also strolled through resurrected Eden's,
vales recreated out of the unspeakable
into the bright eloquence of beauty.
The hands of men
and the wings of gardening angels
have covered-up all self-made wounds,
have put to bed the deeply trammeled.
The Lord of daisies and daffodils
strolls unmolested once more,
through the worst and the best
that good intentions can do.
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
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?
in the deepest of my deep dreams
I shall take my little dream boat
away and away from the earth
I shall gently slowly surely float
outwards in between the planets
I shall haul and jib tack and run
setting my sheets to catch in full
the wind streaming off the sun
past the outer giant’s shining rings
to the very edge of solar space
my little boat will gather speed
and ever faster I will surely race
riding with the giants
that swim the vacuum seas
the whales of space that
travel with greatest ease
to the end of the universe
along their timeless track
leading to eternity
then curving back
past that little star
insignificant in space
that makes the life
on my birth place
past the little shining ball of blue
the very near despoiled earth
take one last look
for what its worth
ashes to ashes
dust to dust
we destroy the earth
we were given in trust
time to begin my final
curving eternal run
to journey’s end
in the depths of the sun
my eyes wont reach
past the light that blinds
but I can see it’s glory
down deep in my mind
little boat will take me
surely to my sleep
through the fringing oceans
into that solar deep
sense the glory fading
slowly from mind sight
as I gently sink
into that endless night
serenaded by the whales
giving me their song
perhaps they are saying
in leaving I belong
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
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.
You always tell me how much you love my poetry
but is that the only reason you feel drawn to me?
I write Sonnets filled with love and romance for you,
adoring stanzas meant to caress your heart and soul,
but is it my rhyming words, or me that you cherish?
If I no longer wrote about the silvered moon in eclipse,
would your soft parted lips still want to cling to mine?
I could gladly write all day and night to please you,
but if I did not clasp a feathered quill in my hand,
I wonder... would you still hold me dear in your life?
I sit and write only for you lately. Am I fooling myself
to think it's just for the words I scribble on parchment
that you've become enthralled with the flair of my pen.
What then, my love? If no longer I could compose
expressions of devoutness meant for your eyes only.
With reverence, I beseech you to love me for who I am.
Would you leave me in painful throes of heartache,
forsaking my heart when my muse no longer expresses
the passionate verses you seek me to scribe for you?
Would you love me if I wasn't a poet, darling, scrawling
arduous words to describe the beauty of your face,
or the changing shades of grey in your wintery eyes?
No, dear one. Do not answer the questions I ask of you
for to hear your voice deny me of your love, I'd become
incapable of ever authoring another affectionate line.
I would tear my pages of poetry in half and burn them.
Grief-stricken; my tears blurring the ink to ever write again.
Despoiled of the will to create even one more quixotic verse.