Long Divan Poems
Long Divan Poems. Below are the most popular long Divan by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Divan poems by poem length and keyword.
I leave the auction sick, my mettle frayed
A ghost, I fear, in oil clutched near my side
No doubt, a ghost for which I've dearly paid!
How best to next proceed, I must decide
The painting I have bought portrays a man
laid out upon a bed as if he sleeps
A woman stands beside the low divan
Offhand, I'd guess a mistress that he keeps
I recognize the bloke who's laying prone
A classless dog and local alley cat
His past and family folk remain unknown
but those with whom he spoke called him "Merat"
I peer more closely at the racy scene;
Beside Merat, a pool of crimson red
The woman's face is cool, if not serene,
quite out of place, considering the bed!
I take my time in staring at the girl,
and make an observation I can't bear
my hands begin to shake, the air to swirl,
for that's my naked wife who's painted there!
As I trudge home, it's hell that fills my head
and passing by a doorsill with a bin,
I tell myself it's I who will be dead
if I don't shove the dreadful painting in
My mind is blank as I bypass the stairs
and free from fear of my assassin wife,
I steer my thoughts past murder and affairs,
then pull her near and thank her for my life
The rain clouds gather outside and
I see his umbrella bouncing over the hedge.
I hear him enter the gate with case in hand;
He slowly closes the gate and heads for the door.
A light knock reverberates into the library,
I hear the door close and his soft voice say,
“Good evening ma’am, I’m here for a tuning”.
She takes his coat and he heads for the gold leaf piano.
He removes mother’s lace carefully from atop,
He neatly sets it on the maroon divan.
He opens his case of tools with ease,
No rush does he have in his bones.
Like clock work, I know what he’s doing,
Without stepping foot out of the library.
He repeatedly strikes the keys in tune.
Using his trusty rubber mute.
After an hour or so I hear the case close,
He gently puts mother’s lace back.
He pops his fingers and gives it a try.
He tickles the ivories with frailness.
He plays from mother’s hymnal book.
His fragile fingers play the song,
‘Power in the blood’ as he hums along.
I love when he comes to revive the piano.
I hear him politely tell the maid he’s all done,
She hands him his coat with check, the door softly closes.
The rusty gate shuts as the umbrella bounces,
Over the hedge and he fades away from my view.
So the shape
Of the poem
Does not have
To be the subject
Of the poem.
Aha! Got it. After reading the rules twice, and then thrice, as I did not believe myself the first time or two. But what to write? Something that rhymes? An acrostic? A quatrain? I am in a quandary here, Sometimes the easiest thing to do becomes the hardest when you apply the dendrites and think too hard. I know this and yet, I am not the most prolific bard. What is the contest holder looking for? Some thing unique, simple, well-written and fine. I have to admit I am not as confident as at most other times. I do not want to write about a couch, but here it is Lying in my mind, big time as I try to create one. In a new and unusual way. As it is available and I am worn out just trying, I will lie on it now and take my well deserved cat nap. At rest now. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Written July 3, 2018
For Marueen McGreavy's Get Into Shape Poem Contest
I gaze on a scene of such total destruction
Somehow my husband has slept through it all
I’d thought that our home was of sturdy construction
I’ll tell you what happened as best I recall
At first the roof trembled, the seagulls took flight
The squirrels abandoned the loft for the night
The rattling windows were causing me fright
And no moth flew rings round that 60 watt light
The shutters all clattered and one window shattered
The drapes were sucked out so they‘d flutter and flap
My clothes spiralled round getting torn and tattered
Except for one dress which was caught by its strap
I fought with the duvet to keep it upon us
Our double divan started spinning around
A branch that crashed in almost landed right on us
But pulled out again to be hurled at the ground
And just when it seemed we would crash through the flooring
The whirlwind that had been as loud as a train
Just stopped with an encore, of my husband’s snoring
He’s not getting baked beans for supper again.
4 November 2020
Contest: After The Hurricane
Sponsor: Craig Cornish
Into a garden sprayed by night's rain,
Jen slouches under a dim lamplight
as the wind gushes on her divan
sweeping pages of a long era,
jotted down through crystal-clear memoirs
from her flawless hand, still radiant...
while tendrils of a past causes
her eyes to melt in glass of evening.
She pauses between emblazoned lines,
a web of saga transports her musings
in a village where life detailed the pain
and glory of unwanted wartime;
the smoky air turning fruits into molds
as land raids wheezed without children’s sounds.
Quietly, Jen folds the sepia-book
to find beauty in her lit garden,
while cloudburst fades like distant remains...
then, washing the leaves of yesteryears,
she breathes in solace: a woman freed
by putting a name to her past angst,
ready for rain’s music of tamed sleep.
.............
Poem In Paradise Contest
Sponsor: Isaiah Zerbst
7/21/2014
Estella Murray
1891-1912
Johnny’s was the last face
I saw that April afternoon in 1912.
I admit I was mean to him,
As mean as a starving she-dog in heat.
It’s not that I did not appreciate
The blooming rosebud he presented to me
Six months before my untimely demise.
But that thorn hidden beneath it,
Could it not have been removed beforehand?
It’s not that I did not appreciate
The long-winded love letter he delivered to me
Three months before my untimely demise.
But that last line written so sloppily, – “I love thee!”-
Could it not have been rewritten neater
And the word “thee” replaced with the word “you?”
It’s not that I did not appreciate
The inert standing vigil he kept for me
Three days before my untimely demise.
But what was that fool doing out there?
Just standing in the garden out front-
Outside my open-curtained window?
Could he not at least have stepped to my front door
There on Friends Street
And cried real tears for my departing soul?
But no! That fool, Johnny Barrow,
Instead stood out there flirting with his new girl-
Insipid April and her moody mornings and afternoons-
Standing and staring straight ahead
Like some stupid stone cold statue!
“Oh happy dagger!” the young Juliet once intoned.
“Oh happy death!” I said at last,
There on my mother’s divan,
Forgetting once and for all,
That staring unmoving fool, Johnny Barrow!
A serpent lies writhing on our divan,
we see now how denial might begin.
Hissing at all who would foil his vile plan,
our fatal flaw is not delving right in.
Climate Change is much more a twisty tact:
coiled thoughts like stone turrets in ivy.
If nations can't accept a real fact -
it's hard to turn this round, from what I see.
Setting science so very far aside,
deft doubters like letting sleeping snakes lie.
Skeptics scurry for a safe space to hide,
afraid to give the truth one honest try.
This then, becomes a crippling contrivance:
ever still stronger, steadfast defiance.
4/24/22 103 Words
Eerie parlor music squeaks out over the musty floral rug
No human people have been in here for a long time
The organ has lost some keys; which gives a weird sound
The ghosts in the attic cringe, remembering better days.
Once a showplace, the house is overrun by vermin now.
Skittering and scampering across the floor is commonplace.
Mice have nests in the rug, and in the long-forgotten divan.
Tiny streams of light come through the holes in the paper blinds.
Owners of this house have allowed it to die an unnatural death.
Urine smells keep the riffraff out; including a mother opossum.
It is the place where halfhearted spiders go to die.
Not haunted, yet, full of unhappy memories.
Why the organ plays herself, none of us know.
We wait in the shadows, willing a human to come forth.
Hoping they will somehow fix her up, making her fresh and new.
A man attempts to peek into the windows.
The organ ceases its dirge-like play.
We animals skitter into the darkest shadows.
A surprise for a realtor on this holiest of days.
Halloween, a day for crazed visitors.
Seems appropriate that he wears a mask.