Long Dozen Poems
Long Dozen Poems. Below are the most popular long Dozen by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Dozen poems by poem length and keyword.
Walked in through those gates, the legends foretold/
valley of death? Try a circus of old/
The baddest dude charged, Timber! Came the call/
He fell like a Jenga tower, five stories tall/
A gang rolled up, thinking strength in their mix/
Twenty-five sprawled out, my karate did the tricks/
One guy swung a mop, I said, nice try my dude/
Bruce Lee sends his regards, you're downright screwed/
The warden, amused, said, you're quite a catch/
But here's the yard, better watch your match/
I replied, bring a referee, I'll fight the sun/
Prison weights? A toy, I lift bars for fun/
Heard of Big Tony, a baker in his cell/
Wanted me to fold, but I don't crumble, oh well/
He yelled; you can't handle this crusty bread fight/
I left him in crumbs, baker's dozen, goodnight/
Cellmates wanted a laugh; I gave them my line/
Why was the belt arrested? For holding up a crime/
Laughter echoed loud, like a jailbreak spree/
Legendary convict, now that's my decree/
They put me in solitary, thought I'd go mad/
But I tap danced with shadows, not half bad/
My mirror's my rival, I said with a wink/
Best fight I've ever had, and the toughest I think/
Release day came; warden gave me a grin/
Your Legend's now famous, let the world begin/
Life's a riot and the yard was my stage/
Off I went, the legend, turning the page/
(Pema, spring 2019)
It’s All About Grooming
I’ve had my pug now almost 13 years,
and we both adore each other,
but I clearly have the advantage
because I’ve been grooming him all along.
It’s no contest really.
In 13 years, or about 4700 days, my wife and I
have lavished every form of love known to man
upon his blessed little soul and walnut wrinkled head,
about 6 times a day I’d say,
although it could easily be ten times that.
That’s 28,000 to 280,000 moments of positive strokes
compared to the maybe half dozen times
we’ve been hard on him
in 13 years.
Talk about conditioning.
It’s no wonder he adores us,
comes and melts into our embrace.
It’s all about the grooming after all,
and yet, when I put it this way
I think maybe he’s been grooming us more,
much more.
Maybe it’s like this with others that I love,
my wife, and child and to some extent friends.
I’d like to think so, but I’m not convinced.
Something about grooming dogs seems just fine
while, with humans, not so much.
That’s the problem with being human,
we don’t handle having other humans
lavish praise on us so well, at least after the infant stage.
And yet we have no problem
receiving it from
or giving it to
dogs their whole lives.
Whoever said life was fair…
(10/30/23)
("A Migration of Ghosts", 2023, original encaustic)
In the morning I lay in the bath
Slowly waking with a cup
My mind drifts half asleep.
Eventually I start to count
All the people I have met and known
Close and distant
Who are gone.
At first it’s an easy couple of handfuls
But then the longer I soak
The more the numbers add up.
Eventually several dozen names and faces
Have marched across my memory
Each one smiling for an instant
Caught in a moment of what I knew them for.
A parade of sorts, young and old
Which once opened to won’t seem to stop.
It’s not like I’m merely an observer either
Safe in the warmth of my bath,
Like them I’m moving inexorably from here
To there
A parade of sorts, each with our own allotted light
Candles big and small, dull or bright
But in the end nothing but a memory
In memoriam we erect in honor
Without a site.
(5/15/26)
First Date Poets Dozen
Saw her beside me
Eyes yearning desperately
I fell instantly
Perfume in hand I approached her ever so slowly
Not moving too fast proceeding oh, so cautiously.
After asado, and cinzano, then gelato, we took a stroll
Parliamo piano, piano, love's flames started then ci vediamo
Past heartbreaks revealed, nothing at all was concealed
Talking quietly entranced, long, long, into the night
Walking hand in hand hearts aglow with what we feel
Our hearts had found their home, we just knew it was right
My perception of her love's reflection, was to my heart's delight.
*Asado= Argentine barbeque
*Parliamo piano piano= we spoke slowly (Italian)
*Ci vediamo= see you later, goodbye (Italian)
First date was in Buenos Aires hence Spanish Italian references
Most Portenos residents of Buenos Aires are of Italian/Spanish descent.
December 24,2015
For Silent One contest
First Date Poets dozen
My best friend got a girlfriend,
covered in tattoos,
kept saying she was ‘the one,’
his lover, faithful and true.
I said not to rush in fast,
to look for skeletons,
he snarled and told me off,
then married that young thing.
Within a year she’d cheated
more than a dozen times,
one day my friend said to me:
“The baby can’t be mine.”
Now he no longer talks to me,
or goes for a drink at night.
I think he resents me for
the fact that I was right.
I sure do miss hanging out,
but after what she put him through
I know I was right to try…
Damn these cynic’s blues.
My sister went to college,
and studied ‘History of *****.’
I remarked “with that degree,
you’re not going anywhere.”
She got mad, called me names,
said that I hated folks gay,
ignored me when I pointed out
that such degrees don’t pay.
In fact she ignored anything
not fitting with her worldview,
she went ahead and studied,
followed it on through.
When she got out in the world
expecting six figures,
a clerk job at a bookstore
was the best available to her.
Now she lives in my attic,
poor and angry, she fumes,
no good saying,”I told you so,”
man, I hate these cynic’s blues.
Had myself a lover once,
she called me cynic all the time.
Told her I was a pragmatist,
but that truth she didn’t buy.
Then came an election,
and we pulled for different teams.
I told her that the patterns said
my man would be winning.
She smiled at me in pity,
and pointed to the latest polls,
said I would feel darn foolish
when the story was all told.
Come election day she stared,
tearing up in disbelief,
and rather than admit loss
she up and walked out on me.
I’ll really miss the sex though,
that sounds harsh, but it’s true.
I suppose we never were a fit,
you can thank the cynic’s blues.
"Ennui Sets In”
Whenever pen is placed
Between purloined phalanges,
When my mind unfolds and tears along the seams,
I know it’s time to move my thoughts,
Through the underground;
That dark crusty void
Of dreary dreams diminished,
Where loose hell raisers floss and shine,
Comb and spray,
As drowning voices backwash yesterday’s histrionics,
Dark-eyed winches peek through the
Centers of dead doughnuts;
Bleacher seats rust and wallow
In half-moon emancipation,
Ennui sets in…
My bow tie knows all the answers.
I cry and beseech for all those tomorrows
To resurrect, to pontificate, to loose
The bowels of screaming sunsets, yet sutured.
I flinch. I sigh.
Force majeure got in the way.
Polka dot panacea,
Wretched weasels in the underbrush,
Prufrock is the metaphor to mangle, impugn, vivify,
And otherwise squeeze until the cows come home.
I’m a poet without a message.
My heart pumps vexations of vaseline,
I am dry and empty
Like the musty moans of sweet madness,
Emanating elusively
From the hollow of ancient days,
Amidst unanswered questions,
At the fork in the road,
Two blocks northwest of my last dying breath,
I am the last sunset!
Ennui sets in.
Twilight vivisection holds the door open this time.
There is no respite,
From Raphael’s regurgitated Renaissance.
He jumps backward,
Through the darkening dissonance,
Dissolved, dismayed, dumbfounded.
Skipper Frank lies dead in the glittering gutter.
The Pancake Man melts into the waxworks.
Madame Tussaud wonders why.
Ennui sets in.
Dead meat saliva feeding
The roses of Robespierre.
Little Lord Fauntleroy is mixing martinis, and
A dozen dainty dames are dancing
Past the midnight of my time.
A blue trumpet, buzzing in the steamy shadows.
Lapping corpses line the phosphoric hillsides;
It’s not what it appears to be.
Truth and beauty perceived in the morning mirror.
Ennui sets in.
The sun is setting
As she prepares her for evening
After dusk dinner with her lover in gardens over there
Basket of love all wrapped with love and flair
She sets down the cutlery
Pours two glasses of red wine
A dozen roses she places on the tombstone
Candles flicker surrounding the grave
She clinks glasses, too you my love
I smile meekly, taking a sip
She whispers how she misses me so
She gently caresses me and sings our song
The moon is out, so full and bright
We dance entwined, both past and present held tight
She seductively sways, in the candle lit night
A lone tears appears upon her cheek
I am silent, intimately studying her face of sadness
She knows I love her, even from below
The wind and the sky both tell her so
Her tear stained scarf falls right where I lie
I smell her perfume, her passions my soul keeps
The night becomes chilly, for our tears so weep
She lays down beside me, holding me in stone
She whispers you shall never be alone
Before sunrise, up she is her basket packed to go
She places one black rose upon me as the clouds part way
She returns to her reality and me to my grave
Turning round she speaks these words
You can never leave me
You can never go
You are always beside my heart
For I love you so
In the morning sun
The grave keeper is mending and pruning things just right
As he walks over me, I am startled a wee bit with fright
You see I had a dream just this last of nights
That a lover came to whisper devotions and hold me tight
There was no woman, no lover, no visitor to my enclave
For even the dead and soulless, have dreams from underneath
My hell on earth is to be buried right here in earthy toils
Knowing no lover will place a flower at the foot of my grave
The wind blows
Leaves twirling up in the sky
The wind blows
A black rose falls upon my grave
'Foggy' location seeds were from, curiosity won
Five months later, wanderer from roof tall trellis hung
Violet globe pods were bitter but oddly addictive
Several dozen daily dose, sour juice inflicted
Soon supplied smoothie zing, purple milk vibrant
Irresistible, the youth inducing effect they provided
A year after planting, I'd positively lost ten
Face entering wrinkle free twenties again!
Friends amazed by results of youth fruit blessed
After eighteen short months, I appeared adolescent
Freely sharing my vivacious treacherous discovery
From her desirable rewinding hand, no recovery
Benjamin Button's slow motion journey ridiculed
- My eight year old routinely tucks me into bed!!
9th August 2020
We flew through the air on a refurbished plane,
the shakes and the rattles sure gave us some pain.
But we were the ones who fortune had named
to spend years Far East with our dad’s army game.
The journey exciting, we’d not been before
to a place where the winters did not foul our door,
so with overcoats changed for our tropical clothes
we boarded the plane to where God only knows.
With propellers screaming we tore on our way
and rose in the air as the ground dropped away,
though creaking and groaning the plane struggled on
though both the wings flapped as we flew to the sun.
British Eagle, the airline that carried us away,
a turbo prop plane that had long past its day.
But that’s all our army could ever afford
when transporting dozen of families abroad.
Though night time in Turkey, at our first stop,
was not really the place where we found it too hot,
when we landed in India, some time around noon,
I think that it dawned what we’d be facing soon.
As we walked down the gantry to this foreign place
I thought the plane’s engines blew hot in our face,
but as we walked away the hot stream still blew strong
and it soon became clear t’was the wind all along!
But soon we resumed on our creaky old ride,
like sardines in a can we were packed back inside
and as Singapore rose in the sky like the sun
our new life in the tropics had really begun.
From a plane that just made it, next day was a train
with another full day of rough travelling again,
with seats made of wicker on which we would ride
and bunks made of wood crammed with people each side.
The view as we trundled down the track for that day
was worth any discomfort the train threw our way,
plantations and jungle, bananas and palms,
made this glorious Malaya a world full of charms.
Four years in Penang with its warmth, sun and sea
changed not only my life but the essence of me,
though it’s now fifty years since I had to depart
this ‘Pearl of the Orients’ still lives in my heart.
Ivor G Davies
Brave Texas woman rides horse after Mary’s white sheep.
Sheep taken while girls watch hanky-panky movie.
Cross River finds green field empty.
Minny Mouse gives dozen sheep water.
Horse yield tired, needs break.
Rogue tiger hears lunch bells, mouth water.
Lambs chops fried, makes great table plate.
Black wolfs lofty large sharp teeth scare tiger.
Tiger cries, belly hurts, maybe wolfs share sheep.
Woman shows small rifle which drive large wolfs south.
Wolfs smile, visit piggy house, worth their labor,
mouth water, stuff apple piggy mouth sound sweet.
Large brick house saves piggy.
Girls awake, where Mary’s sheep flock?
Girls didn’t proper watch furry sheep.
2/22/2018
Poetry Contest: A little laughter five
Sponsored by: Edward McCall