Long Encrusted Poems
Long Encrusted Poems. Below are the most popular long Encrusted by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Encrusted poems by poem length and keyword.
Gaping open raw war exhales vapors
In the frigid gray stillness excavating
My souls for the unseen harvest
Reflected in the leaves desiccating
Through walls of fogs pale faces stare
And disappear like a random shiver
Like a slick violin string vibrating sad
-ness like a portent of a sickness open
-ing shaking thoughts of unknown frontiers
Full of four-dimensional forests and coasts
Where skeletons recite rhapsodies ravenously
Waving flags of unjust defunct empires wildly
In the encrusted fear demons lend severed gospels
Like laughing children without love keeping records
Of my actions and their forgotten complexions
Waning in the humid cold touch of misgivings
But the voice warbles without ceasing warnings
Releasing doves bleeding as they fall asleep
Descending into a valley where darkness shines
Limbs of unrequited hope desperately lunge
For the throat emanating light salvation
Indiscriminately reaping and sowing dreams
Seeming real as wounds which never heal
As flies hatch treasonous larva in the gash
And a new century is born and scorned
Now and forever have arrived starved
Demanding blood on the altar of profusion
Crying in concrete homes hallowing illusion
Until the last angel breaks illumination...
Again and again, I scrape through the sand encrusted
macadam pavement, avoiding patches of sunken sorrows,
embossed in tv jingles, uttered from the lips of politicians,
grinning, toothless, at the wandering
immigrants, eager to find no home.
Against the soundtrack of minimum wage, scores
of campesinos work double shifts, avoiding traffic
tickets, the long dark hallway that leers at happiness,
trembling in freedom.
Only Sundays promise solace, playing soccer
with friends, the air biting with the coming winter,
warmed by bowls of steaming menudo.
Once more, the crows, perched on highway lights,
mock the empty alleyways, where crushed beer cans,
and broken tequila bottles litter the sunrise,
unwilling to quench my thirst,
…..unwilling
To quench
my thirst
© All Rights Reserved
Hearthside: an Imagined Sequel to "When You Are Old"
by Michael R. Burch
“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...” ? W. B. Yeats
For all that we professed of love, we knew
this night would come, that we would bend alone
to tend wan fires’ dimming bars?the moan
of wind cruel as the Trumpet, gelid dew
an eerie presence on encrusted logs
we hoard like jewels, embrittled so ourselves.
The books that line these close, familiar shelves
loom down like dreary chaperones. Wild dogs,
too old for mates, cringe furtive in the park,
as, toothless now, I frame this parchment kiss.
I do not know the words for easy bliss
and so my shriveled fingers clutch this stark,
long-unenamored pen and will it: Move.
I loved you more than words, so let words prove.
This sonnet is written from the perspective of the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats in his loose translation or interpretation of the Pierre de Ronsard sonnet “When You Are Old.” The aging Yeats thinks of his Muse and the love of his life, the fiery Irish revolutionary Maude Gonne. As he seeks to warm himself by a fire conjured from ice-encrusted logs, he imagines her doing the same. Although Yeats had insisted that he wasn’t happy without Gonne, she said otherwise: “Oh yes, you are, because you make beautiful poetry out of what you call your unhappiness and are happy in that. Marriage would be such a dull affair. Poets should never marry. The world should thank me for not marrying you!” Keywords/Tags: Yeats, Gonne, sonnet, Irish, Ireland, age, aging, mature, love, separation, parting, divorce, winter, night, fire, bars, books, shelves, chaperones, dogs, mates, parchment, kiss, bliss, fingers, pen, will, move, words, prove
I reminisce about the sunshine days,
I listen to soul-lifting music,
Absorbing the melody and its message.
I remember my mother singing spiritual songs.
I talk with my siblings on the phone,
Recalling our memories,
Discussing the present,
And anticipating a bright tomorrow.
I sing under the vast sky,
Unbound and unrestrained,
In the tranquillity of nature,
As tears of joy and reflection flow.
I rise before daylight as inspiration knocks at the door,
Heeding its call,
I walk through a blooming meadow,
Emerging from the encrusted shadow.
June 28, 2025.
I sit at the table looking out the kitchen window
drinking the autumn warm golden shades
of red, brown, and orange leaves descending and walking through my yard.
My mind swims with thoughts of seventy autumns,
yearning to purge into words that storm within me.
This old encrusted frame kidnapped the child I once was,
in tears this heart thoughts flow reflecting on the past.
Unconsciously holding my breath,
my wizened hands shake slightly while I write.
Like the ocean at the mercy of the wind
sweeping away by the demands of everyday life,
I write pages and pages of weeping words.
Waves rush in and around, losing myself
in a wakeful dream as I hear the distant chants.
Love and be loved
a rhythm of my soul too still the storm within me.
With hope of once more, to be young in the embrace of my love,
for now I open the door of my heart and let him continue his journey.
10/5/2017
The in-store music is country-slow,
the vibes twangy.
I pick through the tack and tinsel,
dig for rough diamonds.
Squeezing past other consumers,
sharp showers of oven scourers.
A toilet brush, a candy bar,
a plastic encrusted necklace –
pink or blue, all are equals here.
A potato masher calls to me;
yet another set of screwdrivers
hijacks my basket,
Treasures heap.
The ladies at the checkout
approve;
they’ve personally tested
all the mashers.
We chit the chat,
while a stringy angel rises up
to arrange high helium spheres.
I hear her call,
her a voice throaty
with the smoke of love,
a Mid-West idiom
that passeth all understanding.
Artfully dodging explosive solutions
pretending shackles restrained prisoner
lobbed pseudo Molotov cocktails
kindly, loosely, and mutinously linkedin
liberal short (make believe) chain
leashed faux abysmal isolated confinement
former courtly poet,
who consumed prison fare
equalling bread and thin gruel
poetical, quizzical, and rational thinking
wrought eventual gladness!
Meanwhile elsewhere within
another complex edifice
Stormy (Daniels) reign
came and went
accompanying barren
cruel don, trumpeting
issuing expansion fiat
wielding, gesticulating, brandishing...
ironclad golf club spouting art of the deal,
whereby might versus right
simultaneously Putin on the ritz
song and dance routine
crooning Ivana mock up Earth,
especially figurative roasting statesman christened
Elijah Cummings, an American politician
and civil rights advocate who served
in United States House of Representatives
for Maryland's 7th congressional district
from 1996 until his death in 2019.
That oversized ego freezer
with pouffed hair,
who shall not be named
made abominable destiny manifest
regarding eminent domain
dominion, he forcibly
relocated natives to Cajun shelters
charging them admission fees
manumission granted serving
white supremacist conveniently optioning
kids as scapegoats
re: Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
labor away migrants
grunts passive pluperfect targets
no matter forbears indigenous
to America unfortunately
been man-date to bite bullet
within badlands of El Paso
meanwhile oblivious hermit aging
barnacle encrusted manacles
absorbing cumulative dampness
no longer granting resistance
to life nor limb
timely manumission lovely bones restored
swallowed potion frothing colorful brew
contrived exquisite firearms.
Ah redeemed character
(any resemblance between
initially mentioned unfortunate soul
and living persons purely coincidental)
mentioned at outset of poem
broached out Alcatraz replica
free and clear fresh air revived
fifty shades of gray
immediately sieged moment
weakly hollered carpe diem
elixir imbued immunity
against taken hostage at gunpoint
freedmen impressed into service
while waved magic wand
whereby enslaved women
retaliated hashtagged misogynistic
took appropriate revenge
as apprenticed warrioresses!
Cancer, you are an artist
A prolific one at that,
For several dear ones
Have encountered your work.
Your wretched fingers as sculptors
Design imprints of faces unknown.
You smudge white, pain-ridden clay
A little here, a little there,
Till your subject becomes amorphous.
But oh you are not finished!
A red cross encrusted kiln
Invariably cements your doings.
A surgery of crackling and burning,
Until the shape is spit out,
A hard shell lost of all dignity.
Satisfied with your creation,
You give it one last look
Before it rests on an earthly shelf
And another project is begun.
I am sad to say,
You are quite skilled at your craft.
Risking it all
at the edge of the cliff-
edge of the water-
edge of life.
Debating,
replaying,
like the song stuck in your head
circling around and round like that pendulum-
the one you choked around your tainted complexion-
the blood blended,
colors of your true self
true revelation
revealed.
Then there was no longer a lie present
a lie encrusted within the dank sorrow-
buried beneath your organs
behind those abusive eyes-
the one's that would yell and caress my blonde hair,
the one's that cherished the memories and fought for the future,
a lie so asserting, it testified
and unraveled your past.
Your insecurities.
The one's that make you run-
so fast you're running from your awaiting death,
like the coffin is chasing your terrible lying eyes-
I see them through,
like a lie detector,
blunt,
accurate,
honest.
You thought you knew me,
yet you are soon to know you failed.
Rumours shouldn't talk
and they ultimately should not decipher whether somebody is loyal or not
or if they take chances-
because I jumped,
a swan dive,
deep into the depths of the frosty air,
beneath, the clouded waters of doubt.
They stimulated my senses,
giving me some hope
some confidence that I'd be saved,
like in the movies as the damsel,
like the hero who nearly dies but can't.
And then,
I smack the frozen waters,
knocked out, cold,
hammering the thing called chance,
something I spontaneously attempted,
something you told me to do
and you didn't even save me.
You didn't even latch out your hand,
you didn't even look.
Instead you had your back turned,
walking away ignoring,
hiding,
just like you always do,
and just like it's the last time.
Then, you come running back
after time passes,
after I'm gone-
dead.
It was you who left me there, stranded,
paralyzed.
There wasn't even an opportunity to move on
only the opportunity to accept.
And though you came charging back,
ripped open the doors
you're alone.
And this time it was your lesson,
this time you have to learn that though the consequences are severe
you have to be willing to take chances,
risk a little,
because if you don't, you'll be alone,
stay alone,
all because you weren't honest to yourself.
Before I down my cuppa, before I brush me teeth
let me go down on one knee and pray to thee
Before the sun arises and before the world rises
let me close my eyes so you can hear my cries
Lord, may you always be my guiding light and friend
so I can live beside you until the very end
Lord, teach me how to be brave in a world full of fear
so I can be truthful to myself no matter whom I draw near
Before I put on my makeup on and leave the house
let me walk towards your oceanic penthouse
Before I dip into the sea or walk onto encrusted earth
let me slip into my minion wings, the ones you gifted me at birth.