Long First off Poems
Long First off Poems. Below are the most popular long First off by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long First off poems by poem length and keyword.
First off—
you are not auditioning for anything.
No judges. No golden buzzer.
Just soap scum, mildew,
and me,
feigning deafness
as your voice argues with your own credibility.
You hit notes the way most of us
hit adulthood:
off-key, but confident,
hoping no one notices the wobble.
Bravado works—
at least until the bridge,
where falsetto reveals what you’ve been avoiding:
the student loans,
the job you don’t really love but still post to LinkedIn,
the enigmatic packages marked self-care
which, if we’re honest,
are little more than elaborate procrastination.
Here’s the irony:
in the shower you are free—
yet nothing screams captivity more loudly
than a breakup ballad
sung into a loofah.
Denial will not be washed away by water.
Perhaps this is all of us:
shampoo bottles as microphones,
carrying ourselves along on the theory
that noise is progress,
that rhythm is meaning.
Our decisions stream out in choruses—
the missed lyric,
lost potential;
the key change,
a career pivot;
the pause?
You—trying not to think about dying
before the conditioner sinks in.
I’d laugh,
but I hear my own life in your medley:
a remix of delusion and resilience,
equal parts tragic flaw and comic timing.
The joke lands because it’s collective.
None of us is really singing—
we’re all humming our apologies
into tiled acoustics,
hoping someone forgives the wreckage.
Your shower aria revealed more than intended.
Not about your voice—
but about the choir we’re all in:
off-pitch,
earnest,
convinced the steam hides us,
when really,
it only fogs the glass
long enough
for us to strike a final pose,
hit a note we can’t hold,
apologizing to no one;
unless—you count
the neighbor who just knocked on the wall.
First off my friend
Let me begin
By saying I ain't no poet
Just a fool with a pen
Now with those pleasantries
Out of the way
Let me proceed to say
What I need to say
I've written different poems
On different subjects, different matters
Some soft as a kitten
Others mad as a hatter
Every now and then
I stand on the serious ledge
But more often than not
I fall right off of the edge
Like I said before
I'm just a fool with a pen
Drooling from my smile
Cross eyed in my grin
Separating in rhyme
All the boys from the men
Cackling in crazy
From the beginning to the end
Thanking my lucky stars
Rhyming comes so easy
Like a trip to Venus or Mars
Half baked brain and over queasy
Like I said before
When all of this began
I really ain't no poet
Just a fool with a pen
...First off it seemed that her husband
had no been an abusive man,
just a nebbish actually,
it was clear she had worn the pants.
She’d married him for security,
and his needs she’d most ignored,
she hadn’t strayed to seek out love,
she’d cheated because she was bored!
Deep down she’d craved the bad-boy type,
the kind she has slept with in school,
and that cowboy had scratched the itch,
but things would get even more cruel…
See her cowboy, he was married,
with a wife and two children fine,
but the author wasn’t bothered,
in fact she knew this the whole time!
She was fine with wrecking a home,
so long as she could see to her wants,
the only thing she didn’t know
was that he took other girls on jaunts.
And worse still there was that business
of him giving her a ‘parting gift,’
it turns out that he gave her three,
Her poor husband never knew it!
It only ever was found out
when the daughter who was oldest
wanted to research her family,
took an ancestry DNA test.
The results that she found shock her,
shocked the family to the core,
none of the kids were the husband’s,
he now was a father no more.
And even thought the kids all said
that the husband was still their dad,
he couldn’t make sense of it all,
and things got very, very bad.
She’d taken his whole life from him,
his understanding of all things,
all those decades of sacrifice,
and what, in the end, did it bring?
The thought that it was null and void
was just too much for this poor man,
he went out and bought a pistol,
ending his life by his own hands.
His no-longer children found him,
it was a trauma none should bear,
they no longer speak to their mother,
need therapists to fight despair.
All this was brought out to the news,
but it mattered little to them,
didn’t fit with their narratives,
society cares not for men.
And did the author feel awful?
Did any of this cause regret?
No, she wrote her romantic book,
made her millions off of the dead.
The best authors are narcissists,
not one of them think they’re malign,
Hollywood wants to make a film,
I think she’ll fit in with them fine.
But I can’t just ignore all this,
and when I see love tales with cheating,
I remember that husband’s death,
then I feel my anger rising…
I’ve heard people say it online,
“Stop living in the past,
don’t you know it’s the current year,
you’ve got to catch up fast.”
Most often said by Marxist types,
which just seems strange to me,
since they follow ideas now aged
nearly two centuries.
And while they try to dress it up
in all sorts of new coats,
it’s still a ruthless, old idea
that slaughtered countless folk.
On top of that the arrogance
That goes with such a phrase…
just strikes me as ridiculous,
in a hubristic way.
“Stop living in the past,”they cry,
but I will plainly tell
that all humans live in ‘the past,’
and can live nowhere else!
First off, there is the obvious,
the brain’s reaction speed,
that millionth of a second when
it translates what eyes see,
So that that world around you now
is not the present, no,
what you see happened a millionth
of a second ago.
That means that all you see and sense
is very recent past,
present gone before detected,
it all happens that fast.
Does present even exist though?
It you look at it close,
all units of time get smaller,
no end to that, you know.
By the time you can even think,
the moment is long gone,
so all cognitions is past-tense,
you can’t say that I’m wrong.
Lift it up to a larger scale,
knowledge is history,
since any subject we’ve learned on
happened previously.
Any tech that you’ve ever used
had to be made, produced,
any knowledge that’s written down
someone already knew.
All these things happened in the past,
it contains everything,
without these ideas we can’t live,
no past, no existing.
The past contains all that we’ve learned,
what works and what does now,
when someone laughs at it I know
their brain is full of rot,
since every argument we have,
the damn language itself,
all are structured on the past,
and it is there we dwell.
All the ideas that have shaped us,
the stories we enjoy,
the clothes you wear, that damn cell phone,
jobs in which we’re employed,
the human nature we’ve evolved,
stubborn and unchanging,
means no one can escape ‘the past,’
it’s endless cycling…
CONCLUDES IN PART II.
Dear POETRYSOUP, Hope this finds YOU and YOURS Healthy and High in the Spirit. I am writing this on the Inspiration of Heather Ober's Contest "Love Letter". First off I want to Thank-YOU all for YOUR many Gracious Comments. They are appreciated and Inspirational. Some of YOU know about my strokes and the handicap they cause me, as far as writing any comments back to YOU. I am sorry.A few of YOU know about my stomach cancer,and how the doctors removed half of my stomach and replaced it with whatever they replace stomach lineing with. However that lining ripped and I go for surgery tomorrow. Here is my delima; After the recovery from the surgery they want me to move back to the apartment (they pay for) and leave my Cabin on the mountain for ever. I have a 24/7 nurse,(and my Spirit Nurse; Suzanne Delaney) his name is Nick and he said he would stay with me at the cabin (with a cut in pay). now I do not know why Nick is a Nurse and not a Doctor, he can do everything but surgery. sorry I am rambling.
YOU are probable saying to Yourselves "What has this got to do with LOVE? By my cabin I have a house, actually a Shrine : to my DEAREST Most Only Beloved LENORE : my
Wife. I have her POETRY, her Pictures and her Butterfly collection. I had the only thing left from Our Everlasting Day; Her Transparent White Wedding Vail, stolen 4 years ago in a break-in. So my ? to my Beloved Family : POETRYSOUP is :Should I go to the Apartment(across the street from hospital)or spend the next 6 moths to a year at the cabin where my True LOVE abides,with Doctor Nick. I LOVE YOU ALWAYS and FOREVER YOUR Loyal Liege...HGarvey Daniel Esquire Aka - Harry - HG
"Mother’s Milk"
I don’t know -
what would you have me say?
Life is a gourmand perfume
rolling along on the notes of air
intoxicating musk a jubilee
music you breathe and reign in
words lactonic heaven scent
stimulating the beginning and the end
in synaesthesia the let-down presents
succulent life, a moment brief and swift
a hint of warm peppered cinnamon
with gunshot sparks recalcitrant pink
a straight shot from the heady accord first off
hard points from mother’s breast rouge the plot
we drink it all in
life is the sweetest illusion
bittersweet and burnt bent
we are all drunk to it;
before we begin,
we begin again,
we are swallowed large
into this small life
like an unknown mystery
karmic charms chime in
fragrant and in fragrant notes
recalcitrant journeys
roads less taken
sweet and bitter almonds
we hear the distant bells chime
we sign off reluctantly
to only begin it all again
Candide Diderot. ‘25
If the parents ( men and women ) of the innocent children
Connected with the parents of the victims of the predatory
Grooming gangs in Britian.? A summit could be arranged?
Under the protection.? Of a dedicated police force where
Community figures could explore options to create a more
Harmonious backdrop of living ? (including stopping all
Un-documented immigration for the space of 12/24 months? The re-opening of high street banks and post
Offices encourageing farmers markets to encourage a
Sustainable and engaging work life balance.' Yet first off
Let the injured and aggreived familiys meet should whoever of them be agreeable.? And see if this pit Britian
In in can be exited.?
All the best to every reader..)
First off let's make it clear I ain't funny
And I don't start conversations out with bonjour
But there comes a time in every mans life
Where he needs a good Man-icure
When you hit the age of me on the same feet
It's time to give the old dogs a break
Empty out your calendar this will take all day for sure
And you don't want distractions in the way
Cause when the hair on your toes could keep an Eskimo clothed
And carpet his whole family's igloo
That's when you know it's time to call up your Bro's
And go visit an Asian or two
A pedicure for a man to remove the toe jam
Like they would weapons of mass destruction
But let's not call it a date cause that just sounds gay
Let's say outing or a manly luncheon
Like a kid in a candy store given chocolate galore
With no earthly thoughts of calories
Signed up for the 5 gold star plan soon to be a new man
Where you're bound to not recognize me
From hot wax to cream to all things in between
Why they even buffed my buff
From bottom to top they did the whole lot
And yes I liked it...thank you very much
As we went through the day the new me being made
Rolling me from dock to dock
Then came to the time we stopped short of a dime
When they wanted to give me a bikini WHAT?!?
That's where I drew the line there's just some things I find
That a Manly Man would never stand
We went back to the front, that's enough of this lunch!
THAT gold star wasn't in my plan
Would I do it again? All you gotta do is say when...
But next time round believe me
When it comes to the stars I'll stop at the 4
Which I believe is the boxer instead of bikini
I that possible.? Here on poetry soup.'
A stance on being analytical.? A pre-
Disposition..To give others space.' Its
My offering in respect..Well of respect as
Far as it goes.' We are none perfect.' Yet
Can we be approachable.' Ready to share
Information, time..If we have enough.? I
Am willing to learn..I have learned so much
By observing ' those who considered themselves always right.' I learned to be
Like that in the past, yet have managed to face those
Episodes and am now in the mindframe of
Learning by not repeating.? I guess first off
The attitude of superiority ' paul of tarsus ' was like it.' There are many corrosive attitudes learned from the world.' Can i or
Whoever correct them all.? Maybe; some
Can.? Yet i consider if i or you? Or they? Can alter one fault.' Its a great start on a new road to a better destination..Just my
Thoughts this evening in a damp disconsolate Britain, all blessings to all that may read these lines.)
According to those who fly alone on a jet
We ain’t ruined the planet, not quite, not just yet
Thus, they keep flying’ to sound the alert
That Mother Earth’s wounded, yes, she’s really hurt
But first, off to France for a nice frothy malt
Tip toe past China cuz it ain’t their fault
I’ll avoid all the places where bullets are flyin’
Right here on our streets where our youngsters are dyin’
Listen to preachers and pols boldly lyin’
None of ‘em hear the families cryin’
Then off to the beach for a wave runner race
And a shot of Botox to firm up my face
Then off to the party, I think I’ll impress
In my brand new rainbowy flowery dress
So I’ll bid you farewell and please do not fret
There’s only two engines on this freakin’ jet
©7/14/2023