Long Floorboards Poems
Long Floorboards Poems. Below are the most popular long Floorboards by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Floorboards poems by poem length and keyword.
DAUGHTERS
Opposites presented by Goddess
in talons of Eagle
on wings of Dove
Equally loved
A torrent from a fierce black cloud
yang frothing waves in a storm
beating seaweed rocks
claiming it in her bosom
then furling it afar
into unknown depths
where Neptune roars
his roar on end
boasting an indigo flag
Then ...light as a feather
yin floating on a shimmering beach
rosy ringlets microscope crabs, bubbles
giggling at ant antics
in crevices of creaky floorboards
while autumn Sun sets
dew drops on clover leaves
so misty morning says Hello !
A dancing juicy apricot
kisses at library doors
spongy beneath oak exterior
where beetles dug a hundred paths
staring defiance at an orange star
scornful, graceful, factual
proclaiming a Largeness of Life !
An Earth child in long waves of auburn
reaching for Mercury
A Spirit child, Earth located
One imaged from bowels of struggle
she whispered freedom in my ears
when behind prison bars
I sat counting toes
One imaged from Gabriel’s gown
or was it Merlin’s ?
she fingered watercolours
through my lenses
As Saturn said goodbye ...
Sirius screamed from wreaking hell
wrought from rages or sages unknown
Born in blood without its blue
from a womb of turmoil tremors
crystal dripping dark strife
hypocrisy contemplated
torn apart by churning guts
as young medics ogled
grimaced, searched
so premature, so incubated
it was “I will survive!”
Sun and Moon crossed one another
not knowing which way but loose
streaming rivers flowing sideways
in dusty towns, painted villages, rape
a gecko appeared on a pillowcase
Gangster peeped through a window
books came tumbling down
numbers flew away
lashes black as croaking crow
it was “I am here!”
There can be no coin to
ponder if not faces two
no tornado ripping apart
if no breezes play on
a horse farm in Karoo
No life if no death
Night clings to day
as daybreak clings to escaping night
sunset embraces twilight
negates itself, disappearing
one embalming the other while
flying
together on a silver thread
in blueberry Sky !
well, woman has been around for a while
hypno-teasing men with her wicked smile
been known by many names starting with Eve
Boadicea, Cleopatra and Genevieve
she can fly-by-night, be out with the bats
purring and prowling with sly slinky cats
never a tame girl, sometimes receptive
with hidden secrets, deep and deceptive
see her in twilight, creature in the dark
flames flickered when she was Joan of Arc
think she has been here for just a few years?
think again, 'them' hills, they flow with her tears
woman has been teacher for aeons of time
wrote most of " Homer ", taught Plato to rhyme
as Archimedes' hand-maid, she had a laugh
when he shouted " Eureka, get me out of the bath! "
around when Adam gave out those spare ribs
her name is on parchment writ with rare nibs
her time here with us, a mere interlude
battles over centuries, a bitter feud
with men from the past and future I'm told
man on her arm, just her latest cuckold
well-rounded dame or seriously slim
cheerful demeanour or chief sister grim
close-quarter woman talking loud and fast
words over-taking like a blast from the past
so hard to keep up, so hard to break in
leave you behind in the wake of her din!
what's this I hear, is she now slowing down
pausing for men, is she wearing a frown?
perhaps she's starting to shuffle the deck
departure dreaming on a very long trek
maybe no point in moving on once more
the greater challenge is here at the door
as men they shout " I am invincible
I've the biggest Archimedes Principle! "
late at night she now walks the floorboards
seeking a new role, a song with new chords
" where and when will I go, who will I be
will I stay in this land or else oversea ? "
men of the future and men of the past
treasure this woman as head of the cast
whenever, wherever, whoever you are
she will always twinkle, shine like a star
bring her some chocolate, bring her some wine
make sure she stays and has a good time
but watch at midnight in case she's outside
all alone by the road hitching a ride
silver moonbeam and finest curb crawler
then down to the port and onto a trawler
far out to sea where she thinks of those days
when Gods fought Neptune for sight of her gaze
When I go home damn
Its really quiet
Never thought I'd find this amount of white noise
In the pitch black face silence
As I flip scenarios of something like self inflicted violence
making, my room, look....just a lil more stylish
I'll douse the walls with my wrist's imitation of your red fingernail polish
Seems like
The riot in my mind may have leaked out
Some sound and the floorboards of this house still creek but a paddle im
without
Drowning
In my surroundings
Thought my flow would let me float on but ya boy ain't so buoyant tho
Fall in to the blue sky's reflection as I plummet into my foe
I'm a machine, can't have water get too close
Not afraid of water, because I can't swim
Scared of depth and darkness, and oceans will force me to give in
I don't wanna share my lungs
Lemme breathe for me
Please
Fraid uh water because I've coasted the trans-parent sea
It's weird when you can say "my parents see right through me"
Custody war
But I lost every battle
Reached for anything
All I got was a broken handle on everything
Vices
Sex life flowing down south with her g string and sex appeal
I need to
but cannot feel
As I challenge my demons to a battle
Im kind of like the scent leading the pack to the cattle
Never really see me coming
But I'll lead you to something that'll have ya bowels runnin
Digestive tract star
Ingest every bar
And when you're done im the ****
Even if you ain't really like it
I mean if you want,
Glance at my ego leave a scar
Or get impressed call me a star
My stride the only thing between me and going far
Serpentine with your actions but I call you baby
Cold-Blooded
Now I see why you stay so shady
because to me it seems like you've got nothing but an innocent rattle
Blinded, because I let my lap become your saddle
Your reflection yelling at me im surprised you couldn't tell
Treating me like I was the first Angel sent to hell
If Jesus was a lamb I can be your scapegoat at the very least
Sacrilegious sacrifices, looked past the fact I'm actually a feral beast
Shook, like a Harlem shake rattlesnake attention deficit rook
Playin the say it wit ya chess game and I wrote all the books
King disguised as a pawn
I'll put myself on
Competition going down
South
Hit that nae napalm expellin from my mouth
My fire...
Written: March 05, 2025
***********************
As the final petal droops
upon quivering leaves,
while the soul begins to decay
akin to the evening lights
fading into a coffin.
Tears flow quietly across vacant rooms,
sheltered in the hidden retreat,
of a hapless fool folly.
Aged and forsaken, an ancient blade lies
on a ragged oak table.
All around the termite-ridden
floorboards are strewn with
tattered sheets of stories.
Valiant voices of victory,
vibrate in vivid verses,
preserved with lively Ink.
Decades of disarray have faded away,
leaving behind a cherished tale,
its inked revelations whirl into a frenzy,
as I peer through the glass,
reminiscing about those golden days
when my youth overflowed with joy.
I couldn't assist but notice
the drooping scarlet dahlias.
A gleaming golden crown,
sparkling with lovely
crimson queens
rests upon the head of a forlorn exile—
and that is all that remains.
Under the relentless sun
that preys upon the flames,
how can I rise above
the crimson chaos
that encroaches at the edges,
surrounding the ghostly grave
of the poetic soul
I have lost in the quest for acclaim.
Within the weeping window,
a wild wonder reveals itself,
draped in a vivid shade of vermilion.
Amid the whispers of wayward spirits,
the flawless porcelain of our past
now bears unsightly marks.
Fractured dreams are embellished
with delicate threads, while shafts of
sunlight slices through shadowy skies.
The family fortress,
frozen in cold stone,
waits for its wary wanderer,
beckoning the illustrious
to traverse its dimly paths.
In the serene silence of slumber,
the sorrowful saga emerges.
The embrace of eternal sleep.
A chilling chronicle of the collapse
cascades in the corridors
akin to a haunting harmony.
The aspiration and avarice
ultimately overwhelmed us
As the clock chimed cheerfully
at midnight on that chilling night,
the cunning usurper brandished
a blade and brutally
broke their beings,
birthing ghosts of grim,
unspoken words to weep
behind weathered walls.
At this moment, I am
the emerald evening
of the early dawn,
The waxen white wick
that waits before their
weathered tombstone is
withered to a whisper.
There was a time in yesteryear
When I had lived alone,
I had come across a certain fear
Of things that dwell below
My mind kept leaping back inside
The dark holes of the unknown
Till one night I felt cruel eyes
Burning into my own
I hadn’t welcomed it I swear!
—please do not get me wrong
I couldn’t remain, I wouldn’t dare
Stay there for too long
I fled towards my bathroom,
As if that would scare it away!
I’d lose it, I assumed
As long as I didn’t stay
For a full hour I sat there
On the toilet seat
Sitting in the darkness where
I stared at my cold feet
Finally, standing, I opened up the door
I heard the screech of the hinge,
That creak and nothing more…
But still, it made me cringe
Each night I felt the eyes upon me
Fixedly, more and more
But one dark, cold night I suddenly saw
A figure at my bedroom door
My eyes couldn’t leave the sight
Of the insidious, insisting guest
My heart thumped drastically in fright
As you probably would have guessed
It stood there upon the blemished floor
Watching me in my bed
Its body leaned against my door
Tilting and jerking its head
I screamed and clutched onto my covers
Stabbing to stay my heart
Trying to reach the telephone for others
But it was just too far!
I looked out of my window
Watching the rain patter against the sill
I was trying to distract my terrified woe
That haunted me against my will
I must have been losing my mind
But one night I felt braver and sane,
Trying to be courteous and kind,
Though scared I asked, “What is your name?”
The atmosphere grew darker within the room
I thought that I would die of fright
“My name is Tsustaroth,” it said
“And I am kissing you goodnight”
In horror I saw it moving towards me
My blankets flew away
Its fiendish look of reptile beast
Was zooming towards my face!
I moved to the corner of the room
And it turned its head towards me
I felt the burning of terror and doom
Revel inside of me
Then I saw it disappear
Into the dusty floors
But thrashing footsteps I could still hear
Closer and closer…thumping on the floorboards
As soon as it had left the scene
I felt the earth beneath my skin
I felt so alive, so eerily keen
I felt the darkness lurking within
“And every night, yes every while,
I’ll visit you at your door,”
As he spoke I felt myself hysterically smile!
“ And we won’t be lonely anymore…”
In the shadowed maw of the forest deep,
Where whispers of the night do creep,
There lies a tale, a chilling draft,
That sends shivers down the spine, so deft.
A cabin old, with windows like eyes,
Staring into the abyss of skies,
Stood silent, save for the wind's soft moan,
In a clearing where no bird had flown.
The walls, once warm with family cheer,
Now echo with an unseen fear,
For in this place, where laughter ceased,
A darker presence was increased.
A traveler, weary from the road,
Seeking shelter from the night's cold brood,
Pushed through the door, creaking, worn,
Unaware of the terror he would spawn.
The hearth was cold, the air was thick,
A sense of dread, so sly and sick,
He felt the past, the tales untold,
Of souls that vanished in the cold.
As dusk turned to a starless night,
The traveler felt an eerie blight,
A whisper soft, a breath, a sigh,
A voice that seemed to crawl and cry.
"Leave this place," it hissed and wept,
"For in these walls, we hungrily kept,
The essence of the lost, the dead,
Feast upon your fear, your dread."
The traveler, his heart a frantic beat,
Felt the chill of phantom feet,
A spectral dance, a ghostly throng,
Circling him as if to prove him wrong.
He sought to flee, to break the spell,
But found the door would not compel,
Trapped within the cabin's grip,
His sanity began to slip.
The air grew heavy, thick as soup,
As shadows took the form of group,
Of tormented souls, with eyes aglow,
Reaching out from below.
The traveler, in despair, did shout,
"What do you want, these haunts about?"
A voice then spoke, a raspy sound,
"To join our dance, forever bound."
The floorboards creaked, and the walls did bend,
As if the very house would end,
The traveler, with a final prayer,
Felt the grasp of icy air.
His scream was lost, absorbed by night,
As he was pulled from mortal sight,
Another soul to join the throng,
In the cabin's horror, where he's drawn.
Now heed this tale, ye who roam,
Avoid the cabin, its dreadful home,
For in the forest, dark and wild,
Lieth a terror, most unsanctified.
And so, the story ends, but not its tune,
For under the haunted, silent moon,
The cabin waits for one more soul,
To complete its ghastly, grim role.
How empty can an inbox possibly be?
Not unlike a door..... practically off at hinges
The paint is definitely peeling
More than one shutter has fallen astray.
One piece at a time
Have you ever seen that?
How old houses....
the shutters give way one slat at a time
It's almost like watching a clock tick
After 1 year the slat on the front shutter drops by 1/4
of an inch
By year two there are three slats on the front shutter and four on the back falling falling slowly
Drop an inch...drop an inch
small little pieces of wood losing their ballast
By year five the paint's chipping on all of the shutters
you can tell they were all red once or some dreadful pungent green
Then great shards of paint seem to start clinging off of the clapboards too
Can see it almost like a song
plunky pock rock or a slow lanquid sad ballad
a song of one lost a sea or to storm or just decay
the first chip of paint is the first note
and then all of a sudden the whole house seems to want to join in and it's chip chip chip , chuck,chuck pluck pluck plunky plunkity and it's a symphony of lost paint chips like raindrops sound in an empty metal pail
Neglect
nobody cares ....that the shutters are falling apart
and no one cares that the symphony of chips of paint has begun
because nobody lives there anymore and no one is listening except fro teh occasional drive by
If that house was an inbox.
It would understand mine
Such
an empty house
When you're the first person to enter
an empty house...
It's like you're swirling the dust
of the only thing that lives there
elves and fairies and dust dune devils
it's like they know you're there
But there is just the eerie silence
The elves, sprites, ghosts and memories cling to what remains of the tattered curtain...awaiting a...curtain call?
The house is never ever really empty
The walls remember the hands
The ash remembers the fire
The sink can still taste the water and feel the rust
Even the dust on the floorboards remembers what it was like to be mud on a boot or a cell of her skin
An empty house has more inhabitants
than my inbox
in the beginning....My inbox had a voice
Maybe even my in-box remembers
how it once said
"You've got mail"
Blame hardly ever helps unless it is used to express anger
it does not achieve any more than venting raging frustration
levels the playing field to a point apportioning recrimination
without actually achieving anything but turning on the tap
of seemingly futile emotions seeking for a functional cause
My lover and I were set to move on from Spain back to home
a new abode on the British Isles to work and retire for good
Sitting in a house in Valencia with boxes packed with books
memorabilia trinkets and carpets rolled up for easy transport
we simply waited for one final certificate from the authorities
Nothing fancy just a signature on paper and promised long ago
but nothing had prepared us for the legendary mañana mañana
with months of inaction inaptitude and not a thought for reason
We are working on it they said but no one seemed to care about
how much depended on the form and a long chain of consequences
Now the buyers pulled out and who can blame them as they
patiently waited such a long time and eventually merely gave up
on their dream and by proxy on our venture and own aspirations
Unpacking the moving goods will keep us busy for a short while
to make our house presentable once more and waiting to ensue
Injustice grinds its teeth at feelings and reason that do not conform
fail to find the wise mind to align their disarray and stark confusion
and so we are lost in transition that keeps on lingering for an eternity
while our souls bleed remonstrate on what ifs and other conjunctives
Lashing out at floorboards and ceilings does not deal with the grief
My grandma used to say it is what it is and advised with great caution
that one never knows what it may be good for and advised acceptance
and her problems were bigger than ours with a war raging in Europe
bombs on her head ruins devastation existential fear and an unknown
and we have each other a roof over our heads and food on our table
And yet it is difficult to be grateful when a vision for imminent future
has been shattered so crudely in its unfairness of unnecessary delay
On the bright side candles and scent sticks are unpacked as we pray
17th March 2021
Winter is approaching.
I feel it in my floorboards; in my baseboards;
in every nook and cranny.
I wait to be filled again at this time of Thanksgiving, and
As I wait, sounds of the past linger in my consciousness:
The excited moans of the men and of the women (some of whose
first introduction to me came from being carried across my threshold)
as they lay close together in their bed late at night;
The strange incessant wailing of babies that later arrived -
wailing that later changed, more often than not, into squeals of glee.
Some of the families I sheltered engulfed me with heaviness.
In those years, I was assaulted by loud shouting,
much like the barking of dogs from outside.
Those shouts were often met by shrill hysterical screams
or even by the sad sobs of children.
One sound stays with me like a ghost: the quiet weeping
of one lone occupant who held a gun to his head.
In an instant I felt his blood splatter against my walls.
I prefer to remember the touch of the children:
their small smudged fingers exploring my kitchen cupboards;
their tiny warm bodies scooting across my tiles.
On one unusual occasion, a child scribbled happily
on my bathroom walls with bright Crayola colors.
After the explosion of his mother’s angry words,
the bathroom was transformed, and with magic paper
a small part of me was wearing the figures of gold and purple fish.
Forty times or more I’ve been left; then re-inhabited.
Several times I’ve been overhauled: my carpet torn out, a new one laid;
my doors and my fixtures changed for modern ones;
my furnace and my pipes (even once a ceiling) - all replaced.
But lately, I’ve felt so weary, and even renovated, I’m feeling out of place.
Just last month as I was emptied and cleaned for the umpteenth time,
I heard the newest landlord tell his wife:
We won’t have to put up with this crap anymore -
not after we get the offer from those guys who want to build a mall.
I wonder what he meant. My heat and water both have been cut off for so long.
Usually a couple is here by now. But only silence echoes through my halls,
and I’m growing so very cold.
Dream Keys
by Odin Roark
A NY mantra
Rent the rentable
Move the movable
Key the keyable
Apartments
Four-wall-guardian of yesterday’s youth
Vacuous cellmates of old age loneliness
All part of a cyclic maze
All having a key
Urban life’s Rubik’s Cube turnover
Today’s the day
“Two rooms”
“New paint”
“Clean window”
“No-squeaky floorboards”
Superintendent loves to present
Move in
Keys
Entrance door
Mailbox
Apartment
Laundry room
All yours
A windowsill vase of plastic roses
Your welcome of faded memories
The window to the people below
Your traveled city as roommate
Through another glass darkly
Gotta love it
Pea green layering
Over cracked and peeling bygones
Your very own chipped-paint scrapbook
A giant shoebox of ghostly images
Once possessing your castle-keys
Settle in
Struggle
Dream
Survive
Stand at your window
Watch canyon updrafts
Swirl your make-believe snowflakes
Carrying them skyward
Mixing with sparkling darkness
Where every star is yours
Count the days
Where light to see
Will be owned by neighboring towers
Where former tenants came young
Left old
Where thrown cups and china
Christened walls
And confinement’s anger and tears
Found solace in an ever inviting empty bathtub
Where pounding fists
Rattled bathroom door hinges
While a child hid beneath a bed
Smiling tearful thanks
A wanderlust roach
His ever-faithful friend
All yours
Here
Where a Sammy Glick got started
And an undergrad
An engineer
A Radical leftist
A piano teacher
All touched
All turned
All once secured your keys
So
Add your imprint
Become tomorrow’s remembered page
The scrapbook knows no end
This is Manhattan
Scenes will erupt
Hysterics will rebirth
Life will live
Maybe live some more
Then
Your turn to pass the keys
Your turn to pile worn memories at the curb
Mattresses always appreciated
Stand across the street
Watch the ever-smiling Super
Hand the keys to the next habitant
And then…
Go
Never to forget your contribution
Leaving behind another preparatory memory
Allowing the coming year
Your next season of imaginings
To dream of another home
Somewhere
Waiting…
Gifted with keyless entry?
Loneliness gone?