Long Funneled Poems
Long Funneled Poems. Below are the most popular long Funneled by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Funneled poems by poem length and keyword.
A parched wind
still circles the dust devils
corralling them
in funneled fury.
The old rooster
atop the barn
squeaks
as the weather changes
as do the joints
in the old blue jeans.
Hard black coffee
bubbles on the stove,
her apron hangs
a memory
on the chair,
an old screen door
shudders,
slams shut,
an old dog curses
the dust.
Bowed heads watch
as he laces his boots,
reaches for that
damned hat,
sips the last of the coffee
runs his fingers
across the hanging apron
whispers
“I love you”,
sets off to worship
in the shrine
of their lives.
©5/7/2018
for Laura Loo – Best Free Verse Poem In May 2018 Poetry Contest
There are fingers that pick daydreams
along the banks of this blue electric river.
Eels swim with it’s black-magic ballads
attaching a powerful charge to the swell.
Along the banks of this blue electric river
bullfrogs and alligators provide a drum.
Attaching a powerful charge to the swell
the luminous melody gains its fine edge.
Bullfrogs and alligators provide a drum
chomping at the bit for the celestial.
The luminous melody gains its fine edge
as the intention gains traction to build.
Chomping at the bit for the celestial,
you’ll do almost anything to wield it.
As the intention gains traction to build
mountains of stars swirl into a funnel.
You’ll do almost anything to wield it,
eels swim with it’s black-magic ballads.
Mountains of stars swirl into a funnel.
there are fingers that pick daydreams.
August-5- 2026
Contest- The Pensive Poet Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Constance La France
~PLACED FIRST~
"A poet sees things which others seem to ignore and stores up his thoughts and impressions in the casket of verse, treasuring them as valuables that Time can't steal"~ By Poet
Alone, when I sit in my room in pensive mood,
Thoughts flit across my mind in endless succession.
They erupt out slicing time and space,
And flow in disarray, in a jumbled mass.
Then my facile pen starts moving quickly,
Gathering my thoughts in reflective refrain.
Like waves beating madly across the shoreline,
Emotions flow out, my mind no longer can contain.
On flipping through the pages of my life,
Deep nostalgia overwhelms me.
Like falling petals, as years hastily pass,
I long for the past when my days were quite glossy.
My mind wanders to distant memories dear,
And I wish to preserve what time has stolen.
So, I scribble my thoughts on the sheet in hand
To traverse through bygone times over again.
In my silence, I hear footsteps of the past
And see my dear ones as shadows fading out.
My parents who are no more there to care,
Gleam before, leaving my eyes misty.
I am on a sacred mission~
To stitch together broken memories and moments
And build a bridge between past and present.
My poems, l hope will serve as a window
That I can open and close at will.
Only in silence l can behold scenes,
That others miss out in diverse distractions.
The more I grow silent, the more I can see and hear.
I get ensnared by the breathtaking view of a sunset
The serenade of nocturnal birds,
The beauty of blooms and meadows wide and green,
The vastness of the sapphire sky -
Where rainbows arch after a drizzle
Or stars twinkle at a cloudless night.
Rills as they murmur and cataracts as they roar,
Fall on my ears as dulcet music of the cosmic band.
I wish to recall such sights and sounds
That once I looked on with a casual glance,
And fell like grains of sand funneled through the hour glass,
Later forsaken with no effort to keep or brush them up.
I wish to preserve them in poetry’s fragile art~
A craft sharpened and perfected in pensive mood.
So, time wouldn’t steal them away from my memory.
I strive to make my verses a mirror reflecting life.
Tim had all the necessary ingredients right next to his ancient burner
Shark teeth dangling from a sunken necklace at the cutting edge but
The amulet had turned into chains and shackles grinding the chef’s mind
A lost recipe for happiness but and he had no appetite for nourishment
Attrition boiled over when nutrition resembled a poisonous chalice
Too tired to take stock he dwelled on his primordial soup turning back
Primitive and involuntary he turned on the gas and smelled his demise
Rotten onions had depleted his tears thinly sliced and disguised
Fetid leeks leaked misery a trickle or two at full stagnant pace
Spoilt thyme oozed malodorous rosaries into beads of corrosion
Squashed tomatoes splashed foul decomposition into his eyes
Fennel funneled his vision into a bubbling hell of indigestion
Olive oil splashed straight into his heart with no glimmer of peace
Cantankerous garlic would not fend off his festering demons
While a bay leaf could not keep mortally morose sadness at bay
Great white oblivion but slowly Tim made friends with predation
Resolved he was allergic to fishy feelings and toxic distaste
He did not remember at first how to simmer emotions and passion
But onions started to sprinkle tears of joy and the shark pointed the way
Soon leeks from a Welsh legend delineated friend from mal-aligned foes
Thyme soothed his splattering cough and he found his true inner voice
Tomatoes seeded bright red orange chakras from base to the top while
Fennel fought of bloating depression and conquered agony’s cramps
Previously oblivious oils from virginal growth re-birthed him into life
He licked his wounds and wild garlic from an ocean of wonderment
And chose the berries from a long forgotten and noble laurel tree
Tim had barked up the wrong perspective and had muted the roar
Eventually he conjoined ingredients recipe and fortunate blessings
Left the sharks out of the chowder and slurped smooth soup into his shell
IV.
As the werewolves all funneled to that narrow gorge,
the brush was pulled away, revealing a cannon’s bore,
the beasts were to furious to see they were caught,
Bob pulled back on the cord, fired silver grape-shot.
Small spheres of silver shot out like a big shot-gun,
carpeting the eight monsters in their frantic run,
the beasts were thrown backwards, the silver cutting deep,
only one of the monsters managed to keep his feet.
The rest all went down, with painful howls they died,
the survivor couldn’t walk, but he desperately tried.
Sol turned and looked down, at predators turned to prey,
and saw the last survivor wore the vertebrae.
Sol turned to Bob, motioned to the dying monster,
said,”After what this fool did, none would call in murder.”
Bob took out his gun, and with his heart thumping fast,
sent Alamo Rick to hell with one mighty blast.
And in the moonlight they saw the bodies returns
to the forms of men who had met the fate they earned.
“Deals with the devil always seem to end like this,
it all starts out with power, then leads them amiss.”
It was the next morning when the town all came out,
the sight of ruined bodies snuffing out all doubts,
some thanked Sol for his courage, but some were afraid,
some called him a mad killer, while others just prayed.
For several weeks after Sol remained in town,
he slept with the line-girls, drank lots of whiskey down,
until one day a post-riders gave him a small slip,
he frowned and prepped his horse for a very long trip.
But before he left, he came up to Bob Harney,
said,”Write to this address if you ever need me.”
Without another word his horse loped down the road,
Bob watched him, not knowing where the man might next go.
The reverend found him their, and saw his confusion,
said,”It’s his job, and he’s done it for a while son.
Did you think only evil can flew its power?
That God would leave us alone in our darkest hour?”
He clapped Bob on the shoulder, and left him to his thoughts,
pondering what he’d seen, and all that they had wrought.
Bob folded the address, slipped it into his vest,
and headed back towards his house, in need of some rest.
Across the cracked concrete slabs,
past a fallen dogwood
left lying like so much litter
at the red brick base of the court house;
the jurors strode.
Through the doors too heavy
for a mere woman to open unassisted
and their constant societal reminder of place
of strength and weakness;
doors serving as the first purposeful
architectural devise of disrespect,
up to the toy soldiers of the city
at their arched metal catcher gate;
the jurors of democracy strode.
Patted down, prodded,
stripped of our individuality,
so like the cattle, they assume we are;
like the criminals, who we are told are..
“Presumed innocent until proven guilty.”;
we too are subjected to the indignities of the law.
The jurors moved.
Herded up rickety elevators into the bowels
of the ivory towers of jurist prudence,
funneled in alphabetical order to weary clerks;
who sticker, stamp and quantify us,
innumerable names to numerous lists;
the jurors wait.
The sheer nature of the building,
the room, its officials, cowed the crowd
who sat cud chewing and bottom scratching,
awaiting the arrival of the Judge?
I sat, longing for the days of Jefferson.
the rebirth of the Renaissance man;
wrestling with the morality of the ignorant justice?
Wondering what poor, schmuck,
was to be brought before these modern day
Madame Defarges who sat knitting.
Now...
The pat-down at O’Hare is intrusive.
I don’t look at the probing hands
or the dead bored eyes.
Schools of out of depth aliens,
are funneled through small holes
in an invisible net.
Then...
The Ellis Island cop is also bored.
He speaks ponderously,
as if the boy had no more wit than a fish.
Now...
I carry a man-bag over my shoulder,
it holds my documents.
The customs officer talks to me
in a sign language made audible
through pursed lips.
Then...
Sean looks up from his low-brow cap.
He dares not speak
least his tongue reveal
a patois of Connemara peat.
A crumpled birth certificate
is produced and stamped.
Now...
He studies my papers,
thrusts them back without a glance.
Then...
Sean keeps moving;
waiting to be pulled back,
not knowing
that the future will pull him back anyway.
Now...
Outside the terminus, Americans depart
in checkered cabs for Atlantis,
and other undocumented places.
~~~
Drench me, O God;
pour upon me the excess of the heavens!
Drown me in the blood of the clouds,
and I will fight for my country,
fight for my brothers;
fight to be worthy
of your love and your creation -
and the warrior-poets of old will be proud.
I know how to live,
to deserve the cleansing rain.
I know how to write,
and I'm learning how to fight.
But bless me with nature's sweet shower,
and I'll be like no other.
Between three and four years later,
and reading the last makes me cringe -
I do believe I'll try again.
"O God" became godless, natural sky.
"I will fight for my country" became
I will scowl a little less,
smile just a little more,
as I remember that dream now dead.
"Your love and your creation" became
the love of one I don't believe is there -
worthy of my creation being anything more than luck,
by another myth, legend, deity that never was.
"The warrior-poets of old will be proud" became
maybe the will and the writing will be enough
to assuage my forced idleness, my vitriol;
my joy at the thought of impending escape.
"I'm learning how to fight" became
they taught me how, as well as to hate.
"I'll be like no other" became
I'm no more in valiant deed, in fact less,
than so very many.
Now if I do say so myself, that's better,
or at the very least more accurate, up to date -
but I don't think that's all there is in me.
"I don't drink" became
"I drink for flavor", became "I drink".
Unknowing exuberance became knowing exhaustion,
hunger for a greater purpose became
an unprecedented yearning for the lesser.
Energy intended for discipline, strength, became
fire funneled into frustration,
ardor affixed on anger.
From one to another, such a seamless step;
but from that to another,
or even back to one,
such the strenuous sojourn.
As I stood by my Father's bedside,
watching his life flicker away.
It occurred to me that life's long ride
comes down to just one day.
Everything funneled into a single breath,
one last touch from a hand.
Then eyes close to greet death
as soul glides across golden span.
My mind raced to remember all,
to separate from the blend.
Every moment to recall,
the beginning to the end.
My hand swallowed up in his hand,
as we walked on a child's path.
Or rode on shoulders broad and grand,
while in all his attention did I bask.
As the rebellious years began,
wisdom he tried to impart.
In my mistakes I took my stand,
while his love stood strong in heart.
It would take me becoming a father
and living through a parent's fright.
The ups and downs of two sons and a daughter,
to realize in it all he was right.
Now as the family gathers for farewell
and places father next to mother in the ground.
What he left me I am proud to tell,
a code and a standard no greater found.
9/23/18
I eased our kayak into the river of lies.
There was me, Dave and Jim, experienced guys.
The current grew stronger, Jim said he would quit,
He said it felt wrong, the scene didn't fit.
Dave urged I go upstream and fight the pull.
I called him a deceiver; he called me red bull.
A rock of hard truth lay right on our path.
I swerved around it; he grabbed on in his wrath.
[chorus]
So many tributaries to the river of lies.
So many ways that untruth can disguise
Be ready to debate, take heed every clue.
And paddle along with a dependable crew.
The waters funneled narrow; cliffs did arise.
I pursued a half-truth on this river of lies.
I shot through Shriek-wind Cleft, and Down-fall Gap.
The kayak shuddered, but I did not turn back.
Went down the rapids, with a groan and a gasp.
Flew out of the boat, into realities grasp.
Crawled up the bank under the merciless sun.
All water was gone, nowhere to run.
I should have credited the feeling of doubt.
High walls all around, how could I get out?
Then found devil's advocate canyon.
Realized I should have trusted each companion.
[chorus]
So many tributaries to the river of lies.
So many ways that untruth can disguise.
They say hindsight's 20/20, that excuse may be true
But when anomalies arise, they're talking to you.
The causes you believed don't believe in you.
False friends fall away, despised friends now ring true.
You overrode the warnings whenever you could.
The paradigm shift was too late to do good.
At lost chance ravine, there's blood on the water.
Down its walls faint echoes of torture and slaughter
Know this - under the din, warnings can be true.
To live you may have to change your entire world view.