Long Gentian Poems
Long Gentian Poems. Below are the most popular long Gentian by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Gentian poems by poem length and keyword.
Watching Homer struggle
to explain how a god wounded by a mortal
cannot die but may hereafter live with minor pain
and the humor when that god
complains to Jove that His supervision of His daughter
is inadequate and His Love too unconditional
while Diomed (or Tydides)
wreaks havoc on the Trojans and Hector
gives it back (in kind)
anatomically correct descriptions
of spears piercing jawbones (and groins)
sons without fathers hunting and fishing thereafter
alone. Written
amazingly presciently!
as a metaphor for Vietnam (our war)
forgotten consensually
as this generation slips lazily away
to Hades (or kayaks to the huckleberries)
where the lights are always blue, gentian actually,
supper's served at 4 and former adversaries
pass the heavy hanging time playing pinochle (and pool).
We're selling the house to pay the taxes.
Pallas Athena wars among the men
from the axle of her chariot
and Venus is injured by Diomed,
standing in the field of battle where she never should have been,
in her adorable hand.
What has this to do with Solomon in jail.
Not the Jewish king, a black American male,
same thing.
Your children can be failed at school and marched to war.
You can be taxed and sent to gaol for the honor of it.
anyone lived in a pretty how town.
We have no obligation
to perform the Iliad or read poems and even Homer
considers Achilles effete (compared to Hector)
and Odysseus is wrong even when he's right.
Therefore, modern man explores
the mathematics of circles in coordinate planes and their tangents
when (sooner or later)
the secret of warp speed is discovered
expansion of the species will be limitless and permanent.
Nothing more intimate than sleep
wake before dawn, go downtown
prepare for tomorrow, come home from work late.
Most cities prosper undisturbed
sleeping peacefully
while the tide goes out.
Are we asleep or are we dancing,
surrounded by buildings,
a primitive fertility dance in the forest?
Sleeping in my clothes,
sleeping in my underwear,
two dead leaves, then a breeze!
Fall asleep by the river,
in front of tv,
soon I will know who I am.
In the last days you may be found sleeping in the laundry mornings,
or sitting in the holy spot
gazing at a crescent moon.
Get up early but gotta nap,
winter afternoons or summer heat
Thanatopsis, Big Comfy Couch.
Sleep in the bed next to your wife
that way when life ends
someone misses you.
That sounds harsh but we’re matter of fact
about the fact of death.
Death is most of all like sleep.
Doctor, engineer, lawyer, soldier,
writer, poet, that’s the pecking order,
get some sleep, get over it.
Not the kind of gal who’ll have sex twice
on the first date. When that happens
marriage, babies, graduations, tragedies, sleep.
Headache, surgery, through it all
there’s sleep, a haven, heaven, hovel, cave, raven,
a place to be with eyes wide open.
Don’t have a hissy fit
or case of colon cancer, get 8 hours
shuteye in contiguous array.
If not, listen to a TED talk, they like explaining things
Selected Shorts solves insomnia,
The Moth Hour, the peaceful father, mother.
Sweet pleasing Sleep!
in Hades
where the lights are always blue, gentian actually.
Every third thought doesn’t have to be about death.
Sleep together, get laid.
Sleep. How memories are made.
Sleep. In the palm at the end of the mind or on another plane.
I swear by the ferryman’s pole, my soul, the tale I tell is true
And if you have a soul, I pray, the same won’t come to you, Boys
The same won’t come to you
In the West, I say, back in the day of the Talon River crossing
When the Claw came down it tore the ground upon which we’d been standing
I say where we’d been standing
In the rocks and rills of the Shorthorn Hills, the cattlemen they would gather
In the Fall of the year when the river runs clear and cider’s sweet and peaches turned to brandy
The peaches turned to brandy
Well the Talon River sometimes claws its way through pleasant Springtime
But it mostly flows down sweet and slow and the trout jump in the moonlight
The trout jump in the moonlight
I saddled up with the boys to fetch the cows down from the mountain
To graze down here where there is no fear a freeze will stop the fountain
No freeze to stop the fountain
Where the gentian stands on the gentle sands as white as the driven snow
'Fore winter's blow fills all this land with the icy one we know
The icy one we know
It was Joe and Pete and Slide Whistle Ike and jolly Jew's harp Johnny
And the new fella Bill who didn’t say much and he kept to the rear of the party
Trailing our dear party
Since he joined the crew the Bar D few who threw lariats for their living
He kept to himself and he'd never say much like someone who was hiding
Like something he was hiding
And we never did know where the Boss found Bill when hands was hard to come by
Nor would Bill say where he'd spent his days when he was just a shaver
When just a little shaver
But we didn't think about it much in this business they come and they go
And the pals that stay are the ones you say are ones that you'd fall in with
The ones that you'd fall in with
The ones you'd stick with thick or thin and count on when you need 'em
On whom you count when troubles mount and someone lies a'bleedin'
Someone lies there bleedin'
________________________________________
I need just before dawn to feel the slopes, love them,
The smell of mint or anise, gentian or orange,
I need to walk to look for ghosts, invisible ones
My parents gone, my wife with quiet kisses,
I need this time away from the sleeping cities,
To find my soul that is lost in loving you,
I need mint, anise or orange, something new
To find the instinct of the donkey, the sweetness of the angel,
I need before dawn to feel the slopes, love them,
The smell of mint and honey, lemon or thyme,
So as not to be late for Alice in Wonderland,
there, write a poem, which tomorrow moves the children.
J’ai besoin avant l’aube de sentir les talus, les aimer,
L’odeur de menthe ou d’anis, de gentiane ou d’orange,
J’ai besoin de marcher pour chercher des fantômes,
Mes parents disparus, ma femme aux calmes baisers,
J’ai besoin de ce temps loin des villes endormantes,
Pour retrouver mon âme qui se perd en t’aimant,
J’ai besoin de la menthe, de l’anis ou de l’orange,
Pour retrouver l’instinct de l’âne, la douceur de l’ange,
J’ai besoin avant l’aube de sentir les talus, les aimer,
L’odeur de menthe et de miel, de citron ou de thym,
Pour ne pas être en retard chez Alice au pays des merveilles,
là, écrire un poème, qui demain émeuve les enfants.
Prologue
Abandoned and in disrepair the mansion
Is dark now; a story behind every stanchion.
An unwitting monument to a way of life,
Since foreclosed through bloody civil strife.
Antebellum
The hush of summer evenings cued the trilling
(Fiddled on hind legs accompanied by warty pouches)
Chorus; pierced only by the discordant creaking
Of unseen stairs rising to the house slave's quarters
Portending the disquiet of antebellum martyrs.
Wittiness trees attest in angles and chains
To the master's grid and shade the lanes
For the surrey whose wheels rutted the gateway
(Become artifacts) en route to soirées of gaiety.
The prairie land, violated by steel and condescension
To the roots of its towering grasses and purple gentian,
Forced to nourish seeds of an alien flora for hempen
Riches, patiently awaits its day of redemption.
Bricks of fertile earth fired over an Osage hearth,
By chattel hands, in mortise and tenons, gave birth
To a mansion at the prelude of a moral sea-change
That would divide the nation and break its chains.
Current Era
Their lives deprived of enslaved labor, the once-lived
Voices ebbed a little as each generation removed.
Shrouded in leaves of time they are a mute bequeath
Indelibly recorded upon the stories that lie beneath.
Dreamer boy speak for them now. Sing for bluestem that switched
Against the sky nourishing the thundering herds that provisioned
Native tribes. Rage for those hobbled to sow but never to reap,
Weep for a Nation gone mad and seeds planted too deep.
Reflections after touring an abandoned antebellum mansion.
Copyright Paul M Thomson September 2011.
In the spring, I'm a Daffodill
In many hues, dancing on the hill
Swaying with the gentle breeze
In the spring I'm easy to please
In late spring, I'm pale pink rose
Growing on the trellis, inviting bees toes
To touch on me, drink their fill of nectar
Sweet, in late spring I'm real neat
In early summer, I'm Buddleia
When Butterflies come, Cassiopeiae
Is so jealous of the attention
As they touch and tickle my extensions
Later on I become Great Yellow Gentian
At this time I'm in another dimension
Waiting the time in the fall when I've lived all
Then I become the great Sunflower in the fall
When winter arrives, I'm barely now alive
This is when Camellia makes her debut
She is really now more alive leaves glisten
They've a glossy waxy shin and the blooms pristine
(In response to Andrea's Blog.)