Long Gorges Poems
Long Gorges Poems. Below are the most popular long Gorges by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Gorges poems by poem length and keyword.
Friends , while reading the History of the Incas , I came across the wonderous story of their
mail runners , the 'chasquis' ! Kindly read their story !
THE MAIL RUNNERS - ON THE INCA TRAIL !
(COURIER SERVICE)
The Inca Empire during their hey-days, *
Controlled a large Empire of an elongated
shape!
On the western coast of Latin America, -
All the way from parts of Ecuador and Colombia!
With parts of Brazil in the east;
Including Chile and Bolivia in the south and
south-east;
While the Pacific Ocean washed their long western
beach!
Where the great Andes range like a raised spine, -
appeared out of reach!
Yet on the central verge of this Andes’ range,
Was located their capital Cuzco with its grand
defence !
The Incas had no horses or wheels to facilitate
communication,
But had an efficient courier service within their
nation!
They relied entirely on their ‘chasquis’, - those
valiant mail runners,
For sending messages within the Inca Empire!
These runners ran on that historic ‘Inca Trail’,
Crossing gorges(pogos) and mountain tracks, -
before night fell!
And rested at ‘tambos’** during their segmented
race!
Those Incas had no written scripts those days,
And used knots in ropes as coded messages!
These ‘quipus’ at relay stations changed hands,
While their runners took them to the remotes corners
of Inca land!
Their suspension bridges with ropes indigenously
made,
Formed their roadways as their Empire spread!
And those bridges were maintained every year,
By villagers rendering public service to the Inca
Empire!
Those valiant runners could run in a day, -
A distance of 250 miles , as experts say !
And could put to shame the Marathon runners
of our day!
I salute those sturdy Incas for their unique stone
architectures,
Who honored their Gods and their ancestors!
Their ‘chasquis’, those valiant mail runners and
their nimble feet;
Without horses and wheels the Incas ruled a mighty
Empire complete !
-Raj Nandy
Notes :-
* During the fifteenth century Incas were at height of
their power!
**Tambos’= relay stations , for the Mail Runner (chasqui)
to rest and handover the ‘quipu’ containing coded
messages to the next runner - to follow the Inca Trail!
Thanks for reading ! - Raj Nandy
I took a walk along the old country road looking desperately for a story that is not yet told, I search in the bushes and the trees but there was nothing waiting for thee.
The morning with its bright petals gleaming in the clouds and an army of birds swarm the sky moving around in slow motion communicating with the big birds on the ground and I watch them flying all around.
Something was going on, but I could not understand so I took a walk on the beach and saw thousands of birds gathered on the shore holding court and keeping a conference on the sand.
There was nothing to write about, so I continued my journey in the woods until I found a squirrel climbing out of a hole from the tree, its eyes move quickly around and for a split second it stares directly at me and hurried quickly down the tree and ran in the bushes.
I looked around to see what I could find but nothing was there except rows and rows of trees and the water flowing from a nearby stream. I took a deep breath and absorbed the wilderness around and sat on a log that lay across the stream and suddenly my childhood dream came back to haunt me.
It is the solitude that was all around and the braying donkey laden with goods going to town, and the woodpecker making a strange sound in the hole. It sounds like someone was knocking on the door and suddenly the entire place came alive, and the universe whispered in my ears and, said, "you are mine." I looked around to see who it was, but just one bird was standing on the tree limb looking.
I hurried away from that place and went back on the main road and walked a quarter of a mile before I could see any assemble of life; the country dust pushes me on and the rhythm in my feet drag me along; it is the deity that I could not understand, and I contemplate the scale as I journey up the lonely street.
I walked about half a mile and suddenly I broke down and cry; I wasn’t sure what I was sobbing about but the memory of the moose and how it gorges out my wisdom tooth overshadowed me.
Not too far from where I was, I came up on a little country shop, so I stopped to get some water, I walked in, but no one was there, and I saw blood on the counter and a man lying in a pool of blood in the corner.
I held my mouth and scream, and a car came out of nowhere and I suddenly woke up out of the dream.
As I did gaze upon her for the first time as she labored in small shop in what appeared to be
a hole in a wall that open into this place where she did work all day. Almaz was an Ethiopian
beauty with gorges reddish color hair which was filled with big curly locks that seem to flow
into an endless chasm of never ending twist and turns, with a smile that seem to light up that
tiny little room. A rare beauty was she to behold, elegant yet graceful and humble in her
soul…as I did watch her as she did strategically place each flower by hand one by one and
with each gentile twist or turn of her soft golden tone skin colored hands until a work of art
was form inside of each vase that they did adorn.
Sometimes the vases were made of glass or maybe of some type of fine cultivated stone …
but each one that was made to become a work of art made to express someone else’s
declared love or concern for a love of family member or even the lost of an unrequited love
and she did do her best to express their thoughts with the arrangement made from the heart.
With her beautiful brown eye’s that seem to tell a story of a pain and a deep love for her
family… that she displayed with each piece of work that she did make. With each day of hard
work in this small shop where she toiled all day in her endless attempt to repay her family
for a debt that she so desperately wanted to repay…for it was the love of her father that had
brought Almaz the flower arranger to this place.
So many people do take the love of their family for granted, but… no not this lady…no not
this lady…no not her ever, not even for a second in a day. Almaz made the flowers arrange
all day, all for a debt of love that she wanted to repay. Little did she know that it was already
repaid in full… with a father’s silent pray of love to see his daughter in a place where her
dreams could blossom in the promise land, were no Kings are crowned or Queens ruled, but
in this place of commoners were freedom was born to rule. Were even the poorest of men
could rise to the highest office in the land. Truly your father has completed his arrangement
in the vase with the most beautiful flower that he could find to place it in for the whole world
to see, Almaz you are that flower that completes his arrangement.
In the absence of complication,
trials and tribulations become distant memories.
Above sapphire skies delight sanguine eyes -
inspiring forthcoming musings of the mind
Why, had the circumstances been not so
You would have listened to my frail voice
As it strives to step on life's pebbles
Merely to cross the river willed to us by God!
Pray, you would have yourself asked me
To recount to you of the many insights
That the skies bestow upon me,
Merely because your heart feels alive
Only when connected it is to the mysticism
That surrounds our bond!
More, you would have believed in me
Desiring me with the strength of an earthquake
Seeking solely to see my ocean bed flood
Ravaging lands and killing life
Merely to show to the rest of the cosmos
Of how moving me remains your sole duty!
Had there been not so many complications between us
You would have been the gorges
Ready to swallow my flooding waters
Merely to calm the unease that flows in me!
I remain mere woman
And in my gaze,
You remain my God,
Willed to me through the whispers of the skies
In the depths of the night!
Without you, the consciousness inhabiting me
Will turn into dust,
Easily blown off by gales and typhoons
While yours would roam around,
Hurt and angry at yourself
For having failed to believe that life on Earth
Could be imbibed with the sparks of the divine!
The complications are merely due to misunderstandings
And maybe to a bad timing,
Pray, simplify them:
Lower your swords, speak to me, listen to me,
Make of me your main concern,
Love me, forgive me and embrace me!
See the truth in my meaning
Understand that complications are merely ploys
Of the darkness surrounding us,
Seeking solely to foil God's plans!
My eyes seek to see their reflections in yours
When after whispering of my poetry to your soul
You shall lay, spent and worn
Wanting me to indulge in more of my art
Merely to please you!
In the absence of complication,
My hand would be yours to rule
My heart, yours to cherish
And my soul, yours to inspire!
In the absence of complication,
You would accept the position of God
That I give to you,
Wanting to see me snarl at the rest of the world
But,
Becoming all servile and submissive to you!
STROKIN’ – A QUARTET ABOUT AGING GRACEFULLY(?)
Strokin’: Hauling ass and working at it!
STROKIN’: PART ONE
THE SPRINTER
The aging Olympian ran a swift anchor leg
burning the first turn, striding the backstretch
like a big cat on the chase, the natural embodiment
of power, speed and grace
Once a man “without rhythm” in his own neighborhood,
he laid down a 400 that was syncopated soul through the
demanding white lines on a black cinder track on a
Saturday afternoon
And on the graveyard turn he burst into the lead
roaring out of that pack like the dark rolling thunder of a
sudden summer storm ripping hard through the skies with
the reckless velocity of a hot natural light
And sustaining his sprint as if driven by the drums and the
palpable passion of some tribal ensemble, he crossed the
finish line having anchored his team with the rhythmic
exuberance of delivering God’s word in an African Mass,
his obsidian body the sculpture of motion by the art of
desire, the smile on his face like the fire of the sun,
like the purest of joys for a race that’s been won!
The cognoscenti in the stands
said the old dude had been strokin’!
STROKIN’: PART TWO
THE OARSMAN
He was better than most, had 30 years
on the river, rowed with his mind, got the
body to follow, pulled his oars through the water
like a big balding barbarian building a bad
reputation for a winter of boasting, adding one
last feat to a legend in place
The sinuous geology of the post-glacial valley
and the thick working muscles of the tall, aging
oarsman were parallel motifs in a riverscape poem
for an autumn afternoon full of low-angle sunlight
and multi-colored leaves that painted the wide river
with diamonds that sparkled in a reflected
blue sky, the surface of the water like liquid
stained glass
Beyond the stone bridge, he left the young men
behind, found an internal power that surged like the
rapids in the rugged upland gorges of the river that
he rowed and the photo at the finish was a big
strapping guy in a sleek racing shell pulling hard
against the years on the shifting mosaics
of a big-city river flowing south
toward the sea!
The aficionados on the banks
said the old man had been strokin’!
They asked me to go
To the hills, oceans, valleys and deep steeps
To see the beauty of danger
The mighty of height
The glory of width
So that I may sing from the bottom soul
Or may write from the depth of my understanding
Their suggestion is very welcome
But very annoyed to reply them that in my heart i have a bird
It sings all the time from the top of a hill
For the whole humanity living in the valleys and plains
It dives into the womb of an unfathomable ocean
To fetch gems and pearls till untouched
In doing so all the above
I many times fall as a climber falls in a steep
I know the gorges and their networks of trap
Bog is not unknown to me too
Many times I slip into its web
And you might go to wonder and express aw
Knowing that all these lie all time in front of my poetic eyes
Realised in the heart and expressed though the mind
In my soul i hold the whole cosmos
And its untold sorrow and pain
I go through every moment in my veins
Yet I play the string and with the music I dance like a peacock
Laugh like a child, blow and flow like the river and like the wind
No ill for any one,
No time i have to execute the role of a devil
No, i am not a sage, not a saint
I know not all, i am not a fake
I am genuine with human blood and flesh
Yet i keep my thought falling like a fountain
Pure white and chaste
By carving the basic instincts lust greed and the lure of telling lies
I bent like a rainbow when the urge of wanton wanting comes up
Without any bias and prejudice
Right and wrong I judge
True and false I decide with the rays of the sun
With the serene beauty of the moon I distinguish
Between the race of man and the race of dogs
And I do all the things I mention above
With the help of love I get from the waves while kissing shores
And keep riding with the pride of a tip facing harshness
With a consciousness of a hill
I wish not to lose justness
Even if, I fall from a cliff
As I find grace in a star while shooting
And glory in the height of rain drops while falling.
The evening air blows twice as fair
when it is kissing her sweet strands of hair
to glimpse her rosy cheeks, perchance her eyes
any passerby would swoon.
Down the street the lamplights flicker on
a feeble gesture, half in vain
for any light forfeited by the sunset
is given to the moon.
And where it’s wanted shadow still creeps in
Observe! Behind a mule cart sits
bundled up in robes and motionless
the sweet girl prior mentioned.
Horses’ footfalls echo from the sides of shops
and disappear as masters drive
into some warmer corner
of the cold Parisian night
As well pedestrians shuffle by
at somewhat slower pace
and but the smallest turn their gaze upon
the pauper woman’s face
But none can see, but none can see
into this sweet girl’s reverie
the chillness in her breath
is the only sign she gives
Her eyes are closed, and now she flies
through darkest depths of mind to happier times
one summer evening on a porch
beside her lover true
When gaze is not transfixed upon the other
drinking from the depths of melancholy passion
it gorges itself upon the greenest grass
like heifers lowing on the hill
or bunnies bounding through the field
or crickets chirping in the reeded orchestra
all similes reveal themselves at twilight
to those in love, in elevated sight
and minds are read, so no surprise
can narrow further catlike eyes
when her lover true decides
to reveal to her the truth
“Upon this eve I have received
a letter from the Guard, with intent
to draft me into the army
as the gears of war are turned
you know how much I long to stay
within your arms until my dying day
but I’ve heard tales of those who tried to flee
many try, and none succeed
so in a week I’ll board the train
the line from Marseilles to Lorraine
and write you letters every night
until the morn that we shall hold each other tight”
And no words formed upon her lips
the falling leaves told all
but when they kissed tears did form inside their eyes,
rolled off, and mingled in their mouths.
"She is brave and strong and broken all at once." — Anna Funder
When spoken, it might seem innocent
Like any word – just a word
Afterall it doesn’t have hands to maim
It doesn’t have feet to trample the faith
Even though it rests on the tongue
In such a way that it freezes the soul
It is just a word – no less, no more
Just a word
But it rises up in my center, breathing
Harsh pangs, deafening my hope
Pouring out something akin to acid
Inside my mind – into my thinking, my remembering
It is like an ocean filled with black, bitterness
Weeping that gorges itself on my dreams,
Resting like fog over the hills of my memories
Just a word, playing sharply
Biting into my flesh, skin peeled back
Layers of aching, throbbing like
Grief that never breaks away from its
Primary need for misery that is as angry
As the shadows that surround it
Murky memories unfolding, stirring up the past
The heavens open up and pour out souls
The unborn who were once given the fate
Then, just as quickly, the chance was taken away…
Infertility bringing with it – the same shame
That remembers only to drench the disgrace
In murmuring tears, like small blessings
Who drip, melting away the dream, silencing
The hope – but giving something new to the soul –
Relief from the degradation, the stain
That the word barren suggests,
The desolate word, the destitute – the infertility
Of – not only the dream, but the beautiful
In touching the face of belief that flavors every reality
The need to see – reflected in that child
A smile from the womb who brought faith to life
Only a word, but a word that silences the truth
I’m not just a woman because of my ovaries
I’m a woman because of my hope that believes
Even through infertility – I have a purpose
That only God could have stimulated within me,
A instinct, a intuition, a intention – blessed by the
Love of a Creator who gave me hope –
Despite the verdict, infertility can’t kill the place inside
That believes in the love that only God can provide!
It was on a Sunday morning in the village where I stay
Out walking with my dog, I heard some pensioners say
Did you hear about the earthquake, it was somewhere in our State
No magnitude has ever been like it, it's impossible to relate
Quickly I headed home, to view this terrible news
Upon turning on the TV, I'm in horror at what my eyes now view
The awesome Golden Gate Bridge, against an azure bluey day
Lies broken, distorted and twisted, as if it's foundations had given way
The camera now focuses on the mainland, capturing plumes of choking black
Freeways lie twisted and contorted, trains running from their tracks
Gas lines spew throwers of flames, sirens resonate in blaring sound
What was level hours before, have dropped from it's original grounds
Many reporters are now on the scene, as they pan out across the blue
From the helicopter of CNN, Alcatraz disappears from their view
Slowly the island it sat on, as if by magic, now it has gone
Words are heard through the speakers, what the hells gone wrong
The daylight turns to black, a city lies in shreds
Memories of 1906, when three thousand plus were dead
All through the night, tremors came and went
Has history repeated itself, the San Andreas Serpent
I am awoken in the morning, having left the TV on
Panic stricken reporters screaming, most of San Francisco's gone
Where once stood a city, lie pillars of battered ruins
Deep gorges surround them, in bloodied scattered strewn
There's a break in the programme, it's from Yellowstone National Park
The land is starting to rise, incredible is the remark
Geysers that once flowed often, have receded in their shower
Are we about to witness, another of her powers
Back to the CNN studios, more footage of the morning
Towering inferno's in sickened tears, the clock, the warning
I fall to my knees in remembrance of the date
It's December the 21st, has earth met it's fate
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/fantasy-17.php
I am a little Alsatian puppy- can you empathise with my wretched plight?
I cannot impress upon insensitive humans, my God given inalienable right,
As a scrawny tottering helpless babe, I used to suckle milk from my mother,
I slept close to her warm body and had great fun romping with my brother.
Men snatched me heartlessly without any qualm from my dear mother’s care,
She searched and searched for her precious offspring desperately everywhere,
They separated me from my siblings too, did they think I liked thus to be parted?
I am man’s “Best Friend”, but towards me, why are they harsh and hard-hearted!
They brought me captive to a mansion cold, and kept me within its encircling walls,
They expected me to be satisfied with silly, inane toys, and a few multi-coloured balls.
In the fields I was free as the untrammelled breeze-- I would then frolic, roll and play,
In nature we lived happily in a close-knit pack, not in solitary confinement all day.
Now I am forced to chew on artificial bones and in a secluded house I must stay,
But it was so much fun to be with one’s kith and kin, this I can now honestly say,
Even when I’m hungry, I have to make do with whatever portion they deign to give,
The same processed unnatural food daily, isn’t appetising, to be had as long as I live.
My master gorges on lip-smacking food which I would have also liked to munch,
I too would have relished digging into juicy flesh, for breakfast, dinner and lunch,
My jaws and teeth were meant for food, other than the machine-made dog fare,
Thoughtless men assume they are doing a lot, that we’re treated with a lot of care!
Men should realise how much they’ve been unfair in unreasonably torturing us!
Why should they expect us to submit to their senseless training, without any fuss?
If men could become the wretched dogs and dogs could turn into “God’s Chosen men”,
They would certainly understand our miserable plight, without my having to explain.