Long Hammock Poems
Long Hammock Poems. Below are the most popular long Hammock by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Hammock poems by poem length and keyword.
The hours have been driving me,
miles upon miles have sunk the sky,
Florida now hangs from distant cypress trees.
I almost miss the exit ramp,
This kind of waking and sleeping
is controlled by a ghost in my head.
Now I am eyes on the corners
where a flickering sunset
swings between interlaced trees.
Feet juggle over a low flying road,
while tense hands wind and unwind
on a sullen wheel.
This country road I know well, but the
fading day wants to paint me out
of my own map,
the familiar takes upon it
many alien shades.
Hours are melting back
to sleep with the Manatee,
I grind through the gears
swing on a hammock of
slow and fast moments.
The driveway dives out
of a side-show hedgerow.
Car-parts rattle into silence.
Benumbed bones lag behind
as the engine ticks on in a
somnambulant daze.
House windows watch curiously
as a stranger to Ohio
enters a place it calls home.
She'd spent the day on the beach, all alone,
as skies of morning peach turned amber gold.
Silence broken by cries of gulls, echoing her own
as waves were curling; over the ocean they rolled.
She lazed in a hammock strung beneath palm trees,
trying to erase from memory the words he spoke.
His voice drifted on the wind of a warm summer breeze.
Utterances about the promises he'd made then broke.
She read a little, did too much thinking, mostly slept.
It was exhausting to do nothing and yet feel so jaded,
unless of course she counted the hours she'd wept.
A shadow fell across her face when sunlight faded.
Here, away from the weight of strain
where domestic thorns are spiked and ripped,
she entangles her damp hair
then bares frozen sighs, running barefoot
along softened meadow grounds;
her soul cleansed by moonglow's peace,
forced not to yield to a man's cycle
of incessannt rage, as moist eyes
float with the new moonlight's gentleness
rendering herself empowered once more
against the hissing of pierced words ,
lesions marked on a slammed body... until
a balmy oak offers a hammock of strength,
while she tries to grasp the truth; aware now
that an alliance quite violent is illusion's bite.
Mindful, she knows she must return home,
to finally unchain herself from the shackles
of his vicious game... it is all over.
John Hamilton's Woman in Chains Contest
8/29/2020
The eye in the jewelry box
was the aged rusty gate
Sensory images,
overgrown paths -
Grief vent itself in tears
No ties between past
and future generations
The mournful reverberation
from the house of emptiness
Sound of rain dropped merciless
Dilapidated and abandoned
Attacked by the ravages of time
The once white painted walls, graffiti
Ceiling beams arches, hammock
Slate steps and slate top broken
Decay of the years -
etched in stone
Empty
A hammock swings to and fro in the wind
As if propelled by an unseen foot.
A tricycle lies abandoned by the porch,
One handle grip with its multicolored
Streamers long gone, a wheel missing,
Its once-resplendent pink paint eaten with rust.
The “For Sale” is old. It sways tipsily,
Tilting in the wind, covered in graffiti.
Where is the little girl who used to play
In this lonely and forsaken yard?
Where is the boy who whiled away the hours
Reading and dreaming in the hammock?
Where is the mother who tended these gardens,
Now full of weeds, and the father whose children
Greeted him joyfully at the end of the day?
What calamitous series of disasters
Befell this family, to force them out,
To make them leave the home they loved?
Maybe they sleep now in cheap motels and
Eat their frugal meal at a breakfast bar
Or live in a noisy, overcrowded shelter.
Or do they move from place to place,
Rootless, living in a car, dreaming of that
Joy-filled home they left behind, a lifetime ago?
The staring house now stands bereft,
Bewildered, wondering - where is the family that
Once lived and loved inside its empty shell?
It seems to wait in loneliness, pining for
Those happier days of oh, so long ago,
While the hammock swings to and fro in the wind.
What movement, what visual rhyme and grace ...
I have watched the old willow on my grand-father's farm
Sway in a summer breeze, sweeping the grasses with a soft movement
As sublime as the bow of a master cellist ...
I have rested in a hammock in the afternoon breath of the Caribbean,
Scents carried from the African plains to mix with sugar cane and brine,
Rocking me gently off to slumber in a flawless to-and-fro ...
I have been mesmerized by the perfect sweep of the pendulum
On my parents' grandfather's clock, the rhythmic back-and-forth of a child
On a swing, the tick-tock of a music metronome ...
The sweet up-and-down of a rolling ocean tide, the swooping flight of a
Pileated Woodpecker, the slow-falling drift of a winter snowflake, and the
Proud waving of my country's distinctive flag in the wind ...
But never in my many years on this Earth, have I beheld anything that
Compares with the flawless, hypnotizing, provocative, heat-generating,
Rhythmic dynamism and undulation ... of your voluptuous hips.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Swagger" Poetry Contest, Line Gauthier, Judge & Sponsor.
"The answer is blowin' in the wind" ~ Bob Dylan, 1963
One fine day, I sat upon my hammock, swayin'.
I heard the breeze, and asked, "what are you sayin?"
"Would you truly like to know?", he said with a gust,
"I'll tell you if I must", stirring up some dust.
I'm as old as the world. I've seen all places.
I recall everything that time erases.
I've visited battlefields and soldiers, brave,
and cemeteries, with many a lonely grave.
I caressed Indian grass and cottonwood trees.
I pushed ships carrying horses, guns, and disease.
I carried jasmine perfume aloft in the air
and mussed up Rapunzel's long and golden hair.
I wafted through an orphanage where children play.
I puffed Babe Ruth's called home run one October day.
There's just one remaining thing I forgot to say,
The wind never gives anything away".
Yet, I understood not a word the wind had said,
for he blew me off my hammock onto my head.
Oh, what I'd know if it weren't that I were dead.
I bought some supplements from the pharmacy.
On the table, I lean against it.
This is supposed to help with sleep.
I was supposed to sleep.
That first night.
The whole night.
Everything.
Shut down.
I bought the supplements.
They are supposed to be “doctor recommended.”
I don’t know.
What else there is.
I take a pill at 9:00 am.
I still didn’t get much REM.
When I try to sleep, the bed shifts too.
Like a hammock on the beach that is blue.
The seasons are like muddy boots.
I don’t know how the mud got there.
I think I walked in the rain that night.
A few years ago.
Or a few years from now.
Pills that are white and green.
Tablets that dissolve and hiss and howl.
I bought the pharmacy.
Yes, I brought all my friends home.
Pills all over the counter.
Making pretty patterns.
Spilling.
I spilled everything out of me, and the couch muttered as I flopped down.
So I slept on the floor.
I don’t know. I don’t know why they ask.
I can’t answer.
They have a morphing, asking, begging face.
I don’t know what words are.
But I know faces.
I recognize her face.
As I lie on a cot.
Ethereal.
I could fall forever.
That would be heavenly.
If I fell forever.
I could sleep while falling.
I remember buying all those supplements.
Lots and lots and lots.
I do remember.
It all started in November.
I do remember.
I am a very slow reader…I’m not ashamed to say…
when I come across a good book…I can linger there for days.
And why not! When I open a book I never know what experiences await.
Will there be adventures grand or small?
Will there be drama, comedy, mystery…or perhaps a little bit of all?
I don’t see just words on paper…no my eyes and mind understand
each word is a mere stepping stone into another land.
From the comfort of my bed or chair or hammock the adventure doth begin…
and as I turn the pages of a book…I visit places I’ve never been.
I journey to exotic lands, witness untold beauty quite sublime...
It’s even possible in a book to go traveling through time.
I help solve difficult cases, know what’s lingering behind that door
I feel the joy of love when it emerges, and the atrocities of war.
Where else can I travel the globe and experience such wonderful panoramas
all from the safety of my home while still in my pajamas?
Which is why I prefer to be a slow reader…
after all If I can travel to all parts of the universe…
from the present to the future to the past…
while meeting new and interesting people…
why would I want to read fast?
No, when I am reading a book I love…it is my long range plan
to linger on every word, every sentence, and every paragraph
for as long as possibly I can.
So to all the fellow slow readers out there…
Don’t feel this is something you need to hide…
Because the slower we read…the longer our visit lasts
And the more we enjoy the ride.
I’ll go to some faraway place,
On a lovely, isolated beach, at sunset,
And watch the fiery solar ball
Disappear over the limitless horizon.
Look, the waves are rhythmically opalescent,
The azure billows changing to carmine red
And then to misty white as the foam
Dissolve upon the fine citron sand.
I’d lay myself upon a comfy hammock,
Watch baby turtles swim in shallow sea,
Or feel the saliferous sweet breeze
Waft leisurely over the windblown dunes.
Perhaps I’d languidly sway myself into a divine nap
Until the sacred drums resonate with native music.
The smell of finely cooked paella chicken
Would whiff into my nostrils. Time to eat.
I wake and fry a couple of eggs
In my forlorn, unkempt kitchen.
I can only afford a dream.