Long Iota Poems

Long Iota Poems. Below are the most popular long Iota by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Iota poems by poem length and keyword.


Clutched By Anxiety

Unseen talon sharp claws...
dig deep into mine
psyche soft underbelly
piercing bedrock of
     core (puss) being
     akin to butter knife
slicing thru peanut
butter and jelly

unable to preserve
an iota of calm,
which eruption of cataclysmic
agitation analogous to a bomb
going off inside my head,
     where a mishmash
of frenzied discombobulated
brainstorming angst doth glom,

whereat the "little boy"
inside this man
called for his mom,
who when this aging
     "baby boomer" chap
     just a kid and experienced
devastating, jarring,
and paralyzing tom

malt chew hiss in dom
mitt able inexplicable fear,
though NO obvious
danger threatened, NOR
warning signaled "BEWARE,"
nonetheless adrenaline
coursed from head
to toe as if clear

and present harm
lurked quite near,
inducing a host of
     physiological fallout symptoms
darkly freighting this
sole son with nightmarish scare,
whereat no escape,
nor exit no matter

how fast a sprinting tear
found me running
mile a minute only
to end up nowhere,
     except smackdab right
in the same place
in relation to despair,
which translates to mean...

     yours truly could not
run and hide,
as quickly made clear
to me then, and now,
though at present
scores years older, the balm
courtesy of prescription
medication popped inside

mouth from palm
olive smoothed hands,
as if this teetotaler
betook himself prom
men aiding albeit
with tumblerful of liquor
getting feigning noggin all a jam
aware that nothing amiss,

would be evident,
sans lower gastrointestinal exam,
nonetheless diet 
     restricted to graham
crackers and broth 
distilled from ham
hock, once again thwarting
vegetarian ambitions damn!
Form: Bio


Premium Member A Nuanced Choice

I’m near almost here 
resounds in my ear, 
I feel a presence 
closing in tonight,
Curtains of darkness
so bereft, it’s death,
Here to take my life, 
i’m paralyzed to fight,
Limp helpless, 
supine I stare,
as finality descends,
snuffing out time,
The loan to this body, 
has run it’s course,
An entity must return
via the void,
Deaths vice-grips 
every last atom,
Squeezing existence 
to an infinite point,
This is not choice, echoes 
through space,
Death comes death calls
death shows one grace,
a bifurcation, 
Deus ex machina shrugs,  
voicing these words,
One path holds copious love, 
equaled only by hate,
The other, love’s barely nothing,
yet hate is absent,
Former is tempting 
but sounds familiar,
Latter could possibly 
bore me to death again,
Yet holds an iota of potential,
I choose this fate. 

By
David Kavanagh

Premium Member Dad's Lesson

For decades I watched you toil
Modestly and unpretentiously
Life’s ups and downs
Not changing you one iota

A solid man with your integrity intact
No matter what came your way
Being your own master
And your own judge
Demanding and fair

Your heart into everything you did
You led by example
With principles and ethics
That’s how I learned the most valuable lesson
The one worth learning most of all

At the end of this whirlwind journey we call life
We will all stand alone to face our Maker
And show the integrity that’s in our heart



Published in my 24-page photo/anthology ~A SIMPLE MAN~ 2020

AP: 1st place 2025, Honorable Mention 2025

Submitted on October 8, 2018 for contest IN RESPONSE TO IF (RUDYARD KIPLING'S FAMOUS POEM 'IF') sponsored by SILENT ONE  -  RANKED 2ND

Premium Member I See Her In My Mirror

i see her in my mirror now
the years have not erased how in my youth
i loved every inch of her kind face 
and would not have changed a single iota

her heart made her the most beautiful woman
to ever have walked this earth
and in my youth nothing and no one
could have convinced me otherwise

i see her in my mirror now
yet still i need remind myself
to make the leap and to forgive 
my wrinkles and other ravages of time

difficult to make the leap that i’m now older
and gone the days of youthful grand-daughter
in the mirror i see that i’m now her
and must forgive the ravages of time



AP: 2nd place 2022, Honorable Mention 2022

Premium Member Cosmic Dust

Since time immemorial across the Universe—
Traces of my vapor, my dust trails, my footprints, my being
Light up the skies of innumerable planets etching themselves
Indelibly in the consciousness of the stars and making visible
Impressions in the cold continuum of deep dark space.

I’m mere particle matter—in reality, an iota of infinity that
Continues its travel through time and space and all dimensions
Visiting the vast frontiers of the Universe while leaving minute
Traces of my Cosmic DNA.

I’m part of the Universe’s great existential family—
My quest is to travel, to arrive, to be one with everything I touch,
And to savor a continuous divine purpose. 

What unbounding possibilities there are as I traverse the far 
Outreaches of dark space on Flight Paths of Eternity.

And sometimes I’m a part of rainbows that kiss the Face of God.

Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved (March 24, 2014) 
(Free Verse)


Direct Realization

Life is dynamic and constantly changing
Any thinking or verbal speculation about life
even with regard to the future 
is always based on the past
One may have an immediate awareness
beyond thought or verbal speculation
of one's existence
but one cannot have direct contact
with one's immediate existence
through thought

Words are useful in the attempt
to communicate one's experience
to another person
but the use of words is merely an attempt
to point to experience
It can never give that immediate 
direct knowledge, insight or realization
that comes from one's experience

Words are like a map
and experience is the territory
A map can only give knowledge
"about" the territory
It can never give knowledge
"of" the territory
This can only be obtained
through direct experience

When one considers growth and decay
as a continuous ongoing process
of which human existence is a mere iota
one realizes that there is an inexorable movement
which encompasses everything that "is"
including human existence
which is a relatively recent phenomenon
on the cosmic time scale

One realizes the ethnocentricity
or more specifically the "homocentricity"
of the claim that human conceptualizations
are capable of knowing things as they "are"
This applies whether the claim is that of 
science, religion or 
any other system of thought

When one examines the way 
the different lifeforms are interrelated
one realizes the distortion created by thought
when one attempts to isolate 
and elevate one lifeform
particularly the human lifeform
apart from the others

The body has an intelligence of its own
which manifests itself
when thought ceases its attempt
to know life
It is a direct realization
beyond thought

There is a fundamental unity
of everything that "is"
and Love is a manifestation
at the behavioural level
of this unity

Stalagmites

I refuse to cease writing these words
though all my bones have been broken
splintered and shattered 
like puzzle pieces
scattered on a tabletop
their pointy ends piercing 
every muscle each time I move
even an iota
I persist as I always do
despite the pain
perhaps because of it
to prove a point
taping popsicle sticks to my fingers
so they stay straight as I type
“Obstinate, stubborn”
my mother used to say
when I dared to disagree 
or stand up for myself
Her insults like a high pitched 
whistle blown inches from my ear
echoing in my malleable young mind 
a cavern creating stalagmites
layer upon layer
with the constant drip-drip of disdain
sharp and spiky that would impale me
over the years yet to come

The Leprechaun Within

every March seventeenth, the glint froom
a perverted imp finds me achin'
and if aye dig deep enough,
this Goyish pseudo judo day yo criss chin

can figuratively unearth a puckish
   (gnome like) elfish sprite 
   with a layer ring ga Erin
which byte size (key) ah man able troll
   help pan for treasure hunters

   plume bing the underworld
   with his (aye farm lee bull eve
   moost har male) sly grin
stirring thy faux set (head) 
   feigned Irish with in
new mutter nada trace,

   (boot perhaps juiced an iota) 
   o' Brogue kin
Celtic gene found
   within me genealogical tree,
   an itty bitty min
newt chromosomal thread,
   (which with assistance of Crispr)
   i.e., a more discerning Quaker can pin

point how this predominantly 
   (decrepit ole coot)
   Semitic baby boomer tub hoot
(whale hugging 
   ma gude look four leaf Shamrock)
   can locate long buried loot

according to legend
   (plus devout avid fervent 
   Irish Aunt Fib B. Hen
   aka Sally Salamander Newt)
doth avail her excitement to help up root

(perhaps revisiting a previously dug oop ditch)
maybe treasure undetected
   cuz ova technical, 
   and/or mechanical glitch

truth to the tantalizing myth 
   whar hike can hitch
   my dreams to a morning star,
   that would make a par man rich
and put an end 
   to mine fingers that hoo twitch

which i roan nick pie rite (of quartz)
   alluding to healthy appetite,
sans tea zing alluring 
   (whet started as byte)
size nar invisible craving,
   
   which fantasy easily didst excite
(necessitating yars true lee) to don robe of foo fight
tar, yet persistent and nagging lust didst light
lore (akin to un hearth thing
   pot o' gold at rainbow's end),
   cuz hum ma penniless plight
   such dogged pursuit, a mirage,
   whereat aye drool in plain sight
thus conk clue ding this 
   hip poe eponymous droning pome
   though, tis plenti mo' hie hood write!
Form:

The Truth of Many Lies

The Truth Of Many Lies


Prose, Instead of my non-inclusive poem

Gravity has no tolerance. Laws have no tolerance. 
Tragedy has no tolerance. 
The truth has not a way to give one iota from its conviction. 
There are not many truths. 
There is however, what is and what is not, 
and at any part of that scale of what is and 
what is not, a self inserted place (adspace) 
to label a wish-stamp of self esteemed belief 
(a textbox-picture show/stage of illusion 
(of a pride/lust of selfishness 
(self gratification/prideful masturbation)). 

Actions suffer either what the heart wants or 
what the illusioned parasite of sins temptation 
wants; as it seeks entry 
(it lies to the heart to get its fingers the heart. 
It lies about integrity and its integrity and 
motive/motif).  
The heart, in its purity or innocence naturally sides with Truth.
So Truth's face must be disguised and replaced 
to keep you from it.
Pharmakeia is a gateway, a drug.
This is the sleazy fingering method of infiltration and corruption.

Get rid of the lies and the sin. 
The self needs a guide. For the self is a child. 
A bit of a selfish and spoiled child 
that needs structure and integrity. 
It is these latter things that the sin competes with 
and erodes through hooks, shortcuts, flatteries and illusionary pleasures (gifts of pharmakeia). 
And that self/Gratification is a shiny 
gift-box packaged with a chain-bow 
of diverse eye candies that do not read from its ingredients. 
Instead, it says look over there ! 
For Inside is the snare of confusion, 
a rotten fruit hatched Tekilla-sand-worm soaked in, pouncing with the silky tangle of web (enslavement, then eventually, frustration and destruction.)
art
Form: Prose

Gone Are the Days

I look back to the halcyon days
When Mrs Johnson,
A comely widow, ran fruitful
Errands for the new railway, and for
Our undeveloped district.
A frail, little maid in green cardigan
And sable wool hat for new mourners,
She read the New Testament
With zest, from Matthew to Revelation.
And she battled with the stress of inheritance
At the foot of her husband’s death in a
Civil war.
Her only son had died in civil stress. . .

Before then,
She was a merry image of festal seasons,
Full of godly gap-toothed mirth.

Her inheritance, from the ceremony of death,
Were mere effigies
With hearts of calumny —like cruel
Neighbours who gossip from dawn
To dusk, speaking no iota of truth in
January, nor bearing good witness in
December.

Among them?
Divorcees, viragoes, astute harlots, and
Celebrated proprietors of bordellos.

Mrs Johnson laments the presence
Of a blinding yellow equatorial sun.
Says she, ”Misery in equator courses
Across the waist of here;
Stress and agony have built adobes
Among us,
And the Harmattan has departed with her
Cold . . .”

In the pall of this agony,
Snakes!

Now, shadows of floods rise high,
Like the tsunamis of restless Asia,
The height of disconsolate mountains.

Grey elephants trumpet in trepidation
Sallow, ululating leopards break the skins of
Their drums while summoning their kinsmen
For a hurried parley before the sun sinks . . .

Poor Mrs Johnson is in the midst of it all —
Like an eye in its own storm!

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