Long Jar Poems
Long Jar Poems. Below are the most popular long Jar by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Jar poems by poem length and keyword.
A Jar of Summer
Snow lies thick on the yard
Outside my window.
I lift the jar from the shelf
And carry it to my breakfast table.
Sunlight glows purple through the glass.
I pry open the lid.
And the winey aroma
Fills my soul with summer.
I see the grass by the fence.
The air is heavy with
The musky smell of wild grapes
That hang in beckoning clusters
From vines among the trees.
I clamber over the fence,
My hip complaining
About that last leg over!
I scramble among the grasses -
Never mind the thorny creepers
Clutching at my legs and clothes -
And load my bag with purple jewels.
The jam kettle waits,
And I hurry home to fill
The neighborhood with the
Thick, sweet aroma of cooking grapes.
This little jar of jam I open
At my winter breakfast table
Holds all the memories of summer.
I close my eyes and let
The tart-sweet taste
Fill my all my senses with
The sun and smells and tastes
Of summer past and summers yet to come.
A white and silver marbleized ceramic jar,
I found in an abandoned car...
I saw a similar one at a bazaar,
it belonged to Alexander, the Czar.
I asked the slim and friendly Russian lady,
" How much is that jar? "
" Ten dollars, my dear! "
Wasn't I excited to have bought History?
She wrapped it twice in old newspaper,
and put in a brown shoebox saying,
" Be careful with it...it's a treasure! "
I took it from her hands and started running.
Which one of the two ceramic jars was the original:
the one that I had found in that car,
or the one I had bought at the bazaar?
One couldn't tell the difference between the two at all.
I never told anyone, I kept the secret to myself...
I displayed them as heirlooms on the book shelf,
staring at them, wishing to find out the authentic one;
I refused to sell them, because I adored the image of the Czar.
At almost every wedding you could count on my father telling the newly wed couple:
“You know, if you put a penny in a jar every time you make love during the first year of marriage and then removed a penny from the jar every time you make love thereafter …you will never empty the jar.”
One of my cousins didn’t quite understand the jest of the challenge and, for years, every time she saw my father she would say, “Uncle John, we’re still putting pennies in our jar.”
He tried to explain it to her a couple times before just giving up and responding, “That’s great, Becky.”
When my father passed away earlier this year, while helping my mother pack up some of his things from their room, I found an old glass jar with a few pennies in it under the night table on his side of the bed.
I chuckled, and, after showing it to his wife of fifty-nine years, my mother, I said, “Looks like you guys were just a few pennies short of emptying your jar.”
My mother shook her head and responded, “That old fool just kept putting his change in that jar and telling me; ‘We still got some work to do to empty this thing.’”
I dumped the few pennies into my hand and noticed two of them with wheat stems on the back, indicating they were old pennies. I handed them to my mom and told her to look at the date on them.
1952 – the year they were married.
A tear came to her eyes again, as had happened often over the past few weeks, and she just said again, “That old fool.”
I dumped the pennies back into the jar and placed it over on her side of the bed.
We continued packing up his stuff in silence.
The jar remains still, dressed in its glass mantle like a snow globe of silent forgetting,
each broken part of me lies there, floating in my warm and crimson waters,
a lake of lost memories, a mirror of the soul seeking to find itself again.
I open the jar and try to fit each piece into the deep voids of my being,
like a puzzle of the soul, but each time, I fail again and again,
and I wonder if I will ever manage to reassemble myself, to become whole again.
My gaze stops on the silver needles, shining like stars in the night sky,
someone has separated them from their thread, leaving only silence and cold steel behind,
the crude tools of healing, without a guiding thread, just silence and the desire to mend.
I clutch the needle tightly, a silent smile forms on my lips,
now I begin to sew each broken part, the cold needle pierces the skin with care and love,
as if mending my mother's old shawl, each stitch a memory, each knot a dream.
I sew my broken parts like a sweater of the heart, with love and dedication,
to protect myself from winter's bite, when the poisoned air seeps into cracks,
I sew again, like an old sweater, perhaps I will be whole again, even if only I know the story.
Each stitch a step towards rediscovering the lost self, each knot a warm refuge,
perhaps I will become whole again, even if sewn in silence, unseen by the eyes of the world,
a waltz of needle and thread, a dancing tale of healing and self-discovery.
As I try to wish away, all the sadness that I feel;
As if a night sky's falling star, could grant me something real...
If only one small wish, of what's eluded me all this life thus far;
I'd wish for just some happiness, just a little in a jar;
So I could open as I needed, unload some sadness that I feel
Much like unloading bulky freight,
From a trains overloaded boxcar...
If only I could wish away, all the sadness that I feel,
I'd finish this life with certainty
And a soul full of new found zeal...
I was the official jar opener in our house
Until this jar of Bick's Pickled Beets
Knocked me off my perch
Mr. He-Man here is now fighting off severe depression
It's a conspiracy, cause I was acting too much like a smart ass
That lid tightening machine heard about me
And is purposely making the seal tighter
So no actual human can open it without farting
And then it's still basicly impossible
I think the government should pass a law
That prohibits this kind of practice
To prevent us from ending up crying like a baby
And sucking our thumb all cuddled up in the corner
My dear wife decided to give it a shot
And apparently with no struggle at all
She managed to open the damn stupid thing
As I always say, “I loosened it for you!”
You can visit me in an old folks home
3:00 to 4:00 every weekday afternoon
And between 1:00 and 6:00 on weekends
Standing on tippy toes
Top shelf
Reaching
Stretching
Finger tips edging the jar forward
Imagining the taste of chocolate chips on my tongue
Yumm mom's chewy delicious wait till Saturday cookies
Thankful I have grown that extra inch
Thinking she'll never suspect me
The jar
Tips
Topples
Tumbles
Turns
Travels over my head
Lands on the floor
Just as Snoopy comes running through the door
Eating all the cookies except for four
Looks up with his doggy grin
Like he wants some more
I reach down and grab the jar
Surprised that it didn't break
Reaching inside was my second mistake
Mom comes in and says "For goodness sake!
I'm so scared I start to shake.
"Ricky get over here right now"
I drop the jar, she watches it break
Running I try to get away
Up the stairs
Under the bed
If she catches me I'll be dead
At least that's what she said
She lifts the bed skirt
There I am
With my happy face T-shirt
Just within her reach
She grabs me
Pulls me out
Laughs
Gives me a hug
"Don't worry it's OK
I'll make more
Later today."
For John Lawless's Just within reach contest.
Written April 15, 2015
Life in a Jar
I’d like to find a special jar
To put aside some life,
A jar that keeps both face and form,
And stints the scourge of change.
I’d put therein, a rusted leaf,
Or summer’s one perhaps,
To always have the seasons at
The twisting of a wrist.
I’d put therein, my true love’s kiss,
To always know its taste.
And next to that a snapshot of
The world within her eyes.
I’d also save, encased therein,
First cries out to the world;
Of lives conceived through gifted love,
And feeling newly born.
I’d store away the vistas of
Grand aspects, earthly borne,
And let them burn through fired glass
From every lay of land.
Then I would not be far from life,
From where I cannot see.
No, I prefer to keep it fresh
For morning’s light, through glass.
It’s change that writes the script of life
And fleshes out the page.
While time is just a numbered pause
Without a story told.
I stood in the middle of a large crowd
Claustrophobic but breathing easy
My heart pounding in my chest
Every beat sounding like Cherokee drums
Closed my eyes, deep breath
Eyes open, then I saw him
He stood there in all his splendour
Laughing heartily with his kin
Suddenly our eyes locked
The crowd disappeared like early mist
He stood up and strode toward me
Like a man with one mission
That’s when I saw his hands
He clutched a jar made of pure gold
Suddenly he stood right in front of me
A huge shadow eclipsing the sun
He laid his hand on my heart
First a gentle kind caress
Then a sudden painful yank
He ripped my heart out of my chest
He places it in the jar with satisfaction
His mission has been accomplished
He turns on his heels walks away
No care or turning back
To see the gaping hole he left behind
I fall to my knees clutching my chest
Blood gushing like water from a burst pipe
As I keel over to die strong hands catch me
They hold me tight no more bleeding
His words of comfort plant a seed
A new heart begins to grow and bloom
Does the one who loves you know who you are?
She needs a real man not just a facade.
Don't keep your heart locked away in a jar.
Not being open she'll think you're a fraud.
She longs to share every part of herself.
She needs a real man not just a facade.
Your heart is out of reach on that old shelf.
Where she can see it but it's out of reach.
She longs to share every part of herself.
But you hold onto her just like a leach.
In the glass jar it looks so very clear.
Where she can see it but it's out of reach.
If you open it what is there to fear?
Are there dark spots you don't want her to see?
In the glass jar it looks so very clear.
Is it that you're afraid that she will flee?
Why won't you reveal every part of you?
Are there dark spots you don't want her to see?
There are some good men, be one of the few.
It's time to reveal every part of you.
Help the one who loves you, know who you are.
Don't keep your heart locked away in a jar.
Modified Terzanelle