Long Journeyman Poems

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


Premium Member The Clown

The clown

Circuit circuits
moving round in circles
swings and roundabouts
junctions dead ends
living closures and 
beginnings

The fool wise man
woman child in all
posits mocks
understands the world
beauty horror
misgivings paths
ahead and gone
retrieved adventoured
learned felt inspected
long gone present 

Re-chisseles
comprehends in 
jest and wonderment

The jester
foolhardy
and foolproof
scribes in stone
and pencil
when fool’s gold
is just enough
where paradise
develops based on
hopes beliefs
and inner truth

The clown speaks
joy in face
of darkness
insight desperation
inspiration sweating
away the clouded
skies of dogma
digma paradigm

A joker true to
juddered jibes
jewels miracles
astonished tunes
informal charters
melodies and scented
wordings
bridges schisms
buffering the madness
infinite insanity
impoverished delusion

A senseless idiot 
giving idioms
meaning iconoclastic
impromptu impropriety
making sense of what 
there really is

A bubble blower
whistle blower
soapy gentle creature
carbolic and pugnacious
peaceful warrior
observing pulchritude
a journeyman

The circuits circle 
circuses' loops 
and rounded
loopholes spirals
intervening interweaving 
fabrics
tapestries 
makes 
the clown


Battle Storm

We tried to hide and could have died. 
But we only heard the faint cry
Of the wind whistling aloud
As the devastation passes by.

From the darkness, we heard cries,
weeping voices of the night storm 
Crashing through invisible barriers 
That head the names of our heroes.

The storm uprooted old trees.
Bludgeon tool unable to rule. 
Fearful plow into the houses.
Crumpling like an ancient scrawl 

Night storm is an ancient journeyman, 
Come on a visit to the isles each year.
To enact revenge on the jealous land
The divulged appetite has no fear. 

The hunted died, and the storm's gone.
an evil force, crawl back into its silent shell
Planning a surprise for the next horizon 
With whispers of awakening hell.

Premium Member Half a World Away

On the San Francisco waterfront the sun is going down 
Upon a well-heeled journeyman fresh in from out of town. 
The sky's been drained of color to a somber shade of gray
As a new day dawns on another continent half a world away.

In the console of his rental car he keeps a loaded Glock, 
And fifty grand in cash for proving dead men never talk.
His trip to Frisco fit the adage "crime can sometimes pay."
Like that wedding swindle a dozen years ago half a world away.

There’s a shot glass on the window sill, a bottle on the floor. 
A briefcase full of alibis lies propped against the door. 
The walls of his motel room might be closing in today,
But it can’t compare to the hot, stale air she breathes half a world away.

He could maybe make the fever break, breathe easy for a spell.
Maybe shave a couple seconds off the time he’ll spend in hell. 
He might even find forgiveness if he had the faith to pray
For a young girl burned by a grifter's double-cross half a world away.

In his wallet there’s a photo of a happy, smiling bride;
The blue eyed, fresh faced girl-next-door he’d taken for a ride
To a Southeast Asian brothel where he led her soul astray.
When he sold her ass to spend her nightmare honeymoon giving it away.

When the scholars write the history that chronicles an age, 
They leave the least important things omitted from the page. 
There's much that gets forgotten, left to silently decay;
Like a sex slave serving a Bangkok pleasure den half a world away.

Half a world away is as far as you can get, 
But she’ll never let you spend a night in peace.
Form: Lyric

Premium Member Law

How have I loved    your laws and decrees
and your Sun       in the dawn of the morning
the orders that govern       the universe
and their rulings       the cosmos adorning
 
So finely tuned      a precise instrument
it's crafting       can no journeyman match
construction supreme      no man has surpassed
nor it's equal       can he ever attach
 
You have hidden       their rules and movements
that a man could spend           a lifetime to seek
but the years we're given       have been shorted
and our will            to regulation is weak
 
Its decrees            are woven like fabric
on each writ      does another rely
their sequence                 framed like a template 
against its power       can no man defy
 
Its display               of symmetry  exacting
it's direction          none living can change
through its pursuit          our knowledge deepens
but it's only simile              can we arrange
 
Like flocks             are the stars conducted
as their shepherds            your laws do act 
like the canon of statues             their placement
their governing             by decrees you enact
 
No man                can act as its counselor
or rearrange           its charge and command
for all that's demonstrated            in nature
for all are subject           to what law demands
 
By their study            we learn how to measure
like a child           the paths of all law
to investigate              all time and reasons
of its operation           we can all stand in awe
 
source Psalm 19
 
COPYRIGHT © 2012 C Michael Miller
via Duboff Law Group LLC
Form: Verse

The Lesson of the Master

I tried to express myself like you, 
Your style, rhythm, sense 
Of pace and form, which floated
From the page with every piece I read.
It seemed your language was like 
A drug, that filled each recess
Of my inner self, made me understand
I was now in a higher state of being.
Each word, every inflection, each
Observation transported me 
On a flowing river, sometimes quickly 
Sometimes gently and, unfailingly, 
Carried me to the sea of knowledge.
I knew I hadn't always grasped, 
Your meaning, your intentions, 
And had to save your wisdom
For another time, when, with a 
Maturer mind I could fathom
That which you had imparted. 
But who are you; as others know, 
You passed away a long time ago, 
And I, a mere journeyman, 
Hopefully, carries within me the
Spirit of your voice, inside of mine.
© Desi Gall  Create an image from this poem.


Two True Companions

Against stark elements, this compliment of two;
Shrug buffeting winds and driving rains to go;
To hold a course for only fate to sway.
This journeyman with trusty beaconsphere;
Let none invade this very private space.
Her radiance and warmth do light vague ways;
Illumination tricks the chilling void.
This pair companion rise to nature's test;
A trial that would serve only to hear say;
"Sweet beaconsphere to you I say this clear,
A thousand miles and more I am prepared,
And should the times be hard and we both fall,
That you are there for me and I for you,
You'll never find a partner quite so true"

Premium Member The World


The world unfolds at my fingertips
Bliss is found at the fringes of my vision
I wrap myself in white wings
Perhaps I'm a little egotistical 

A journeyman who thinks a lot
The greatest prison is one's own mind
And history is both a blessing and a curse
When you gained nothing from it

Descend into an ocean of stars
When you finally close your eyes and rest
A supernova bursts in your mind
Thoughts strewn with an assortment of color

Flip the pages one last time
I had it all in the palm of my hands
Perhaps I'm a little egotistical
When the world unfolds at my fingertips

Premium Member Green Man of the Forest

He's a visual fusion of forest and inner flame,
A radiant pulse of abundance.
Clad in crafted clothing of galore,
Stitched in autumn tones from folklore.

He wears leaves of distinction, orange embers,
Yellow, citrine, and emerald green.

He nurtures the woodlands in newborn sunrays
That fall through the morning haze,
Striking the heart where his roots belong,
Enhancing the mind with crystal-clear gleam.

Twinkling truths highlight his daydreams.
The Green Man dances readily,
Saged in spirals for centuries,
Giving journeymen paths to fae lights,
Readily twisting around flowers, foliage, and sprite's limbs,
Stretched in sacred homage.

Breath in breeze
Body entwined with trees
By myth decreed
By birthright and galore
Wanderer between roots and stars forevermore.
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member Somewhere To the Left of Earth

In my many years before the mast 
I’d seen rocks and shoals conspire
To ground me down to powder
Till I was just dust in the wind,
And I’d never even been to Kansas.
I was useless as a one-armed paper hanger,
Skilled in the geometer’s art,
But no closer to infinity
Than the day I’d started out.
Just a journeyman aesthete
Dressing drywall plaster 
With those tapestried patterns
Favored by the rich and famous. 
But, being a lifelong learner,
I learned to breathe.
I learned to eat.
I learned to say, “No.”
I became a student of the universe,
Composer of the mini-verse,
Somewhere to the left of Earth.
Mainlining the vagus nerve
On the highway leading home.
And there’s no place like home.
I must be doin’ somethin’ right.

Premium Member The Journeyman, Walt Whitman

The Journeyman, Walt Whitman


Acrid smoke drifts over this lifeless battlefield…
Forlorn cries escape from his tattered journal, bound in silence…
From above, Vultures circle lazily, stung from below, the burning
Eyes of the gray-bearded one,  give them pause…
Off in the distance, cannons boom, as sons and brothers deny destiny…
Blades of grass, turn to dust…
Only memories now, hands reach out as pages turn, releasing arrows
That pierce every generation, born of his pen…
O godless thunder, tear the earth below my feet!
O wingless warrior, carry me beyond this sightless grave!
I long, for those dreams I once revealed…
I long, for my purple mountain streams…
Forever etched in acrid smoke,
Forever etched…
Drifting…
Drifting…
Form: Narrative

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