Long Lamps Poems
Long Lamps Poems. Below are the most popular long Lamps by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Lamps poems by poem length and keyword.
This forsaken house seems haunted
filled with shifting shadowed realms
that change from splayed moonlight
Silent are the steps once taken
through the rusty hinged cobweb-covered doors
that hang like worn-out relics from another time
The only sound is of mice
scurrying across crumpled paper
of bleak reckoning
where memories from its past still live
between broken windows
and torn rain stained wallpaper
where roaches crawl to hide
No one knows when or why it was deserted
as it stands as a monument from long ago
alone on top of a hill, above a stone bridge
covered in brush and thickets
Most have only seen it in daylight
It's now a place the young dare each other
to stay the night
Some say they see figures holding lamps
floating by the windows
before they hear a scream from death's abyss
No one really knows
I peaked into its windows once
Now, I just pass by and stare into its dim-lit world
of yesterday, and wonder
6/14/20
contest Thesaurus-Abandon or Abandoned
sponsor Dear Heart
She rises, she rises like the sun that knows no shame,
this woman-teacher-poet-mother-flame,
her soul vast as the sky that holds all storms
yet gentle as the dewdrop kissing the earth at dawn.
O Universe, behold your daughter who has learned
the sacred secret whispered by the wind,
that worth is not a treasure buried deep
but seed-song scattered wide like prayers across the hungry soil of sleeping hearts.
For thirty-five years, she has danced this divine dance,
her feet steady as mountains, swift as rivers,
Her hands, like mother birds preparing nests,
for 131,000 dreams to take their flight toward horizons bright with possibility.
They spoke their "no's" like thunder without rain,
but she said ‘oh’, she became the monsoon miracle,
teaching girls to read is like learning to breathe,
writing policies like love letters to generations yet unborn.
Her kitchen table glows like a temple altar
where the sacred and the daily merge,
stirring soup and stirring revolution
with the same blessed hands, like prayer and practice.
She rises, she rises, phenomenal woman,
her self-esteem flowing deep as Ganga's grace,
not hoarded like misers count their gold
but poured like oil upon the lamps of those who thought their light had died.
The eternal sings through her: I am not what I grasp
but what I give, not what I hold
but what I release like is, birds in the morning
to fill the sky with songs of freedom.
Like the underground river feeding the surface springs,
never asking why?
The lights at night
have much to say
a different story
than the day
They shine and glisten
here and there
in coolness of
the evening air
The street lamps glow
to light the way
as flashing neon
colors play
White ones come
and red ones go
as tiny cars
drive to and fro
Greens and yellows
reds and blues
from different houses
many hues
White beams flicker
dim to bright
from tv sets
turned on tonight
People moving
all about
as lights turn on
and then go out
In one house
a red shade glows
while further on
a blue one shows
On the distant
hills around
tiny flashing
dots abound
A dimly glowing
alleyway
night time secrets
kept from day
A lamp post lights
a walkway to
a red front door
that welcomes you
There's something special
in the sight
of cozy darkness
specked in white
Up above, the moon
does glow
and dazzling stars
put on a show
Life continues
through the night
a glittering, sparkling,
wondrous sight
In the earth
and sky above
the spectacle
I truly love
While on a hillside
looking down,
are the night lights
of my town
I have ever preferred the quiet rooms—
The whitewashed walls that answer not,
The polished steel, the waiting table,
Where memory grows faint and thought grows hot.
Do not mistake me—I am clinically gentle.
Order is my only creed.
I name the parts; I weigh the silence;
I catalog each mortal need.
The living are so terribly noisy—
Blood like thunder in the ear—
But stillness… ah, the blessed stillness
Is music exquisitely clear.
They say I lack what others cherish.
They say my gaze is hard and cruel.
But I see structure.
I see balance.
I see the symmetry of God.
There was a girl—there is always a girl—
Unclaimed by name, untouched by prayer.
She lay as if in mild repose,
A question trembling in the air.
I told myself I studied endings,
That science was my guiding star;
Yet in the glass above the table
Another face was never far.
It watched me with a patient horror—
A look I could not quite defend.
And slowly, with a dawning terror,
I knew that face would be my end.
For what I sought in lifeless forms
Was not their mystery—but mine;
And in dissecting mortal silence
I crossed a far more fatal line.
The room is quiet now—too quiet.
The lamps burn low.
The air grows thin.
I hear a knock from somewhere there.
It is not seeking to come in.
It has been here all along.
Oh,sturdy beloved amber street lanterns,
Covered with cold tears from heaven this night.
Standing stalwart before our warm homes,
No matter how roughly the winds do blow!
No huge, blinding citified lamps, not at all.
These beloved,amber lights, but five feet tall.
Loving their residents, each blessed night.
Friendly, welcoming lanterns, they.
That make my heart amber-glow,
At the close of the each blessed day!
March 16, 2020
3am PST
The Geography of the Void
We never know for certain if it's worth speaking of that gentle exile,
of the secret only we knew, without witnesses and without a word,
we migrate toward warm labyrinths where every groan holds a rare value,
and we make love by calendars gone slightly wrong — at night, by day, toward evening.
Bread bakes, and wounded shoulders are wrapped in rough, clean linen,
we walk the boulevards telling each other locust-memories, all withered,
like sheaves of dried reed that rustle and carry an old grief inside them,
we speak a tongue of back-alleys and farmland, stubborn past any road.
Powerful plants grow from the earth, victorious over time itself,
a vegetal world watches us from far off and writes to us without a face,
a timeless heat dries us out like a bed emptied of every dream,
only a canopy above, urban and rural both, keeps us still shut in.
Along those plausible paths you can hear words hatching out of words,
and see hourglasses lost inside their own nostalgia, mindless now,
the iron in you rusting inside them, a ballet girl asleep in a tin can,
while an old man from Alexandria writes his laws on a small matchbox.
And everything is clear, you leaf through the treatise on the great Void,
you walk in a crinoline beside a fence, your hair damp and stiff
like drowned Ophelia's in the mist, while I confess my love into a white amphora,
in a tower with feet as wet as a woman's after the lamps go out,
the evening eaten alive by mosquitoes, under a sky of total transparency,
while a sad parrot gives me lessons in geography, belonging nowhere, leading nowhere.
Before corporate café`s took over and Starbucks became so ubiquitous, on every corner of your city, small business cafés thrived. There was Antique Row Café Ave; four café`s that stood alongside each other, noted for their unique furniture and boasted their own peculiar interior. The antique row cafés were so cool, as you could amble around and observe intriguing artifacts and some for sale, and pictures of famous stars whom you grew up with. Very nicely decorated.
Tiperillo, sweet and husky tobacco smoke ascending from golden ashtrays, and lava lamps bohemian chic—purple plush couches, and stylish bars. We met twice a week, Flor, Cece, and I, and a few other college buddies. We studied, shared ideas and asked one another for advice.
I met Joey the manager of the café’s, resembling a young Salvador Dali`. He answered my questions about the unique and endearing bar café`s his father once owned, before they were drowned out under the heavy hand of corporate takeover. Hoping one day they’ll return with their indispensable charm and upbeat youthful ambiance. Until then it’s corporate dull and uncomfortable seating at the Starbucks!
The plaster in Rick’s place was always flaking near the doorway,
eaten away by damp heat and cheap tobacco smoke
that hung like dirty lace off the cedar joists.
Back in the corner sat a stunted, yellowed box—
a five-octave upright slapped with salmon and faded gold,
its pedals worn down to raw, scuffed brass.
It wasn’t built for concert halls. Just a pine-cased crate
that smelled of spilled Cointreau and stale olive brine.
Heavy teak doors kept the street noise out,
but couldn’t block the shuffle of black-market transit papers
passing under the low oil lamps.
Then Sam laid his knuckles on the keys,
cracked ivory, half-sticking from the salt air,
and the room went dead quiet.
She stood in the entry, silk coat catching the light,
asking for that song from Paris
before the tanks rolled in.
Rick didn't yell. He just stopped dead in his tracks,
watching the smoke curl off his cigarette
where it rested on the edge of the wood.
“Play it,” he muttered, his voice flat as gravel,
and the little wooden box gave up the only thing it had left.
The mad wind passed swiftly through the city showing mankind no pity, it captivate everything in its path, ripping up the cornfields, throwing down utility poles and opening up closed door. It circles around the creeks scaling sunlit mountains, mixing earth with stones and dressing the heavens with the gowns flying over the throne. It roots up the landfills, and settles beneath the foot of the hill circling, and twirling around for the eye that is set on the throne. It spews out a terrible sound reminding the people that destiny is around. It hisses and lashes, sending wooden planks over the bend and carrying the concrete a hundred meter down the lane.
The people run around the bend, looking for shelter underneath the altar but the mad wind drag them out and cause the entire town to jump and shout. It move ferociously around the pig pen and dances around the chicken coop, and drive the roosters from the roof, the ducks began to run too , wagging their bumpy tails and saying how do you do.
Zinc and pans, bucket and lamps crowd the street and debris flying in the air, landing in the bushes, and the middle of the streets, slowly erupting the town’s heart beat.The mad wind is moving towards the east, and I can finally get some peace. The sun is burning in the west, and I don’t have to fret, the fire is down to the wire and the vision is moving closer and some people are still looking for an answer.
I stand there breathlessly looking at the damages it left behind, overturned house fallen trees dug out road and overturned boats stalled cars in the middle of the street, and a temperature that lit up the street .Dead bodies floating in the rivers and screaming voices are heard from all places .People trapped onto of the roof and widow suck into the chimney with foot shaking up side down and head buried in the ground. The mad wind keeps moving leaving nothing unturned and the grey skies trembling in the sun leaving nothing undone and so the mad wind resides in the east.
grandma bare bosomed and barely covered by frayed crocheted pants
looked like a mixture of parakeet and paragon in a fairy tale’s garment
under cover of darkness she would bare her wickedness and emotions
a mocking bird with a beak full of gold and a never ending feathered quill
fire in her heart and a pen crafted from charcoal and indelible passion
tea leaves suspended in a crystal ball swayed by pendulums of words
stepladder to wisdom swinging from a roped pinnacle at the threshold
from reality to psychedelic hunter and gatherer of mushrooms and magic
candles crafted from Arabian lamps exuded Alhambra charms and Alladin
whose cave was her fortress in the woods of past future times and pastiche
desk like a lamp post overshadowing contours and scripted penumbra
it was never too late to have a happy childhood with a wick as companion
no hermit but prophesy personified she send messages out into the world
parchment of wisdom tied to acorns belladonna berries and butterfly wings
required no answers because questions held stronger without instant replies
the old scribe never died because an oak tree grew unperturbed in my soul
27th June 2020