Long Leashed Poems

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


The Closing Year

I saw its crooked shadow
dragging its mind along like a leashed dog.
It went out and came back in
fretting over its own begrudging existence.

This morning it peers out of a window,
looking to see if anything has changed -
nothing has.

I know it will be up all night
wondering where its days went,
where the lost and lingering hours
slipped between the cracks,
of one dawn after another.

It will be shutting a door on itself soon,
when I am on the other side
I will nail that door shut,
then walk undaunted.
into the timeless light,
with no regrets, and not even
a single afterthought.

Let the dead bury the dead.


Premium Member Heat of the heartbeat

"Life isn't measured in minutes, but in heartbeats." ~ Joan Lowery Nixon


Meeting you opened up the skies,
Days passed by without any cares,
I was lost in the mists of your eyes,
You answered so many prayers.


Everything felt perfect and free,
Leashed to your dusk and your grace,
I believed you were meant for me,
But you left—I missed your embrace.


Even though my heartbeat is broken,
To meet again would soothe the pain,
My heart still yearns for love unspoken,
Burn me with your love poison in vain.


My search will go on forever,
I will find you beyond the stars,
Someone like you I’ll find never,
My heart still beats behind its bars.


So my days will come to an end,
Where the sky drifts into the sea,
My oath is one I will not bend,
There you’ll find what remains of me.

Premium Member The Carnival

The biggest tent reverberated,
a geriatric battleground;
high stakes - two bits a card,
hardened veterans played 4.

Calls echoed through the thick air
where baritone pitchmen sang
to an orchestra of fairground pipes.

The carousel spun in
dizzy reality

smiles, cheers, BINGO! - frowns.

A couple of "marks" strolled by - unknowing
fodder for the next grafter.

I escaped to the safety
of the dart tent where dull darts
glanced off underinflated balloons and

cupies and teddys sat staring -
a loving child three lucky shots away

This, when phones were home
leashed to the wall and
families still ... hung out.

Skyfall

it twas evereth the 14th 
and ladle had stilled consequence
perceptive decorum and froth's
constable would, could naught
cold heart and battled fart
bequeath to thee
a brothersome free
door and locksey 
leashed a board in mercy
a wait, as bait, beside boyhood fate
to undress against
shallowed peasant
four returned to Ireland
bedside and tired
blankets paging in grass
ant's weary temperment at gas
a home a key
a star left he
the all might and his coward
to run the knights
round to Britain
i and i only minors scribes
have told in telling
of poor bottoms swelling


I'm the cells cavern
An orchestrated advance 
The corridor the call 
The snip the fall
Interior design in might
Out of castled walls flight
Terror in known streets
Publication and ceremony in defeat
They will have had we Rome
And no thing at door 
Battle as framers wools

The third wall of a fine ants parish
Forward the Chinese admiral
Form: Epitaph

Pet Rocks Fall

Pet rocks fall on hard times
They don't commit crimes or suicide
Stones never come back once thrown
Never talk again once insulted
(Rocks hate being called stones)
Never refer to them as ore or else 

They demand equality
To be viewed as gender neutral
To be treated like rocks not objects
Never as humans 
They want equal pay
To be made of granite 
Or something smooth like sand
Their silence is proof of that

Rocks are not persons or places
They are things not human beings
Don't discriminate 
Refrigerate pets to keep them fresh
Don't get them mad or arrested
Avoid broken glass and windows
Don't ask rocks questions
They are not great thinkers but listeners

The law requires rocks to be leashed
Walked twice a week on beaches
In parks, rocks don't bark
Carry extra plastic baggies 
Avoid accidents when you can 
Don't smoke or get stoned around rocks
Use sound judgment dealing with solids

Rocks fall from the sky all the time
Be kind to your comets and asteroids
Love them or face retribution 
Extraterrestrial objects are brutal

Some rocks are cruel.  Most are not
If you give them cell phones
They never call home
Pet rocks forget where they came from
Can you blame them
Just look at their owners


Winter Iv - Snowstorm In Michigan

Sails of snow
Hoisted
To the roar of northern wind

Wires wild
Leashed to masts
Banging like spoons on pots and pans

Sea of Earth lurching
Beneath
The creaking planks of our house

On we go
Tossed and turned

The bow of our kitchen
Cutting through slaps of whitecaps
Windows sinking

Chimney smoke whipping from the rooftops

Bushes plumed and weighed down
To their knees
With buckets bailed of snow

Swaying low
Like the last herd of wooly mammoths
Dragging themselves down the street

A march to oblivion

The storm subsides after three nights and two days
Though the trees continue to throw snowballs
On their own

We emerge
Michiganians

Terrified sailors
Transformed
To butlers and maids

Sweeping and dusting
Shoveling and chipping
The destruction
From the wrecked decks of our driveways

Signaling at dusk to one another
Through flashlight Morse code

All is well
All is well

We survived.

Premium Member Painful Change

Painful Change

Walking into my life unannounced, 
you made a mess of things. 
Now I want to do more, be more, 
and find I am totally unsatisfied with…
e v e r y t h i n g . 

I have to make changes now. 
They will be harsh and forthcoming. 
You need to stand aside as you have…
Un-leashed new ideas…
Dare I say wisdom? 

Life is measured from here to there. 
How many things can you fit?
“I want to, I wish I could, and if I had.” 
They are the evil sisters of fate, 
not chance. 

“I want to”,              (sounds like a little kid)
leads to sitting on the couch and dreaming. 
Get up and go. 

“I wish I could”,        (sounds like a wishful wisher)
Make a plan, write it down, and always…
Be serious.

“If I had”,                 (spoke low, in a sad dead tone) 
The worst of all. 
Regret is a heavy cost to the heart, 
paid in a life wasted with too many  
limits.

Color outside the lines. 
Measure the things you do, by their return. 
Waste no time on those that are a glutton for candy, 
eating up your life with wishes that are just fishes…
© Ann Foster  Create an image from this poem.

Premium Member In My Grief

In my grief, I shot down stars one by one
I did not stop until my anger was all done
  
Until the blue sky, was as dark as my soul
Until the universe was one blackened hole

Life became a vacuum, it's suffocating me
I wailed upon the earth like some banshee

I leashed upon others, my tormented soul 
To destroy life as we knew it, was my goal

As rains poured until they became storms
Out of the deep rivers came poison foams

I saw all that before me all withered & die
All because my anger would not let me lie

No one given soul could prevent my wrath
As I destroyed all that was within my path 
 
Earthquakes flattened, and shattered land 
People dying, but here I was, to still stand

The earth, the skies blackened as my soul
Deeper into that blackness, I dug my hole

"till my grief subsided, I've reached a calm
With nothing left now, within my own palm

Then came upon me a light; shining bright 
You sought me out, as brought me to light

The stars returned, came back one by one
When realized just what I had done wrong 

I had sold my soul so life could start again 
Where I'd suffered in hell for all of my pain

Indiana Shaw . . . -_-
Form: Couplet

Recluse By Dint of Circumstance Second Cell

Artfully dodging explosive solutions
pretending shackles restrained prisoner 
lobbed pseudo Molotov cocktails 
kindly, loosely, and mutinously linkedin 
liberal short (make believe) chain
leashed faux abysmal isolated confinement
former courtly poet,
who consumed prison fare 
equalling bread and thin gruel
poetical, quizzical, and rational thinking
wrought eventual gladness!

Meanwhile elsewhere within 
another complex edifice
Stormy (Daniels) reign
came and went 
accompanying barren
cruel don, trumpeting
issuing expansion fiat
wielding, gesticulating, brandishing...
ironclad golf club spouting art of the deal,
whereby might versus right
simultaneously Putin on the ritz

song and dance routine
crooning Ivana mock up Earth,
especially figurative roasting statesman christened
Elijah Cummings, an American politician 
and civil rights advocate who served 
in United States House of Representatives 
for Maryland's 7th congressional district 
from 1996 until his death in 2019.

That oversized ego freezer
with pouffed hair, 
who shall not be named 
made abominable destiny manifest
regarding eminent domain
dominion, he forcibly
relocated natives to Cajun shelters
charging them admission fees
manumission granted serving
white supremacist conveniently optioning

kids as scapegoats
re: Deferred Action for 
Childhood Arrivals (DACA) 
labor away migrants
grunts passive pluperfect targets
no matter forbears indigenous
to America unfortunately

been man-date to bite bullet
within badlands of El Paso
meanwhile oblivious hermit aging
barnacle encrusted manacles 
absorbing cumulative dampness
no longer granting resistance
to life nor limb
timely manumission lovely bones restored
swallowed potion frothing colorful brew
contrived exquisite firearms.

Ah redeemed character
(any resemblance between 
initially mentioned unfortunate soul
and living persons purely coincidental) 
mentioned at outset of poem 
broached out Alcatraz replica
free and clear fresh air revived
fifty shades of gray

immediately sieged moment
weakly hollered carpe diem
elixir imbued immunity
against taken hostage at gunpoint
freedmen impressed into service
while waved magic wand
whereby enslaved women
retaliated hashtagged misogynistic
took appropriate revenge
as apprenticed warrioresses!

Good Tidings

Jailbirds

Wards of the state

Who isn’t irate at the system
And does what they have to do
If they can?

Each
Us all
Enslaved

To luck

I am leashed with mittens to my dog
Whom I walk retired in the winter
Park

The young men have chainsaws
Shackled to their bare hands
Cutting back the bush

Elvis sings Blue Christmas to my ears
They
Have the bitter wind
Breaking the tiniest of sticks

Any of us could run free
Fleeting
As it would be

So we obey
Hoping the best for one another

That kind of defiance
That kind of wave

Whatever it takes to survive
Passing by

On Christmas Eve.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace