Long Ledger Poems
Long Ledger Poems. Below are the most popular long Ledger by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Ledger poems by poem length and keyword.
I like to think that God
does not keep a ledger
of our names, like a banker
recording checks and balances...
seeing us more as gains and
loses~ whether our funds
well allotted or indulged in
rotting teeth!
Not that God
did not create sugar, loving
to treat, but he also gave us
hands and feet to use wisely.
And hearts to know the power of love,
tough when necessary. Hunger
can be a blessing...fasting, a rightest cause,
and children, at times a heavy burden He shares.
Heaven is where we meet forgiveness...
And hell our own inflexible judgment.
It moves, it moves
where sight and speech may not tread,
Between the pulse, the pulse
and silence of the dead.
It threads the hollow chambers of the chest,
Unclaimed, unclaimed, yet never grants us rest.
No hand may hold it, no soft gaze contain,
Its weight bends time, bends time, yet leaves no mark, no stain.
It winds through marrow, shaping bone and mind,
And leaves the grasping soul both bound and blind.
We call it love, we call it by name,
Yet stumble, stumble on the fire, the flame.
It pulls the blood in tides the eye denies,
And carves the heart with neither balm nor lies.
It does not wait for longing, will, or plea,
It lifts the blind, the blind, and bends the bow of me.
The mind may chase its form, yet form escapes,
Its course is etched on bones and silent shapes.
It is the glance, the pause, the barely breathed,
The thought that dies, that dies unspoken, yet bequeathed.
We feel it, fail it, fail it, inherit as we fall,
Its orbit bends the maker, bends the maker most of all.
It shivers, shivers in the margin of the mind,
A whisper folded in the fold of time confined.
It shivers as it grows, as it takes and gives,
A force that shapes the world while no one lives.
And in the quiet hour before the dawn,
I hear her laughter, soft, though she is gone.
A fleeting brush of hand recalled as mine,
The smallest spark the universe aligns.
No ledger, plea, or promise may restrain,
Its tide is just, inevitable, inevitable, and plain.
We stand within it, falter, falter, yet endure,
And find ourselves exacted, exacted and made pure.
It is the law that moves the absent heart,
The hidden axis none may e’er depart.
We know its force, yet name it not in full,
And in that not-knowing, we are made whole.
It shines, it glimmers, glimmers in the dark,
A subtle flame that strikes the silent spark.
It shines to show what we have lost and gained,
Unseen, unclaimed, yet shaping all contained.
On the old scale of one to ten
Today has been bout a four
Won't explain, just one of those days
Had 'em many times before
To expect every day to be a ten
You're dreaming, it ain't gonna be
Ups and downs are what life's about
Come down from your perch in a tree
This is it from here on in
Must learn to live through the strife
The alternative ain't too appealing to me
Really it's a very small price
To feel the warmth of a summer's day
The crispness of another fall
The bite of yet another winter's day
Then spring, that's the joy it all
When you really take stock of what life's about
It's getting from “A” to “B”
With the least amount of hassle and strife
Just being happy and free
To raise a family and hope you did it right
While building your own little castle
Living and loving as we travel life's roads
Without too much of a hassle
On the old scale of one to ten
If you can say it was eight or better
You've had a good life, better than average
You've successfully balanced the ledger
© Jack Ellison 2015
—Who Does That Now?—
The old audacity is gone—who now would dare
to spend the heart where no return is due;
to stake one's inward kingdom nakedly there,
and give what, once surrendered, cannot accrue?
We have grown wise beneath the market's eye:
even our tenderness must justify.
I have watched a father at the hospital door
rehearse the cost of every borrowed hour;
a son send money, then send nothing more,
because the receipt had proved his filial power.
I have seen two lovers weigh a word unsaid,
each guarding what the other might have bled.
And love—who speaks that ancient word today
without some hidden clause beneath the tongue?
We give, but somewhere waits the inward how
much shall return, and when, and from whom?
The hand extends; the secret ledger wakes;
even the kiss has learnt what silence takes.
Some kneel because the grave has touched their door;
some seek a garden when their flesh grows old;
some praise the heavens lest the heavens keep score,
and dress their fear in sanctified gold.
Their foreheads bow; their inward arithmetic
keeps counting what the gods may yet remit.
Yet once I saw a woman leave her bread
beside a stranger sleeping in the rain;
she neither woke him, nor stood there to be read,
nor looked behind her when she crossed the lane.
The dawn found only crumbs upon the stone—
and nothing there to make the kindness known.
Then, for one breath, the universe broke rank:
the moon went dark inside the morning sun;
the stars seemed seeds the ruined heavens sank
beneath the earth, where no commandments run;
and from that unaccountable abyss
rose not a god, but something older than bliss.
Where no return remains, the heart still gives;
beyond all recompense, its giving lives.
Let need no longer counterfeit the prayer,
nor fear make heaven out of answered care;
for love, once loosed from recompense and claim,
becomes the one fire that does not ask the flame.
It's not personal, it's business,
says the guy overcharging you.
Knowing you'll begrudgingly pay:
they keep squeezing until you're broke.
You cringe inside each time you hear:
it's not personal, it's business.
And yet, partial payments increase
the amount owed on their ledger.
With no job, you live off food banks
and grift on the street for your rent.
It's not personal, it's business;
doesn't help when your hydro gets cut.
Society's a heartless beast;
that chews up souls and spits them out.
And as life beats you down, you hear
it's not personal, it's business.
Sky blacks out, cosmic hits hard,
hope stomped flat in the dirt.
Fate snaps like cheap thread—
a flare rips the night, desperate why.
They show up anyway. Scattered, pissed, half-broke.
Never a neat lineup.
Thor crashes down, thunder and beard,
Mjolnir howling, offended.
Lightning stitches dark; he growls old Norse
about shielding these fragile dirt-world hearts.
Iron Man’s late—repulsors blue through smoke.
Tony mutters, half-joke, half-prayer:
“Built the suit so it wouldn’t bury me first.”
Cap steps quiet, shield up, eyes steady.
Still hauling 1940s weight like it’s nothing.
Doesn’t preach. Just won’t let hope die today.
Hulk arrives without warning—ground shakes, screams.
Banner’s lost under green rage, hating what he is
but coming back anyway. Inside the roar,
a guy who just wanted to help.
Widow slips in like smoke—no glow, no speech.
Knives, lies, red ledger that won’t wash clean.
Hawkeye looses an arrow splitting wind.
No powers, just good eyes and bad temper—
wrong place, right time. Again.
Wanda twists chaos like smoke she can’t quit.
Reality whimpers under her fingers—
fragile, grieving, one bad thought flips everything.
Vision floats calm, crystal mind, patched heart.
Speaks probabilities. Nobody listens.
They just need him there.
Then it cracks. Messy. Shields clang, words cut deep.
Egos, stubbornness, old blood. They yell, scatter.
Some don’t come back right. Family’s like that—
bent, bruised, still breathing.
Sky tears wider. Worse crawls through.
One hoarse voice cuts static:
“Avengers… assemble.”
Not a cheer. A plea.
Gods, spies, monsters, machines, soldiers—
flawed, half-broken—drag back.
Not noble. Alternative just sucks more.
Power’s not hammer or glow or gamma veins.
It’s showing up bleeding, hating each other,
when hope’s a bad joke.
Old comics curl at edges, decades of ink,
arguments, second chances—they stand.
Not perfect. Not forever.
Just long enough.
Cosmos notices. Remembers the mess.
The stubborn, stupid, beautiful mess.
They tally the dead in columns of light,
but no ledger holds the weight of a child’s last breath~
the way it lingers, unspent, in the air,
like a kite cut loose from its string.
War has no pockets deep enough
to carry all the excuses we stitch
into its uniform. Every bullet
that misses its mark
finds a name anyway.
And what of the hands that never held a gun,
only bread, only the hem of a mother’s dress?
They become the subtraction
no one speaks aloud~
the hollow where laughter once lived.
And what’s left?
A remainder called guilt,
sticky as jam on a rifle stock,
thick as the lies they stamp onto medals.
War doesn’t solve.
War is the long division
that never ends.
Written: May 2nd 2026, for contest sponsored by Brian Strand
********************
I could trace you
through the tremor of your hesitations,
read the rippled residues of moments
that tried to make you smaller.
I could catalogue the crenellations
carved by old ache,
the tensile tenderness you carry
like a secret you never meant to keep.
But beauty is not a ledger—
It is a lucent lilt,
a soft antiphon rising
even when you feel moribund inside.
It is the way your presence
festoons a room with quiet gravity,
how your stillness holds
a vernal vow of becoming.
And though I can do nothing
about the ache that shadows you,
I can witness you—
unabated, unwavering—
and be undone
by the simple, staggering truth
that your beauty
does not ask to be seen
but still
shines.
Part 1 Diagnosis
I. Surgery
Surgery—
Today cuts yesterday—
the calendar blade.
You carve the year's new initials.
The beech—scarred—
keeps its reverie-venant
in smooth wood.
========
II. The Future, Uninvited
The future isn't knocking—
inside already, thumbnail
at the doorframe's paint.
Wood smoke. Bergamot—ash.
That cologne of Occurrence—
you still holding
the empty shot glass.
==========
III. No Reset
The heart does not reset at midnight—
the liver does not forgive.
Neurons fire their exhausted patterns:
flinching—craving—glass
in hand again—shuddering like the heat-pump
kicking on as you almost—
almost—
sleep.
Your face in the mirror—
steady—
waiting to see
if you'll
disappoint it.
==========
IV. Rings
Rings on the counter—
like your mother's plant
left years on the sill:
Live Evidence—
no one bothered to move.
The kitchen smells of nothing yet—
that early sadness of resolutions
you haven't—
not yet—
betrayed.
=========
V. What Continues
The self does not reset—
continues—
playing song in an empty room.
We drag it all:
rage swallowed at the feast,
the lover whose face we can't recall
the Ledger—
left blank
the moment we said fine—
Meaning—so far—from Fine—
I’ve forgotten—what Fine—looked like.
===========
VI. Threshold
Fear crosses the threshold—
checking your phone at every red light
eating over the sink
so it doesn't count as hunger
chewing your cheek until it tastes of copper
the way you say sorry
before you've even spoken—
all of it followed.
That stray you fed once—
you woke up one morning
and it had become you.
Or you had become it.
Now when you look in the mirror
you can't tell
if you're wearing its face
or it's wearing yours.
Either way, you've stopped
asking which one got fed.
Good dog.
Passion or Desire is not pure potential seeking manifestation.
It is the manifestation of Life's flaming sword, runic capital letter of the sacred word.
A spark that has been sparked,
the flint that struck it's mark.
A self illuminated Ray of light piercing the dark.
Of nothingness, it appears or so it seems, but the problem with that is you don't get something from nothing.
So what lifts on it's wing?
Is it the designation retracing its flight?
The deja Vu wizard at the crossroad,
that fights the good fight.
Against Apathy, to help the lost at sea.
Like a lighthouse at night?
Nonetheless, it is indeed of the light
visions designation, interestingly enough, taking flight, as
both path and destination.
The calling, calling the bluff
with no hesitation.
For when the going gets tough.
It is the drastic measures of the spirits measure plumblined sublime.
Subliminally flashing divine coat of arms of a kind.
Adventurer- nurturer- divulger of the sepulchre.
An endless quest fore-treasured as Holy Grail and counted by the heart's ledger like Braille is for the blind.
Of the heart's quill unquelled, determination at its behest, unquenchable fire.
That never fails the test.
Of time and
the germination of seed, against backdrop of dusts.
The Will's litmus test against need.
Activation or bust.
See. It is not potential anything.
It IS everything.
At least it's the best.
For in God We Trust. In deed.
~ Jude Fernando Herrick