Long Lived Poems
Long Lived Poems. Below are the most popular long Lived by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Lived poems by poem length and keyword.
My eyes scan the map of our lives –
lived experiences – etched across my grandma’s face.
And her eyes look right back.
But not the same;
The light that once danced to old jazz tunes,
and bold classic blues, that light that is extinguished by name tags at Christmas
donning the shirts of which she herself bestowed the identity.
‘I am sixteen’ I tell her,
again,
and she nods along, but that light does not quite gleam,
dimmed by the brain that cannot stay clean
and I find myself pointing at faces of which she is the blueprint.
Her fingers follow mine,
shaking,
as she tries to recreate, copy what cannot be faked
and I stifle a sob as I find my head bobs as she asks if I am okay.
Silence strangles my words
the way dementia does hers,
and I want to scratch at the very back of my throat the way she wants to remember the name of her firstborn:
An itch that will not be itched.
Not by her pretences or attempted defences, for she does not
remember
faces or names but her love remains, backed only by the assumption that
she should.
For she does not remember the family secrets that her brain will not
reveal –
not even for the sake of this family appeal.
For years and years
I lived the curse of all women
A woman’s work is never done
That is, never finished
The more work I did the more work showed up
The To Do list was never ending
If I made a dent in it
You couldn’t tell
It was multiple pages and still
I refused to forget a single item
I used to work my To Do list and hope
For some opening somewhere somehow someday
Where I would be able to read, take a candlelit bath
Go for a leisurely walk, paint, write poetry
It never happened
My ever growing To Do list
Had stopped even giving me the glimmer of hope
I was just that crazy hamster busy at her wheel
Till one day
I was late with a painting I had promised
I was pushed to the wall I had no choice
I just had to focus on my craft and not think of anything else
I went at it and focused and focused
It wasn’t easy but I eventually got it done
It was an awesome feeling to finally sign my name
And say it was D-O-N-E
But my celebration was more to me
About having won over time
Time who had always been so elusive
So demanding so full of orders and ultimatums
Seeming so rigid and inflexible
All of a sudden I had decided
I would ignore it
Along with my long list of To Do’s
And surprisingly life went on…
Nothing drastic happened
Nothing fell apart
Nothing exploded
I was actually stunned to tell you the truth
I had once learned about
The differences between Important and Urgent
But my power over it never really sunk in until then
Now I have a new life
Where my Important priorities are in front of me
Where I can reach the one or the other
And the dishes get done but not till I decide to take a break
I do my best to add less to my To Do list
And most of all, pace myself instead of
Trying to kill myself racing through it all
It may seem to you like a small paradigm shift
But to me, my life is turned inside out for the better
AP: 2nd place 2020, Honorable Mention 2021
Submitted on August 21, 2017 for contest THE POET'S OWN sponsored by GREG BARDER - RANKED 4TH
PS featured in 2021
In the silence of the cosmos, life is a dance of light and shadow,
Extraordinary and alive, a miracle not limited to wealth,
People seek riches, pride, security, anchors in time,
But they lose the essence, for life is not measured in houses and cars.
In the rush for a job to pay for cold walls,
They get lost in speed, through car windows that blur the sky,
You see nothing from a car, everything is a dream passing too quickly,
People take vacations as if life were a pause between days.
Why not let life itself be the reward, an endless journey?
In every sunrise, a new world is born from the embrace of dawn,
The song of the wind through trees, the whispers of flowing waters,
All are living poems, but people do not hear them, caught in noise.
In every breath, a universe opens, a story begins,
But people seek comfort in things that won't keep them warm,
Houses become boxes, dreams are lost in dusty office drawers,
Forgetting that life is a cosmic dance, not just a predetermined path.
Why not live the moment, explore the mystery of each morning?
To be travelers on unknown roads, without maps or destinations,
To lose ourselves in the beauty of simplicity, to embrace the ephemeral,
For being alive is a gift that cannot be bought, only lived with the heart.
In the flow of consciousness, let yourself be carried by the river, without fear of the abyss,
For life is an unwritten poem, a dream waiting to be lived,
Without limits, without fears, just you and the infinite smiling at you,
A magical journey where the soul dances with silent stars.
We stood silent
in the cold wind,
snug in the wrapped warmth
of our grandmothers thick coat,
my sister and I,
staring into the mystery
of a freshly cut and polished
marble headstone, the letters
spelling my grandfathers name
sounding out in our heads
as if recited in a reading class
at school. J - A - M - E -S,
H - E - N - R - Y.
Away at sea
for most of the time, he died
when we were too young
to have him set firm
in the then thickening
slurry of our lives. He lived
painted in the spoken words
of my grandmother, animated
in stories and short clips cut
from his life. Soldier, sailor,
adventurer, he was too large
to fit an ordinary name
walled within our childhood home
or chiseled in stone.
He lived on the wild outskirts
of an imagined, unwritten world.
Health ruined by the horrors
of the first world war,
he found relief from his pain
in the swells and gale driven
waves pummeling ships
on the Tasmanian run.
I still carry a picture of him
printed in my mind,
smoking a cigarette,
standing on deck with the sun
going down, alone,
looking out into the sad distances
of the southern ocean,
lost in his thoughts,
far away from home.
The ancient Romans named the first month in their Julian calendar January, in honor of Janus, their God of doors and gates, his month was thought to be the door to the new year. And for over two thousand years hence, the world has celebrated each birth of a new year upon the first day of January. It's a time of joyous anticipation, hoping for better times ahead contemplating a brand-new fresh start. And so, on its eve, people party to forget the past year and make short-lived resolutions for the new year coming, vowing to improve their lives in little ways. In the northern hemisphere January comes draped in a soft shall of fluffy white snow, while in the southern hemisphere, She dons a leafy gown of emerald green. Her arrival is counted down to the second, with grandiose pageantry and unrestrained revelry. And mothers compete to have their babies born upon the stroke of midnight as crowds all around the world count down, for it is considered an honor to be born precisely at the start of the new year. All babies born in the month of January share birthstones of fiery garnets, and birth-flowers of sweet carnations, symbolizing both constancy and beauty. January bids December adieu with a song of Auld Lang Syne.
December counts down
January approaches
birth of a new year
(Haibun)
12/06/2019
December or January Haibun Contest Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Caren Krutsinger
I remember Dinky, a hamster family member of mine; I had, her as a kid; a golden teddy bear with, a heart the size of Texas. Her cage was in the opposite end of our house from my bedroom. A natural born escape artist; one night as I lay dreaming that there was a hole in our roof, I could feel the frigid drops of crystal, falling through the ceiling. Up my arm the drops seemed to fall, one-by-one; was that a whisker? It was in the darkness, I reached over and lifted Dinky; in the moon’s glow, I could see a tiny pink nose twitching. She’d made the long trek through the house and found my bed. Her tiny paws were ice cold. I slid her into my pajama pocket, to warm her then, moved her cage to my bedroom. She was calm, as I slept; so pleased to be warm.
A hamster lives a
Very short life, just three years;
Rarely beyond that.
My Dinky lived five
And a quarter, she was pure
Love in a fur coat.
I remember it well, the house was half timbered
and layered with brick that married the hill
White paint was peeling on the north-western side
and nothing but work would spark much appeal
We were traveling home after a weekend's adventure
without ever knowing we had entered the future
A sign on the gate had caused us to dawdle,
so we turned up the driveway to buy a few apples
But something had charmed us, like gold in the sun
The place sat up high, on a hilltop alone
with the clouds and the treetops, that filtered the light
leaving shadows on slopes that followed the road
Something had frozen a moment of sun
and gave us a feeling of something undone
The old man who lived there had much more to say
about selling the place, and a move into town
where an apple a day meant a run to the store
Quickly …. our thoughts, were left at his door
to grapple, to sort, to ripen and ponder
A wonder he didn't conclude us insane
Out in the yard, our children were playing
Running through grass that scented the hills
A house with good bones, we could call it a home
We climbed out on a limb, for a place to seek shelter,
we could make it our own
and that's what we did
The house of our dreams, is where we still live
Our dream came alive, and without one regret
We turned to buy apples……, we drove through the gate
We've lived here for decades. It must have been fate
____________________________________________________________
6/26/16
Something Seemingly Insignificant and Unexpected Changed My Life - Poetry Contest
The Twelve days of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas, my true love said to me, I think that’s the police up there. So I drove them up against a pear tree.
On the second day of Christmas, forensics were at my door, haha, I don’t live there any more.
On the third day of Christmas, a nationwide search was out for me, they would never find me, I was hiding up a pear tree.
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love called to say, why are there four birds calling you, what the hell is going on.
On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love texted to say, a reward of five gold rings is on your head.
On the sixth day of Christmas, I was joined by two turtle-doves, not forgetting that bloody partridge, who was really doing my box in.
On the seventh day of Christmas, the turtle-doves thanked me for the meal, with the words, the partridge would have loved this. Didn’t have the heart to tell them.
On the eighth day of Christmas, I laid into six geese with a half brick, now I really was hating birds, would die for a fish.
On the ninth day of Christmas, I caught the turtle-doves playing around with three French hens, a hand grenade put paid to that.
On the tenth day of Christmas I got turned on by eight maids a milking, though this was short-lived when I was attacked by seven swans a swimming.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, feckin drummers turned up, followed by eleven pipers, ten lords trying to leap nine ladies of the night. F*** sakes, man, do these people know who they’re dealing with.
On the twelfth day of Christmas, I awoke from a drunken dream. My god, the wife screamed, somebody’s massacred the partridge, what the hell are we going to do now, there’s only fish left to eat.
Only fish left to eat,
Oh God, thank you for my Christmas treat….
Nagasaki
There are nights when things become clear
when the Pacific Ocean lived up to its name
I sat on deck, listened to the heartbeat of
the vessel, which ticked faster when an engineer
opened a door and came out on the deck
Laughter in the mess hall, no, I was not at ease
in their company, too old at sixty
I have tried the swagger, the misogyny, where
Women were either whores or mothers
The ship was bound for Nagasaki, and I had
been here before when looking for a graveyard
where Portuguese sailors had died when
Japan was an unknown land
When walking down the gangway, didn't
to say goodbye, it was dinner time anyway
before flying back to Europe
If we can only smell the soul,
will it then smell like the rose?
in gentle aroma of passing breeze,
in morning fresh dew-swept air?
can we at birth of a little one,
breathe-in essence of his deeper self,
past the innocence of his smile,
can we see a universe entire?
do roses then live a spiritual life,
and speak with god with incense deep?
in their brief life on earth, is scent,
a language to reach other souls?
many flowers wither and fall,
like us in this garden of life.
while we talk of souls we do not see,
the rose has a soul that we can smell.
that is perhaps the reason why,
we leave roses at a departed’s grave,
so we can speak soul to soul,
through the aroma of their mystic self.
million roses I would plant to
honour millions who lived and died,
if only we could smell their souls,
loving memories would smell as sweet.