Long Lugged Poems

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


Light Through the Cracks

Rumi Quotes 
Sponsored by: Sotto Poet
Contest Judged:  10/29/2025 1:40:00 PM
( 3rd Place )

Written: October 1, 2025


Rumi's Quote Inspired:
--"the wound is the place where the light enters you"--

I lugged silence like a stone
tucked away from all sight.
Pain etched itself into my days
and left footprints...
I could no longer claim.

Then a sliver of morning
crept into the narrow crack
inside me.
Soft as a whisper
warm as returning rain.

The mark I buried deep.
The emptiness I sidestepped…
became a threshold.

From the opening, light flowed,
calm, healing;
not to strike
but to illuminate and repair.

Its presence sank into my bones
flowing where sorrow had settled.
Turning every scar into a map
of where I had been
and where I could go.

Now I keep my chest open,
not to protect, not to perform.
But for the quiet truth
that what breaks us…
also makes room
for what saves us.


Cold Comforts

Beyond the wave-sacked,
lie the pockmarked dunes, heaps dug
by the claws of scaly thrashers.

Here they huddle, my blood kin
flogging grim pleasures,
wolfing eggy sandwiches,
dipping tea-stained teeth into beakers.

By a shoaling shale and monochrome spray
one brine-splattered small fry.
A boyhood caught in a swirling freshet,
he whales barefoot in the flounder,
skimming the slimy kelp, stalking
a slippage of tugging surf.

Her demeanor soggy at last, mother
goads to be led to the creaking camper.
Father smokes a plug of leathery shag,
grunts upright, walks toward the sea.

A toppled thermos and leftovers
scooped up and lugged away.
Windswept, the lingerers 
trudge from the chilly churn,
while a soused and hectoring bay 
records a working-class holiday.

The Shovel

It’s quite a thing to lay a life to rest,
to place rocks over roots rotten with age,
cover leaves once green with soil, sodden from rain.

Conceived in the meeting of metal and wood,
born a size from which never to grow;
used to move seeds, heave grass and then stone,
but trapped in the molasses of time, never carrying oats of my own.

It is quite something though to be grabbed by a child, 
palmed by summer sweat,
and then chosen again by that same hand as a man -
to see your farmhand’s wrinkles in your own creaking frame.
Man, beast, or object, we all age the same.

I’ve lugged more than my weight, 
cracked near ruin and wrack,
then just tied together with twine to dig holes! 
his summer son giggling on his back.

I’ve been thrown, stamped, battered; called all manner of names.
Left to freeze in snow by this fence, kept warm in that shed,
replaced briefly by plastic but found again, under dust and cobweb.

It’s quite a thing indeed 
to rust and be painted, 
to dry out and then see
as this tool of a family,

the generational uses of me.

Premium Member Fish Are Named

Fish are named
Lazarus and Carl Jung 
they swim in the library, art studio,
that spare room 
where I write, paint.
Their eyes are the size 
of their stomachs.
They mouth dreams
in silence behind glass.

I stare back, envious
of graceful slow motion angel gills
immersed in a tank of tears
gathered from heaven,
capped by corporations,
lugged home from the Dollar Store
to keep the tank full….

On the other side
a breeze streams
over book shelves,
antique typewriters, canvas and paint.
Lazarus and Carl watch me 
write, brush colors 
and nap...
turn, twist, snore, dream, 
dream more….
surreal, real, 
really you? here in the deep?  
Oh lovely waves of sleep. So many fish in this sea, oh, oh, yes, yes, 
you, you, you …with me. 

You, evaporate.
Eyes open empty and starved.
Lips spit at the sunrise 
as it blinds, blocks out 
infinite oceans of you.

Premium Member Constance Bee

She grouched, grumbled, griped and groaned.
We complained about her complaining.
She was a pain
Still we lugged her around to all family reunions

She could clear a good story off a picnic table in seconds
Replacing it with something dour, dank, disgusting and depressing
She is our great Aunt Constance Bee. 
Here she comes now, watch the relatives scatter.

Same attitude, same gripes, same wheezing and sneezing.
She walks toward us one leg at a time, bearing down with a hard look.
You have to admit she is consistent, mother says.
She has enough consistencies to be predictive, actually.

On a good note, we know if we bring her, we do not have to stay forever.
The rest of them clap as we get up to leave;
which makes it easier to get out the door.
Which may be why we always bring Aunt Constance Bee.


Dressing Up

That's Halloween almost over,
the masks and caps and gowns
with streets and pubs and shops and clubs
all filled with ghosts and clowns.
A thought occurred to me last night
with Christmas drawing near,
we don't do that much dressing up
at the festive time of year.
We don't see three kings from the East
with treasured gifts they lugged 
(though hauling Gold, Myrrh,  Frankincense
may mean that you get mugged).
We see no Angels, Shepherd lads
or choirs invisibule,
save for the kids in towels and sheets
on stage at local schools.
I think the problem may well be,
and we just are ignoring,
the dark side stuff looks really cool-
the Christian garb's just boring!
© Viv Wigley  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Rhyme

Drilling For Oil

He sat at a desk
Where he had worked for twenty years
As he gathered the evidence collected
He fought back swelling tears

She sat in the home
Where she learned to trust and run
Love had sheltered her and her boys
This couldn't be how LOVE is done

....critical loss

He lugged his suitcase
Down the lonely road of the city
He had three degrees to his name
And a cardboard sign trying to buy pity

She stood under the street light
Waiting for her next trick to drive up
Needed money for living in drugs
Why could she never get enough

....despair

He walked into the restaurant
Fighting back the urge to demand "clean"
Though he tried to ask for a favor
He knew his words were controlling and so mean

She sat in the house of worship
Fearing that an assailant would enter
How could she protect her young
And keep "god" front and center

.....drilling for oil

They gather at promises
Saying they believe the earth holds gold
But as water separates from oil
Terror fills the believer's mold

The black ooze comes to all
But the water of the WORD repels
Nothing can stay where LOVE has cleansed
The heart from systems once held

....as truth


Written by Trudy Schrader on 03/12/2020
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member What Is a Flea Market

What is a flea market? I asked, unsure.
I found all kinds of things not found in the mall.
Antiques that brought memories back
Things I have never seen anywhere else
Things I knew I would never see or find anywhere else again
Home made things from creative people
Shiny things, feathery things, things of leather.
I was overjoyed when I discovered you can lug stuff to a cashier.
She will make you a pile and give you a number.
My number should have been JACKPOT
My pile was huge.
\My sister was askance.
My car is not big enough for all that, she told me.
Not to worry, I replied as they lugged a ten foot suit of armor to the register.
I have had to rent a truck to bring that guy home.
Form: Narrative

Sinking Feeling Springs Eternal

Sinking feeling springs eternal...
courtesy sucker punched by vehicular travails

Truckload of banshees muffled
as more'n yours truly wails
he feels wheely tired
as one after another
significant snafu devilish

troublesome impish of the
poe pervert car -
tell driver unveils
scarier than Stephen
King's macabre tales
one illusory monster with

(by Scott) matted pointy scales,
who infuriatingly rants and rails
against dependence on
unstable, unpredictable, and
unmentionable car rear,
where his ruffled quilted wings,

stand on edge quiver and quails
analogous to how Jack
and Jill arduously lugged pails
splashing water to and fro
hither and yon some

drips drops long as nine inch nails,
actually pleasant sensation
though futile schlepping,
sloshing, and spilling bucketful
after bucketful eternal

rhyming task without reason
synonymous with Sisyphus,
but lo and behold
agony no longer assails
only fleeting ecstasy, think
Bos taurus came back

to animal farm -
carting... yup countless hay bales
(sh....) stolen goods,
under the whinny some nose
of neighboring Equus
at Clyde on dales,

one Mister Ed, a horse -
laugh he exhales,
said bovine won't be cowed,
cuz fodder knows beast,
that charity never fails.

Pebble Beach Day Out

Beyond the wave-sacked,
lie the pockmarked dunes, heaps dug
by the claws of scaly thrashers.

Here they huddle, my blood kin
flogging grim pleasures,
wolfing eggy sandwiches,
dipping tea-stained teeth into beakers.

By a shoaling shale and monochrome spray
one brine-splattered small fry.
A boyhood caught in a swirling freshet,
he whales barefoot in the flounder,
skimming the slimy kelp, stalking
a slippage of tugging surf.

Her demeanor soggy at last, mother
goads to be led to the creaking camper.
Father smokes a plug of leathery shag,
grunts upright, walks toward the sea.

A toppled thermos and leftovers
scooped up and lugged away.
Windswept, the lingerers
trudge from the chilly churn,
while a soused and hectoring bay
records a working-class holiday.

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