Long Lurch Poems
Long Lurch Poems. Below are the most popular long Lurch by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Lurch poems by poem length and keyword.
Who would stare at a sky
without the constellations?
Its immense void would only be
filled by the gruesome darkness;
and the obscured earth would have no luminous
moon to gaze upon those mountains and seas!
Times past I used to stare at my murkiness,
and found the coldest depth unlit by tenderness;
and there all feelings were non-existent...a quasi death!
I tried everything imaginable from idealism to mirth,
to bring some genuine, genial contentment,
but they would not comply with my request!
Quiescent Universe, where have you sent your stars?
Obscurity prevails, all the owls, sparrow hawks and loons
tremble; their quietude has been replaced by fear and droopiness!
Even this poet can't possibly quench his ardent spirit and relentless ego...
by not finding that quintessence for another quid pro quo;
every thing seems hushed and conquered by gloom!
Who would stare at a sky without the constellations,
to become voiceless and quaver?
Why did our Creator think of luminaries
as a source of light that wouldn't conceal
the marvelous planets spinning together,
with their perfect balance and sheen?
An astray ship would lurch on a dark and perilous ocean,
and the assiduous captain would be completely afraid without
the astrological guidance; and from any diverging direction,
an unexpected and invisible vessel could cause collision!
He must assume the attitude of confidence: to steer it
from an eventual disaster by invoking God again!
III.
Making it worse, the doctors had told her
that great damage had been done by the birth,
she could never carry children again,
was bound to be childless on this earth,
for months she was just a big ball of hurt.
And when she thought of the junkie boy’s fate
she felt growing inside a ball of hate.
It made no sense, why God would do this to her,
but reward someone who had done such wrong.
She’d always lived her life the best she could,
and tried to operate by morals strong,
even when it meant she wouldn’t belong.
But the degenerate got to have kids
despite all the awful things that she did?
She felt like she was being punished for
something, but what it was she didn’t know.
And what kind of God would reward evil
yet lay upon a good soul such a blow?
Then break her womb, and leave her without hope.
Maureen slowly stopped going to the church,
would worship no one who left her in the lurch.
Her mind would just fume, it went on for years,
thinking of that damn crack-baby out there,
living out the life her son was denied,
no doubt trapped in a world of great despair,
and she knew just how that child would fare.
Trapped in the system, born of ruined stock,
to be in trouble until cell doors locked.
That’s what had been preferred to her own babe,
to such a wasted life God was endeared,
a worthless cast-off nobody wanted,
Who would grow to cause many people fear,
that was what the Almighty wanted here.
For years she just limped on, angry and bereft,
so much so that Mark eventually left.
About ten years on she normalized a bit,
enough that she started to work again,
swallowed the pain, save for her son’s birthday,
when she walked to the hospital and then
the pain would return, fill her ever sense.
That was all that Maureen cold bear to allow,
she stuck to this as if she’d taken a vow.
But way back in her head the hate remained,
for the junkie and the boy she gave life,
and no matter that mask that she put on
she knew the world was evil, and not right,
she just no longer had then strength to fight.
This pattern continued many years more,
until one brisk day when she was fifty-four.
CONCLUDES IN PART IV.
Drops on knee
Marry me
Select day
First of May
Choose right dress
Oh what stress!
Mother bakes
Wedding cakes
Guest’s arrive
At church drive
My bridesmaid
Is delayed
Bridal car
Wait with pa
Drive past church
Tummies lurch
Must take stock
Go round block
Let out cheer
Bridesmaid here
Blushing bride
Dad feels pride
Walk down aisle
Beaming smile
Get wed now
Repeat vow
Hymns to sing
Exchange ring
Wedded bliss
Sealed with kiss
Buffet time
Food’s sublime
Best man speaks …
Groom’s flushed cheeks!
Toasts the bride
At groom’s side
Our first dance
Such romance
Wedding night…
Pure delight!
Threes, Please Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Beth Evans
09/10/20
I don't know about Archbishop Justin Timberlake,
He’s jazzing up the church,
Making Jesus controversial,
Leaving life in the lurch.
It’s fine to have excitement,
About any religious thing or assumption,
But when you poke at liberal creeds,
You’re with the discontentment presumption.
The liturgy does not gel with Sankey hymns,
Which parishioners should not be made to sing;
Fundamentalism is on the way out,
Of Christianity’s credibility wing.
It is emotionally abusive,
To atheistic in-house kids who want to aspire,
To tell of the insanities,
Such tunnel vision requires.
Although I am glad of his enthronement -
It lets evangelicalism out the bag,
I hope to return to a more liberal clergyman,
For the future church ‘mag’.
Fundamentalists won’t admit to the speeches,
Given to their kids who are silent prey;
It’s not fair to live in a society,
Which allows only the understood to convey.
Pluralism is the glasses by which we all see,
Humanism, atheism, religion, and irreligion too,
And the Archbishop is therefore acceptable,
As a beacon of what fundamentalists do.
Freedom of speech and expression,
For some, will only come when we know such acts,
Societal change comes simply from people,
Who’s concepts and ideas become assumed facts.
He was not that successful at decking Wonga,
Anglicans can't quite compete,
With open market transactions,
Which have seemed to withstand the heat.
I don't validate high-interest lenders,
But the church should stick to God,
It should be more into caring,
For the elderly, all on their tod.
About the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, UK
There is a sudden crowd inside the ribs,
a heavy shifting of weight,
like old furniture dragging across a hardwood floor.
It is the nervous, rhythmic friction
of a thumb tracing the rough seam of your jeans,
over and over,
trying to anchor a body that feels too light.
You stand bare under a noon sun
with nowhere to tuck your hands,
the throat closing up like a dry pipe
around words that refuse to be smooth.
It tastes like the bitter, metallic burn of morning coffee
scalded against the top of your tongue,
the physical evidence of rushing into the day.
Then the floor drops away,
that sudden, terrifying lurch in the gut
when your foot encounters only empty air
on a dark staircase you thought you knew by heart.
The silence follows, heavy as a wet wool coat,
settling into the quiet hallway upstairs
where the floorboards stop creaking,
and you realize the house has gone entirely still.
But the lungs remember how to expand.
A laugh breaks out, unrehearsed, ugly, and loud,
the kind that jolts the shoulders
and leaves you blinking at the sudden light.
It is the cold, sharp shock of air
filling the chest right after the crying stops,
tasting faintly of ozone and salt.
We are of a fragile, clumsy construction.
We bruise against the corners of tables;
we stitch ourselves back up with mismatched thread.
To be alive is just to leave the front door unlatched,
inviting the weather to wreck the kitchen,
and standing there in the debris—
bruised, exposed,
and entirely glad to have felt the storm.
5/13/26 8:03 pm
A perfect rectangular plot,
spanning nearly an acre,
its borders built from baby-blue planks
etched with soft phrases in looping, hopeful handwriting
the kind of words meant to soothe a trembling animal.
Inside, the world blooms loud.
Greenery swells in every direction,
vivid, bustling, almost holy,
as if Demeter herself had knelt here,
hands deep in the soil, whispering life awake.
Fruits drip with nectar sweet enough to ruin you.
Flowers flash colors stolen from the heavens
pinks, blues, purples, oranges, reds,
every shade that ever dared to exist.
Bees and butterflies circle like worshippers,
desperate to belong to something this gentle.
A path of flat, even stones invites me inward,
each one carved with a word of loving,
as if the garden already knows
I need convincing to stay.
I step into the oasis of color and breath,
birds greeting me with bright, charming song,
the air warm and soothing.
But then,
three steps in,
the chirping halts.
The sun strips itself from the sky.
The sweetness curdles in my throat.
The air turns sour.
The sky bruises dark.
And when I look again, really look,
the garden I trusted bares its claws.
Flowers open with carnivorous intent,
petals peeling back like jaws.
The soil reeks of iron
blood worked into fertilizer.
Roots lurch toward me,
Sensing the shame I thought I hid.
Vines coil tighter when I speak,
hissing like they know my secrets.
The gate slams behind me.
Locks itself.
And suddenly I’m trapped inside the place
I once believed was safe
a garden that now feeds on my regrets,
grows plump on my bloodshed,
thrives on the parts of me I never meant to show.
I am haunted by the realization
that the danger was never outside the fence.
It was always here,
waiting for me to step inside
and call it beautiful.
I care I search, and always I come to find
All is fair in love and war, but love is blind
Who dares to besmirch another is unkind
It is an insult when a person is maligned
I care I search but it remains undefined
how some lurch from shadows to spellbind
Who sits on a perch and is often inclined
to mock others? A caged parrot who's confined
I care I search but I will never be aligned
with racists whose hearts should be colorblind
Some attend church, hoping to be enshrined
but there they will find no peace of mind
I care I search but nothing can make me resigned
to spare the birch branch. I would spank a behind
(Note: taken from a diary of a young lady)
In memoriam of Jose` Maria
aged twenty, drowned.
I lounge on an uneven stone
under the uneasy shade
of an ancient carob tree,
away from the hot rays
of the summer sun.
I sit alone, abandoned,
I contemplate in vain,
for my thoughts wander on you,
who left me in the lurch.
I stare vacantly towards
the mighty sea that
like a cyclone of frigidness
buffets the darkened rocks
that form the inlet.
Wave after wave
enters the narrow strait
and rumble onwards
to the horrendous shore
throwing iridescent sprays
over the plaque of cold hard marble
that hides a tragedy of life.
Under the Iberian sky
prickly pears ripen
a stone's throw away
from the glinting shore
amid the green olive trees
slightly wet with sea spray.
The plaque seems to glow
in the hot summer rays.
I wonder what made Jose` Maria
swim in that turbulent sea.
Maybe he searched for treasure lost,
or hunted for the slippery octopus,
or mourned over lost love.
A life destroyed.
Am I not astray too?
I am so far away from you,
forsaken and unloved,
for you are like the sea, drowned
in a cyclone of frigidness.
Vertigo, vertigo, vertigo – whoa!
Walking in circles is no way to go.
Everything’s turning and moving and spinning;
Nothing is ending, only beginning.
Vertigo, vertigo, vertigo – stop!
Each tiny step feels like I’m gonna drop.
Can’t get a fix on an object ahead;
Nothing’s in focus – they’re drifting instead.
Vertigo, vertigo, vertigo – halt!
I just can’t handle this type of assault.
Crossing the room I’m at lurch like a drunk;
Confined to the house I’ve sunk into a funk.
Vertigo, vertigo, vertigo – why?
Help me get better and I will comply.
I swallow the meds but they don’t really work;
Frustration is mounting – I’m going berserk.
Vertigo, vertigo, vertigo – leave!
You’ve done what you must have set out to achieve.
I’m dizzy and staggering, helpless and trapped;
The only relief came the hours I napped.
Vertigo, vertigo, vertigo – please!
Here I’m beseeching on two shaky knees.
You’ve had your fun with your prankish attack;
Now begone, disappear, vanish – and don’t come back!
The sea heaves and shudders, white caps jittery
as if moved by wrongs
Sun, water, clouds merge - a far off fusion
Horizon opens to an endless blue,
hanging low like a hot air balloon
Boy at the ship's railing, hunched over, arms crossed,
his head resting on his limbs
Gaze entrenched, anchored
about the sail
to an isle of sandy beaches,
to turquoise, shallow waters,
vibrant palm tree shading
To contemplate outward,
about what strains attachment
about choices that salt the air
where to draw his lines
Meditation, spaces to explore
Boy on the teen ledge of growth,
to consider different roles
to deliver different scripts
A lurch to awareness, uncharted waters,
unsettling speed
He fights to focus,
to know the gentle sweep of waves
to peer beyond the sea's edge
as equator light glints his face in gold
Poem composed: March 18, 2021
revised: November 2, 2022