Long Mantles Poems
Long Mantles Poems. Below are the most popular long Mantles by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Mantles poems by poem length and keyword.
I fell.
Not with a cry, nor with glory,
but as a cross falls
from the chest of one who forgot how to believe.
I fell on a Wednesday,
when the rain smelled of raw fish,
and the hurried world drew its umbrellas
like mantles
of indifference.
No one saw me.
They were busy with their bicycles,
with their phones,
with their eyes,
which no longer weep, but only check notifications.
I fell on a bench
where an old Moroccan woman was sitting,
murmuring something in Arabic.
Maybe a prayer.
Maybe a longing.
Maybe just hunger.
She handed me a mandarin
and said: “Allah ziet alles.”
I felt ashamed.
I fell in front of a shop window
filled with blind mannequins.
In them,
I saw all my dreams,
dressed beautifully,
but hollow within.
At the Van Gogh Museum,
a little girl asked:
“Daddy, why did he paint stars on such sad nights?”
And I thought: we all paint…
only some of us have no colors,
only ashes.
I fell slowly,
without a sound,
like an unfinished verse
written in a hotel room
where only the cold can be heard.
And no one asked,
“What’s wrong with you?”
for no one asks anymore.
They just pass by,
faces turned toward the future,
souls wrapped in plastic.
But maybe I wasn’t lost.
Maybe I just saw myself
for the first time
in the dirty mirror
of an Amsterdam canal,
where the sky falls
every morning,
and no one asks it
why.
Shadows detach at dusk, and like bats
roost together in sinister rookeries at night,
wrapped in black mantles
hanging upside down, gossiping.
Peter Pan lost his shadow,
"do you know where they put my shadow?" he cried.
He found it in a chest.
He cried when water and soap failed to stick it back on,
but laughed in joy when dear Wendy,
sewed it back, reattaching it with needle and thread.
"I daresay it will hurt a little," she said.
You look back and see someone staring,
with you in their gaze.
"Is that person looking at me",
Why? Do I know them? Have I seen that face before?
You look back later, that stare and glare
are still there. Why are you being shadowed?
You duck down alleys, trying to avoid being noticed.
But footsteps follow, someone is there!
They are coming!
You are hiding in fear behind a wall.
A shadow crawls prone towards your,
gets bigger and closer.
But, suddenly the shadow turns, passes by and slinks off.
Whew! What a relief. That was a close one.
Shadows are followers, seldom leaders or climbers.
They have forgotten how to tell the time.
They slink like a snake, prone along the ground.
Like a dog they hound you panting for a pat,
but they are always out of reach,
allusive, tough job to touch.
Like bad memories they haunt you,
and shadow you around all day.
But, you can shake them at night.
Unlike dreams and nightmares,
shadows can be put to bed.
Strangely, you can drown shadows in water,
and shake 'em off in other shadows,
because shadows are not true reflections of self.
Two old men. That’s all; not much to look at.
Their frail, broken shadows shrunk against the sunny morning
Brightness slowly searching its way through gnarled branches
Overhead, and crisscrossing the red and black pieces
Upon their welcoming checkerboard.
I placed a solitary peanut into the waiting hands of a small, grey squirrel.
Withdrawing my offer of other gifts, I moved away,
Drawing closer to hear their wrinkled voices still
Clamoring over the last move of their deadly waiting game;
Spattering salty remarks with knowing chuckles of old combatants
Echoing former rattlings of their rusty swords.
Beneath their stubby beards sat the once strong,
Straight line of a stubborn jaw, thrust at life;
Hot for the chase that breached the perimeters of grand arenas
As Time swept aside the long-suffering hours
And slowly chiseled away massive, symmetrical bone.
They had been young, sensuous men with lapping fire at their cores,
Melting away the wet walls of passion and the searing, sticky
Sting of a promising, promiscuous tongue.
Yes, their passion was still lingering there,
Below the masks of debilitating age and cracking bone.
Their passion for life and pleasure still written across their
Wrinkled, wincing brows, clearly there for anyone to read.
I wondered how many summers those faded eyes had squinted
Against a broiling sky and felt the power of that which they are---
Two old gods, sitting in the ruins of their shadowy kingdom passed,
Oblivious to the ticking of unearthly clocks.
Two faded, gnarled and twisted husks sat in peaceful friendship
Beneath the cool and darkening, park lined sky.
Below the surface of their shabby shrouds, pinpoints of eternal, celestial light
Sought the vaporous freedom of untethered ether.
Beneath the surface, the gods still flexed their mighty,
Quiescent muscles, forever young: aged mantles flung
Against Time’s eroding shores and fog misted dangerous rocks.
As the moon and sun share the fabric of a fading song of ancient blues
a ceremony of torch light identity ensues
chieftains in regalia of royal feather headdresses and mantles of warrior mania
approach the flagstaff that Clark and I stand under with a procession
of musicians clad in the symbols of their souls
playing instruments that speak the language of their knowledge,
after being bedazzled by the brute majesty of the music and pomp
our men give gifts of tobacco carrots, knives, beads and small bells,
chiefs Wueche and Arcawechar tap both of my shoulders
with their ceremonial spears, a gesture of friendship and blessing
after which we toast to the fortune of patient eyes with a dram of whiskey,
my elocution of America's intentions and jurisdiction
is delivered with sincerity and alacrity just as an eagle protects it's range
and with the wit and instincts of a wolf Chief Wueche
agrees with the terms of allegiance but also admonishes us
not only of the pirates of the Plains,
but that supremacy is the child of wrath for the natives
especially for the dominant tribe of the Sioux Nation, the Teton,
he seems to somberly realize that his Yankton people
must either become a weapon of America's war machine, or be destroyed by it,
J.A.B.
~Patois of Yuletide in Yellow~
Yellow sings solos in soft folds of nativity
Satin strands of a radiant star’s light
Creation swaddled in clarity
Naked joy leaps up in golden delight
While hues of holy optimism flood night
Through the colorless stillborn manger ploy
Ecstatic shades of amber evoke joy
Gold rays serenade prophecy now seen
All creation in citrine mantles deploy
Glory’s color, yellow, in dazzling streams.
Yellow ribbons weave through angelic song,
Enfold night in warm threads of a bronze day
No jaundiced joy dims this heavenly throng
Nor drapes king’s eyes from far and from away,
To reveal a starlit path – to show the way -
Glowing lanterns seek the source of glory
Anointing redemption for Eden’s story
Heralds yuletide gold glory from above,
Glows in brilliance like fire forged offertory,
Yellow exalts the purest aura - love.
12/2/21
Contest: Y
Sponsor: Constance La France
Word Chosen: Yuletide
The poet is a physician of sorts
tending care to the physical
of his craft -- His patients, the
hearts and souls of humanity --
Latching belts on sleds of words
a-summit he descends, precariously
no safe tracks when in lyric free-fall
Altitudes and scathing depths
are the wails and screeches of
his siren journey down -- when and
where, a dicey pit travel...critics
offer no parachutes...and his lovers
often unavailable, amending their
own wrong steps. Can a writer really make
it safely to the other side, through the creative
pressures of ever revolving mantles and imperative
crushing cores!?
In the depths of the soul's shadows, the artist is a living flame, a spark of magic,
Seeking eternal themes that shine beneath the ancient vaults of the sky,
To reveal them under the mantle of night, on canvases woven with starlight,
For in the heart of the human psyche, we pulse under the spell of ancestral roots.
In every secret gesture hides the murmur of the chimpanzee within us,
Wild impulses, covered with cloaks of false light, masks that deceive our gaze.
We pretend that social structures have purified our essence,
But the truth remains, like an underground current, an unceasing river of fire.
Artists, who unveil the unifying themes, capture the magical brilliance,
In lights and shadows, in abysses of fleeting desires and hopes,
For beyond the delicate veil of civilization, we are all,
Motivated by the same primordial Will, wild and restless.
We carry within us the same desires and tremors, like stars beneath the infinite sky,
Inner battles, in fields of unseen chaos, where the past meets the future.
In front of mirrors of shattered stained glass, artists reveal secrets,
Drawing worlds where truth and illusion dance in a mystical play.
Our souls are alchemical cauldrons, full of archetypal essences,
Veiled in the mantles of civilization, we are still prisoners of an ancient will.
And thus, in every secret painting, a bit of our chaos melts away,
Into a world of symbols, of dreams sculpted under the melancholic light of destiny.
Digging into the depths of the human psyche, we find untamed desires,
Sources of battles and passions, confronting ephemeral social norms,
We are driven by the same ancestral forces that govern all that is alive,
The same eternal Will, struggling within us, without end.
In the artist’s enchanted mirrors, we find the themes that bind us,
They shine under the magical and sad light of unspoken truths,
For in the end, we are all bearers of the same sacred spark,
Dressed in illusory mantles of civilization, but with hearts of chimpanzees.
Under the vast and enigmatic sky of existence, the artist digs deep,
Towards the lost roots, hidden under layers of time and desires,
And in every corner of the soul, in every fragment of humanity,
We find echoes of that primordial Will, wrapped in sacred dreams and shadows.
In defence of the Palestine people
I have complained my car didn’t start, how middle-class
I have become complaining about unimportant banality
instead of writing about the plight of the Palestinians
who has endured having their land stolen and also?
Losing the little they have left of land and olive trees
to the unspeakable settlers.
Israel has demonized the Arab and demonized us who
write about the inequity into silence.
I have noticed when I write about this conflict on other sites
It is overlooked and not commented upon.
There was a time in Norway, when my uncles fought to help
the Jews and suffered for it, torture and long jail terms.
Today the situation is different Israel picked up the mantles
of Nazism and ran with it.
I have no power but, I can defend the Palestinians in
the knowledge that history is on my side.
The truth is stifled but never killed.
Jack O' Lantern jeers through
molten screen
With fiery eyes and a fifth sense
so keen
Masked goblins saunter in shadows
unseen
Wily Jack swills jade folds with
florescent stream
Billowing ghosts in phosphorescent,
satin mantles teem
Stolid Jack bathes in Hoary Frost's
velvety Vanilla Bean
Gaunt Scarecrow from barren field
garnishes Per Diem
While gilded Jack siphons his rich,
mellow meringue
Black-caped witch casts spells
hinterland residual to glean
Domesticated Jack scans hearth
skimming every melancholy dream
Rabid bats swarm o'er stinging
insects with stealthy sheen
Endearing Jack charms fluttering
moths with radiant gleam
Bleary-eyed werewolves' curdling
howls seep through each woody
seam
Spry Jack o'er quilted courtyard
flutters his palling requiem
Creeping ghouls seek spilt warmth
to redeem
Jilting Jack singes their hems with a
boiling steam
A sunset like this was never foretold.
Glistening gold midst deep scarlet red.
August skies shimmer in colors bold,
as though fire and ice together spread
in mantles of mystics, eons old.
Hues mingled in ways unknown to man--
coaxing clouds from fire to lavender.
Drawing upon quaint mysteries' plan.
Perfuming the skies with scented myrrh,
recipe penned days when time began.
Majesty seen when scrolling the skies.
Each cloud a blush of pink, then deep wine.
When deepest purple, tears filled my eyes.
Beauty happened, a flash of divine,
glimpse of forever's majestic guise.
October 12, 2022
For Milton Hankins' "Three Stanza Poem, Quintain (Sicilian)" contest