Long Mustiness Poems

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


Premium Member Rainy Day Stories and Wildflowers

The old book lies open  
   as if it finally gave up  
      trying to hold its spine straight.  

A faint mustiness rises~  
   not unpleasant, just honest.  

Someone left wildflowers on the page,  
   thin stems crossing the margin  
      like they wandered in  
         and didn’t bother to leave.  

A few petals rest on the sentence  
   that once meant something important.  

Raindrops cling to the blossoms,  
   small bright beads  
      that look as though the sky  
         paused long enough  
            to add its own commentary.  

The words underneath don’t complain; 
   they simply share the space,  
      letting the flowers speak  
         in their quiet, wordless way.  

For a moment,  
   the whole thing feels accidental  
      and perfectly right~  
         a story meeting what grows  
            without needing permission.


Sonnet 41 'My Love, My Fullness Now, Is Unrestrained'

My Love, my Fullness now, is unrestrained!
My Joyful Heart now heats the very air!
I gaze upon your Image, and the pulse
Of Life increases, banishing despair!
I never thought that woodenness had entered,
Could not believe my heart was full of dust,
My breast and brain on lonely pleasures centered,
Could breathe out only cold, dry motes, and must.*
But when the moment lapsed, your sweet eyes twinkled,
And I could see Sun in your very smile…
When I, with Sun-flakes, glistening, was sprinkled,
I knew no possibility of guile
And all the world departed into silence,
And ceased, were sin, iniquity and violence.

*’mustiness or mold’
Form: Sonnet

Premium Member Family Ties

THICKER THAN WATER

I pushed at the open door
no sound
just darkness inside. 
Dust filtered my
nostrils, 
    a mustiness of lost years
inhabited my senses. 
A loose floorboard
creaked in the stairwell, 
the aroma 
of her Chanel provoked memories 
of my
living hell. 
A tear of self-pity congealed
in the dirt at my feet

I switched on the light

"Hello son
     I knew you'd be back;
He's gone..."



NOTE this is a repost of my original prose 2010 to illustrate there is only two real differences between prose and poetry.Visual presentation and the fact that poetry is written to read aloud.

Durians In Flight

To gormandize upon the fungal billowing  
of its noisome mustiness,
beguiles many to munch upon its earthy reek.
A creamy white meatiness enchants taste buds 
to pillage pale fetid delights,
while a gluttonous well-being 
                          permeates through every orifice.

Before they were banned from overhead storage
Durians ruled the sky.
Air sickness or a stomach churning turbulence
were deemed more desirable than
than those choking emissions
wafting from their pulpy substance.

High above the Indian ocean 
passengers overcome by the funk 
demanded parachutes.
Some renounced their white privilege
or fell to their knees to pray for breathing masks
                               to drop.

Even when disembarked, cabs would not carry them
fearing the lingering grip of clammy odors.
While still in their departure lounges
hardened Limburger eaters grew pale,
trembling at the thought of flying unprotected 
from that most redolent of fruits,  
                                 the mighty all-pervading Durian.

Shopping Scenters

Online shopping, now the norm
from the comfort of your home,
with scroll of wheel and click of mouse
pages of goods you comb.
Convenient, yes- maybe, but
no matter what they sell,
the thing I miss the most of all
are all those lovely smells.
Our hardware shop- a heady mix
of metals, wood, and seeds
a bakery at dawn, fresh bread
to satisfy your needs.
The bookshop: that's my favourite,
new ink on a new page
that changes as the years go by,
the mustiness of age.
Tobacconists had pleasant blends,
nice smells in their raw state,
but turned to smoke just make me choke
long since quit, that I hate.
So many shops face closure now
not so much 'when' but 'if',
so get out there and pay a call,
buy things- and have a sniff.
© Viv Wigley  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Rhyme


Second-hand Bookshop

Below the craters of a sullen city
I burrow lightly, cautiously, hands on
Guardrails, one foot after the other,
Into the underpart of the earth,
Through a spiralling, syncope-fomenting
Stairwell, old and broken, but grandly ancient.
The light thereunder is dim and shallow,
And the rest of the matter with it was a
Basket of fusty smell.
It was by the loose side of noontime,
When mustiness gathers sweltering details.
Little rain from last night, falling from a
Sobbing, laconic south,
Made issues graver.
But I don’t mind.
With cracked, besieged walls, the grounds
Welcomed me well.
I stood and gazed at the books on staffed shelves,
Aged and worn,
Graced by times’ capsule of relief by way of
Primitive reckoning.
Tablets and scrolls rave with the lustre of fading
Yellowness.
Tomes (leather-bound) attested to the pregnancy
Of departed eras.
Encyclopaedia Britannica eyed me warmly.
A tall, bespectacled man, the age of Wilde,
With apricot skin and second-hand suit,
Thin and wobbling stick,
And shoes from Lennard’s
Buried his face on a Chaucer
Material, reading silently to the tune of
His twerking soul, his full lower lip
Mocking the higher.
Men and women clutter about, searching
And peeking from shelves of immortality,
On whose dusty surfaces elderly pages stuck
Out their tired, resting tongue-tips —like
Stray, hungry dogs on battered pavements.
The books and volumes sell for a farthing each —
Coins betrayed by roaming verdigris.
The quill feather pens for a few dashing shillings,
The scrolls, some teeth-showing cowries . . .
Above us (the reading congregation of this temple
Of books and time),
A coven of reading witches and winking wizards,
The city throng manages itself with the due process of law
According to traffic —above—
And several feet below — underground —
The hidden treasure of
Digestible info,
Divergent views.

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