Long Odin Poems
Long Odin Poems. Below are the most popular long Odin by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Odin poems by poem length and keyword.
Torture’s Toxic Contagion
by Odin Roark
From where comes these perpetrators,
These conscienceless mortals
Whose senses are quashed by orders,
By fear of demotion,
By allegiance to evil?
Who demands the allegiance
To insulated Washington duplicity
Puppets adorned in suits and ties of importance
Astride fine leather chairs of authority?
What right does evil have over good?
Does assumed expediency have to trump integrity,
Stealthily burying principals beneath the quagmire of incompetence,
Adopting rules from coerced legal offices,
Where procedural override of accepted war conduct,
Creates U.S. atrocities into persecution’s bubbling vat waiting?
How acidic this brew of orifice aggression must be.
How explosive the brain’s chemistry must become.
How malodorous the waft of this barbaric wretchedness must seem.
Still…
How easy it is to ignore that such bad behavior
Is counter-international law,
Subject to accountability
To legal prosecution and punishment.
Are we so glib with our conscience
That we think “out of sight, out of mind” is an escape?
For…
Lest one forgets the pent up pay-back
Festering in the shadows of the victims’ “to do” lists,
One’s Machiavellian innocence may not even see it coming…
What ever their choice might be.
Torture’s toxic caldron continues to be stirred,
Too few daring to taste the fiery recipe before being served
What might be truly the last supper.
Life atop Death
by Odin Roark
A fishing trawl freckled by rust
Decaying by salt air and sun
Washed aground many decades past
Still holding to life
Like listening to the breath of nature
Awaiting tomorrow’s sunrise
Where another inch into the sand
Awaits more seeds aloft form shore
Settling upon once polished reflection
Now but mulchified oak and teak
Ready to perhaps nurture a different life
How proud this floating casket
Unwilling to sink into oblivion
Mushrooms luxuriating as offered bouquets
Rising atop the growing mossy knoll
While sprouting weeds where once the captain stood
Stretch skyward in gratitude
Here
Rests the unwilling death
Where once heavy with daily catch awaiting market
Now can only listen
As the next crumbling movement
Bows oceanward
Chanting its ohm of calm
Slowly sinking
But not fallen
Shrinking
But not gone
Would that we might know such peaceful isolation
Waiting for the darkness below
To forgive the oft blinding light above
And exercise the final embrace
Life’s Ikat Weave
by Odin Roark
There was once another him
Oh he was the same flesh and bones
He even kept track of both his names
One for the stage
One for the IRS
That other him
The one that migrated
Leaving behind the stage of make-believe
Venturing across landscapes of real-life drama
Found that dramaturgy had taught him well
It was gradual
This departure from his norm
Everyday beginnings arose before dawn
Flicked its prickly tendrils across nocturnal escape
Awakening his senses free of alarm clocks
Elbows from a bed partner
Or wet lickings from a dog
And…
Something else was different on rising
Gazing out the window
Nothing but time he now owned
Put him at the ready to explore
Pre-dawn darkness with illumination
How much laughter and stories
He had to share
He was ready to run into
Rather away from
The promise to find out
Who he truly was
Thus streamed forth his ikat-life
A fabric of his past
Layers of experience
Tie-dyed patterns of what hopefully
Would become rainbow-threads of wisdom
A future-weave
Void of mistake’s knots
Another part
One revealing…
Perfume
by Odin Roark
What glides before him
This movement of grace
Inducing memory
Of fragrant presence
Flowers of long ago
Waft through light leaks
Cracks in the closure
Where mind’s nakedness
Once roamed
Humidity
Aroma’s constant friend
Visited often
This heart of romantic wanderings
Whether at a seashore’s bamboo bar
Manhattan’s concert in the park
Or a rainy night in Vermont
All stood attentive to awakening’s dew point
Today
Amidst the clarity of drifting’s past
His desert café of coffee and unlit cigarettes
Neon flashes spark the mirrors
“Open 24 hours”
Such recalls the never sleep
Always ready heart and mind
Once forever gathering
Scents of old and young
Now but the aroma of standing coffee
Where spoon and cream
Offer little relief
Where perfume will never dance
Again
Dummying Up
by Odin Roark
Once mannequins rocked.
Utilitarian heroes propped up
Behind steering wheels,
Windows,
Doors,
Even beside display animals.
Such were the iron-hearted
Of atomic testing ground history.
Today, Saks 5th Ave windows
With their sophisticated still-life-reality,
Serve the well-to-do shoppers,
The not so well-to-do looky-loos,
And of course, the anything-will-do bag ladies.
In Washington there resides flesh and blood versions,
Animatronic wonders,
Their brain circuitry void of action voltage,
Their suits, ties, tans
Makeup, coifs and dresses
Never askew.
Yet…
These elected reps continue more immobile
Than their lauded ancestry,
Those once sacrificial creations of purpose,
Now but a desert’s dwindling radio active dust.
Yes…
Dummying up has come a long way
To its glorification as our US Congress,
Where nonsense requires one dummy-up opener
So “I’ll see that and raise your wealthy-class
Pandering with five more tax cuts.”
At which point, they break for another fund raising junket.
Unfortunately…
The game will pick up where it left off on their return,
A mannequin mentality becoming more and more inflexible.
Impish Legacy
by Odin Roark
He was like you and me
Arms
Legs
Regrets
Passions
With little that stood out
Save his church-Sunday handshake
His calloused palms
Telling much of
This no-nonsense man
His plaid shirt
Always starting off clean
But wrinkled
Hating to bother anyone
To iron
Wafted oil and soil by midday
The kind sometimes tied
To grease monkey slurs
Labor-ravaged pants
Covered legs of hardlife-stamina
Where given his bumless backside
Help was always needed
But
Snap-of-his-thumbs suspenders
Imprinted proudly with Monroe’s famous
Skirt-blowing pinup
Kept shortcomings intact
Here was an everyday man
With time galloping by
Waiting for no one
He rose at 6
Quick coffee
Out the door
Down the road
8 at the yard
Change this one’s oil
Replace that one’s brakes
Add up the receipts
Take home the earnings
Make another deposit
College won’t be cheap
Leave front door open
Son’s out late
Comfort frail wife
Crawl into bed
Labor’s hand gentle
Jergen’s hand longing
Spooning together
Smiles and pain
Always slow to slumber
So went this life
Until it didn’t
The funeral brought
Many more wafts of oil and grease
Friends of a feather
Still flocking together
With tears and sadness
While upon his face
A subtle smile well known
Belied the crossed hand atop his chest
Some of us knew
He was dreaming
Just one more snap of the suspenders
One last reminder of life
Such became an impish legacy
One who acquired so much
Yet took so little
Foreshadowing’s Penumbra
by Odin Roark
In his darkened room,
The tick tock of scissors
Clipping flowers in waiting,
The voices chiming distant,
Even with his ear pressed tightly
Against the wall.
The florist and her customer
Prattle endlessly of grand kids
Of church sermons choked with tears
Black cars and dark veiled mourners.
Then…
Had they wandered off,
Further into the future,
Or merely hiding in the walls,
Crouched in darkly recess,
Deeper in his head.
“Patience, anxious one,”
Someone replies gleefully,
Her identity and origin
His nightly unresolved mystery.
Was he not ready?
Could time be stubbornly refusing him judgment,
Rendering instead another mistrial
As tomorrow’s sunrise breaks the darkness,
Setting up another day of foreshadowing’s penumbra.
Track One, Side Two
by Odin Roark
It was time.
He knew it.
Like the cuts on so many of his albums,
As he passed through the “got your attention” of side one,
He’d often considered the “time to acknowledge some chancier-experiments” of side two.
Yeah…
Back then, even though he was only thirteen,
His father had been prophetic.
After all, how many fathers would think to give some philosophy
As a birthday gift.
But that was long ago,
And now it was time he finally rejected society’s pre-ordained lifetime marketing blitz on how to live
And allow the oft times sleeper-ideas to maybe awaken discovery.
Just like his career of producing long-playing albums
Creating the safer decisions for side one was only rewarding
When there was risk mixed in, usually on side two.
Today…
He was going to welcome the task of searching,
Go beyond the choices he had been living,
Gamble on the unexpected,
Travel down the multitier-senses
Where less familiar ideas
Might muster appreciation for more of a being’s tempo,
Rhythm,
And harmony.
When he thought about it…
How enticing that flip side of the so-called normal existence must be
Finding out what one’s unknown appreciations are all about
That discovery of a finger-snapping epiphany
Ready to produce surprises for the future.
Lest he forget
Passing time was becoming more precarious
Making life’s tomorrow a hit
Would require risk of another kind.
He recalled his father’s birthday message at thirteen,
“Embrace the unexpected,
Indulge the inordinate,
Find the willingness to try track one, side two of your days,
It’s waiting.”
A Poet’s Desire
by Odin Roark
Where go these sounds
These words
Sometimes written
Uttered
Thought
Such travels on phantom air
Where innocence floats lonely
Bearing wounds in need
Remedy in want
Scars in remembrance
Kindred spirits these
The poet
The reader
The listener
Dissonance awaiting resolve
Where loneliness of melody
Enjoins with harmony’s voices
Discovering air is both breathable
And empowerment’s carrier
How simple such availability
Mere gravitational symbols in tandem
Offering reading or utterance
One’s self-healing so often ignored
Shh...
You can hear sublime nuances
Coming our way
Orphaned Pebbles
by Odin Roark
Atop so many ebbs and tides
Have I ridden
Beneath the roil and tumble
Have I survived
Now at last
A fling of wave and wind
Rests me among found safety
A pebble blanket
High upon the shores
At the foot of your magnificence
How very long ago it seems
Your mountain spire
A shudder
A quaking shift
My security split open
The severed shards
The razor chips
Cascading into the sea
We were all lost
Flung from your fortressed castle
Destined to drift
And tumble
In watered darkness
But you…
After your fathoms-deep eruption
Did heal
Ocean did soothe
Sunlight did transform
Devastation into vegetation
Your island survived
Your knife-edged spirit
In spite of severed shoulders and face
Became a frozen echo of resilience
Your ancient imagination made beautiful its scarring
Its many cave-like eyes held firm the watch
Your beard of tangled vines continued its reach far below
Across a rotund belly of scree and sand
How peaceful this inlet shore
Where briny caresses have protected
And made available your pebbled orphans
Who returned
So…
Here we are
Waiting patiently the next adventurous child
Looking to select
Gather
Sort
And cherish one of your surviving kin
As the sun dries my polished continuance
I wonder if the journey will find new transport
To window pane
Cigar box
Perhaps an aquarium
Placed among other friends of the deep
Though…
I’m hoping to become
A pocket buddy
That’s the best
Don’t you think?
To be a warm companion
To a boy like the one hovering over me now
He’s leaning down…