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.
Spartan Riches
by Odin Roark
Creation asks not for center stage
How plentiful these quiet treasures
Demanding not a price
Void of glitter
Gaff
And loud acclaim drowning
Senses
Reason
Imagination pursues instead
Honesty’s nod
The up and down gesture
Everyday patrons volunteer
On discovering virtuosity’s subtle essence
Just as a flower needs but sunshine and moisture
So too the Van Goghs of everyday living
Patiently await man’s simple willingness
To emote with the light of a smile
Perhaps even tears
Knowing as in nature
Creative efforts spawn
Reciprocal wavelengths of appreciation
Finding respite wherever
An honest heart and mind’s tuning fork awaits
Often
Creation senses not the obvious
Artistry’s honorific slips
Obliging a personage quest
Unaware resultant luminary trappings
Often engender insecurities
Petrifying life’s inner sanctum
That place where inception seeds the unknown
Bestows lasting memories
Where both a mother’s caress
And the brush strokes of oiled color
Add to the canvas of expectancy’s
Freely shared gifts and rewards
Too late at times
Inspiration succumbs to notoriety’s demands
Obliging a servitude to fame
Risking enslavement
Either to gilded prisons
Or the bridled razor wire of power
Needing to gallop down a home stretch
Willingly adding to the blood-laden turf
Determined the day’s finish line
Will provide yet another carrot
To satiate the bestial appetite for superiority
Fortunately
A meaningful number
Manage to avoid a system’s pandering
Obviating trophydom’s trap
Existing solely as creation’s flow
Appeasing those whose hearts and minds
Seek but revelation of impact
A seeding of possible enlightenment
Respecting the virtue of namelessness
So goes the Spartan riches
Accumulating with anonymous authenticity
Giving it’s own reciprocal nod
Back to that which inspires creativity
All without demands
Without price
To Be Unrealized
by Odin Roark
By whose standards
you might ask.
The standard for the conscious,
the persons who regardless of career aspiration,
relationship passion,
past guilt baggage,
know that job,
partners,
acclaim,
power,
and celebrity,
are but controlling remnants
of an upbringing and the continued quest
of media brainwashing to score a rating coup d'état.
Void of true sentient identity,
immersed instead in the ubiquitous coating
of saccharin-infused cream on top delusions,
fantasies glamorize the duped,
the ignorant…
Believe it or not…
Mass populous wants more from life,
even though they continue to be self-exiled
in the “grovel syndrome” of survival.
Listen…
The cries of those who care,
Blast forth “Oh, for Christ sake, wake up!”
The answer?
Only a fool would offer a universal solution.
But…
Perhaps a nudge in the right direction
might be the revelatory awakening to thinking…
you know, that gift we are infused with,
the non-aggressive weapon seldom employed,
the empowerment to stop being controlled by others,
while you truly take the initiative to
set your own standards,
acquire your own answers,
exorcise some exhaustive introspection,
and a modicum of study into behavioral history.
Many would argue…
To be unrealized
is the individual’s own fault.
No one else’s.
Who of consciousness would disagree?
His Forever Plastic Flower
by Odin Roark
Before the war,
He had no fears,
No worries,
No…
Today he has his bench.
He really shouldn’t complain,
But…
“How come,” he wonders,
“How come my stars stay so cruel?
They don’t give me luxuries,
Nor burn down my bench,
They just keep me off balance,
Like the incessant flip of a quarter,
Spinning its blurring dance
Between heads and tails.”
He knew his disorder was getting worse.
Like so many homeless vets,
He too was starting to chase his street-reliant shadow,
Stomping it here,
Kicking it there,
Like a maniac after a ghostly enemy.
“Why must my heart continue to beat,
But not with life,
Merely blood rushing to and fro,
Sloshing about looking for
Something alive inside?”
Subway trashcans remained his daily fix,
As another day,
Another horoscope
Supplied his disillusion with a dreamer’s transfusion of trust,
Always inserting its sterile needle,
To feed a habit of “wanting to believe” promises,
Unless today the astrologer blew it.
Even so…
He soldiers on,
Thankful to still have some faith left,
A bench to sit upon,
His forever plastic flower to dream on,
And new memories serving to comfort him from back when.
Love’s Pawnshop
by Odin Roark
Unable to pay the debt
Love is often pawned
Sympathy as a claim check
Stuffed deep in pockets of suffering
Such self-deprecation roams the streets
Perplexed with using the tender
As peace offering to the beloved
A gesture risking resentment
Nothing conducive to healing
Perhaps better spent on survival-type passion
Allusion’s princely blind beggar with pencils
Rewards for the coin-drop sound in the cup
Solicitude’s offering without expectation
Without questionable agenda
Such is the giving spirit
Often in trouble
Never without company
Welcoming emotion’s exchange
Leaving behind longing’s conundrum
To examine itself truly naked
Sincerity’s immunity
Impervious to manipulation
Or desire’s self-deceit
Once the reward
Now but a cast-aside
A melting of chicanery’s
Falsity of spirit
Later
Amidst midnight shadows
A lowly pawn ticket of imagination
Embraces the enigmatic unsharpened pencil
They rest side by side
Atop life’s universal shelter
Where loveless anxiety takes cover
Awaiting another day
Perhaps THE day
When needs will find
Love’s pawnshop ready
To teach them as well
Precious lessons
Somewhere
Out there
My Sons
by Odin Roark
They are branches growing,
A tree’s vulnerability forever their care,
Spreading roots long ago fused with love’s procreation,
Yesterday’s memory so sublime.
How fragile their early growth.
Vulnerable budding winked into the light,
Unaware initiation’s early storms,
Were but an intrepid horizon away,
Tomorrow’s wind and torrents patiently waiting.
At times…
Whipped about by uninvited tempests,
Growth became a determined willingness,
Nurturing leaves of graduating seasons,
Into the recycled mulch of knowledge,
Fermenting preparedness into wisdom.
How glorious…
To watch from the bows of my aging oak,
Your tenacity of will,
Expanding maturity’s girth of protection,
Now yours to honor and share,
Affording conscious coverture,
Shading your saplings’ journey
Begun barely a cosmic moment ago.
Dodging Hate’s Siren-Shriek
by Odin Roark
He had survived
Six months believed to have made him a man.
Today,
He only wanted his mother.
Today,
Time was running slow,
Slower,
Stopping,
Begging.
Such hopeful beginnings,
Such bestial endings,
Caked fingers bear blood,
Water too precious to remove.
As desert sand’s insistence
Makes mockery of fear’s dry heaves.
Skittering boot prints
Like zigzagging sand pipers,
Short of food,
Wary of enemies,
Making patterns so plain,
This prophetic hide and seek death dance.
Today…
Seems right—today.
Months of sand storms and fire,
Left but sun baked flotsam,
Mixed decomposing bodies of friend and foe,
Their survival charges piled high,
Making but for stumbling of boots
Across rotted bodies and limbs,
Even flies and rats now ignore.
With fingers blood-welded to weapon,
He lay down among the carnage,
Eager to know the peace,
The quiet,
The involuntary resolve,
Just for a moment,
Or two,
Just until the siren-shriek
Of an incoming missile's presence...
Just until it finds him and stops.
Not much to ask.
Not much
If anyone…
Anything…
Is listening.
Window Teacher
by Odin Roark
As teacher
She was petite
Unassuming
Framed in layered paint
No make-up on her
Save occasional steam facials
Winter cold
Apartment hot
Patiently she granted access
Permitting learning through her
Worn but faithful eyes
Rectangular lenses
Forever dilated for 24/7 study
Across the street
Other windows
Same opportunity
Different lessons
Pulled blinds
Hiding fear
Glass with cracks
Glass turned cardboard
Innocent children
Faces of confusion
Above the street
Pigeon-lined roofs
Poised like sentinels
Destiny marking time
Standing guard
Here yesterday
Today
Tomorrow
Below the street
Tunnel-sounds of motion
Fathers
Mothers
Singles
Junkies
Suits
All riding to anywhere
But here
Down on the street
Few pedestrians
Some exploring a dumpster’s overflow
Dollar Store breakage
Bodega fast-food wrappings
Liquor store sadness
Nighttime festivities of the block
Broken bottles as glitter
Wet and dry
Dead or alive
Kicked
Smashed
Stacked
Bagged
Forgotten garbage
A growing city’s collateral damage
Beneath my building
Express train speeding
Rattling eyes of my teacher
Time for school
Real school
The kind only un-papered immigrants know
Learning what textbooks cannot teach
For you have to be blessed
With a window like mine
The glassed portal to what harsh reality
Bestows on many
Here where there is no graduation
No cap and gown celebration
Or Mom and dad accolades
No sweetheart promises forever
Only survival
And for the window-school drop outs…
A future of smaller classrooms
The kind with no willing and generous
Window teachers
The kind with bars to the outside
Where all the garbage walks the yard
Where subway vibrations become
Steel Sliding
Locking doors
Torturous echoes
Before lights out
Memories become dreams
In these dark classrooms
Where fear laden eyes
Once behind windows to the outside
Now reside in solitary regret
To return to condensation on glass
As the only obstacle to learning
To be free of eyes forever moist and blurry
Clouding remembrances
Of the petite unassuming window
Framed in glorious layers of paint
Oh…if only to return
Love’s Trial
by Odin Roark
Side-by-side
They travel together
Lust the ever-free spirit
Reality the ever-faithful arbiter
From time to time
Reality’s mediating influence
Becomes smitten as well
It’s only human
Usually during the inevitable deposition of Lust
Where questioning of Love’s visceral weakness
From Reality’s listen-now-or-suffer-later truth factor
Steadfast common sense often renders
Passion’s natural appetite to feel…well…
Unnatural
Inducement’s tactics can be challenging
But as time passes
Love’s back and forth trial of persuasion
Is decided by Patience and Respect
The yin and yang judge of all things lasting
Even as our side-by-side rivals
Continue patrolling Love’s “faithfulness” highway
Often eyeing each other from opposite lanes
But avoiding frivolous confrontation
Love normally holds strong
Avoiding prurient weakness
Protecting its right to remain esteemed
However…
Once in a while
Lust and Reality acquiesce
Accept their humanness and weakness
Join hands
Admit they miss each other
And flirting their way
To the next watering hole
Try to avoid causing
Another “settlement” kind of trial
Silent Talkies
by Odin Roark
Walking the city,
camera in hand,
he snaps here,
multiple-clicks there,
videos flowing subtleties,
images en masse filling his head.
Later…
His one room comes alive,
a window shuttered,
a door locked,
a laptop never sleeping,
a printer,
a chair,
his bed.
His single light bulb
sways gently from above,
giving movement across
collage-walls,
montaged-moving pictures,
his company surrounding him,
appreciating his neighbors,
respecting pedestrians he passed,
revering buildings he framed.
Eagerly…
With modest glass of Gallo as companion,
he toasts them all,
smiles in thanks,
sits and celebrates the special aloneness
only one who is deaf can appreciate.
Forwarding Address
by Odin Roark
Don’t forget to make out the postal card
‘Cause when you’re there
You’ll want all those
Parcels
Mail
Flyers
New phone books
And the precious junk mail
You’ll take your body
That burden you carry about
Of noticeable change
Avoiding mirrors
The one
Whose insides
Woven between brittle bones
Know muscle atrophy
Blood vessel collapse
Bowels contraction-in-waiting—again
Kidneys dreading more martinis
Heart and lungs wondering
WTF gimme some air
Some living blood
Et al
But still
You’ll drag your weary ass
Down the walk
Lick your lips
Open the lid
And voila
Postbox full of…yeah
Junk mail
Just like the good ol’ days
Back at the house
Before the damn retirement scam
Got your attention
C’mon
At least the complex has postboxes galore
What would it be like
With no daily stroll
To check for a card
A letter
A brown-wrapped gift?
It’d be like
The final reality
No need for
A forwarding address
Ever again