Long Oldness Poems
Long Oldness Poems. Below are the most popular long Oldness by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Oldness poems by poem length and keyword.
Infection Sublime
by Odin Roark
with his lone return
on this New York street
in middy’s humid heat
he did see shutters closed
behind antique glass
whose reflection reminded
he wasn’t born there
only grew up in the embrace
of a brownstone haven
the oldness
now new
restoration hipster style
closing his eyes
he remembered
battered front door
yapping terrier just inside
forever on guard for landlady safety
the nightly dash
up dark stairs to the 3rd floor
evading the heel-nipping
four-legged devil incarnate
opening his eyes
blazing sun reflected back
like a searing message
“isn’t it time to move on?”
he sensed the warning
but no one appeared
no one stared from behind
invisible lace curtains
there was no one
sidewalk bare
street deserted
not even the ubiquitous taxi horns
no
he was alone
in Manhattan’s summer heat
the kind of thermal suffocation
forcing the discomfort of false memories
the kind he didn’t need
when melancholy’s purity
would always walk beside him
such was the newly sterilized street
the occupants unaware
how sublime yesteryear’s infection
My mirror shows me my dancing seventeen-year-old self
When I wanted to be called woman, frowning at the term girl
I am going to go roller blading today, I sing out to my husband
He has allowed himself to turn old; he starts discouraging me
I do not tell him that yesterday I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Or that tomorrow I am going to fool with a stripper pole at Mr. Leer’s.
None of his business that I am going bungee jumping today at two.
He patters in and stares at me. You’re not young you know, he says.
It is with joy in my heart that I escape his oldness; wearing my short shorts,
Crammed into Nancy Sinatra “These Boots are Made For Walk’n” boots.
He dares not follow me. He is afraid to get in a car with me.
I fancy myself a race car driver, daring death to get in my face.
Did you take your medication? He yells from the doorway,
Afraid to come out onto the porch because he might break a hip.
We have aged completely differently, he and I. I give him the bird as I leave.
Not a whole lot going on today -
guess I'll clean out my junk.
Here's a rubber band around some cards
on the bottom of my trunk.
I don't think Dan would want these Pokemon cards.
He's on the other coast
in a far-off land called New York City,
in the legal practice, engrossed.
He knew every kind of Poke-critter,
each and every power.
If he would show as much interest in school
as Poke-facts he would devour!
In those days, he liked to tag along,
counting fishes in a brook.
He would listen so attentively
as I read to him a book.
He was gentle, kind and innocent,
such were his quiet ways.
How, fondly I remember my son
back in those Poke-days.
He would tell me 'bout each Poke-beast,
but I couldn't get it straight.
I was busy taking care of things
and couldn't quite relate.
There was Pikachu, the Poke-star,
the brightest of the bright.
Yet, my gentle son, had more use for Machop
who knew just how to fight.
Daniel is now capable and strong.
He doesn't need Machop.
I suppose I can throw away these cards,
this train of thought to stop.
Yet, maybe these cards have magic.
Could Machop help me today -
in my oldness and my greyness?
I better put these cards away.
I walk through the ages of a man seeing and experiencing the trials and pain of what it means to live,
Over and over I will love only one for the rest of my life,
Over and over again I am newly born.
For an eternity I say goodbye to those who I have known and who have loved me,
Through ages past and futures void I sing my song of who I think I am, and add my actions to the story of them.
Eternal youth and never ending oldness I feel,
Forever searching for the experience of life.
Never dose my purpose for existence in life reveal its self,
but only when I am without.
The body I travel in attracts or repels others by its look or sounds that it makes,
True communication is hard to structure if not impossible to send.
My name is Simon , or at least that’s the name my much beloved parents called the body when it was born .
Whatever looks out from behind these eyes has no name ,
Or at least one I can not remember.
Memories are like blocks, and are added to me, reinforcing the living and driving this body on.
Procreate, satisfy, achieve,
That is the mantra this body vehicle vibrates too
So I cry out in moments of clarity,
“There must be more than this? “
Only then to sink back in to the hive of life.
My dreams scatter me back and forward to impossible times and places,
Only made more real by their persistence in coming.
The reflection of the mirror is just a check on time and how others may perceive me.
I see nothing only a trick of light,
Soon to flicker and fade away.
Time is too old
Space, the great emptiness, nothingness- too old all are
Amorphous, Shapeshifting, decaying to vanishing
This world, the solar system, the universe, galaxies- one to another
All are too old
This I, an existence from two biological consuming body
To this oldness, this subsistence comes to enjoy all
The moment of the rising sun greets with a pink face
rosy lips of the eastern sky say- Happy Birthday
the white page of the earthly book writes
-a song of coming life with an elegant verse;
solemn and depth feelings;
the surrounding of the home dances
rapturous, delightful everywhere
with the sweetened tongue to say together- Happy Birthday
all, all in the new style though in old from the form of time
10.08.2020 Chattogram
Becoming decrepit is an inevitable occurrence
Challenging wellness of its real consequence
Oldness evidently attacks, confronting my denial’s insistence…
Now, I must be ready midst time's persistence
To face frailty courageously with joyous iridescence!
Undoubtedly obvious
Physical debility shows how life is precious
Prodding me to value moments, being cautious
Warning me that I can be both anxious and oblivious…
Thus; my strength today should be spent graciously victorious!
Seriously at work well
The aging process grips every cell
Exposing grey hair, weakening body’s fuel
Even diminishing functionality the spirit doesn’t tell…
Now, I welcome it; while in my tasks, I should still excel!
Incredibly dominant midst my midlife stage
Growing old charges me to use its great advantage
Teaching with wisdom, led by God* Who does manage
Along His love and grace-might of increased faith’s gauge…
I ought to keep on serving joyously, subduing dilapidation’s wreckage.
*Colossians 3:16 - Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
3rd place, "Decrepit" Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Constance La France; judged on 6/10/2025
That was the day for the members, to gather in a room in the local library
The knitting club has one weekly day, past noontime to the evening session
That was the usual day for them to join together with their knitting tools
Round the clock, they all meet and greet one another, and knit together.
Her friend found her in her spot, she was knitting with a soft whitish wool
Moments of knitted patterns of a softer white, with whitish grids, formed
Her friend noticed her busy hands, those knitting with swiftness, much care
She did find a delicate pattern of networks, there, created one after another.
She greeted the friend, as her friend will be joining the club for the first time
And she showed her a beautiful sweater. “It is seventeen years old.” She said.
The new member took the handmade sweater, she touched that delicate piece
“Seventeen years, too long a time!” She smiled. She could feel the oldness.
On that very moment, she was thinking about something else, simultaneously
A flashy moment about life along seventeen years, along with past and present
A span of seventeen years, in happy and sad moments, she could almost sense
That her life had a lot to tell her, while looking back at those pearls of moments.
Why living in darkness,
If you have the shine at your side?
What is this rag for?
this cloak of sadness
You have the wonderful cape.
of joy at your disposal?
Why do you live crying
final tears,
if life carries on,
liquid and flowing?
Why do you create obstacles
and walls, if any stronghold
impregnable is simple
house of cards, which with
a brief but strong breath
falls to the ground ...?
Why Fear oldness
and the decay of the body,
if we are spirits?
Why Fear Death
and the blackout of existence
if nothing expires or vanishes...?
Do not you have perception
that spirit continues?
Beloved, a clot of old youth, through her living death and breathing,
eternal repeater, she looked at the center of the edge of fate, her life
revived... the school of death, of destiny, professors with futures,
subjects of ignoring, postlude, her pleasures serious and joking,
disobedient then, from him and her, dressed, men of stones, sedentary,
joys and divorces, abstract stains, carefully sewn, all
cheered up, night upon lighting, if you don't want, you don't feel and curse,
be silent, to enter your mind, for it's December, it's... autumn
of Monday, cry of a peasant woman, young, who ignores her
angel, her soul present and real, of a man, a drought,
beautiful lack of influence, a healthy disease of wisdom.
Filled with my young, useless, clumsy thoughts, I am
the passer-by, the darkness, the rejected joy, easily lost,
attracted by a virtue, found even by my first smile...
In me grows an oldness so young it births old children,
I am a presence so absent I fill my voids with fullness.
You, my ugly beloved,
you are my sweetest torture without pain,
my coldest love, hot as the ice that burns,
the metal flower that blooms through withering,
your present absence makes me exist through disappearance,
you are the nothing from everything that becomes everything from nothing without something,
a birth so dead it kills lives born in you,
the bitter sweet honey that poisons me through healing...
you are my harshest caress with gentleness and cruelty,
my first last separation from the meeting that separates us,
my warmest love, cold as the fire frozen in flames...
I am the most from the little I have ever been in absence,
your dark light illuminates me with its white and deep darkness.
Wherever you roam, the shadow of death,
Keeps dancing upon the rhythm of your breath,
As and when the rhythm ceases its measure,
Your life dissolves into the black shadow of death.
You work day and night for some hollow delight,
You sacrifice your rest, consumed by restless nights,
Every fleeting moment poured into empty pleasure,
At the end of the day, you find yourself prey to decay's diet.
Histories and all the stories hum a hymn of glory,
For which every life became a black and white story,
All heroes got no chance to dance upon the songs,
Of their epic and immortal tales of glorious victory.
The souls are intoxicated by the drug of the maze of life,
A husband is dying to satisfy his beautiful wife,
All the wives are making efforts to control their husbands,
Childhood dissolving into oldness follows the mortal rite.