Long Paddies Poems

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


Matsuo Basho: English translations of Haiku about Summer 2

Matsuo Basho: English translations of haiku about summer, trees, firefly, fireflies, cuckoos, rice fields, rice paddies, bush-clover, Iris, Irises, temple, temples, Japanese culture, light, daylight, lit, boat, boats.

Fireflies
turn our trees
into well-lit lodges.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A noontime firefly,
dim by daylight,
hides behind a pillar.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Firefly watching,
the tipsy boatman
rocks the boat.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rising above fields of rice and barley,
the cry of the summer cuckoo.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Tedious life!
Plowing the rice field
back and forth...
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lying in the summer grass,
discarded like a king’s robe,
the snakeskin.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The shrubby bush-clover?
How impudent
her appearance!
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Glistening dew
sways without spilling
from the bush-clover.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I bow low
to the venerable
rabbit-eared Iris.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rabbit-eared Iris,
pausing to chit-chat,
one joy of my journey.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rabbit-eared iris
inspires
another hokku.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Rabbit-eared Iris,
admiring your reflection?
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Inside Uchiyama,
unknown to outsiders,
blossoms full-bloom.
—Matsuo Basho, translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Uchiyama was a temple little-known to the outside world. In fact, uchi means “inside.”
Form: Haiku


Premium Member St Patrick's Day Parades

Seventeenth of March is St Patrick’s Day
Great day for the Irish I can honestly say
Paddies' the world over will want to be seen
Wearing Leprechaun hats and a sprig of green.


Loud colourful parades up and down the lands
Drums, tin whistles and the skirl of pipe bands
Sample some Guinness or a glass of potcheen
Be the best street party you've ever seen.


But if you're not Irish still join in the fun
St Patrick’s day parades are for everyone
But make sure you go, you'll enjoy the craic
And I guarantee that next year you'll be back


It happens once a year so come and have a ball
A very happy St Patrick's day to one and all.

Written 16/02/2019.





Poitin anglicized as Potcheen
( Irish moonshine )
                  ~
Sprig of green is the shamrock associated
With St Patrick who used it to explain the blessed trinity, God the father, son and holy spirit.

                    ~

The craic is news, gossip, enjoyable conversation and having fun.
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member Green Waves

An ancient story 
from the emerald isle 
the jewel of every 
Irish heart treasured 
unwrapping it's beauty 
waves of green 
descent a 
world over 
spilling onto 
the streets 
like a tidal wave 

Core of our ancestors 
plucking them straight 
from the ground 
a little scarce 
this year 
gathering myself 
a right 
glorious bunch 

Taking them home 
a feeling 
of great pride 
as I wash them clean 
plucking dead 
ones out 
putting the cleaned shamrocks 
in a glass 
as taught down 
from my guardian parents 

Come our saints day 
I will have a massive 
great bunch 
knowing i could 
sell a big chunk 
to a few friend smiling 
with spare ones 
left at home 
depending on 
the demand 
laughing out loud 

With reverence 
to our great 
Saint Patrick 
on our day 
of green 
who banished 
the serpents 
from our soil 

His story 
is truly magical 
amongst the Irish 
sparkling shamrocks 
the blessed trinity 
a tale of lore 
he appeared 
in Tir Na Og 
meaning in English 
land of forever young 

Our true Irish flag 
is the harp and shamrock 
dating back to the fianna 
warriors of a king 
he is Paddy 
and i am one 
very proud patron 



On this wave 
of green rises 
for our great Saint 
raising my glass 
three cheers 
drowning Paddies shamrock 
in good style 
hail glorious 
Saint Patrick

Premium Member The Ponds of Blood Road

Along the blood road there are thousands of ponds.
Carved out by American bombs.
A futile attempt to blast communism
into the next millennium.

It'll take a hundred years to remove 
unexploded ordinances.
Children mistake them for shiny toys.
Every day is black Christmas for children
who play along the blood road.

The metal from war doesn't go to waste.
The skin of bombs is made into skiffs. 
That putter around the delta mist.
Some taking in round-eyed tourists...
Who're eager to see how a poor communist lives.

More often than not they'll be invited into a hut
provided a humble, heartfelt meal.
Sometimes by a widowed one-armed matriarch.

Today, the blood road is being devoured by jungle.
Natives still slave over rice paddies.
Just like they have for a thousand years.
And will for a thousand years more.

Some of the bomb ponds hold trapped fish
where villagers toss hopeful nets...
and who said war is good for nothing?

You Are A Masterpiece

You are a masterpiece; true work of art

And your whole being, and its every part

Is masterwork of nature and mankind

Which in you is accomplished and refined.


Your hair, like hanging gardens of the queen

Of Babylon, swing down, and in them seen

Are ivy, cherry blossom, orchid, rose

Blooming together in resplendor. Those


Blue eyes, in which we see Monet, Renoir -

The beauty fathomed specially from afar,

That are more haunting, beautiful and true

The greater distance between me and you;


A nose that like a yacht upon the seas

Engulfs the essence of the ocean breeze -

That stays aloft in turmoil and in flood

And sends the chastened air through the blood -


The lips that like the opening to a cave

Conceal a warm and delicate enclave

In which the sparkling teeth and gentle tongue

Lead food inside and air into the lung;


A neck that like a Doric column stands

Majestic, long and white; the lily hands

That craft calligraphy and highest art

Sustained by rushing turbines of your heart;


A chest with pair of Taj Mahals adorned

That puts all human craftsmanship to scorn;

The voice, like a piano or a flute

Resounds through many octaves or stops mute,


The strands of spirit that are entertwined

In the refining furnace of your mind

That fills itself with majesty and love

And forges them into a treasure trove:


The legs like those of cheetah or gazelle

Are elegant and long and run like hell;

The stomach that like delta river's sand

Is smooth and soft and tender to the hand;


And terraced hills and paddies of your ears,

And morning dewdrops of your gentle tears,

And the Saharah Desert of your back,

And the Forbidden Palace in its track:


In you the world is manifest, in you

Is sun and sky and every worldly hue,

The flowers, stars and sculptures and the word

Of masters and the dreamers and the Lord.


I love you all; and, feeling with my heart

Your whole entity and every part,

I rise in passion and, inspired, fall

Into the Sistine Chapel of your soul.


Premium Member Lorenzo

Uncooked grains of rice caked our apartment.
Dug themselves into my pliable plantar aspect
I welcomed you from the bottom of my being,
Into my soul,
A friend that made me feel whole.
You dreamt of delicious dishes dancing
In the taste buds of those you loved,
An acid trip of flavors meant for those
Whose love you longed to savor,
But never did.

You died just a kid.
Twenty-one years full of
Unrealized dreams and the
Omnipresent discomfort you felt within.
All the while you smoked away your
Smile that I still picture,
No matter the number of miles
I drive deep between my ankles and
The skyline of Philadelphia.

At your funeral I wondered
Of all those years we could have plundered.
Would you have been the best man at my wedding?
Would we have had a falling out?
Would you have found the woman you loved?
There are many things we could have talked about…

As those loose grains of rice
Free themselves into my footsteps.
I pound the ground into paddies,
And flood the fertile ground 
With a deluge of despondent tears.
A future with you was uncertain,
But one without you is full of fears.
I am leaving trail of scattered rice fields
So you can find me again, my dearest friend.

Premium Member Private Schlink's Musings On the Vietnam War

Gawd!  I awoke this morning wondering what I'm doing in this miserable place!
I thought the oath I took was to defend America's shores, not a foreign race!
The French made a mess and ran, now, America has to straighten things out.
It's a civil war and personally I don't give a damn what the politicians tout!

The president and his minions are making millions off my miserable back,
While I wade through these gawd-forsaken paddies dodging shells and flak!
Maybe I should've gone to Canada but I would have let my father down,
Who fought in another war and returned with honor to his hometown.

Colonels and generals sit on their butts in Saigon adding medals to their collection,
Enjoying air conditioning, steak, ice cream and the finest whiskey selection.
I dine on C-rations, get a shower once a month and a warm beer now and then.
I hear the screams of wounded buddies and weep at the agony of dying men.

I hear back home that peaceniks call us baby killers and spit on returning heroes!
If I ever get back home and that happens to me, I'll punch the SOBs in the nose!
Nams don't appreciate what we're doing and its a shame our people have to die,
While a lot of their young guys avoid the gore of war hoping it'll pass them by.

As I sit here in this filthy foxhole with water up to my knees, I fervently pray,
I can make it through my tour without a scratch and get home to a better day.
Will America ever learn from history and stay out of other people's wars,
And learn from the futility of war while the loss of our blood and treasure soars?

Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF
© All Rights Reserved

Honorable Mention in Miranda Lambert's "World of War: Vietnam" Contest
Apr 2011
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member Critterature: Concerning the Crafty Crayfish

By many aliases they're known:
Crawfish, crawdads, mudbugs, yabbies.
They abound in brooks, and streams, and swamps,
As well as roadside ditches and rice paddies.

Their astacology has shown
They prey like scavengers and mobsters,
While some, more taxonomically aloof,
Try hard to pass as mountain lobsters.

Throughout the world as food they're meant,
Both from the wild and from the grocer,
But not as a substitute for meat at Lent
Because they're not considered kosher.

And so the cunning, craven crayfish,
The ones that didn't get away,
End up in boils, or bisques, or soups,
If not served up as étouffés
In swanky overpriced cafés.

Haiku Translations Ii

Haiku Translations II

Illuminated by the harvest moon
smoke is caught creeping
across the water...
Hattori Ransetsu, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fanning its tail flamboyantly
with every excuse of a breeze,
the peacock!
Masaoki Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Waves row through the mists
of the endless sea.
Masaoki Shiki, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I hurl a firefly into the darkness
and sense the enormity of night.
—Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

As girls gather rice sprouts
reflections of the rain ripple
on the backs of their hats.
—Kyoshi Takahama, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Unaware it protects
the hilltop paddies,
the scarecrow seems useless to itself.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Ebb-tide:
everything we stoop to collect
slips through our fingers ...
—Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Fading memories
of summer holidays:
the closet’s last floral skirt...
—Michael R. Burch

Scandalous tides,
removing bikinis!
—Michael R. Burch

Haughty moon,
when did I ever trouble you,
insomnia’s co-conspirator!
—Michael R. Burch



Ascendance Transcendence
by Michael R. Burch

Breaching the summit
I reach
the horizon’s last rays.



Moore or Less
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

Less is more — 
in a dress, I suppose,
and in intimate clothes
like crotchless hose.

But now Moore is less
due to death’s subtraction
and I must confess:
I hate such redaction!



no foothold
by michael r. burch

there is no hope;
therefore i became invulnerable to love.
now even god cannot move me:
nothing to push or shove,
no foothold. 

so let me live out my remaining days in clarity,
mine being the only nativity,
my death the final crucifixion
and apocalypse,

as far as the i can see ...



The Red State Reaction
by Michael R. Burch

Where the hell are they hidin’
Sleepy Joe Biden?

And how the hell can the bleep
Do so much, in his SLEEP?



Red State Reject
by Michael R. Burch

I once was a pessimist
but now I’m more optimistic
ever since I discovered my fears
were unsupported by any statistic.

Keywords/Tags: haiku, nature, moon, water, sea, night, rain, dark, memories, tides, insomnia
Form: Haiku

Life of the Frog

Hear them rattle, a joyful song they sing,
Rejoicing in the rain's refreshing grace,
Amidst rice fields, thirst-quenching drops bring,
Four-legged dwellers welcome rain's embrace.

In the coolness of the rainy season's call,
They captivate a wanderer's delight,
Talking amidst paddies, where they stand tall,
Karr karr karr kokakok, their voices unite.

Mingling with the breeze, rural nights they fill,
Their chorus resonates, joyous and free,
Gratitude to heaven's love, they instill,
For a life that humans oft overlook and flee.

Happily hopping, leaping through time,
Seasons change, but hope remains,
Ever ready for the next rain's rhyme,
Embracing the life we often disdain.

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